Read Destiny: Child Of Sky for Free Online Page B

limit to the lands surrounding his keep. He had known when he began the undertaking that this would be the result. It was one thing to know with one's mind, he mused sadly, another altogether to see with one's eyes.
    The winter festival would need to adapt to the new reality of Roland and its neighbors, the grim knowledge that violence, inexplicable and unpredictable, was escalating far and wide. The sheer madness of it had scarred more than Stephen's fields; it had rent his life as well, taking his young wife and his best friend, Gwydion of Manosse, in its insanity, along with the lives of many of his subjects and his sense of well-being. It had been five years since Stephen had experienced a restful night's sleep.
    Daytime was easy enough; there was an endless stream of tasks awaiting his attention, as well as the time he devoted to his son and daughter. They provided in his life a genuine delight that was as vital to his happiness, his very existence, as sunlight or air. It was no longer the struggle to be happy it had been when Lydia died.
    It was only at night now that he felt somber, downhearted, in the long hours after he had tucked his children beneath their quilts of warmest eiderdown, waiting by Melly's bedside until she fell asleep, answering Gwydion's questions about life and manhood in the comfortable darkness.
    Each night the questions finally came to an end, replaced by the sound of soft, rhythmic breathing, and the scent of a boy's sweet exhalations becoming the saltier breath of a young man on the threshold of adulthood. Stephen cherished that moment when sleep finally took his son to whatever adventures he was dreaming of; he would rise reluctantly and bend to kiss Gwydion's smooth brow, knowing the time he would be able to do so was coming to an end.
    A melancholy invariably washed over him as he made his way back to his own chambers, to the room where he and Lydia had slept, had made love and plans and their own unique happiness. Gerald Owen, his chamberlain, had gently offered to outfit another of Haguefort's many bedchambers for him after the bloody Lirin ambush that had ripped her from his life, but Stephen had declined in the same graciousness with which he always comported himself. How could Owen know what he was asking? His faithful chamberlain could never understand how much of Lydia was there in that room still, in the damask curtains at the window, in the canopy of the bed, in the looking-glass beside her dressing table, the silver hairbrush atop it. It was all he had left of her now, all save memories and their children. He lay there, night after night, in that bed, beneath that canopy, hearing the voices of ghosts until restless sleep finally came.
    The sound of childish voices swelled behind Lord Stephen as the library doors opened. Melisande, who had turned six on the first day of spring, ran to him as he turned and threw her arms around his leg, planting a kiss on his cheek as he lifted her high.
    'Snow, Father, snow!“ she squealed gleefully; the sound dragged a broad to the corners of Stephen's face. "You must have been rolling in it," he said with a mock wince, brushing the chilly clumps of frozen white powder from his doublet as he set her down, then slung an arm over Gwydion's shoulders. Melly nodded excitedly. After a moment her smile faded to a look of disapproval.
    'How ugly it is," she said, pointing over her father's lands to the endless wall that encircled them.
    'And it will be uglier still, once the people start rebuilding their homes inside it,"
    Stephen said, pulling Gwydion closer for a moment. “Enjoy the tranquillity for what moments more you may, children; come next winter festival, it will be a town."
    'But why, Father? Why would people want to give up their lovely lands and move inside of an ugly wall?"
    'For safety's sake," Gwydion said solemnly. He ran his forefinger and thumb along his hairless chin in the exact gesture his father used when pondering