Read By Winter's Light: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Special Book 2) for Free Online Page B

suspected that she saw the changes in them more clearly than most.
    And perhaps the distance of the generations also had something to do with her perspective. They weren’t her responsibility in the same way they were their parents’; she felt both detached from them and, curiously, more connected at the same time.
    They were a joy and a blessing, one she was too old not to appreciate fully and hold very close to her heart.
    She doubted she would be there to see them married—perhaps if she was lucky and lived to be as old as her dear friend Therese Osbaldestone. That was in the lap of the gods; for now, she was content to watch them forge on through what would arguably be the most decisive period of their lives. She wondered if they—these six in particular, given they stood on the very cusp of adulthood—truly comprehended that the decisions each made in the coming days, weeks, and months would shape their future.
    Would irreversibly mold it, shutting some doors forever, opening others.
    Which doors they chose and how they walked through them would define and determine the rest of their lives.
    She knew—better than most—that the decision of a moment could change a life. That pivotal instants occurred, where going this way or that would irrevocably alter one’s destiny.
    That certain knowledge, that understanding born of experience, was not something readily transmitted or absorbed. She could only hope for this new generation that they, too, found the breadth of happiness, the depth of love, that she and their parents had.
    Listening to their voices—the rumbling tones of Sebastian, Michael, Christopher, and Marcus already reaching the deepness of the adult males they almost were, spiced with the lighter notes of Lucilla’s and Prudence’s voices, already strong and clear—Helena let her lids fall. She felt her lips curve as she listened to them plan.
    Sleep beckoned; she followed and left them to grow.
    Sweet dreams. Seated on the bench, her elbows on the table and her hands wrapped around a mug of strong tea, Lucilla doubted that Prudence’s words of the previous night had been intended to evoke the strange phantasms that had haunted her sleep. Yet as she sat sipping tea, ostensibly watching her brother and male cousins consume positive mountains of eggs, sausages, and the last of the kedgeree, she couldn’t seem to bring any of the odd images into proper focus.
    Normally, her visions were distinct and identifiable—foretellings of something that would happen, or a prediction of something that might or might not. In this case, however, the visions were hazy, at least visually; what she could sense more strongly were the associated emotions, but even those were…confused.
    Yet nothing she’d seen had evoked fear, not of any sort. The best she could make of it was that somewhere in her life ahead lurked some possibility where she would have to make some decision—and that decision would lead her either down one road or down some other entirely. And the choice would be mutually exclusive—the chance to take whichever road she eschewed would not come again.
    Quelling a shiver—not of fear but of trepidation of the unknown—she forced herself back to the here and now. To the debate raging between Marcus, Sebastian, and Prudence over which part of the manor’s lands they should assess first.
    Lucilla knew.
    Setting down her empty mug, she waited for a break in the discussion, then calmly stated, “We ride to the southwest, into and through the forests and up onto the open levels of the range. From there, we follow the range north—you’ll be able to look down into the forested valleys, and with the snow, if you bring the spyglass, you’ll be able to see the tracks if a herd has sought refuge in any spot. We can continue north until we reach the cross-range, then we follow that east and so back here.”
    That hadn’t been a route any of the others had proposed.
    Across the table, Marcus met her eyes,