Tales of Goldstone Wood - 01 - Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Author:Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Christian
ISBN: 9780764207808
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

As she came slowly awake, Una’s chest felt as though it had been burned hollow, and her eyes stung. An overwhelming sense of nightmare surrounded her. When at last full consciousness crept in, she could only plead with her own mind. No, please. Please, be a dream. Just another bad dream.

But it was no dream. She realized that she must open her eyes. She did and found herself lying on her back in a dim and dusty enclosure, gazing up at tight, crisscrossed ropes. A moment later she recognized that she was under her own bed and vaguely remembered crawling beneath it the night before. She rubbed her face, which was crusty with dried tears, unbent her cramped limbs, and pushed herself out from under the mattress.

The silence oppressed her, for she had never before heard anything like it. Always there had been some form of chatter or clatter in the background, servants hurrying hither and yon, coachmen calling in the courtyard, Nurse’s prattle, courtiers and dignitaries – Oriana Palace was always full of sound.

Now all was deathly quiet.

Slowly Una got to her feet. The room was so dim, she could not tell if it was morning or evening. She went to her window and put her hands to the curtains. As she pushed them back, swirling smoke, black and dreadful, filled her gaze. She pressed her nose to the window, trying to see out. Here and there the smoke thinned, and she caught glimpses of the garden, charred and burning.

A heavy movement to the right drew her eye. She glimpsed a great black wing.

Pressing her hands to her mouth, she let the curtain fall back into place and stumbled away from the window into her shadowy room. She stood a moment in the middle of the chamber as though frozen. Then she whirled and darted to her door, wrenched it open, and slipped into the hallway. She closed the door softly, afraid of making noise in that awful silence.

The vast, empty palace loomed about her. She crept along the wall, down the corridor, and turned a corner into another hall, then on to a tall window, which afforded a view all the way down the hill into Sondhold. One could even see the market lawn from this vantage point.

Una looked.

Through the screen of smoke, far down below the hill, Sondhold burned.

Her city! Una clutched the windowsill for support. Her home!

“Father.” She found herself screaming, her voice echoing down the long empty passages. “Father! Felix! Nurse!” She sank to her knees, still clutching the windowsill. Panic seized her, and she succumbed to sobbing without control.

“Leonard,” she whispered.

Only the silence answered.

–––––––

“Dragon!”

Una startled at the voice in the courtyard. She could not guess how long she’d been prostrate on the floor. The hysterics had passed, but she had not moved. Who was there to care if she did not?

But now as the bellowing voice echoed in the courtyard, she scrambled up and tried to peer through the smoke. These windows did not offer the best view of the yard.

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