Queen of the North

Начало книги

Have you come again to taunt me, Gavin, or will you finally grant me the blessing of death?

Hearing the Oracle’s voice deep inside his head, far below the fertile soil from which sprang dreams and nightmares, left the man befuddled. Gavin? That’s not who I am … or is it? Despite that uncertainty, he knew he stood in the Celestial Chamber of the Ilesma Temple, a place where only a select few could question the Oracle and obtain the secrets of unborn tomorrows.

He glanced toward the ghostly radiance, the essence of the Oracle caught within a spherical cage of silver mesh hovering above a forelimb of graven silver, itself thrusting up from the marble floor. Its carved obsidian talons curled below the sphere, frozen in the act of snatching it from the air. The ensorcelled metalwork of both the cage and the forelimb caught the starlight falling through the portal in the domed ceiling, drawing the radiance into itself and setting the metal alight with a spectral glow.

Читать дальше →