The Pattern Scars
Caitlin Sweet
Language: English
Pages: 400
ISBN: 1926851439
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
said, his odd, breathy voice hissing over my name. “You find something amusing?” I turned from him to Teldaru, who was gazing at me with one brow raised. “No, my lords,” I said slowly, all solemnity, now, “it is just that I feel a little of what Master Teldaru does. It fills me with excitement. At such times I am but a child before the wonder of the Pattern.” Teldaru smiled, but his eyes were cold. And it was then that I knew, in a rush that made me dizzy: I would do something to surprise him,
looked orange, with my after-vision. And the bone was dark, not yellow. Dark red, I saw a bit later, when I was sitting up and my gaze was clear. The other bones lay around this one, and they were certainly the same as they had been. “You see,” said Teldaru, and Uja keened, long and low. So that was how Selera began again—with dampness and deep red and a single, curving bone. Every night for two months we remade more of her. I know it was two months because my bleeding came twice. I was
were so cold. He rose and looked down at me. He was not smiling any more. “It begins tomorrow,” he said, and turned away. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN He brought a mirror and a knife. So much gold: the mirror and its filigree rim; the knife’s hilt; the sleeves and hem of his tunic. His hair. “So will I be playing Laedon, and you me?” I spoke lightly (I’d been practising) and held out my arm, turned so that its pale, smooth inside was toward him. My veins branched, green and swollen-looking; I could
very slowly, and I watched him, feeling each breath of mine, each blink, as if it marked a year. I eased my feet to the floor. There were so many different kinds of pain—in my belly, my head, my bones; real pain and Other, which felt just as real—that I could not think. I asked myself no questions, like, “Where will you go, once you open the door?” or “You are naked and bleeding: how will you explain any of this?” The only words in my head were “King Haldrin,” and they forced me up, forced me to
vexation. But I concluded that you, Nola, might enjoy it more if it was Selera.” “And what is ‘it?’” I said. Selera was leaning her head against him; he turned his hand around so that he was cupping her cheek. “Laedon and Borl,” he said. “Tell Selera what you did to them, Nola.” I laughed. “I can’t tell—remember? No, wait—let me try, like this”—I used the Bloodseeing on Laedon and killed him; I used it on Borl and brought him back from death—“I was a friend to both of them.” I laughed again