The Sphere of the Winds by Rachel Neumeier

Author:Rachel Neumeier [Neumeier, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure fantasy, epic fantasy, young adult fantasy
ISBN: 9781636320205
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2021-12-14T06:00:00+00:00

Araenè had never seen the formal throne room before. She surprised herself by falling in love with it at once. It was a plain but beautifully proportioned rectangular hall, with ranks of fluted columns rising straight and slim toward its gracefully vaulted ceiling. Everything was white marble, of course, because everything in First City was white stone and white plaster and white-glazed, all very glamorous but, Araenè thought, rather lacking in personality.

But the formal throne room had been rescued from the polished white sameness of First City, because despite all the white, white, white, the room was alive with color. The brilliant sunlight of late afternoon poured, rich as honey, through its wide windows, and vines cascaded beside every window, flowering red and orange and glorious purple. Quei, almost as large as mountain eagles, with their metallic-green wings and brilliant scarlet breasts and long trailing green tails, flew freely in and out of the windows.

“I like the throne,” murmured Trei, beside her. She had edged over toward her cousin. Kojran, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued, stood on Trei’s other side.

Araenè hadn’t even noticed the throne itself in the midst of all the flowers and the flashing green and scarlet of the Quei, but now she followed Trei’s gaze. Besides the flowers, the throne itself was the only ornament in the hall. It, too, was carved of marble. It was tall and slender, much taller than an ordinary chair, with a back that rose up and spread outward and curled backward right at the top. The longer one gazed at the carving, the more clearly you could make out the elegant neck of a dragon, the hint of a feathered wing. Then you would look again and not be quite sure if the carving really suggested a dragon after all. Only then you would blink and find that the tiny inlaid chips of opalescent shell suggested the glint of a nonhuman eye, the curve of a taloned foot.

Araenè decided that she, too, loved the throne. She was suddenly and fiercely glad that Ceirfei had sent for the Yngulin ambassador to be brought here and nowhere else; that the ambassador would be required to stand in this hall with the Quei flying overhead and that throne in front of him when Ceirfei asked him about those ships, and about what his country meant to do with them. She was sure it would be hard to lie with that half-glimpsed dragon gazing out at you from above Ceirfei’s head, and Ceirfei staring at you with his crystalline kajurai eyes.

Ceirfei actually didn’t take the throne, though. He stood to one side of it and turned to look at Imrei. For a moment the two princes stood facing each other in silence. Ceirfei said something, inaudible from where Araenè stood. Imrei answered. Ceirfei hesitated, then shook his head and said something else. Araenè wished she was close enough to hear, because this time when Imrei answered, she saw his words strike Ceirfei like a blow.

“He doesn’t want it,” Trei muttered, meaning Ceirfei, of course.

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