The Summer Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

offworlder,
technophile ways on them. “She’s made enemies of the Goodventures already, by
pushing them too hard. But if she doesn’t push they’ll drown her. She’s damned
either way.”
    “The sibyl net is behind her—”
    “Who knows what it’s really telling her? Nobody understands
how it acts, Miroe, or half of what it says.” She shook her head. “Who knows if
she really even hears it at all ... or only the ghost of the Snow Queen
whispering in her ear.”
    Miroe was silent for a long moment. “She hears it,” he said
at last.
    She looked away, shifting the projectile rifle’s strap
against her shoulder; feeling the distance open between them, reminded by the
words that he shared a history, a bond of faith that did not include her, with
this world’s Queen.
    She focused on Moon Dawntreader again, as the Queen began to
speak. The small crowd of islanders, almost all of them sibyls, shuffled and
bowed their heads as the Queen greeted them. They were obviously awed by the
trefoil she wore and by her surroundings, even though her soft, uncertain voice
barely carried above the sighing of the wind. Sparks Dawntreader. the
red-haired youth who was Moon’s husband, stood close beside her. His arm went
around her protectively as he looked out at the crowd.
    Behind them stood a middle-aged woman with dark, gray-shot
hair hanging in a thick plait over her shoulder. She wore the same trefoil sign
the Queen wore. She gazed aimlessly over the crowd with eyes that were like shuttered
windows, as the fourth person, a plain, stocky woman, murmured something in her
ear—describing the scene, probably.
    “Thank you for coming,” Moon murmured, her pale hands
clutching restlessly at her robes. The words sounded banal, but gratitude shone
in her eyes, a tribute to the people standing before her, whose quiet reverence
belied the long and difficult journey they had made to this meeting.
    “I ...” She hesitated, as if she were trying to remember
words, and Jerusha sensed her fleeting panic. “I—asked all the sibyls of Summer
to come to the City when I became Queen because ...” She glanced down, up
again, and suddenly there was a painful knowledge in her eyes that only the two
offworlders understood. “Because the Lady has spoken to me, and shown me a
truth that I must share with all of you. The Sea has blessed our people with
Her bounty and Her wisdom, and we have ... we have always believed that She
spoke Her will through those of us who wear the sibyl sign.” Her hand touched
the trefoil again, self-consciously. “But now at last She has chosen to show us
a greater truth.” Moon bit her lip, pushed back a strand of hair.
    Oh gods, Jerusha thought. Here we go. Now there’s no turning
back.
    “We are not the only sibyls,” the Queen said, her voice suddenly
strong with belief. “Sibyls are everywhere—on all the worlds of the Hegemony. I
have been offworld, I have seen them.”
    The rapt silence of her audience broke like a wave; their
astonishment flowed over her. “I have seen them!” She lifted her hands; they
fell silent again. “I have been to another world, called Kharemough, where they
wear the same sign, they speak the same words to go into Transfer, they have
the same wisdom. They also say—” she glanced at her husband, with a brief,
private smile, and pressed her hands to her stomach, “that it is ‘Death to kill
a sibyl, death to love a sibyl, death to be a sibyl.’ ... But they also showed
me that it doesn’t have to be true.” She turned back again, this time to touch
the arm of the blind woman, drawing her forward. “Fate Ravenglass is a sibyl,
just as you are and I am. But she is a Winter.”
    “How—?”
    “Impossible—” The astonished murmurs broke over her again;
she waited for them to die down, her hands pressing her swollen stomach.
    “It’s true,” Fate said slowly, as the voices faded. “‘Ask,
and I will answer.’” She spoke the ritual words, her voice filled