LITMIR.BIZ

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would I tell him when I returned it? That this crafty little Maevan book of lore had turned back time?

      No sooner did I think such than did my curiosity sprout as a weed. I flipped open the cover. There was the Maevan publishing emblem, and there was the year of its first print. 1430.

      And the fingers on the page—the hands holding this book—were no longer mine.

      They were the hands of a man, broad and scarred, with dirt beneath his nails.

      Startled, I released the book. But the volume remained in the man’s grip—my grip—and I realized I was anchored to him. As my senses became aware of his body—he was tall, muscular, strong—I felt the light shift around us, gray and troubled, and the smoke trickled down the hall again.

       “My lord? My lord, she is here to see you.”

      I glanced up; I no longer stood in Magnalia’s hall. This was a corridor built of stone and mortar, with flickering torches sitting in iron brackets along the wall. And there was a man standing patiently before me, the owner of the voice I had first heard.

      He was old and bald with a crooked nose. But he bowed to me, dressed in black breeches and a leather jerkin that was worn about the edges. A sword was sheathed at his side.

      “Where is she?” The voice that warmed my throat was nothing like my own; it rumbled as tamed thunder, masculine and deep.

      I was no longer Brienna of Magnalia House. I was a strange man standing in some distant hall of the past, our bodies and minds linked by this book. And while my heart was wild within my chest, terrified, my soul settled comfortably into his grooves. I watched him, from within, through his eyes and his perceptions.

      “In the library, my lord,” the chamberlain said, bowing his bald head once more.

      The man I was anchored to shut the book, mulling over what he had just read—what I had just read—as he made his way down the corridor, down the winding stairs to the library. He paused, just before the twin doors, to look once more at The Book of Hours. There were some moments he wanted to believe in such lore, that he wanted to trust magic. But today was no such moment, and he abandoned the book on a chair and pushed open the doors.

       The princess stood with her back to him before the arched windows, the light sweetening her dark hair. Of course, she had come to visit him in full armor with her long sword sheathed at her side. As if she had come to wage war against him.

       Norah Kavanagh pivoted to look at him. She was the third-born daughter of the queen, and while she was not the most beautiful, he still had a difficult time looking away from her.

       “Princess Norah.” He greeted her with a respectful bow. “How can I help you?”

       They met in the center of the vast library, where the air grew deep and their voices would not be overheard.

       “You know why I have come, my lord,” Norah said.

       He stared at her, took in her delicate nose, the sharp point of her chin, the scar down her cheek. She was not lazy as her oldest sister, the heiress. Nor was she wasteful and cruel as her second sister. No, he thought, her eyes so blue they seemed to burn. She was grace and steel, a warrior as well as a diplomat. She was a true reflection of her ancestor, Liadan.

       “You have come because you are concerned about the Hilds,” he said. It was always the Hilds, Maevana’s one true nemesis.

       Norah glanced away, to the shelves burdened with books and scrolls. “Aye, the Hilds’ raids have provoked my mother to declare war on them.”

       “And the princess does not desire to wage war?”

       That brought her gaze back to him, her eyes narrowing with displeasure. “I do not desire to see my mother use her magic for evil.”

       “But the Hilds are our enemy,” he argued. Only in a private space would he challenge her like this, if only to test how deep her beliefs ran. “Perhaps they deserve to be sundered by battle magic.”

       “Magic is never to be used in battle,” she murmured, taking a step closer to him. “You know this; you believe this. You have been spouting such ideology since I can remember. I have grown up beneath your warnings, trained myself to master sword and shield as you suggested. I have prepared myself for the day when I would need to protect my land by my own hand, by my blade, not my magic.”

       His heart slowed, feeling the space between them tighten. She was only sixteen years old, and yet who would have thought that the third-born princess, the one who would never inherit the crown, the one many forgot about, would be the only one to heed his words?

       “Your mother the queen does not believe such,” he said. “Nor your sisters. They see their magic as an advantage in battle.”

       “It is not an advantage,” Norah said, shaking her head. “It is a crutch and a danger. I have read your pamphlets on the matter. I have studied Liadan’s war and have come to my own conclusions …”

       She paused. He waited, waited for her to speak the words.

       “My mother must not be allowed to enter this war wielding it.”

       He turned away from her, her declaration making him drunk on his own ambitions, his own pride. Because of that, he would need to tread this very carefully, lest he turn her against him.

       “What do you want me to do, Princess Norah?”

       “I want you to advise me. I want you to help me.”

       He stopped before the great map nailed to the wall. His gaze traced the island of Maevana, her edges and mountains, her forests and valleys. To the far west was the cold land of Grimhildor. To the south were the kingdoms of Valenia and Bandecca. And an idea seeded in his thoughts, grew roots, and bloomed off his tongue …

       “You could tell the queen that Valenia would never come to Maevana’s aid if we wield battle magic.” He turned back around to look at Norah. “In fact, they would most likely sever our alliance.”

       “We do not need Valenia’s aid,” the princess replied. There was the haughtiness, which all Kavanaghs seemed to possess.

       “Do not dismiss the Valenians so quickly, Princess. They are our strongest ally, our faithful brother. It would be folly to estrange them from us, all because your mother has decided to wage a magical war.”

       Norah’s face did not soften; she did not blush or apologize for her arrogance.

       He walked back to her, stood so close his chest nearly brushed her breastplate, so close that he could smell the fragrance of mountain air in her hair, and he whispered, “You do realize that your mother could annihilate Grimhildor? Could turn Valenia into her slaves? Could cast Bandecca in eternal darkness? That your mother could shatter the realm into pieces with her battle magic?”

       “Yes,” she whispered in return.

       It wasn’t fair, he thought. It wasn’t fair that the Kavanaghs were the only magical House, that the other thirteen were decidedly frail, weak, and human. That the slender woman before him could burn his land with a mere snap of her fingers, that she could stop his heart with a mere word. And yet he would have to kindle the fire to burn the land; he would have to draw a blade to end her. He could feel the magic teem about her, as tiny flecks of diamonds in her armor, as stardust in her hair, as moonlight on her skin.

       Ah, he had always resented the Kavanaghs.

      He thought back to what he had just read in The Book of Hours,

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