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.“He is expected back very soon.”“Dragon-hunting,” Brand said, “in the Luxour.” He stopped pacing, to gaze at a jet-black dragon painted on what looked like some kind of leather shield.The dragon’s eyes were tiny, malevolent, red as garnet.“So I was told.He is drawn there sometimes, to search, he says, for his heart.Or he may be looking for Rad Ilex.”“You expected Rad Ilex to be here.”“I thought he might be.”“Rad Hex has not been seen in this court since you vanished,” Magior said.“He would have been killed, that night, had he lingered a moment longer.So your father said.Only one moment.”Nyx opened her mouth, closed it, swallowing a smoldering cinder of impatience.Brand said abruptly to her, “Then why are you still here? I thought you would have gone.”“I was asked to stay,” Nyx said calmly, “to speak to Draken Saphier.It seemed a reasonable request.Everyone, it seems, expects him soon.”Brand’s brows pulled together hard.He was silent a moment, his eyes on her, as if he had heard, even beneath the turmoil and frustration of the firebird’s cry, the equivocation in her voice.He said finally, “The Luxour is full of voices.So the mages say.The desert speaks.The stones and the silence speak.So they say.I doubt if I would hear much.But that makes it difficult for the mages to call my father home.And finding him, if he does not wish to be found, would be impossible.So I.am told.It’s hard for me to wait patiently.The most I can manage at moonrise is just to wait.It would be kind of you to wait with me, at least while I’m human.The mages have tried to work with me; they get no farther than you did.I don’t think anyone can help me but my father, and I have very, very little patience left for mage-work.So.Keep me company- Walk with me, in the gardens.”“I think,” Magior murmured, “we should keep working.Such enchantments might be unravelled quite unexpectedly.”“Perhaps the moonlight will unravel it,” Brand said, “since no mage in this house can.” His face was strained, taut; Nyx heard the noiseless cry emanating from him so strongly, she wondered that the dragons around them did not turn into spellbound jewels.His great-aunt heard it too, apparently; she bowed her head in acquiescence.“Perhaps you are right,” she said.“I will wait for you here.”He did not speak for a while; he took Nyx’s arm, his grip tight, as if he expected the moon to toy with her shape, too.They left the house, walked on wide paths of white stone that wandered among the rosetrees.Nyx, unused to such formal progression through a garden, found it bewildering, for a mage and a man about to fly away.She laid her free hand on his hand, reminding him that she was there, and said,“I think—““Not here,” he breathed, and she was silent again until they passed through the courtyard of roses into a tiny walled garden full of lemon trees, soft paths of moss between fountains and moon-bright streams.He closed the gate behind them; his grip eased finally.“It is my father’s meditation garden.” he said softly.“No one else comes here.”“There is little hope of privacy in a house full of mages,” she pointed out.“Perhaps.But I’m used to being private with you.No one told me you were still here.I thought you would have gone to look for Meguet.”“All they knew of me is that I brought you here.They couldn’t have assumed you cared.Did you ask after me?”‘No.’“Then why are we here, whispering?”“Because,” he said restively, “your face looks changed.Wary.It wasn’t only you studying me, in that tower.I had nothing else to watch but you.You do what you want, say what you think; you listen to reason, but not without arguing.Here, you pick your way from thought to thought as if you are afraid.No.Not afraid.But in danger.In my father’s house.Why?”“I’m alone in a strange land, surrounded by mages of indeterminate power, and more warriors than I’ve seen in all of Ro Holding.It seems expedient for me to be somewhat wary.If you have one enemy, you might have two, and one of them under this roof.”He stared at her, amazed.“Me?”“You said yourself you can’t remember why Rad Hex turned you into a firebird.Conceivably to guard himself against something you saw, something you know.”“A conspiracy? In my father’s house?”She sighed noiselessly.“I can only guess.You tell me.You brought me here.And I can’t imagine even this place being completely private.Those goldfish are probably trained to eat whatever words fall like crumbs on the water.”“No one speaks in here,” he said absently.His brows were drawn again; he glanced at the moon, then down at a little fish like an orange flame rising to the surface of the water.“The guard changes at midnight.I listen for that.” His fists clenched.“I can’t remember,” he said tightly, “how it feels to stand in sunlight.To fall asleep in a bed.To know where I was at noon yesterday.If my father does not come soon, I’ll go to the Luxour myself and find him.”“Would the bird fly there?” Nyx asked curiously.He looked at her, his eyes shadowed, haunted.“It flew to you,” he said slowly.“And here it sits in this house with you, waiting, though I assume that if it could find you in Ro Holding, it could find my father in the Luxour.”“Why Ro Holding? If your father made the paths on your wrists, why would he have fashioned one to Ro Holding?”He shook his head, disinterested.“I don’t know [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]