‘It’s not your sword the old rogue would be interested in.’
‘Honestly,’ said Willow. ‘When it comes to old rogues, I’m more worried about Sariel’s intentions than I am your uncle’s.’
Carter tried to reassure her. ‘He’s as old as these mountains. And the conflict between his people and the stealers has been going on just as long. I reckon he’ll still be fighting that war after we’re long gone. The ethreaal we went looking for wasn’t the ally Sariel thought he was. Sariel could be gone decades, centuries maybe, searching for the others in his party . . . and maybe they aren’t the friends he remembers, either.’
I can but hope.
‘Well, then, a new king of Weyland sitting in Arcadia, a new nation and a new start,’ said Willow. She glanced happily down at the soft round face swaddled in woollen blankets.
And a new life, to replace all the ones we lost.
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Stephen Hunt 2016
All rights reserved.
The right of Stephen Hunt to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 09214 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher,
nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published without a
similar condition, including this condition, being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.