The River's Gift Read Online Free PDF

Swan
Manor?: Without waiting for her reply—which was just as well, since she suddenly felt
as if she couldn't breathe—he turned to face the river and pawed the surface of
the water three times.
    A
sparkling mist gathered above the river, fog mingled with streamers of
thousands of tiny motes that glittered with jewel-bright, ever-changing colors.
The fog thickened, obscuring the other bank; the motes danced and glimmered,
dazzling her eyes. Then, all in a single moment, the colors flared and
vanished, and hanging in the mist was a vision of a young woman, looking as
alive and real as Ariella herself.
    The
slender maiden stood in quiet attentiveness, head bare of veil, looking up at
something. Her hair fell to her knees in two thick plaits, as golden and
luxuriant as Ariella's own. Her wide sky-blue eyes gazed upwards with an
expression of intense concentration, yet there was a merry sparkle in them, and
more than a hint that she would laugh more often than she frowned. The body
beneath her blue woolen gown was slender, her neck long and graceful, her hands
slim and so white even Lady Magda would have approved. She was very beautiful,
and Ariella gazed at her with mingled admiration and doubt.
    :You're very like her,: the Kelpie said.
    She
shook her head. "No, I could never be that beautiful, that graceful. I'm
as ungainly as a young calf." The maiden in the Kelpie's vision was as
ethereal as an angel, and Ariella could not imagine anyone more unlike her than
her daughter. Was this how Lady Magda wanted her to appear? If so, there was little
wonder that Lady Magda was so disappointed in her charge.
    "I
can see now why Papa never wanted to remarry," she said softly. "What
other woman could ever compare with my mother?"
    :Oh ,
I suppose there must be some, somewhere,: the Kelpie replied lightly, and
shook his head so that his mane flew. The vision of the young woman broke apart
into the myriad of sparkling motes. Ariella did not entirely regret losing
sight of the woman who had given birth to her. Such a vision of perfection made
her all too aware of her own shortcomings.
    :You wanted to know
what one of the Great Ones look like,: Merod continued. :Well , here is a
gathering of some.:
    This
time the motes reformed into not one but several figures, engaged in a stately
dance, and Ariella gasped in purest wonder.
    They
were tall, nothing like the little creatures who came
to her to have their ailments tended. Even the sylphs and nixies, the most
humanlike of the lot, were never bigger than a tall child of twelve or
thirteen. But these beings, even the three females, were taller even than her
Papa.
    She
had thought that her mother was angelic in her perfect beauty; now she swiftly
revised her opinion. Her mother had been lovely, but all six of the Faerie possessed
an incandescent beauty that scorched the heart and soul and left the mind
bedazzled. Their faces were alight with it, their wand-slim figures lithe with
it. The men and women alike wore their ebony or silver-gilt hair long, in
elaborate arrangements threaded with beads and gems, entwined with thin silver
chains, arranged on crystal combs, adorned with wreaths of enormous, pale flowers
and silken ribbons. Their garments were like nothing Ariella had ever seen,
made of the thinnest gossamer silks, rich with needlework, fluttering with
butterfly sleeves, trailing intricately embroidered trains, and embellished
with ornaments of silver, gems, and delicate lace. Winglike eyebrows graced
elongated emerald eyes, thin and aquiline noses complimented delicate mouths as
soft as rose-petals. They moved like swans on the water, swallows in the sky,
fish in the deep; like a sigh, like a song. She was obscurely glad that there
was no music to accompany their dancing; it would have been too heart-
breakingly beautiful for any mere mortal to have borne.
    She
looked away, unable to bear with so much wonder. When she looked back, the
figures were gone, the mist dispersing, and she turned