Читать книгу Shattered Dance - Caitlin Brennan - Страница 19

After her morning’s fit of truancy, Briana found the weight of the day a little lighter. She had eluded a council and a session of the court, but one duty she was pleased to perform. It was the first rite of her coronation, the first step that would seal her to the empire.

It was also the oldest of the rites and the most nearly solitary, with no one to share in it but the gods’ servants who celebrated it with her. Part of its lesson was humility and part was remembrance—of who she was, what she was and where she had come from. Before every court and every gathering of the people, she was to remember that in her essence she was alone. No one else could be what she was or share what she had, either the good or the ill.

The rite began shortly after noon, as the long summer day began its slow descent into evening. Priests and priestesses of Sun and Moon met her in the palace, blessed and consecrated her and led her outside the city by a way that was only taken when the imperial heir was about to be crowned.

She found herself in an ancient and overgrown garden, where a long-forgotten door led to a passage that might be older than the palace itself. The scent of magic was strong in it. Parts of it might not be properly in the world—Briana felt strange as her guides led her through them, as if her substance had shifted and subtly changed, then been restored to itself.

There are more magics in the world than your orders may know of.