Cheysuli 2 - The Song of Homana by Roberson Jennifer

Author:Roberson, Jennifer [Roberson, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-31T17:19:40+00:00

He stripped away the flesh. He peeled it from the bone until it fell away in crumpled piles of ash. I saw the gaping orbits of vanished eyes, the ivory ramparts of grinning teeth. The hinge of the jaws and the arch of her cheeks, bared for us all to see. And the skull, so smooth and pearly, stared upon us all.

No man moved. No man could. Lachlan had bound us all.

The music stopped, and with it Zared's heart.

I wavered, caught myself, and blinked against the dust.

I put a hand to my face to wipe it free of grit, and then I stopped, for I saw the tears on Lachlan's face.

His hands were quite still upon the strings. The green stone in the smooth dark wood was dim and opaque. And his eyes looked past me to Torry.

"Could I undo it, I would," he said in toneless despair.

"Lodhi has made me a healer, and now I have taken a life.

But for you, lady, for what he nearly did to you . . . there seemed no other way."

Torry's hand crept up to crush a fold of the green woolen robe against her throat. Her face was white. But 1

saw the comprehension in her eyes.

"Lachlan." My voice was oddly cramped. I swallowed.

clearing my throat, then tried again to speak. "Lachlan, no man will reprove you for what you have done. Perhaps the method was—unexpected, but the reasons are clear enough."

"I have no dispute with that," he said. "It is only that I thought myself above such petty vengeance." He sighed and stroked two fingers along his Lady, touching the green stone gently. "Such power as Lodhi bestows can be used for harm as well as good. And now you have seen them both."

I cast an assessive glance around at the staring throng.

There was still a thing to be said. "Is there yet a man who would slay me? Another man willing to serve the woman's power?" I gestured toward Zared's body on the ground. "1

THE SONG OF HOMANA 181

'charge you to consider it carefully when you think to strike me down."

I thought there was need for nothing more, though something within me longed to cry out at them all, to claim myself inviolate. It was not true. Kings and princes

„ are subject to assassination more often than death from old

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