Présentation de l'éditeur
A restless warrior...
A fierce maiden...
A magical love story of sorcery and passion...
Orphaned as a child and raised by monks, Mychael ab Arawn had forsaken all things of the world-- until fiery visions drew him into the victorious battle to reclaim his ancestral home. Yet peace still eludes him, for the visions of mystical dragons and mysterious caverns linger. Armed as a warrior once more, Mychael prepares for his quest--to seek out the images that haunt him and conquer them once and for all.
There are many who would stay Mychael, intent on using him for their own purposes. Only the beautiful Llynya, with her lavender scent and lightning-fast blade, joins him on his path. But Mychael may have little chance to taste the sensual power that draws him to the maiden. For soon his visions will lead them to a crossroads of destiny, where danger awaits in every cavern--and friends and ancient enemies of man threaten to destroy them.
Extrait
Mychael silenced the boy with a finger to his lips. They were not alone. He tilted his head to one side, listening beyond the weak sound of Bedwyr's dying breaths and beneath the rushing of the waterfall. He did not have a Quicken-tree's sense of smell, but his hearing was keen, and he heard something, a high-pitched, continuous hum seeming to come from above, beginning directly overhead and running to the north. Rising to his feet, he signed for Shay to stay with Bedwyr and set a course for the falls. Four other Quicken-tree needed to be found, mayhaps some who could be saved.
Quick and silent, he wove a path through the dripshanks hanging from the ceiling and jutting up from the floor, skimming his fingers over their smoothly rippled surfaces to mark his way and gauge his distance from Shay.
Bedwyr was dying, killed by an unknown foe. Four Quicken-tree were unaccounted for. He told himself a quarterlan cavern would make no easy end of Trig and the others, for a small cave could not hide much, even in darkness, but he feared the worst.
The noise came again from above, louder and closer, and he froze in place, not daring to breathe. His fist tightened on the iron knife. Whatever was up there, he'd not encountered it before, and mayhaps it was as good at blind scouting as he and Shay, needing little more than a scent or a sound to find its prey.
Or mayhaps 'twas a dragon.
A thrill of excitement coursed into his veins, speeding up his pulse. The beasts could kill. He knew that as surely as he knew the same awful truth about himself. But would they hum? In his dreams, they only ever screamed, letting out sky-scorching flames with keening cries that nigh cut through his heart.
The second noise faded to the north as had the first, and he followed, moving swiftly before he lost the way. He tracked it to a narrow arch made of two large dripshanks welded together at the top. Slipping through, he held his dagger at the ready. Spray from the waterfall misted the air on the other side, wetting the rock underfoot and dampening his face--and bringing to him a scent he'd feared he would not find . . . lavender.
She was near. He could only hope the others were with her and she was not alone.
Llynya crouched in the curve of a rock wall on the far side of the falls, having forded the stream to escape Trig's fate. Her captain lay bound and gagged somewhere to the south, completely wrapped in Sha-shakrieg threads. The same had happened to Math and Nia--but they'd taken Nia, hauled her to the roof of the cavern and stolen her away.
They'd killed Bedwyr. Llynya knew that for sure. She'd seen the silver bolt cut through the dreamstone light in a blinding flash and slice into Bedwyr's chest.
"Thullein," the bolt was called, named for the substance from which it was made, an ore mined by the Sha-shakrieg and forged in the far reaches of the desert with underling magic. Before the Wars they would come to the deep dark to dig for
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