A Creature of Moonlight
Rebecca Hahn
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0544542606
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm
A General Theory of Magic (Routledge Classics)
A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series, Book 2)
Everything You Want to Know About Magick: But Were Afraid to Ask
To Visit the Queen (Feline Wizards, Book 2)
Flowers,” I say, “right on the king’s castle grounds.” When I look down toward the castle, I see lights in the windows. They’ll be readying themselves for dinner, putting up their hair, spraying bits of scent. The girl is eyeing me, her hands twisting in her apron. I wait, and she says, “Do you know what it is, lady, that’s bringing them, the phoenixes and griffins and such, and that’s making the woods close in on us?” I shake my head. “I don’t know.” “It’s just—it seems no one actually.
Back all around and my boots tucked tight into the stirrups, fingers twisted in reins and mane. I could do this forever and never tire of it. The Ontrei lord is riding just behind me; I think he’s somewhat startled by my taking to this horse-riding thing so fast, especially because when he told me where we were going, I said I’d never ridden my own horse in my life. “No time like the present,” he said, pulling me away from the flower garden. I’d been telling the girl I met there, Emmy, where.
Down. He says, “I hear you had a narrow escape.” “You might call it that.” I bite the thread I’m measuring to tear it, more violent than need be, maybe. He says, “What would you call it, then?” I make the mistake of looking up. He’s not sat down; I’ve not offered him a chair. He seems earnest, with his dark eyebrows drawn close, and I haven’t seen him getting chummy with the king, so it could be he has no idea of what’s going on. I want to tell him, suddenly. Just as I wanted to tell him about.
Looking at me. It’s still wondering what I want. The king? it asks, and somehow I hear it clear in my head. I’ll kill the king? And yes, it is his fault. It wasn’t hers, the woman who stood so still before that sword. It wasn’t mine, the tiny thing that watched and then buried the memory so deep I only now found it again. But it wasn’t as simple as just being his fault, neither. And anyway, here, with those stones staring back at me, I’ve not the will to wish for death. There’s only one thing I.
Either as we begin to climb the mountain, but when I know we’re getting close, when the trees start to thin and the air grows cool, she’s there, standing just out of our path beneath a tall pine, hands empty for once. Her dress falls like another sweep of needles from her shoulders to her feet. She doesn’t call out to me. She doesn’t slide her voice into my head, even. She watches us make our way up the slope, and I think we could ride right on by without her stopping us. It would probably be.