Читать книгу Tamlane – Prisoner of the queen of the fairies - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 2

White and red roses braided the frame of the mirror. The spiky stems were as if they were alive. They crawled upward like snakes. Janet thought she was dreaming. She was standing in her bedroom in her father’s castle in front of a huge mirror. The room was quiet and dark. And there was a battle going on inside the mirror. There was the scraping of metal against metal as the swords of the fighting men crossed. Horses roared beneath their riders and clubs and shields gleamed. Some knights wielded conventional weapons, while others deployed magic. Men fought against supernatural beings.

So this was a dream after all! Janet watched the battle in the mirror and tried to determine whom the crests belonged to? None of the families she knew had coats of arms with salamanders and roses. Some of the banners belonged to humans, some to supernatural creatures. The banners of men, meanwhile, had been trampled. Knights of flesh and blood were killed by warriors of fire. Flames invaded the battle as if spewed from a dragon’s mouth. Standing close to the mirror, Janet felt its heat. Is it possible to feel heat in a dream? What if this wasn’t a dream after all? The girl reached out to the mirror, hoping she wouldn’t run into the glass barrier. Then it would turn out that the ornate frame was just a window to another world.

Before Janet could touch the mirror, the rose thorns dug into her hand until it bled. The blood on her fingers was real, and the pain of the scratches was real, too. So this was no dream!

One knight suddenly stood close to the mirror on the other side. He was looking directly at Janet. The girl flinched. He had such eyes! Like green pools in which you were about to drown. The face was covered by a visor, and the helmet itself was made in the shape of a dragon’s horned head. Surely this knight was not human. But why was he fighting on the side of men?

Who are you?» she tried to ask the question out loud, but her voice was drowned out by the noise from across the mirror. The fire was devouring the bodies of the vanquished. And the knight, as if he had emerged from that fire, held out his hand to Janet. His gauntlet almost touched her, but the roses that braided the mirror clenched and hissed. They wouldn’t let him in. Janet’s blood was on their thorns. And behind the mirror there was already a wall of fire.

«You want to see me in reality, not in a dream?» The knight’s voice was muffled. It sounded from beneath his visor, and it seemed as if the dragon depicted on his helmet was speaking to her, not he himself.

Nevertheless, Janet looked into his eyes and knew that she wanted to see him always.

«Yes!» she answered. Her voice, as before, was drowned in the noise of the fire, but the knight heard her.

«Then set me free!» His hand, encased in a heavy gauntlet, caught her arm and squeezed it until it ached. Janet even cried out. How strong he was! Why couldn’t he free himself if he was so strong? He reeked of power and fire. He managed to tear the stems of the roses, step over the frame of the mirror, and embrace Janet. His embrace lasted even less than a moment. The girl realized she was not in the arms of a man, but of a pillar of fire. Her skin was burning. Now she was going to burn!

And that was the end of the dream. If only it had been a dream. Janet awoke at dawn. The larks were singing outside her father’s castle window. And the girl’s arms were blooming with burns and pricks from rose thorns.

So was it a dream after all, or not a dream?