Sinner Read Online Free Page A

Sinner
Book: Sinner Read Online Free
Author: Sara Douglass
Pages:
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had never forgiven himself for her death. He should never have given her that horse – but she was so skilled a horsewoman. She should never have been riding at that stage in her pregnancy – but she was so healthy, so vibrant. He should have forbidden her to follow the hounds and hawks – but she did so love the hunt.
    He’d never ridden to the hunt again. The day after her death Zared had given away his hawks, and the hunting horses in his stable. His huntmaster had drifted away, seeking employment with lords to the south.
    And Zared had promised himself never to love so deeply again, and never again to expose himself to such hurt.
    He took a mouthful of wine and moved along to the next portrait. His father, Magariz. And next to his portrait, that of his mother, Rivkah.
    They were, Zared supposed, the reason he had succumbed to love again. Magariz and Rivkah had lived life so completely in love, and so contented in that love, that Zared just could not imagine living himself without a soulmate to share his life with. For years after Isabeau’s death he’d kept himself distant from women, keeping to his promise…and then he’d met Leagh.
    Re-met her, actually, for Zared had known Leagh as a tiny girl in Belial’s arms. But once he’d assumed the Princedom of the North, his responsibilities had kept Zared away from Carlon, and he didn’t see Leagh again until she was twenty-one.
    They’d met, not at Carlon, but at Sigholt. Wreathed in its magical blue mists, Sigholt was normally the province only of the enchanted SunSoar family, but the year Leagh turned twenty-one she’d travelled to Sigholt with Askam for a meeting of the Council of the Five First Families.Askam and Zared, as the heads of the two leading families, had attended, along with FreeFall SunSoar, the Icarii Talon, Sa’Domai, the Ravensbund Chief, and Prince Yllgaine of Nor. Leagh had gone, partly at Caelum’s invitation – a gift for her coming of age – and partly because she was close friends with Caelum’s youngest sister, Zenith.
    Zared had found himself alone with her late one night atop the Keep of Sigholt, both there for the night air. They’d spent the night talking, laughing, and – as they both discovered to their amazement – falling deeply in love.
    Loving her was the easy part, Zared reflected. Being together, spending their lives together, seemed all but impossible. He’d come home from that Council so optimistically in love that he’d ordered the private apartments of his residence to be redecorated in the blue of Leagh’s eyes.
    Almost immediately he’d opened the diplomatic negotiations needed for such a high-ranking marriage, only to be confronted with a wall of distrust from Askam. Certainly the two had never liked each other, and they’d been economic rivals for years, but Zared had never thought that such matters would come between him and Leagh.
    It was naive of him. Stupid of him.
    Zared’s fingers tightened about his wine glass, and he moved a little further down the gallery. He didn’t want to be so close to his parents’ portraits. Now the likenesses only reminded him that his parents had spent some thirty years apart, and Zared didn’t want to think that he and Leagh might have to endure a similar separation.
    Damn Askam! If he hadn’t got himself into such dire debt, if he hadn’t imposed such heavy taxes, then maybe the West would prosper as much as did Zared’s North. And maybe Askam would not feel so threatened by a marriage between his sister and Zared.
    Zared was not a proud man, but neither was he foolishly modest. He knew that if he had been Prince of the West, he would not have made such risky investments as had Askam, nor would he have made his subjects pay for his mistakes. If he was Prince of the West as well as of North, then virtually the entire human population of Tencendor would live lives of heady prosperity. If. If. Damned ifs!
    Now Zared stood in front of portraits of Rivkah’s brother,
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