JeniferDilan: переводы

→It was a soldier, just an ordinary one of the rank and file, one of the dark women, who stopped it. She leaped up onto the dais, and, with inhuman speed, slapped her hand over Elena’s mouth, so that the final syllable was a mumble, and the golden, green, and blue hall did not explode into fragments with hot metal running in rivulets like lava, and the flower-fountain did not vaporize, and the stained-glass windows didn’t shatter into atoms.

→At the end—when things slowed. When green-eyed Idola—what a perfect name for someone who idolized herself, Elena thought—and fair businesslike Ryannen and nurturing Susurre—all stared at her with open mouths, too shocked to move even a finger as, quietly and calmly, Elena said, “Wings of Destruction—”

→And then, Elena knew that she had to stand a certain way, and hold her arms a certain way, and whisper certain words in her own mind. But the last, the naming of the spell, had only to be said aloud at the end.

→To death. In her mind’s eye, she saw a hand hold up a glass of Clarion Loess Black Magic.

→She wasn’t sure what was happening to her. Her throat felt puffed out, her chest was both huge and tight. Each heartbeat sounded through her as if trying to shake her to death.

→Suddenly, the room was pressing in on her. There wasn’t enough air. There were only these women: these powerful, magical Guardian women; who still did not have enough power or magic to save Damon—or at least didn’t even care enough to try twice.

→Elena found herself looking down at her own hands, which were very clean but with broken nails and every knuckle bleeding. The outside world had become unreal again. She was inside herself, struggling with her grief, struggling with the knowledge that Idola, the central ruler of Guardians, hadn’t even mentioned before that they had looked for Damon’s spirit. And that it was…gone.

→Voices, not attached to anyone in particular, burst into a clamor of argument around Elena, forming a sort of poem:

→“I don’t believe that!” Elena was aware that her voice had risen in volume. “I don’t believe that for one moment!”

→“Really, it isn’t,” the fair Ryannen added briskly. “We don’t know what happens to vampires. But they don’t pass through our purview. We never see them after death. The simplest explanation is that they just—go out.” She snapped her fingers.

→Idola leaned toward her, as if to confirm Elena’s guess. “It—simply—is not—possible,” she said emphatically.

→She’s been here too long, in the Dark Dimensions, Elena thought with one part of her mind. She’s enjoying herself.

→After another moment Idola said smugly, “If you mean the other stolen key that your friends had on Earth—it was confiscated as soon as they hid it. It was stolen property. It belonged tous.”

→There was a pause, and Elena’s heart began to pound in sick terror. Because it was the wrong kind of pause. There were no shocked gasps. No astonished glances from one Guardian ruler to another. No looks of disbelief.

→“So you say. But…what if I throw into the pot…another Master Key?”

→“Not even if it were your only request.” Ryannen tossed a golden lock of hair over her shoulder.

→“And you’ve said that it’s not enough for you to bring Damon back.” Elena forced her voice not to waver.

→“A Master Key, stolen by the kitsune ages upon ages ago,” Susurre explained quietly, lifting her dark eyes.

→“All this time we’ve been bargaining for a Gatehouse full of treasures,” she said, “and—one Master Key.”

→He was beautiful this way, bronze skin and hair against those giant, leathery soft-looking arches. But Elena, after one look at him, knew that the time had come to play the ace up her sleeve. She turned around to meet Idola’s green gaze squarely.