VICTORIA_BRINZA: переводы

→Sarah Prineas captivates in this fantasy-adventure about a girl who must find within herself the power to set right a terrible evil.

→Fer feels an instant attachment to this realm, where magic is real and oaths forge bonds stronger than iron. But a powerful huntress named the Mór rules here, and Fer can sense that the land is perilously out of balance. Fer must unlock the secrets about the parents she never knew and claim her true place before the worlds on both sides of the Way descend into endless winter.

→Chapter Two

→Panting, Fer turned to the thing they’d been attacking. It had fallen beneath the branches of a bush; she saw its dark shape huddled there. Carefully, gripping her club in case it tried to bite, she pushed aside the branches, letting the moon’s light in. Fer blinked and set down the club.

→Fer held her ground and gripped her branch tightly. “Go away!” she shouted, and with her free hand felt in her jacket pocket for her bag of spelled herbs. She pulled it out and kept it clenched in her hand. One wolf lunged toward her and Fer stepped up to meet it, bashing her club across its muzzle. Fer swung the branch back and caught another wolf in the ribs, then jabbed the jagged end of the branch into the face of the third wolf. Still holding the spell-bag, she shouted, “Go away!” again, then a third time, and the wolves flinched back as if her words had more power than the club she swung, watching her from the corners of their eyes, fading back into the shadows.

→The three wolves advanced silently, their heads low, their fangs bared.

→Without taking her eyes from the wolves, Fer groped on the ground for the thing she’d tripped over. There. A branch as long as her arm, with a jagged, broken-off end. Gripping her club, Fer raced around the edge of the pool, her feet slipping on the moss.

→Three against one—not fair!

→Fer tore herself from the thorns and scrambled to her feet. On the other side of the shimmering pool, wolves, their gray fur silvered by the moonlight, circled a lump of shadow on the ground. The shadow snarled—it looked like a black dog—as one of the wolves darted in, its jaws snapping. The other wolves, two of them, swarmed around, and another plunged at the black dog. Fer heard a yelp of pain. The wolf leaped back, smiling with bloody fangs.

→Fer stumbled back, tripping over a dead branch, and fell into a clump of brambles; their sharp thorns gripped her like clawed fingers and wouldn’t let go. She heard snarling, then another sound that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Howling, like animals on the hunt.

→At her touch, the water grew mirror-still, and a slow tingle started in her fingertips. She held her breath, feeling a sudden, strange power fizzing under her skin. The tingle turned to an electric shock that sizzled up her fingers and through her body. She jumped to her feet. The fat water-moon shattered. Shadows surged from the pool, flinging drops of water that sparkled in the moonlight.

→Not just Jimmy Torvald, but his brother Richie and their stupid friend Emily Bradley. Jenny Fur-head they called her. What was she supposed to do? Let them call her that? Her hair did come out of its braid and it did get messy, and sometimes it did get twigs tangled in it, but that was no reason for them to be so mean all the time.

→She gazed at the still, black surface of the pool. The moon was reflected there, not as the pale crescent in the sky above her head, but as a fat, full, yellow moon. How could that be? She knelt on the moss and leaned over the pool to touch it. The water felt cool and slick.

→Stepping lightly, Fer walked around the pool. It was perfectly round, and springy moss grew right up to its edge. She stilled her breath, listening. Something in the air felt strange. Tingly, or twitchy, like a rope stretched too far and about to break. She knew what Grand-Jane would say, in her scoldingest voice: Come home right now, Jennifer! It’s not safe! Fer felt in her pocket for the spell-bag of herbs and gripped it, the seam in the fabric rough under her fingers.

→Might as well see where the stream led. Water squishing in one of her sneakers, Fer followed the stream through the ravine, picking her way over slippery stones. The stream slowed, flowed smoothly over a shelf of rock, and then widened to form a pool in the middle of a clearing.

→Catching her breath, Fer climbed out of the water. Her pant leg was wet, and one arm of her jacket. She shivered and looked around. Where was she? The crescent moon had climbed higher in the sky and stood directly overhead. Fer had good night vision; the moon’s thin light was enough to see by. She was in a deep ravine, one crowded with bare trees and bushes, the air cold and damp, as if all the chill from above had gathered here in this low spot.