Rhianon – Princess of Fire. Natalie Yacobson

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СКАЧАТЬ the element of fire raging in her blood. It was the color of the sea and ice blocks. It went with her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t chosen by accident. In any case, it was the best dress Rhianon had ever felt in her life. She was only surprised by the border of gold lace running cloudy across the hemispheres of her breasts. After all, where there is sun there is fire, even if it is a thin ray.

      «But you’re a royal princess. The color of kings is gold,» the voice reminded her softly, and it was clear from his tone that he was lying, trying to divert her attention from something more important. Something she didn’t know yet.

      «Why can’t I see you?» Rhianon looked around for the nonexistent person she was talking to. «And where does your voice come from when you can’t be seen? Are you behind one of the mirrors?»

      She had seen illusions produced by mirrors at Court before, but this was something else, and she no longer dared to call it a mere trick. She did not feel the presence of a living body nearby, not in the cavernous hall or behind the alcoves of the mirrors. Only the silvery smoke wafted over her head, thinning, gathering back into a cloud, sometimes vibrating, and the voice seemed to emanate from it.

      In answer to her, of course, only a light laugh sounded, like the quiet ringing of a bell on the green cap she still clutched in her hands.

      «I guessed who you were,» Rianon declared, to reassure him a little. She wanted to stop playing hide-and-seek with him, but then suddenly realized that she didn’t even know his name. He never introduced himself, no name, no title, no position in society, had he at least been a court jester or if she could have called him a spirit for sure, but she couldn’t. She just didn’t have time to ask him his name.

      «What is your name?» She looked around quickly, trying in vain to catch sight of the fumes that kept escaping. Now it seemed to envelop her in a shimmering cloud overhead, with a mocking, low jingle.

      «Give me a name!» He either asked or demanded.

      «But…» She clutched the green cap tighter with her hands and turned her head again sharply, trying to focus her gaze on the haze. It was in motion, and her voice sounded like it was coming from all around the room.

      «Courage, princess, call me something,» he began to tease. «I am your own personal demon, after all.»

      «What do you mean?» She was already wrinkling the cap nervously with her cold fingers; she wanted to think he was joking this time, but the intonation didn’t sound like it. Even the bells went silent for a moment. «What did you say?»

      She’d heard of something like this before, seen even more glazed eyes and corpses, blue with blood loss, with veins ripped open, with dead lips still seemingly ready to whisper the forbidden name of the one who had ripped them from their normal human life to give a moment of sparkle and then ruin them.

      «Don’t pretend it’s nothing to you,» he said, as if he had read her mind.

      Rhianon shrugged her bared shoulders in contempt, but the images of the terrible premature deaths of those who had become famous were still vivid in her mind. One of these men had even become a court poet, he was granted a title, given an estate, made welcome at all the banquets, the other peasant boy would rejoice to tears that he was out of the mud for his talent almost made a prince, but he just stood in the corner with glowing eyes, drank a lot, did not want to look at women, and once confessed that there is someone who is always watching him from the void and even more owns him. His personal demon was the companion of all the brilliant and illustrious. After such a confession, he was found dead the next morning. It happened long ago, when Rhianon’s father, King of Loretta, was still alive, and she remembered to this day. And even his father’s death did not make such a terrible impression on her as that untimely death. After that, something dark and creepy seemed to take up residence in the castle and remained there until the corpse was burned in the main castle square. Rhianon shuddered in fear and disgust, so as not to betray all her feelings, she could only pretend that she knew nothing of it.

      «What is the meaning of this?» She asked as if she hadn’t already done so.

      «Haven’t you ever heard of a personal demon, Princess?» It was as if he knew already, and he laughed at her incredulity. It was as if he was looking at her from inside herself, but it couldn’t be. She has no talent for which such an attack as a black companion can be unleashed upon her. The flame within that made the princess dangerous.

      «Don’t call me that,» she looked around the mirrors, as if not inserted but grown between the cavernous partitions, searching in vain for his reflection.

      «No one can hear us here,» tried to calm her the voice, but Rhianon somehow still thought that these mirrors, as if grown from crumbling walls, can serve as a window to the outside world.

      She noticed tiny, strange-looking insects crawling over the scraps of gilded frame visible from the sandstone and stone. How strange, thought Rhianon, the pieces of mirror growing directly from the cave stone, as if inseparable from it, and on the other side of them might well be the fun of the magical folk imprisoned there. Or not imprisoned at all, but just like her, peering through a window into an alien world. She thought she heard laughter and clinking glasses and music. On the other side of one of the mirrors it was as if the merriment of the feast had reached her.

      «They, too, were singing and cheering and challenging each other, just like humans, but they weren’t humans at all.»

      «Would it be possible to have a look at them sometime?» She knew the risk. But the world, not even open yet, only reflected behind one of the mirrors, drew her irresistibly toward it. After all, nothing bad could happen if she just looked at them once. It is the dream of all men that touching the forbidden will leave them without consequence. There haven’t been any such people who have succeeded, if the rumors are to be believed, yet, but who knows, maybe she’s the lucky one. Gee, how the bottom of a moment of fairy intimacy can cloud a mortal’s mind. She immediately forgot almost everything, the past full of troubles, the danger that still threatened her, and even the silvery haze that had already enveloped her shoulders.

      «I’ll take you through all the worlds and show you anything you want to see, but first give me a name,» the voice asked softly, and the shimmering smoke, already shaped like a young man’s head, was bent right up to her ear. «Call me whatever you like, whatever comes to your mind.»

      «Orpheus,» she said almost automatically, in memory of the harp, whose enchanting sounds she heard beneath her tower in the evening, and of course in memory of the harpist himself. The sound of her new acquaintance’s voice was just like that harp, just as piercing, invading her brain and completely enchanting. – Is that all right with you?

      «Of course,» he pulled back from her shoulders so quickly it would have seemed like an acrobat’s trick, no longer a shapeless smoke but the man she’d met in the tavern. He looked a little different now, as if he had been transformed from a pale buffoon to an almost handsome man. His eyes, at any rate, shone like jewels and his smile became charming. He sat up high on something resembling a long golden pole, stretched flat between the mirrors. Well, with his dexterity and seemingly weightless body he belonged there. It seemed that Orpheus was so dexterous, that he could make his roost from dust particles flying in air. Orpheus. She thought that’s what she called him.

      «May I have it back, unless you wish to try it on, ma’am?» He pointed to the cap in her hands.

      «Oh, of course,» she stood on tiptoe and held it out to him, watching СКАЧАТЬ