The Rose Throne by Mette Ivie Harrison

Author:Mette Ivie Harrison [Harrison, Mette Ivie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60684-366-6
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2013-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Issa

AS SOON AS THE ROADS through to the land bridge were dry that summer, Issa was to leave for Rurik. Everything to do with the betrothal had been negotiated and agreed to on both sides, down to the colors she and Edik would wear and the words they would say. Sometimes Issa wondered if her father and King Haikor had decided for her how many breaths she would take at the ceremony. And yet the ceremony was not until the first of autumn, several months away.

On the morning of her departure, Issa woke up very early, unable to fall back to sleep. She walked through the castle in Weirland one last time, noticing the tiny details that she had always taken for granted, the dull wooden floors, worn down over so many years, the windows made of fine greased cloth rather than glass, the smoking fires with their ancient chimneys. She knew that when she came back to Weirland, it would be temporarily, as a visitor, and this was the last time it would be home to her. After this, she would be returning as the betrothed of Prince Edik.

There were sheep in the courtyard, and Issa knew their names. She had found them out from the shepherds only last summer. It seemed a lifetime ago. She would miss the sheep and the shepherds both. She would miss the feeling of neweyr all through the castle. It would take more than a month to reach the palace in the south of Rurik, and once there, she would have to think before she used her neweyr. What would it be like to have it so stifled?

Nervous, she went back to her room, where her trunks stood, already packed. The gowns she would have to wear in the Rurese court bothered her. She was sure that no garment made in her own land could be good enough.

Finally, after a last breakfast together, King Jaap held her hand as they walked out to the castle gate in the bright sun. It was a perfect day for traveling.

“They will take care of you,” he said, nodding to the two dozen servants who were loading the packhorses and donkeys and who would accompany Issa on the journey. Some of them were castle servants, two of her father’s guards, one a maid who had served Issa on occasion.

Issa stopped a moment to be sure that the hound she was bringing for Prince Edik was properly secured in the basket tied atop one of the donkeys. It whimpered at her, and she put a hand out for it to smell and spoke a word of comfort.

Three of the servants who had come with them Issa recognized as ekhono she had seen in the underground courtyard years before, two men and a woman.

“What a terrible risk they take. Why would you command them to return to Rurik with me?” asked Issa.

“What makes you think that I commanded them?” her father asked.

“But—if you had given them a choice, I am sure—”

“They were all given a choice.

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.