Destiny’s Conflict: Book Two of Sword of the Canon. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ women! Worse than that, he views affection as a fatal weakness. He won’t abide his deepest dread, that he might fall prey to his vulnerability.”

      “Intimacy could bring him down, wide open to enemy leverage.” Davien capped her list, razored with irony. “The greater his love, the more fear of loss, added to the horror he can’t stand the guilt if his cursed nature drives him to murder.”

      Daliana leaned on the horse, all the brazen starch shaken out of her. “The honest spirit should panic, in fact.”

      The Sorcerer stepped closer. “You’re weak at the knees?” Presumptuously bold, he prised her fisted grip off the bridle reins. “My dear, let go. If the horse strays, I will summon it back for you.”

      Escorted aside, nostrils filled with the sulphurous taint ingrained in his clothing, Daliana permitted the steering touch that perched her on a nearby boulder. “How can I possibly keep my sworn charge if my liege allows no one near him?”

      “Ah!” Davien straightened. “Is that strictly true?”

      Daliana regarded the face notched out of the deep sky above her and conceded the point. “Well, he does have his retinue.” Galled by her defeat, she raised a nervous hand, yanked out the skewed twig, and let her crimped braid tumble over her shoulder. Rewinding the hair to steady herself, and through the stick clamped in her teeth, she carried her share of a dialogue that led nowhere. “My liege will bear no one’s familiarity. He isolates himself through his station. I know he has no one he consults for wise counsel though history records that my forebear Sulfin Evend relied on the steadfast allegiance of his Lordship’s personal valet.”

      “A male lackey is invisible in that regard,” Davien agreed, too complacent.

      Daliana jammed the hazel shim through her tucked plait and glowered at his insolence. “Yes, I played the lance squire. But not directly for Lysaer, and only at a safe distance. The disguise worked in the crowded confusion of the True Sect’s campaign. I got by, always by feigning to be the malingering servant of somebody else!” Amid the massed host, one face more or less risked little notice, and lazy boys everywhere contrived devious ways to shirk duty.

      Davien said nothing. But one booted foot tapped in impatience.

      Which cue emptied her chest in bolt-struck epiphany. Daliana shoved straight so hard, the pumice against her braced seat ripped sound cloth, and her braid came unmoored from its fastening. “You couldn’t!”

      “Could I not?” The Sorcerer laughed outright. “Ask Dakar. In fact, more than once, your spellbinder stymied himself against my skilled touch for concealment. Although strictly speaking, a masking spell won’t fully address your straits. Illusion can’t blindside a necromancer, or evade the trained Sight of the True Sect’s diviners.” Head cocked, Davien peered down with an intensity to drill through pretence. “How strong are you, really?”

      Daliana crossed her arms over her breast, while her heart raced, and dread lanced her viscera.

      Once before this, Dakar had warned, “Don’t let him cozen you,” while the ceiling of an inn cellar became ignited by drakefire over their heads.

      This Sorcerer’s bargains never were wont to tread the straightforward path. Flesh and blood, breathing, he was not mortal: the air in his company still crackled, unseen, with the volatile flame of a dragon’s live dreaming.

      Daliana’s question ground through her tight throat. “What moonstruck scheme are you proposing?”

      Davien bent, plucked a thorn cane barehanded, and gave it a vigorous shake. Sparks flew, as though flint had struck steel, and the whisper of fallen leaves pattered his boots. He extended his offering. The stripped stem was not as it had been: a fine lacquered hairpin glistened under the starlight. “Forms can be changed.”

      Daliana accepted the perilous gift, finger-tips tracing the refigured wood through the Sorcerer’s resumed explanation.

      “You don’t behold trickery, or a disguise. The thorn has not forsaken its nature. The core substance is not shape-shifted. Only the outer surface has been remade.”

      Stunned as though hurled into the abyss, Daliana dropped the polished stick.

      Davien picked it up, laid it flat on the boulder. His stride kept the grace of a predator as he paced before her, still speaking. “Lysaer does not confide in his servants. However, with time, the ones who are faithful do earn a measure of trust. They handle his person. Come and go when he sleeps. How strong are you, lady? Have you the fibre to lurk in the background, watch his struggles, his failures, and even, the ghastly course of his short-falls? Could you wait, hold your tongue, keep to the shadows behind his affairs and bide without snapping? Can you live for the day that unforeseen destiny might grant you the perilous opening?”

      As she measured herself, wrung by trepidation, the Sorcerer stopped before her. Features in shadow, his regard could be felt, searing as coals on her skin. “You would be alone as never before. None would know your identity. On the days you suffer in pain and despair, no one’s kindly word will support you. While you watch aggrieved, your beloved may destroy himself. His worst hour might break him. Can you survive? Is the purity of your love deep enough?”

      Daliana swallowed. “Didn’t Dakar just warn that my decision to let him go would murder untold thousands of innocents?”

      The Sorcerer regarded her, bleak. “But you were not blind to the danger inherent in the fool’s intervention the spellbinder proposed.”

      A knifing breath, snatched into seized lungs. “Then we agree? Lysaer is a good man, yes, with human flaws that have been unconscionably pressured and twisted!” Daliana swallowed again. “Somebody has to stand by his character. Else watch the last fragment of his true grace fall to wrack and ruin.” A second justification, no steadier, “Asandir sent me into the breach already aware I was overfaced. So Kharadmon informed me, too late.”

      Davien’s teeth flashed, not a smile. The line of his shoulders reflected no humour but only the indomitable steel that bore the weight of two ages. “Asandir did as he must. The options he had were most likely fatal. Lady, most brave, do not miscalculate the purpose that drives the Fellowship! Mankind on Athera walks the razor’s edge. All the more as the True Sect gains sway, humanity’s long-term survival is threatened. Against that disaster, you are hope itself. Or else the frail straw cast into the breach to buy a brief margin of time. Never doubt, Daliana, we Seven are ruthless.”

      She shivered. “I accepted Sulfin Evend’s oath, willing.”

      In whip-crack retort, Davien’s pacing resurged. “Did you know the bad odds? The best years of your natural life could be lost!” He spun and regarded her. “I will not lie. Nothing can guarantee the victory you seek.”

      Daliana took up the hairpin. Defiant courage reached up, determined, and restored her braid into a coil. “You would make me appear as a man?” Despite iron will, her hands trembled. “Would I be so, in fact?”

      Davien raised his eyebrows. “Enough to pass close up scrutiny, and not as a figment for show. You would need to shave, or the lack would raise questions. More, your aura must withstand the Sighted scrutiny of even the True Sect’s most gifted diviners. To alter your signature presence that deeply means, yes, you would have to bear a measure of masculine responsiveness.”

      The idea made her choke. “Then what if—”

      While СКАЧАТЬ