A Jewel for Royals. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ rising unsteadily. Her first step had her staggering, but her second was more confident. She drew Kate’s sword, swishing it through the air as if testing the balance. Haxa looked a little worried at that, but didn’t back away. Probably she thought it was the kind of thing Kate might do to test her balance and coordination.

      “Do you know where you are?” Haxa asked.

      Siobhan stared over at her using Kate’s eyes. “Yes, I know.”

      “And you know who I am?”

      “You are the one who calls herself Haxa to try to hide her name. You are the keeper of runes, and were no foe of mine until you decided to help my apprentice.”

      From where she stood trapped, Kate saw Haxa’s expression shift to one of horror.

      “You aren’t Kate.”

      “No,” Siobhan said, “I’m not.”

      She moved then, with all the speed and power of Kate’s body, lunging with the light sword so that it was barely more than a flicker as it lanced into Haxa’s chest. It protruded from the other side, transfixing her.

      “The problem with names,” Siobhan said, “is that they only work when you have breath to use them. You shouldn’t have stood against me, rune witch.”

      She let Haxa fall, and then looked up, as if knowing where Kate’s vantage point lay.

      “She died because of you. Sophia will die because of you. Her child, and this kingdom, will be mine because of you. I want you to think about that, Kate. Think about it when the bubble fades and your fears come for you.”

      She waved a hand, and the image faded. Kate threw herself at the bubble, trying to get to her, trying to get out of there and find a way to stop Siobhan.

      She paused as things around her shifted, becoming a kind of gray, misty landscape now that Siobhan wasn’t shaping it to fool her. There was a faint glimmer of silver in the distance that might have been the safe path, but it was so far away it might as well not have been there.

      Figures started to come from the mist. Kate recognized the faces of people she’d killed: nuns and soldiers, Lord Cranston’s training master and the Master of Crows’ men. She knew they were just images rather than ghosts, but that did nothing to reduce the fear that threaded through her, making her hand shake and the sword she carried seem useless.

      Gertrude Illiard was there again, holding a pillow.

      “I’m going to be first,” she promised. “I’m going to smother you as you smothered me, but you won’t die. Not here. No matter what we do to you, you won’t die, even if you beg for it.”

      Kate looked around at them, and each of them held some kind of implement, whether it was a knife or a whip, a sword or a strangling rope. Each of them seemed to hunger with the need to hurt her, and Kate knew that they would fall upon her without mercy as soon as they could.

      She could see the shield fading now, becoming more translucent. Kate gripped her sword tighter and braced herself for what was going to come.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Emeline followed Asha, Vincente, and the others across the moors beyond Strand, keeping hold of Cora’s forearm so that they wouldn’t lose one another in the mists that rose up off the moors.

      “We did it,” Emeline said. “We found Stonehome.”

      “I think Stonehome found us,” Cora pointed out.

      That was a fair point, given that the place’s inhabitants had rescued them from execution. Emeline could still remember the burning heat of the pyres if she closed her eyes, the acrid stink of the smoke. She didn’t want to.

      “Also,” Cora said, “I think that to find somewhere, you have to be able to see it.”

      I like your pet, Asha sent back, ahead of them. Does she always talk this much?

      The woman who seemed to be one of Stonehome’s leaders strode forward, her long coat trailing, her broad hat keeping off the damp.

      She isn’t my pet, Emeline sent over to her. She thought about saying it aloud for Cora’s sake, but it was for her sake that she didn’t.

      Why else would someone keep one of the Normal around? Asha asked.

      “Ignore Asha,” Vincente said, aloud. He was tall enough to loom over them, but in spite of that, and the cleaver-like blade he carried, he seemed the friendlier of the two. “She has trouble believing that those without our gifts can be part of our community. Thankfully, not all of us feel that way. As for the mist, it is one of our protections. Those who seek Stonehome to harm it wander without finding it. They become lost.”

      “And we can hunt the ones who came to hurt us,” Asha said, with a smile that wasn’t entirely reassuring. “Still, we’re nearly there. It will lift soon.”

      It did, and it was like stepping onto a broad island hemmed in by the mist, the land rising up out of it in a broad expanse that was easily bigger than Ashton had been. Not that it was packed with houses the way the city was. Instead, most of it seemed to be grazing land, or plots where people were working to grow vegetables. Within that perimeter of growing land sat a dry stone wall as high as someone’s shoulder, sitting in front of a ditch in a way that made it into a defensive structure rather than just a marker. Emeline felt a faint flicker of power and wondered if there was more to it than that.

      Within it, there sat a series of stone and peat houses: low cottages with peat and turf roofs, round houses that looked as though they had been there forever. At the heart of it was a stone circle similar to the others on the plain, except that this was larger, and filled with people.

      They’d found Stonehome at last.

      “Come on,” Asha said, walking briskly toward it. “We’ll get you settled in. I’ll make sure no one mistakes you for an invader and kills you.”

      Emeline watched her, then looked over to Vincente.

      “Is she always like this?” she asked.

      “Usually she’s worse,” Vincente said. “But she helps to protect us. Come on, you should both see your new home.”

      They went down toward the stone-built village, the others following in their wake or breaking off to run to the fields to talk to friends.

      “This seems such a beautiful place,” Cora said. Emeline was glad she liked it. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if her friend had decided that Stonehome wasn’t the sanctuary she had been hoping for.

      “It is,” Vincente agreed. “I am not sure who founded it, but it quickly became a place for those like us.”

      “Those with powers,” Emeline said.

      Vincente shrugged. “That is what Asha says. Personally, I prefer to think of it as a place for all the dispossessed. You are both welcome here.”

      “As simply as that?” Cora asked.

      Emeline guessed that her suspicions had a lot to do with the things they’d encountered on the road. It had seemed that almost everyone they’d met had been determined to rob them, enslave them, or worse. СКАЧАТЬ