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Scelto would not have to knockHe pushed the doors...
10:17, 2010-Feb-10
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Scelto would not have to knockHe pushed the doors open and drew back to let her pass
In the long hallway outside the priests of Morian and the priestesses of Adaon were waiting for herShe saw the scarcely veiled triumph in their eyes, a collective glittering of expectation
There was a sound, a drawing of breath, as she came through the doors in the green robes of a rite that had not been performed in two and a half hundred years, her hair drawn back and bound in a net green as the sea
Trained to control, being what they were, the clergy quickly fell silentAnd in silence they made way for her, to follow behind in orderly rows of crimson and smoke-grey
She knew they would make Scelto trail behind themHe could not be part of this procession of the ritesShe knew she had not properly said farewell to himHers was not a life meant to be made whole
They went west down the corridor to the Grand StaircaseAt the top of the wide marble stairs Dianora paused and looked down, and she finally understood why the saishan had been so chloe paddington handbag chocolate silentAll the women and the castrates were gathered belowThey had been allowed out, permitted to come this far to see her pass byHolding her head very high and looking neither left nor right she set her foot on the first stair and started downShe was no longer herself, she thoughtNo longer Dianora, or not only DianoraShe was merging further into legend with every step she took
And then, at the bottom of the staircase, as she stepped onto the mosaic-inlaid tiles of the floor, she realized who was waiting by the palace doors to escort her out and her heart almost stopped
There was a cluster of men there D'Eymon, for one, and Rhamanus as well, who had stayed in the Palm as she'd been sure he would, and had been named as Brandin's First Lord of the FleetBeside them was Doarde the poet, representing the people of ChiaraShe had expected him: it had been d'Eymon's clever idea that the participation of one Island poet could help counterbalance the crime and death of anotherNext to Doarde was a burly, sharp-faced man in brown velvet white chanel bag hung about with a ransom's worth of goldA merchant from Corte, and a successful one clearly enough; very possibly one of the ghouls who had made their fortune preying on the ruins of Tigana two decades agoBehind him was a lean grey-clad priest of Morian who was obviously from AsoliShe could tell from his coloring, the native Asolino all had that look about them
She also knew he was from Asoli because the last of the men waiting for her there was from Lower Corte and she knew himA figure from her own internal legends, from the myths and hopes that had sustained her life this farAnd this was the one whose presence here almost froze the blood in her veins
In white of course, majestic as she remembered him from when she was a girl, gripping the massive staff that had always been his signature, and towering over every man there, stood Danoleon the High Priest of Eanna in Tigana
The man who had taken Prince Alessan away to the southSo Baerd had told her the night he saw his own riselka and went away to follow them
She knew louis vuitton gold handbag him, everyone had known Danoleon, his long-striding, broad-shouldered preeminence, the deep, glorious instrument that was his voice in temple servicesApproaching the doors Dianora fought back a moment of wild panic before sternly controlling herselfThere was no way he could recognize herHe had never known her as a childWhy should he have, the adolescent daughter of an artist loosely attached to the court? And she had changed, she was infinitely changed since then
She couldn't take her eyes off him thoughShe had known d'Eymon was arranging for someone to be there from Lower Corte, but had never expected Danoleon himselfIn the days when she had worked in The Queen in Stevanien it was well-known that Eanna's High Priest had withdrawn from the wider world into the goddess's Sanctuary in the southern hills
Now he had come out, and was here, and looking at him, drinking in his reality, Dianora felt an absurd, an almost overwhelming swell of pride to see how he seemed to dominate, merely by his presence, all the people assembled buy chloe paddington handbag there
It was for him, and for the men and women like him, the ones who were gone and the ones who yet lived in a broken land, that she was going to do what she would do todayHis eyes rested on her searchingly; they were all doing that, but it was under Danoleon's clear blue gaze that Dianora drew herself up even taller than beforeBehind them all, beyond the doors which had not yet been opened, she seemed to see the riselka's path growing brighter all the time
She stopped and they bowed to her, all six men putting a straight leg forward and bending low in a fashion of salute not used for centuriesBut this was legend, ceremony, an invocation of many kinds of power, and Dianora sensed that she must now seem to them like some hieratic figure out of the tapestry scrolls of the distant past
"My lady," said d'Eymon gravely, "if it pleases you and you are minded to allow us, we would attend upon you now and lead you to the King of the Western Palm
Carefully said, and clearly, for all their words were to be remembered and handbags louis vuitton repeate
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