Heart of Stars Read Online Free PDF

irrational. It is no’ my fault Thunderlily grew so fascinated with us humans , she told herself. It was your decision to send your daughter to the Theurgia to study our ways. You canna blame her for taking advantage of her freedom, and learning to drink and dance and flirt. You canna blame me .
    Impaled upon the Celestine’s crystal-clear gaze, she found this was a fiction she could not sustain. She shifted her weight, the silk of her heavy skirts rustling, and said with a frown, We must go after them, we must get them back. Will ye show us the way?
    There was a long silence, during which the Stargazer did not move a muscle. She did not blink, she did not drop her gaze, she hardly seemed to breathe.
    I know it is forbidden , Bronwen said desperately, but if we do no’ go after them, Johanna will kill Donncan and use his lifeblood to resurrect a cruel and evil sorcerer. Have ye no’ heard the stories about Brann the Raven? How he lusted after Medwenna, his own son’s young wife, and stole her for his own? How he drowned herwhen she tried to escape, and cut off her head and had it delivered to his son on a silver tray? Ye say it is forbidden to go back in time because it could remake history. Just imagine a world where such a man has a second chance o’ life! What would happen to all o’ us? Would the world we ken now be here at all? Would ye and I exist at all? What would happen to us? Would we just turn into dust and blow away? Or would we be what our history had made us, a darker, crueller, bloodier history than the one we have had because Brann died? Or would Brann disdain the life and world he knew, and compel Thunderlily to bring him back here, to our time, to a time when the witches’ power is still being mended and there are only a few sorcerers to withstand him. What would that mean to us? To me? Widowed afore I was even a wife, and banrìgh to a world gone mad?
    Bronwen found she was weeping. She stopped and took a deep, ragged breath, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. Still the Celestine was silent and motionless.
    Please , Bronwen said. Ye are the only one.
    The only Stargazer left … Cloudshadow said, very low.
    Aye … Bronwen said sadly. Now Thunderlily is lost …
    What would be the greater wrong, to abide by the laws of my kind and respect the taboo against bending time, and thus allow great evil to be done, or to knowingly breach the most strict and revered of laws and attempt to avert the doing of evil?
    To stand by and let Donncan be murdered so some horrible man can live again would be by far the greater wrong! Bronwen said fiercely. How can ye even ask such a question?
    And my daughter …
    Aye, Thunderlily! What would Brann do to her?
    I must think on it …
    No! There is no time! Already two days and two nights have passed since my husband was stolen from me. Aunty Beau says the best time to travel the Auld Ways is at dawn or sunset. It will be dawn in a few hours. Please. We may already be too late.
    Once again tears unexpectedly started to Cloudshadow’s eyes. Thunderlily, Thunderlily , she murmured. Oh, my beautiful daughter, where are ye?
    Will ye go and try to find her? Bronwen pleaded.
    The Celestine nodded. Yes. I must. Call together my people. We must make ready.
    Thank ye, thank ye , Bronwen gabbled. We will do all we can to aid ye. Tell me what must be done.
    I have all I need here, the Stargazer said, lifting her hand to touch first her heart, then the pulse at her throat, and then her third eye which opened under her finger, as dark and fathomless as a well.
     
    The little boy was shivering. Rhiannon drew him close to her and wrapped her cloak about him.
    ‘How are ye yourself?’ she whispered.
    ‘Rhiannon, Rhiannon,’ he wept, and clutched her wrist with one icy-cold little hand.
    ‘I’ve got ye now, ye’re safe,’ she whispered. He shuddered and she pressed him closer, shocked at how cold he was.
    ‘What were ye thinking, running off into the snow with naught