© 2018 by Patrick W. Carr
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961599
ISBN 978-1-4412-6548-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by LOOK Design Studio
Author represented by The Steve Laube Agency
To Jesse Tidyman, James (Whit) Campbell, MacKenzie Sample, and Stephen Graham
That you would be so generous with your time and so extravagant in your friendship is amazing, and I can’t help but be humbled by it. I’ve loved working with you more than I can possibly communicate . . . but that won’t keep me from trying.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Map
The Exordium of the Liturgy
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
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14
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51
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61
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63
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69
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71
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Patrick Carr
Back Ads
Back Cover
Chapter 1
Ealdor emerged from the shadows to palpable silence—the lines of his face and the iron-gray stubble of his beard familiar, and his gaze intense enough to see through walls. The Vigil members and our guards held their breath, as if the simple act of breathing might unbind the image of the Fayit and destroy him. I took a step toward my friend—nothing more than an image in my mind but real nonetheless—and extended my arm. He stepped forward to greet me, his right arm extended as well, a prelude to the gripping of forearms.
I followed the motion . . . and froze. I knew Ealdor wasn’t really there, that what I always saw in his presence was nothing more than the power of the Fayit touching my mind and creating the familiar illusions of contact, but in the past Ealdor’s illusions had been perfect, indistinguishable from the corporeal interactions with other, more common beings.
But not now.
His gaze followed mine, tracking down the length of his sleeve until he came to the bare skin of his forearm and hand.
His skin wavered like mist. I could see the stone of the floor and walls through him. Horror and anger chased each other across his expression, neither of them finding purchase until he withdrew his arm from the gesture of greeting and curled his fingers into an evanescent fist that he held in front of his face. “No, not now!” He growled the words in a voice that hummed with power, and I stepped back.
I’d never seen Ealdor angry. More, I’d rarely seen him don an emotion other than the contented peace that took turns calming and infuriating me. But for all the resonant power that thrummed in his voice, his hand and arm refused to solidify. In defiance of his command, ethereal insubstantiality took him, turned the entirety of his appearance to mist.
He straightened, raising his clenched hands. “Here is what you must do,” he said. But his face twisted as if torturers I couldn’t see worked to ensure his silence. “To defeat the Darkwater . . .”
A spasm twisted his face, and he shook his head. Screams of pain tore their way from his throat as he yelled in a language I couldn’t understand. He dropped his arms, his face etched with tears and enough sorrow to fill uncounted centuries. He shook his head in surrender.
“Ealdor!” I screamed. “Wait. I don’t understand.”
Then he disappeared.
I turned, seeking knowledge or solace from Gael or Bolt or one of the Vigil, but no one spoke past the shock of having seen the Fayit. Pellin and Toria sat openmouthed and gaping. I would have been tempted to gloat, but something with Ealdor had gone terribly wrong. Too many thoughts filled my head, and the walls within my mind threatened to collapse. I needed space to think.
Rising, I pushed through the chairs and, without waiting to see if anyone would follow, made my way into the sultry afternoon air. Moist breezes off the southern sea warmed my skin, but cold filled my heart. Peripherally, I noted that Gael, Bolt, and Rory shadowed me.
“I need to think.” A memory of an inn in Bunard where I’d always been welcomed thawed a bit of the ice in my heart. I looked to Bolt. “Is there a place like Braben’s here?”
He nodded and set our path toward the center of Edring.
Chapter 2
Pellin sat at the table, waiting for the sounds of Dura’s departure to fade, holding himself still against the reeve’s possible return. Across from him, Toria and Fess maintained the same posture. After a few moments, Custos and Volsk rose with mumbled farewells to make their return to the library in Cynestol. But Toria and Fess remained—their gazes avoiding his but watching him all the same.
Pellin sighed and pushed his chair back in preparation for his departure.
“You didn’t tell him,” Toria Deel said.
Still seated, he stopped to answer the accusation, wishing she’d been more specific. “No, I thought it best not to.”
Toria nodded without indicating agreement. “Eldest, I fail to understand the logic of this needless deception.”
No. Definitely not agreement. “Needless? I think not.” He chose his next words with care. Toria had yet to confirm his suspicions about Ealdor’s visitation, and he would not allow his shock and wonder to betray him. “Lord Dura, despite his strengths, is still a question to us,” he said, turning the conversation from Ealdor’s unexpected reality and instruction, to Dura’s vault.
Surprising him, Toria turned to her apprentice. “And what do you think, Fess?”
“Me?”
In another time Pellin might have smiled.
“You are one of the Vigil,” Toria said. “It is possession of the gift, not the longevity of it, that entitles you to speak your mind.”
He shook his head, and the unruly thatch of
