Realm of Dragons. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Thanks to her maids’ efforts, she shone in silks and diamonds, her hair braided with blue thread, her dress embroidered with silver. Her mother made the smallest of adjustments, then kissed her cheek.

      “You look perfect, exactly as a princess should.”

      From her mother, that was about the greatest compliment that she could have. She’d always told Lenore that as the eldest sister, her duty was to be the princess that the realm needed, to look it and to act it in every moment. Lenore did her best, hoping it would be enough. It never felt like it, but still Lenore tried to live up to everything she ought to be.

      Of course, that also allowed her little sisters to be… other things. Lenore wished that Nerra and Erin were there too. Oh, Erin would complain about being fitted for a dress, and Nerra would probably have to stop partway through because she felt unwell, but Lenore couldn’t think of anyone she wanted there more.

      Well, there was one person.

      “When will he be here?” Lenore asked her mother.

      “They say that Duke Viris’s retinue arrived in the city this morning,” her mother said. “His son should be with it.”

      “It did?” Instantly, Lenore ran over to the window and the balcony there, leaning out over it as if being that fraction closer to the city would let her see her betrothed as he arrived. She looked out over the bridge-linked islands that made up Royalsport, but from this height it wasn’t possible to make out individuals, only the concentric rings of the water between the islands, and the buildings that stood between. She could see the guard barracks that spilled out men when it was low tide to manage traffic across the rivers, the Houses—of Weapons and Sighs, Knowledge and Merchants—each standing at the heart of their district. There were the houses of the poorer folk on the islands toward the edges of the city, and the great homes of the wealthy closer to, some even on their own small islands. The castle towered over all of it, of course, but that didn’t mean that Lenore could spot the man to whom she was going to be married.

      “He’ll be here,” her mother promised. “Your father has arranged a hunt on the morrow, as part of the celebrations, and the duke will not risk missing it.”

      “His son will come for Father’s hunt, but not to see me?” Lenore asked. For a moment, she felt as nervous as a girl, not a woman of eighteen full summers. It was only too easy to imagine him not wanting her, not loving her, in a marriage arranged like this.

      “He will see you, and he will love you,” her mother promised. “How could anyone not?”

      “I don’t know, Mother… he hasn’t even met me,” Lenore said, feeling the nerves that threatened to overwhelm her.

      “He will soon, and…” Her mother paused as a knock came at the door to the chamber. “Come in.”

      Another maidservant entered, this one less richly dressed than then others; a servant for the castle, rather than directly for the princess.

      “Your majesty, your highness,” she began, with a curtsey. “I’ve been sent to tell you that Duke Viris’s son Finnal has arrived, and is waiting in the greater antechamber, if you have time to meet him before the feasting.”

      Ah, the feasting. Her father had declared a week of it and more, filled with entertainments, open to all.

      “If I have time?” Lenore said, and then remembered how things were done at court. She was a princess, after all. “Of course. Please tell Finnal that I will be down directly.”

      She turned to her mother. “Can Father afford to be so generous with the feasting?” she asked. “I’m not… I don’t deserve a whole week and more of it, and it must be eating into both our coin and our food stocks.”

      “Your father wants to be generous,” Lenore’s mother said. “He says that the hunt tomorrow would bring enough quarry to make up for it.” She laughed. “My husband thinks himself the grand hunter still.”

      “And it’s a good chance to organize things while people are busy feasting,” Lenore guessed.

      “That too,” her mother said. “Well, if there’s to be a feast, we should make sure that you look fit for it, Lenore.”

      She fussed around Lenore for a few moments longer, and Lenore hoped she looked good enough.

      “Now, shall we go and see your husband-to-be?”

      Lenore nodded, not able to quiet the excitement practically bursting from her chest. She walked with her mother and her coterie of maids down through the castle, heading to the antechamber that backed onto the great hall.

      There were so many people in the castle, all working on the preparations for the wedding, many of them also heading down in the direction of the great hall. The castle was a place of winding corners and rooms that led into one another, the whole layout spiraling much like the arrangement of the city, so that any attacker would have to face layer upon layer of defenses. Her ancestors had made it more than a thing of gray stone defenses though, each room painted in colors so bright they seemed to bring the outside world in. Well, maybe not the world of the city; much of that was made far too drab by rain, mud, smoke, and choking vapors.

      Lenore made her way down through a promenading gallery, which had paintings of her ancestors along one wall, each looking stronger and more refined than the last. From there, she took winding stairs that led through a series of receiving rooms, down to a space where an antechamber stood before the great hall. She stood with her mother outside the door, waiting until the servants opened it, announcing her.

      “Princess Lenore of the Northern Kingdom, and her mother, Queen Aethe.”

      They stepped inside, and there he was.

      He was… perfect. There was no other word for it as he turned toward Lenore, sweeping the most graceful bow that she had seen in a long time. He had dark hair in gloriously short curls, features that were refined, almost beautiful, and a form that seemed both slender and athletic, encased in a red slashed doublet and gray hosen. He seemed perhaps a year or two older than Lenore, but that was exciting rather than frightening.

      “Your majesty,” he said with a look to Lenore’s mother. “Princess Lenore. I am Finnal of House Viris. I can only tell you how long I have looked forward to this moment. You are even more lovely than I had thought.”

      Lenore blushed, and she didn’t blush. Her mother had always told her that it was unbecoming. When Finnal held out his hand, she took it as gracefully as she could, feeling the strength in those hands, imagining what it would be like for them to pull her close so that they could kiss, or more than kiss…

      “Next to you, I hardly feel like the lovely one,” she said.

      “If I shine, it is only with your reflected light,” he replied. So handsome, and he could manage a compliment so poetic too?

      “It’s hard to believe that in just a week we will be married,” Lenore said.

      “I think that might be because we aren’t the ones who had to put in long months of work negotiating the marriage,” Finnal replied. He smiled a beautiful smile. “But I am glad that our parents did.” He looked around the room, at her mother and the maids there. “It is almost a pity that I cannot have you here to myself, Princess, but perhaps it is as well. I fear that I might get lost staring into your eyes, and then your father would be annoyed with me for missing so much СКАЧАТЬ