Read Online Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) by Jennifer Melzer - Free Book Online
Authors: Jennifer Melzer
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we would have died here long ago. It is a cruel land upon which we chose to build our city, and in the beginning we weren’t sure if we would make it out here, but magic made the tundra yield.”
“Do you know any magic?”
“Scarcely enough to start a fire. Don’t have the patience for it.”
“Roggi will one day though,” she thought aloud.
“More than likely. Bren’s been teaching him the fundamentals since he was old enough to take his own steps, and he’ll have the mind for it once he’s learned to sit still and focus.”
“I was taught magic was the bane of our existence,” she confessed. “I was taught so many things that aren’t true.”
“As are we all, I suspect. Life teaches us what’s true. Experience.” He took a few steps ahead of her, his arm drawing her forward with him as he turned right onto a long street paved with pale stones awash with green light. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace wonderful,” he promised. “Someplace beautiful.”
The houses all had a similar look about them, one level, built of wood and stone, roofs thatched with dried rushes. She wondered where they’d gotten the materials to build their city more than once, knew some of it was conjured with magic, but the rest must have come from somewhere. It took mountains of stone to build Dunvarak and the miles upon miles of wall blocking the city from the outside world, entire forests of trees must have fallen to make the wood that framed their homes and buildings. Where had it all come from, and how long had it taken them to build such a solid, thriving place?
He said there were fields somewhere beyond the walls, sustained with the same magic that maintained the city, but each household had a small plot for growing herbs and vegetables, and several of the homes boasted small stables near the back of their plot to house chickens, pigs, goats, sheep and a cow or two for milking.
By all rights, a place like Dunvarak shouldn’t have thrived; it shouldn’t have existed at all, and yet there it was, and it was glorious.
She remembered her brother saying there were just around two-thousand residents in Dunvarak, a number that seemed pitifully small as she tried to imagine what it must have taken to build such a city in the middle of the harsh, unyielding tundra, the amount of labor it surely required to hold such a city aloft. And how many of those residents were children, elderly folk no longer able to contribute hard work to the survival of the city? She’d seen quite a few children during her time there, carefree and dashing through the streets with life and excitement in their steps. They seemed to thrive, as if the harsh reality of the life their parents eked out had no effect on them at all, which in turn suggested life wasn’t as difficult as it should have seemed.
And all because of magic.
How strange and wonderful, she thought. How terrifying and powerful such magic must be.
They approached a gated wall surrounding a broad building with round windows made of colored glass. It stood ominous and tall in the absent moonlight. She lingered at his back while he tinkered with the gate’s lock, producing a set of keys to coax it open. Her gaze fell upon the yard as the silver light of Madra overhead broke through the clouds to illuminate the dark space. Hundreds of stones marked the dew-soaked grass and she found herself drawn toward the wall to study them. Hand perched atop the cold stone, she leaned forward and tilted her head to study the strange field leading to the building. The light grew, clouds moving away from the half-faced moon overhead and she saw they weren’t rocks, but small statues spaced about twelve to fourteen inches apart in long rows stretching all the way to the base of the building behind them.
“What is this place?”
“Llorveth’s temple.” The lock gave way to his fumbling hands and he jammed it into the pocket of his breeches
“Do you know any magic?”
“Scarcely enough to start a fire. Don’t have the patience for it.”
“Roggi will one day though,” she thought aloud.
“More than likely. Bren’s been teaching him the fundamentals since he was old enough to take his own steps, and he’ll have the mind for it once he’s learned to sit still and focus.”
“I was taught magic was the bane of our existence,” she confessed. “I was taught so many things that aren’t true.”
“As are we all, I suspect. Life teaches us what’s true. Experience.” He took a few steps ahead of her, his arm drawing her forward with him as he turned right onto a long street paved with pale stones awash with green light. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace wonderful,” he promised. “Someplace beautiful.”
The houses all had a similar look about them, one level, built of wood and stone, roofs thatched with dried rushes. She wondered where they’d gotten the materials to build their city more than once, knew some of it was conjured with magic, but the rest must have come from somewhere. It took mountains of stone to build Dunvarak and the miles upon miles of wall blocking the city from the outside world, entire forests of trees must have fallen to make the wood that framed their homes and buildings. Where had it all come from, and how long had it taken them to build such a solid, thriving place?
He said there were fields somewhere beyond the walls, sustained with the same magic that maintained the city, but each household had a small plot for growing herbs and vegetables, and several of the homes boasted small stables near the back of their plot to house chickens, pigs, goats, sheep and a cow or two for milking.
By all rights, a place like Dunvarak shouldn’t have thrived; it shouldn’t have existed at all, and yet there it was, and it was glorious.
She remembered her brother saying there were just around two-thousand residents in Dunvarak, a number that seemed pitifully small as she tried to imagine what it must have taken to build such a city in the middle of the harsh, unyielding tundra, the amount of labor it surely required to hold such a city aloft. And how many of those residents were children, elderly folk no longer able to contribute hard work to the survival of the city? She’d seen quite a few children during her time there, carefree and dashing through the streets with life and excitement in their steps. They seemed to thrive, as if the harsh reality of the life their parents eked out had no effect on them at all, which in turn suggested life wasn’t as difficult as it should have seemed.
And all because of magic.
How strange and wonderful, she thought. How terrifying and powerful such magic must be.
They approached a gated wall surrounding a broad building with round windows made of colored glass. It stood ominous and tall in the absent moonlight. She lingered at his back while he tinkered with the gate’s lock, producing a set of keys to coax it open. Her gaze fell upon the yard as the silver light of Madra overhead broke through the clouds to illuminate the dark space. Hundreds of stones marked the dew-soaked grass and she found herself drawn toward the wall to study them. Hand perched atop the cold stone, she leaned forward and tilted her head to study the strange field leading to the building. The light grew, clouds moving away from the half-faced moon overhead and she saw they weren’t rocks, but small statues spaced about twelve to fourteen inches apart in long rows stretching all the way to the base of the building behind them.
“What is this place?”
“Llorveth’s temple.” The lock gave way to his fumbling hands and he jammed it into the pocket of his breeches
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