Cinda Chima - The Exiled Queen

“What came over you back there?” Dancer demanded, squatting next to him and dipping his canteen to fill it. “We were nearly clear, and then you had to ruin it. Slipping across a border unrecognized isn’t exciting enough for you?”

Han wiped his mouth on his sleeve and settled back on his heels. “I don’t know why I did that. I can’t explain it.”

“You couldn’t keep your hat on?” Dancer recorked his canteen and splashed water into his face, rinsing away the road dust.

“It was like there was this backwash of power from the flash-piece,” Han said. “I don’t know if there’s something wrong with the magic I put into it, or if it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Demon- cursed, his mother had said. Maybe it was true.

The normally easygoing Dancer wasn’t done yet. In fact, he was just getting started. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut? I’m calling you Glitterhair from now on. Or Talksalot.”

“I’m sorry,” Han said. He had nothing else to say. He couldn’t blame Dancer for being angry. It had been an unnecessary, foolhardy stunt. Dancer had never seen this side of him. It was like he’d gone back to his death- wish days as streetlord of the Raggers.

“Where did you learn to fling jinxes?” Dancer persisted. “You said you didn’t know anything about magic. You didn’t even know you were a wizard until a couple of weeks ago. Here I’ve been trying to teach you what little I know, and then you go and conjure up a thorn hedge. Maybe you should be teaching me.”

“I don’t know how I did that,” Han said. “It just kind of happened.” Dancer must think he’d been holding out on him, that he didn’t want to share what he knew. When Dancer said nothing, Han added, “I didn’t know you knew how to throw flame.”

“I don’t,” Dancer said, his voice tight with betrayal. “It just spurts out like that when I’m scared to death.” He stood, smacking the dust off his leggings, and left to see to the horses.

Han pulled his amulet out of his neckline and turned it in his hands, examining it for clues. He had to learn how to control the thing. Otherwise, there was no guarantee this wouldn’t happen again.

Now the Bayars knew he was a wizard, and that he was heading south. At least they wouldn’t know what he was up to or where he was going. Han rather liked the notion of the Bayars wondering and worrying about where he’d surface next, and what he’d do when he did.

Chapter Three In The Autumn Damps Chapter Three - In The Autumn Damps Chapter Four - Delphi Chapter Five - Into The Fens Chapter Six - Flatland Demons Chapter Seven - On The Road Again Chapter Eight - Oden’s Ford Chapter Nine - The Road West Chapter Ten - Cadet Chapter Eleven - Mystwerk House Chapter Twelve - Raised from the Dead Chapter Thirteen - Charmcasting for Beginners Chapter Fourteen - Dean’s Dinner Chapter Fifteen - Friends And Enemies Chapter Sixteen - A Meeting With The Dean Chapter Seventeen - In Mystwerk Tower Chapter Eighteen - Abelard’s Crew Chapter Nineteen - Caught In The Act Chapter Twenty - Star-Crossed Chapter Twenty-One - A Vermin Problem Chapter Twenty-Two - The Waking Dream Chapter Twenty-Three - A Meeting Of Exiles Chapter Twenty-Four - News From Home Chapter Twenty-Five - Blueblood Ways Chapter Twenty-Six - Dangerous Dancing Chapter Twenty-Seven - When Dreams Turn to Nightmares Chapter Twenty-Eight - Word from Home Chapter Twenty-Nine - A Babe in the Woods Chapter Thirty - This Rough Magic Chapter Thirty-One - Betrayal Chapter Thirty-Two - Shifting Alliances Chapter Thirty-Three - Matrimony or Murder Chapter Thirty-Four - Shoulder Taps Chapter Thirty-Five - Old Friends Chapter Thirty-Six - Detours Chapter Thirty-Seven - A Parting of the Ways Keep Reading Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. By Cinda Williams Chima About the Publisher

Raisa shivered and pulled her wool cloak more closely around her shoulders. Soggy with rain and glazed with ice, it probably weighed more than she did. She scooted closer to the fire, extending her frozen hands. Steam rose from the sodden fabric.

Maybe if she actually sat in the flames, she’d be warm again. She already smelled like a wet sheep toasted over a wood fire.

It had taken a week to cross the high country between Demonai Camp and the West Wall. A week of freezing weather and early autumn snows, of huddling together in tents while the wind howled outside. Raisa had foolishly assumed that the weather would improve as they descended toward Leewater, the ocean to the west she’d never seen.

In that she’d been mistaken. The early high country snows turned to sleet and icy rains— relentless storms that rendered the trails treacherous. They’d been camped for a week in this miserable between-place. They’d pitched their tents in a small box canyon that blocked the worst of the winds, and waited for the weather to clear.

It would have been easier traveling by way of the Dyrnne -water Valley, which ran through a break in the Spirits from Fellsmarch to the West Wall. But there was too great a chance they’d be intercepted on the easy road.

“Lady Rebecca?”

It took Raisa a moment to realize she was being addressed. When she looked up, the cadet Hallie Talbot loomed over her, extending a mug of hot tea.

“Call me Morley,” Raisa said automatically, accepting the tea and sipping the hot liquid. She shouldn’t allow Hallie to wait on her, but it took more strength than she possessed to say no.

Rebecca Morley was her alias, meant to hide her from those hunting the runaway princess heir of the Fells. The other Gray Wolves believed she was a daughter of the minor nobility whose parents had bribed her way into the military academy at Oden’s Ford. Nobody knew who she really was but her friend Amon Byrne.

Early on, Raisa had asked Hallie to cut her hair, to alter her looks. The cadet had obliged using her belt knife. Hallie’s skills as a barber were dubious. The result was a ragged cap that reached to Raisa’s earlobe on one side and her chin on the other.

Raisa’s hair had always been a point of vanity for her— long and thick, a wavy mass falling nearly to her waist. It was her best physical feature. She closed her eyes and extended her neck, remembering how Magret used to brush it with a boar- bristle hairbrush. . . .

“You’d be warmer and dryer in your tent, my—Morley,” Hallie said, breaking in on her thoughts once again. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

Raisa bit back a sharp retort. In camp, it seemed they were constantly on top of one another. Everything was difficult— from starting a fire to using the privy. Boredom and the constant close contact made them all snappish.

Well, it made Raisa snappish, at least. The others took it in stride.

“If I spend any more time staring at four canvas walls, I’ll go mad,” Raisa grumbled.

At first she’d shared a tent with Amon, Mick Bricker, and Talia Abbott. It was three per tent, with Raisa making the fourth since she was extra. That was fair in a triple of nine plus one. It had been cramped but cozy.

Then she’d awakened in the middle of the night to find herself snuggled up against Amon, one arm flung across his chest, nose buried in his wool undershirt. As children, they’d slept that way a hundred times.