Throne of Dragons. Морган Райс

Чтение книги онлайн.

      That only meant that the second bolt took her through the chest.

      Lenore wanted to scream too, her heart breaking at the sight of an innocent girl she’d thought of as almost a friend being butchered for no reason. She didn’t scream though, because then it would have been over; there would have been no way to escape. She focused on the one who was still running, knowing that at least one of them was going to get free.

      Lenore waited until she saw that the Quiet Men were all moving in different directions, looking to their preparations to leave rather than at her. When she saw her moment, Lenore screwed up her courage and stepped out of the window. She crunched down onto the roof of the overhanging section, hoping against hope that it would bear her weight.

      She moved to the edge of the roof in a crouch, checked that there was no one beneath, and tried not to catch her breath at the sight of the drop below. She could do this; she had to. Swinging off the side of the roof, Lenore hung on by her hands for a moment, took a breath, and dropped.

      She hit the ground hard, the breath coming out of her in a whoosh of air that was only good because it stopped Lenore from crying out loud enough to be heard. She rolled to her knees, waited for her head to stop spinning, and forced herself to stand once again. She managed to get up and started into the shadows of the next building.

      She didn’t try for the stables this time. There were too many Quiet Men around it, and no hope of getting a horse clear of them without being spotted. Instead, Lenore knew her best hope was to make her way away from the inn on foot, staying in the trees and bushes near the road and hoping that one of her brothers would be coming with the forces that should have been there to protect her in the first place…

      Why hadn’t they come? Why hadn’t they been there to save her? Vars had been sent to protect her, and Rodry had said that he would take over the duties partway around the wedding harvest, yet neither of them had been there when Lenore needed them. Now she was alone, having to sneak out of the village and hoping all the time that she could avoid the Quiet Men for long enough.

      She kept going; it wasn’t far now. Just a few dozen paces, and she would be out of the village. Once she was in the open ground beyond, surely even the Quiet Men couldn’t find her?

      That thought was enough to make her keep going. Lenore crept from the shadow of one building to the next. She was almost there, almost there.

      There was a patch of open ground ahead of her, and Lenore froze on the edge of it, waiting, looking left and right. She couldn’t see anybody, but she knew already how little that could mean with people like this. But if she stood there and did nothing…

      Lenore ran as much as she could, given how her body hurt with every step, bursting forward for the safety beyond the open ground. Behind her, she heard a shout from the inn, and she knew that Eoris or Syrelle had gone into the room where they’d left her, discovering her missing. The thought of them in pursuit was enough to make her move faster, running for the greenery beside the road, for hiding, for safety.

      “There!” a voice called, and she knew then that they’d spotted her. She kept going, not knowing what else to do, knowing only that if she stopped, they would have her in their clutches again.

      She couldn’t run any faster, but she was at least among the trees and the bushes beside the road now, her breath coming in pants as she ran, moving left and right in an effort to foil her pursuers.

      Lenore heard the sound of footsteps behind her and dodged around a tree, not daring to look back. Another tree lay ahead, and she knew that if she could only get around it, there was denser greenery beyond. She could lose them there, maybe, but first she had to choose. Left or right… left or right…

      Lenore went left, and immediately knew that it was the wrong choice as strong hands grabbed her, weight bearing her down to the ground hard, knocking the breath out of her. She tried to fight, but she already knew how little she could do. Hands wrenched her hands in front of her, tying them there, then pulled her up.

      The man who stood there was Ethir, the one who had caught her in the stables; the first one who had… He lifted her easily, setting her on her feet.

      “You’re going to regret running, Princess,” he said in that soft voice of his. “We’ll make sure you’re going to regret it.”

      “Please,” Lenore begged, but it made no difference. Ethir dragged her back toward the waiting horses, and the trip south, and every moment of horror that awaited her beyond the bridges leading out of the kingdom.

      CHAPTER TWO

      King Godwin II of the Northern Realm sat on his throne in front of a sea of his courtiers and struggled to keep his temper. After all that had happened, after his daughter Nerra had been forced to leave, he hated that he still had to sit here, pretending that all was well. He wanted to rise up from this throne and go after her, yet he knew he couldn’t.

      Instead, he had to sit here, in a great hall that even now had the remnants of the feasting before not quite cleared away, holding court. The great hall was huge and stone built, with banners on the wall with the bridges that marked the North. Squares of carpet had been set out, each one restricted to a different rank of the nobility, or to particular noble families.

      He had to stand there before them, and he had to do it alone, because Aethe wouldn’t step out in front of courtiers who had helped send Nerra away. Right then, Godwin would have preferred to be almost anywhere else: Ravin’s kingdom, the third continent of Sarrass, anywhere.

      How could he pretend when Nerra was banished, and his youngest daughter, Erin, seemed to have run off to be a knight? Godwin knew he looked disheveled, his graying beard less than perfect, his robes of office stained, but that was because he had barely slept in days. He could see Duke Viris and his cronies looking over with obvious amusement at that. If the man’s son weren’t due to marry his daughter…

      Thoughts of Lenore calmed him. She was off about the wedding harvest, accompanied by Vars. She would be back soon, and all would be well. In the meantime, though, there were serious matters that needed to be attended to; rumors that had swirled through the court and promised danger for all of them.

      “Bring forward my son!” Godwin said, the words ringing around the room. “Rodry, step out here and be seen!”

      His eldest son stepped out through the crowd of those watching, looking like the knight that he was, and like the man Godwin had been when he was younger. He was tall and muscled with years of sword practice, his blond hair cut short so as not to get in the way. He was every inch the warrior, and it was clear that people watched him with love as he strode through them. Now, if only he could think, as well.

      “Is all well, Father?” he asked, offering a bow.

      “No, all is not well,” Godwin shot back. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about the ambassador?”

      Say this for his eldest son; at least he had a solid streak of honesty in him. He could no more hide behind a lie than behind a slender tree. Vars would probably have dissembled out of cowardice, and Greave would have wrapped everything up in pretty quotes from those books of his, but Rodry just stood there, solid as a stone. With about the brains of one, too, given what he said next.

      “I couldn’t just stand there after he’d insulted our entire family, our whole kingdom,” Rodry said.

      “That’s exactly what you should have done,” Godwin shot back. “Instead, you shaved his head, killed СКАЧАТЬ