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flung herself, weeping, onto her bed. "Mother, I'm sorry!"
The winged girl wept for a long time, but at last the storm passed; she was too drained and exhausted to weep any
more. Wiping her eyes on the bed's fur coverlet, Raven looked again around the room that was her prison. Food had
been left for her, but she was too sick at heart to eat. She felt soiled and defiled, and her tears had done nothing to
wash the stain of guilt from her conscience. There was wine on the table in a silver flagon. Raven poured a brimming
goblet and drained it in one gulp, choking slightly at the unfamiliar burn in her throat, and remembering, with a guilty
pang, that Flamewing had never allowed her to drink the stuff. But her mind was turning now from the guilt of the past
to the terrors of the future. Soon, Blacktalon would be coming for her and when he did, she would do well to have
her senses dulled as much as possible.
Father of Skies would she ever feel clean again? Pouring more wine and taking the cup with her, Raven walked
through the curtained archway into her bathing room, where a hollow with a drain hole at the bottom had been carved
out of the marble floor. A pull of a silken rope would send water cascading into the basin from the great peaktop
cisterns that caught up rain and snowmelt from the mountain storms. Raven drained her wine and set the cup aside,
then cast off her worn, much-mended leather tunic the very one in which she had originally made her all too brief
escape. She turned it in her hands, looking at Nereni's neat rows of tiny stitches with eyes that blurred with tears, then
threw it away from her with a bitter curse.
For a time the winged girl splashed beneath the icy cascade she had often heard Aurian speak wistfully of soaking in
a tub of hot water, but such outlandish human customs were not the way of the Skyfolk. The snow-cold water helped
to numb the ache of her bruises where Harihn's men had ambushed her, but did nothing to quell the pain within her
heart. Inside, she was sick and shaking with fear at the thought of Blacktalon and what he would do to her now that he
had her in his power.
Once she had dried herself Raven returned to her chamber, and spent some time preening her disordered plumage,
sorting the ruffled feathers with her clawlike fingernails, and pausing often to sip more wine. It was long since she had
eaten, and the drink was making her head spin. The sensation alarmed her at first, but Raven soon became accustomed
to it, and after a while, began to welcome it. The glimmerings of a plan came into her head as she preened. Not much of
a plan, to be sure, but it held out a slender hope that she might after all escape the attentions of Blacktalon. By custom,
the Winged Folk mated for life, and not one of them would touch someone who had already bedded with another.
So deep in thought was she, that when Blacktalon entered the winged girl was slow to react. With hammering heart,
she turned to face him. The High Priest said nothing. He simply stood in the doorway, running greedy eyes across her
body, with a pair of goggling guards, warrior-priests in the livery of the Temple, behind him. Witnesses, thought
Raven. Perfect! But without the wine, she could never have done it. Though Raven's skin crawled to feel their eyes on
her, and the blood rushed scalding to her face for shame, she did not trouble to hide her nakedness. She forced herself
to lift her head and look the High Priest brazenly in the eye, though it was the hardest thing that she had ever done in
her life.
"You come too late, Blacktalon," the winged girl spat. "That is, unless you care to soil yourself on one who is already
defiled. Your fellow conspirator beat you to the mark, High Priest, The human had me not once, but many times!
Raven heard the gasp of horror from the Temple guards, and forced herself to laugh in Blacktalon's face.
Then the High Priest joined in the laughter, and Raven knew she was undone. "So Harihn told me," Blacktalon
chuckled, with a knowing leer. "He said that you'd proved an apt pupil, my little Princess, and he hoped he had taught
you sufficient to keep me entertained during Aerillia's long, cold nights!"
As though he had cut her throat, Raven's laughter came to a choking halt.
"You fool," Blacktalon sneered. "Had you chosen one of the Winged Folk it might have been different, perhaps,
though with the throne at stake, I could still have forced myself to take you . . . But as it is, what difference does a
human make? They are not our kind! You might just as well have been consorting with a mountain sheep and to as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]