Читать книгу Grand Conspiracy - Janny Wurts, Janny Wurts - Страница 20

Just past his seventh birthday, the herder’s son, Fionn Areth, returns from a scuffle with a peer, one eye bruised black, and a cut on his lip; and is dispatched to his blankets in the loft without supper while his father snaps to his goodwife, ‘Well who wouldn’t pick fights with him? No child in this valley, nor even his own brothers can bear the arrogant look that boy’s learned to wear on his face …’

Far south of Araethura, a wizened desert seer recasts his third augury in bones on the sable sands of Sanpashir, and his reading affirms the arrival of Shadow, and the living future of his tribe; his instructions to his people carry the weight of action as he concludes, ‘We go now to the ancient ruins to stand guard …’

On the east shore of Melhalla, a galley flying the scarlet bull of Alestron embarks for Avenor, where the duke’s brother, Parrien s’Brydion, will attend the wedding of Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid and post an ambassador to relieve Mearn, whose appointed service to the Alliance of Light has kept him from home for eight years …