JК
Swallowing Darkness :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 58 из 242More than whole, he was perfect.
One moment it was a tattoo that decorated his stomach and upper chest, the next it was the reality. Light and color played on the pale skin, gold and pale pink. Shades of pastel light shone and moved under the skin of the many moving parts. They waved like some graceful sea creature, moved by some warm tropical current. When last he'd come to this court, he'd been ashamed of this part of himself. Now he was not, and it showed.
There were screams from some of the ladies, and my aunt, though a little pale, said, "You are a nightmare yourself, Shadowspawn."
Yolland of the black hair and vine-covered horse said, "She seeks to distract you from her daughter's guilt."
My aunt looked at him and said, in a shocked voice, "Yolland, how can you help them?"
"I did my duty to king and land, but the hunt has me now, Eluned, and I see things differently. I know that Cair used her own grandmother as a stalking horse and a trap. Why would anyone do that? Have we become so heartless that the murder of your own mother means nothing to you, Eluned?"
"She is my only child," she said, in a voice that was not so sure of itself.
"And she has killed your only mother," he said.
She turned and looked at her daughter, who was still pressed against the wall in a circle of the white mastiffs, with our horses at the front of the circle.
"Why, Cair?" Not "how could you?" but simply "why?"
Cair's face showed a different kind of fear now. It wasn't fear of the dogs pressing so closely. She looked at her mother's face, almost desperately. "Mother."
"Why?" her mother said.
"I have heard you deny her in this court day after day. You called her a useless brownie who had deserted her own court."
"That was talk for the other nobles, Cair."
"You never said differently in private with me, Mother. Aunt Besaba says the same. She is a traitor to this court for leaving, first to live with the Unseelie, then to live among the humans. I have heard you agree with such words all my life. You said you took me to visit her because it was duty. Once I was old enough to have a choice, we stopped going."
"I visited her in private, Cair."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"Because your heart is as cold as my sister's, and your ambition as hot. You would have seen my care for our mother as a weakness."
"It was a weakness," she said.
Eluned shook her head, a look of deep sorrow on her face. She stepped back from the line of dogs, back from her daughter. She looked up at us.
One moment it was a tattoo that decorated his stomach and upper chest, the next it was the reality. Light and color played on the pale skin, gold and pale pink. Shades of pastel light shone and moved under the skin of the many moving parts. They waved like some graceful sea creature, moved by some warm tropical current. When last he'd come to this court, he'd been ashamed of this part of himself. Now he was not, and it showed.
There were screams from some of the ladies, and my aunt, though a little pale, said, "You are a nightmare yourself, Shadowspawn."
Yolland of the black hair and vine-covered horse said, "She seeks to distract you from her daughter's guilt."
My aunt looked at him and said, in a shocked voice, "Yolland, how can you help them?"
"I did my duty to king and land, but the hunt has me now, Eluned, and I see things differently. I know that Cair used her own grandmother as a stalking horse and a trap. Why would anyone do that? Have we become so heartless that the murder of your own mother means nothing to you, Eluned?"
"She is my only child," she said, in a voice that was not so sure of itself.
"And she has killed your only mother," he said.
She turned and looked at her daughter, who was still pressed against the wall in a circle of the white mastiffs, with our horses at the front of the circle.
"Why, Cair?" Not "how could you?" but simply "why?"
Cair's face showed a different kind of fear now. It wasn't fear of the dogs pressing so closely. She looked at her mother's face, almost desperately. "Mother."
"Why?" her mother said.
"I have heard you deny her in this court day after day. You called her a useless brownie who had deserted her own court."
"That was talk for the other nobles, Cair."
"You never said differently in private with me, Mother. Aunt Besaba says the same. She is a traitor to this court for leaving, first to live with the Unseelie, then to live among the humans. I have heard you agree with such words all my life. You said you took me to visit her because it was duty. Once I was old enough to have a choice, we stopped going."
"I visited her in private, Cair."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"Because your heart is as cold as my sister's, and your ambition as hot. You would have seen my care for our mother as a weakness."
"It was a weakness," she said.
Eluned shook her head, a look of deep sorrow on her face. She stepped back from the line of dogs, back from her daughter. She looked up at us.