| If Alessan and Baerd had not returned to the lodge that night I would have killed myself after the Barbadians came and went"Which means, I suppose, that I have you to thank for my present state, neighbor RovigoFor various nights through the years outside my windowsListening to the spinning of our feeble plots
Under the slanting blue moonlight, there was a certain glint in his eyeRovigo stepped back a little, but his head was high and he did not avert his gaze"It was in a cause that you now know, my lord," he said"A cause you have joinedI would have cut out my tongue before betraying you to BarbadiorI think you must know that
"I do know that," Sandre said after a moment"Which is a great deal more than I can say for my own kin
"Only one of them," Rovigo said quickly, "and he is dead
"He is dead," Sandre repeatedI am the last of the SandreniAnd what shall we do about it, Rovigo? What shall we do with Alberico of Barbadior?"
Rovigo said nothingIt was Baerd who answered, from the water's edge
"Destroy him," he said
PART FIVE omega constellation - THE MEMORY OF A FLAME
Chapter 17
SCELTO WOKE HER VERY EARLY ON THE MORNING OF THE RitualShe had spent the night alone, as was proper, and had made offerings the evening before at the temples of Adaon and Morian bothBrandin was careful now to be seen observing all rites and proprieties of the PalmIn the temples the priests and the priestesses had been almost fawning in their solicitudeIn what she was doing there was power for them and they knew it
She'd had a short and restless sleep and when Scelto touched her awake, gently, and with a mug of khav already to hand, she felt her last dream of the night slipping away from herClosing her eyes, only half conscious, she tried to chase it, sensing the dream receding as if down corridors of her mindShe pursued, trying to reclaim an image that would hold it, and then, just as it seemed about to fade and be lost, she remembered
She sat up slowly in bed and reached for the khav, cradling it in both hands, seeking warmthNot that the room was cold, but she had now remembered what day it hermes kelly bag was, and there was a chill in her heart that went beyond foreboding and touched certainty
When Dianora had been a very small girl, perhaps five years old, a little less than that, she had had a dream of drowning one nightSea waters closing over her head, and a vision of something dark, a shape, final and terrible, approaching to draw her down into lightless depths
She had come awake gasping and screaming, thrashing about in bed, uncertain of where she even was
And then her mother had been there, holding Dianora to her heart, murmuring, rocking her back and forth until the frantic sobbing ceasedWhen Dianora had finally lifted her head from her mother's breast, she had seen by candlelight that her father was there as well, holding Baerd in his arms in the doorwayHer little brother had been crying too, she saw, shocked awake in his own room across the hall by her screams
Her father had smiled and carried Baerd over to her, and the four of them had sat there in the middle of the night on Dianora's bed while the candles cast light in balenciaga designer circles around them, shaping an island in the dark
"Tell me about it," she remembered her father sayingAfterward he had made shadow figures for them with his hands on the wall and Baerd, soothed and drowsy, had fallen asleep again in his lap"Tell me the dream, love
Tell me the dream, loveOn Chiara, almost thirty years after, Dianora felt an ache of loss, as if it had all been but a little while agoDays, weeks, no time at allWhen had those candles in her room lost their power to hold back the dark?
She had told her mother and father, softly so as not to wake Baerd, some of the fear coming back in the stumbling wordsThe waters closing over her, a shape in the depths drawing her downShe remembered her mother making the sign against evil, to unbind the truth of the dream and deflect it away
The next morning, before opening his studio and beginning his day's work, Saevar had taken both his children past the harbor and the palace gates and south along the beach, and he had begun to teach them to swim in a shallow cove sheltered from the chanel quilted bag classic black waves and the west windDianora had expected to be afraid when she realized where they were going, but she was never really afraid of anything when her father was with her, and she and Baerd had both discovered, with whoops of delight, that they loved the water
She remembered, so strange, the things one remembered, that Baerd, bending over in the shallows that first morning, had caught a small darting fish between his hands, and had looked up, eyes and mouth comically round with surprise at his own achievement, and their father had shouted with laughter and pride
Every fine morning that summer the three of them had gone to their cove to swim and by the time autumn came with its chill and then the rains Dianora felt as easy in the water as if it were a second skin to her
Once, she remembered, and there was no surprise to this memory lingering, the Prince himself had joined them as they walked past the palaceDismissing his retinue, Valentin strolled with the three of them to the cove and disrobed to plunge into the sea beside their fendi black leather spy bag fa |