Crown of Renewal by Elizabeth Moon

Author:Elizabeth Moon [Moon, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: urn|ean|9780345533098
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group - Del Rey Spectra
Published: 2014-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Soon the palace was all in a bustle of preparation, and Kieri’s messengers had found and secured every available room in Chaya for the guests they hoped would arrive. In late afternoon, Arian found Kieri trying to squeeze in a quick meeting unrelated to the immediate need and insisted he come upstairs instead.

When he came from the bath she’d arranged, she held out a nightshirt. “There’s no time,” he said.

“There is.” Arian laid her hand on his brow, kissed him, and said, “I will not let you sleep too long,” before she cast him into sleep in the old way. He woke refreshed, and as he dressed, this time in full formal style, Caernith came in, Kieri assumed, to give him more elven advice.

“Where did you get that?” Caernith asked. He sounded angry.

Kieri turned around, startled, his gorget in his hand. “What?”

“Around your neck.”

Kieri’s hand rose to the torc. “This was my mother’s.”

“No. It cannot have been hers.”

“It was. She wore it the day I was taken.” He bent his head a little to let one of the Squires fasten the gorget around his throat, hiding the torc.

“And how, then, did you get it? Have you always had it?”

“No—it was when I returned to the place where she was killed. I told you about that.”

“You didn’t mention this,” Caernith said.

“No, I didn’t,” Kieri said as Squires eased the green, gold-bordered surcoat over his head. “What has it to do with the magelords I’m supposed to wake?” A hint, if Caernith took it, that he needed no distraction now.

“It is far older than your mother was. It is a great treasure of elvenkind, and your grandmother was its guardian. It belongs to us.”

Kieri repressed a sigh. “What is it, then?”

“I … must not say. It is from the dawn of this world, like the Elvenhorn, but even older. Be sure those you bring from the west do not see it.”

Caernith wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t come in while Kieri was dressing. Kieri did not say that, tipping his head a little so his Squires could place the crown on it. Then he straightened and looked at Caernith. “No one will see it. You haven’t seen it in all the time you’ve been here. I am more concerned that it might have magical properties that affect what I’m about to attempt.”

Caernith flushed a little. “It will not. Unless … no, I believe it will not.”

“I trust you will tell me what I need to know if it should do whatever it does,” Kieri said. He could hear the edge in his voice, and it annoyed him. He did not need to be worrying about what the torc was, or what it might do and under what circumstances, when preparing for magery he was not certain he could perform. And facing magelords who might have powers he could not match.

Then Arian came from her chamber in her own formal robes, and he forgot all about Caernith. She took his hand, and they went down together.

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