A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) by Prue Batten

Author:Prue Batten [Batten, Prue]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Fantasy
ISBN: 978-0987330512
Publisher: Darlington Press
Published: 2015-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

They sat together eating curry and then sucking on pink watermelon the colour of the royal seraglio walls. Neither said a word but Finnian felt caught between a boulder and a fakir’s bed as he thought of time passing – of Isolde levering herself from her sick-bed and beginning the chase. At the same time he couldn’t leave this woman’s side. He broke the silence that sat between them like a wall.

‘What was you brother like?’

‘Kholi?’ The glacier melted, Lalita’s eyes glistening with vibrant memory. ‘He was simply the best.’

‘How so?’

‘Kind, brave, loyal, literate, handsome.’

‘A scion.’

But she ignored his tone and added, ‘He loved his sister.’ Her mouth set in a line and she shook her head. ‘And yours?’ she said eventually.

Finnian sat silent – what could he say?

‘Finnian?’

He detected curiosity but was there anything else? ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean? A brother is a brother.’

‘Yes, but I never knew him. We were parted at birth. I imagined him or at the very least, I thought I did. But now I think on it I realize I was feeling what he felt and I believe we had this enigmatic connection.’ The yardstick inveigled itself into his mind, his brother’s brief journey into love and the strength of his emotion – the strength by which he could measure his own. ‘As a boy I would hide in the library and imagine him lying next to me gazing at books, and I would revel in the pretended company.’ He stood and walked to the window, staring out into the courtyard where the dusking created violet shadows and round paper lanterns were being lit in the acacias in the garden. ‘I wish I had known him.’ He spoke softly, the words swallowed by crickets that shrilled for a moment and the trill of caged birds so popular with the old men of the town singing a chorus to bed the sun.

‘I might be able to tell you what little I know.’ Momentarily her voice had the gentleness of care and he could imagine her fingers on his arm, even though she sat on the other side of the room. He nodded his head, too afraid to turn and face solicitousness. He didn’t want her pity, he wanted her attention and he wanted to know what she knew.

Thus she told him of Liam, Ana, Adelina and Kholi. Of Severine di Accia and the soul-syphon. He added each piece of knowledge, word by descriptive word, to his own precious, rare but infinitely small pile of memories. Silence again filled the room, the poignancy of a potential never realised.

‘How do you know this?’ He had returned to her side and sat slumped, his hands lying on a flat belly.

She didn’t answer immediately, as though she was sunk deep in the memory room of her own mind. Her hands clasped tight and bone white as she took a breath to speak and then stopped as though she had decided not to tell him. Finally she said, ‘Uncle Imran told me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.