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She might as well reach itShe might as well see if she could claim the ring before she diedShe could carry it as an offering, down to Morian
Her fear, amazingly, was entirely goneOr perhaps it was not so amazing after allWhat was the riselka, what did its vision offer if not this certainty, a sureness to carry her past the old terror of dark waters, to the last portal of Morian? It was ending nowIt should have ended long ago
She saw nothing, kicked again, forcing herself deeper and further out, towards where the ring had fallen
There was a sureness in her, a brilliant clarity, an awareness of how events had shaped themselves towards this momentA moment when, simply by her dying, Tigana might be redeemed at lastShe knew the story of Onestra and Cazal; every person in this harbor didThey all knew what disasters had followed upon Onestra's death
Brandin had gambled all on this one ceremony, having no tiffany jewelry wholesale other choice in the face of battle brought to him too soonBut Alberico would take him now; there could be no other resultShe knew exactly what would follow upon her deathChaos and shrill denunciation, the perceived judgment of the Triad upon this arrogantly self-styled King of the Western PalmThere would be no army in the west to oppose the BarbadianThe Peninsula of the Palm would be Alberico's to harvest like a vineyard, or grind like grain beneath the millstones of his ambition
Which was a pity, she supposed, but redressing that particular sorrow would have to be someone else's taskThe soul's quest of another generationHer own dream, the task she'd set herself with an adolescent's pride, sitting by a dead fire in her father's house long years ago, had been to bring Tigana's name back into the world
Her only wish, if she were allowed a wish before the dark closed over her and became everything, was that fake cheap chanel handbags with cc logo Brandin would leave, would find a place to go far from this peninsula, before the end cameAnd that he might somehow come to know that his life, wherever he went, was a last gift of her love
Her own death didn't matterThey killed women who slept with conquerorsThey named them traitors and they killed them in many different ways
She wondered if she would see the riselka here, sea-green creature of the sea, agent of destiny, guardian of thresholdsShe wondered if she would have some last vision before the endIf Adaon would come for her, the stern and glorious god, appearing as he had to Micaela on the beach so long agoShe was not Micaela though, not bright and fair and innocent in her youthShe didn't think that she would see the god
Instead, she saw the ring
It was to her right and just above, drifting like a promise or an answered prayer down through the slow, cold waters so far below the sunlightShe fake rolex swiss reached out, in the dreamlike slowness of all motion in the sea, and she claimed it and put it on her finger that she might die as a sea-bride with sea-gold upon her hand
She was very far under nowThe filtered light had almost disappeared this far downShe knew her last gathered air would soon be gone as well, the need for the surface becoming imperative, reflexiveShe looked at the ring, Brandin's ring, his last and only hopeShe brought it to her lips, and kissed it, and then she turned her eyes, her life, her long quest, away from the surface and the sunlight, and love
Downward she went, forcing herself as deep as she couldAnd it was then, just then, that the visions began to come
She saw her father in her mind, clearly, holding his chisel and mallet, his shoulders and chest covered with a fine powder of marble, walking with the Prince in their courtyard, Valentin's arm familiarly thrown about his shoulders, cheap tiffany's jewelry and then she saw him as he had been before he rode away, awkward and grim, to warThen Baerd was in her mind: as a boy, sweet-natured, seemingly always laughingThen weeping outside her door the night Naddo left them, then wrapped close in her arms in a ruined moonlit world, and lastly in the doorway of the house the night he went awayHer mother next, and Dianora felt as if she were somehow swimming back through all the years to her familyFor her these images of her mother were from before the fall, before the madness had come, from a time when her mother's voice had seemed able to gentle the evening air, her touch still soothe all fevers away, all fear of the dark
It was dark now, and very cold in the seaShe felt the first agitation of what would soon be a desperate need for airThere came to her then, as on a scroll unrolling through her mind, vignettes of her life after she'd left homeThe village in dolce and gabbana knock off Cert |