Read Online Diadem from the Stars by Jo Clayton - Free Book Online

power swirled around her so thick it was hard to breathe. ‘For your greed and for your fear,’ she said to Ikhtshar, her mouth curling scornfully. ‘Greed that makes you deny your deepest beliefs.’ The words vibrated in the air so that it was hard to hear them. ‘For your dereliction, I have this gift.’
    â€œShe lifted her hand and pointed her forefinger at the shivering and paralyzed doctor. A bright glow like golden honey gathered about that hand. With her mouth fixed in that curling, contemptuous smile, she flicked her fingers so that the glow flew in a glittering arc and splashed over his rigid face. As it struck, a thin keening burst from his throat. Before the sound died he crashed to the grass and shattered. Like brittle glass he broke into a hundred hard jagged pieces.
    â€œI swallowed and turned my eyes away, unable to look at those horrible fragments.
    â€œShareem turned her green gaze on Azdar. ‘So,’ she said, her voice chillingly soft. ‘You want to kill my baby to keep on using my body.’ The smile vanished. ‘I didn’t ask for this baby. But it’s mine; nobody takes what’s mine. I am Vryhh.’
    â€œShe lifted her head proudly. ‘Vryhh. I swear to you, if you so much as brush against my hand, you’ll never be a man again for any woman.’ She flung out an arm, pointing at the gory shreds by her feet. ‘I should put you with him. For our child’s sake, you live. The child you want to kill. Bless her, Azdar, she has saved your life.’ She cupped her hands so that they filled with that honey-amber light. It eddied out from her fingers, diffusing like smoke into the charged air.
    â€œThat terrible smile curled her lips again as she lifted her head. Her hair stirred with a life of its own, tendrils floating out from her face into air that twisted around her like heat waves at high noon. She lowered her hands slightly and bent her head over the pool of light. Her lips moved, dropping silent words into the slowly seething glow.
    â€œAs her eyes left him, Azdar tried to move. I watched him strain and saw the terror born in his face as he found he could not. I looked around, avoiding with my eyes the dead lumps of flesh a foot from my toes. Qumri stood just behind Azdar, her own face a mask of terror. Slowly, one by one, the asiri and the folk of Azdar stumbled out of the house onto the patio and stood like frozen statues in front of the bushes.
    â€œShareem kept staring down at the golden light cupped in her hands. I swallowed and shifted my cramped legs. Shareem turned her head toward me and for a second I thrilled with fear. Then she winked and her mouth curled one side up in a wry grin completely different from that terrifying smile she’d worn on her face seconds before. This took only a fraction of a second, but I relaxed and watched the rest of the show with intense interest, and, I must confess, more than a little smugness.
    â€œâ€˜Hear this,’ she said in a voice throbbing with power. ‘I lay this curse on the house of Azdar and on the head of Azdar. Seed of mine will lay waste this house. Seed of Azdar will bring him down. As long as the child in my womb lives happy in the house of Azdar, so long shall that house prosper and be fruitful. So long shall the valley of the Raqsidan be blessed. But I hang this like a sword of power over your heads. Should my child meet pain or death, the hearts and minds of the house of Azdar will crumple like the stones of the house. The house will fall until not one stone remains on another. And this I hang like a sword of power over your heads. Should of my child will shatter this house.’ She laughed, a high keening wail, cold as the wind in a winter storm. ‘Watch, you clods. Keep fearful watch for a red-haired man with angry green eyes. Shiver in your shoes, you world-bound dirt-eaters.’
    â€œEven now I remember how I trembled at the sound of her