by Jean Johnson
Praise for Jean Johnson and the Sons of Destiny Novels
“Jean Johnson’s writing is fabulously fresh, thoroughly romantic, and wildly entertaining. Terrific—fast, sexy, charming, and utterly engaging. I loved it!”
—Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author
“Cursed brothers, fated mates, prophecies, yum! A fresh new voice in fantasy romance, Jean Johnson spins an intriguing tale of destiny and magic.”
—Robin D. Owens, RITA Award–winning author
“What a debut! I have to say it is a must-read for those who enjoy fantasy and romance . . . Jean Johnson can’t write them fast enough for me!”
—The Best Reviews
“A paranormal adventure series that will appeal to fantasy and historical fans, plus time-travel lovers as well . . . It’s like Alice in Wonderland meets the Knights of the Round Table and you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next. Delightful entertainment.”
—Romance Junkies
“An intriguing new fantasy romance series . . . A welcome addition to the genre. Cunning . . . Creative . . . Lovers of magic and fantasy will enjoy this fun, fresh, and very romantic offering.”
—Time Travel Romance Writers
“A must-read.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“An intriguing world . . . An enjoyable showcase for an inventive new author. Jean Johnson brings a welcome voice to the romance genre.”
—The Romance Reader
“An intriguing and entertaining tale of another dimension . . . Quite entertaining.”
—Fresh Fiction
Titles by Jean Johnson
SHIFTING PLAINS
BEDTIME STORIES
FINDING DESTINY
THE SHIFTER
The Sons of Destiny
THE SWORD
THE WOLF
THE MASTER
THE SONG
THE CAT
THE STORM
THE FLAME
THE MAGE
The Guardians of Destiny
THE TOWER
Theirs Not to Reason Why
A SOLDIER’S DUTY
AN OFFICER’S DUTY
The
Tower
JEAN JOHNSON
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.
THE TOWER
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
Copyright © 2013 by Jean Johnson.
Excerpt from The Grove by Jean Johnson copyright © 2013 by Jean Johnson.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition ISBN: 978-0-425-26222-1
An application to register this book for cataloging has been submitted to the Library of Congress.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / May 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-59191-8
Cover art by Don Sipley.
Cover design by George Long.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Contents
Praise
Titles by Jean Johnson
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
THE SONG OF THE GUARDIANS
Special Excerpt from The Grove
ONE
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to the men and women who graciously allowed me to torment them with a tabletop gaming version of the Tower’s traps and tricks a few years ago, in preparation for writing this book. To Peter “Why yes, I am a rocket scientist,” who inspired me to include actual science puzzles among the traps; also, thank you for teaching your love of science and critical thinking to your students. To Steve “Let’s put another tombstone tattoo on my character’s arm” for his great sense of humor even in the face of so many deadly monsters and lethal traps, both in mine and others’ games.
To Rachael for coming up with the gloriously perfect motto for the Healer’s Union (local 442): “We Don’t Heal Stupid.” To her mother, Chris, for nearly killing me with laughter over the crystal ball incident, among many, many other moments of hilarity over the years. To Chris’ late husband, Glen; may he enjoy many a fine game with Gygax and Arneson in Heaven, and finally get to “destroy Dresdin’s hat.” And of course, to every other person I’ve had the pleasure of gaming with, either as a fellow player or as their games master.
I particularly want to thank my cousins Kat, Karl, and Kevin, who introduced the rest of our generation, over thirty-two years ago, to a game where imagination, the luck of a die roll, and cooperative storytelling opened all of our minds up to never-ending worlds of wonder, challenge, and creativity. Tabletop RPGs have allowed me to test out ideas, practical and absurd, in a safe environment long before I’d ever need to face similar troubles in real life, or have a chance to write about them. They have helped me to learn the value of common sense and caution, and the joy of having good friends at my side, watching my back as I watched theirs. I definitely would not be as good at storytelling today if I hadn’t played. (I also wouldn’t know how to survive the zombie apocalypse, otherwise.)
My thanks, as ever, go to my beta ladies, Stormi, Alexandra, Alienor, and NotSoSaintly, who put up with all the behind-the-scenes stuff with grace and understanding. And lastly, my thanks to you, the reader, for being willing to pick up and read such an unusual twist on the typical romance novel.
I hope you enjoy this unique start to my new series, the Guardians of Destiny.
Jean
PROLOGUE
NIGHTFALL CASTLE, EMPIRE OF NIGHTFALL
Eyeing the prophecy scroll in her hands, Hope shook her head and rolled it back up. Some of the old doggerel which her personal goddess, Nauvea, had expressed through her was quite cheesy, compared to real poetry. She also had no idea what a Vortex was—well, she knew what a vortex was, a swirling funnel of something, like water going down a drain, but she didn’t know what that particular prophecy meant by using that particular word. She certainly couldn’t remember when her scribe had written it down.
Two centuries from this world’s perspective was a long time for a prophecy to be forgotten. Even just five years from her
own perspective was enough to have forgotten most of these old messages, particularly after having to deal with the cultural and technological complexities of an entirely different universe. But she was back home now, in a safe and sane world of perfectly normal magical logic, rather than a crazy world that was almost entirely technologic.
The latest heat wave had passed three days ago with the start of the Convocation of the Gods, but the attics of the old palace were still quite warm. Wiping a bit of sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand, she reached for another scroll with the other. Hope—formerly Duchess Haupanea—wasn’t actually looking for prophecies. Instead, she was trying to find the last piece of legal business she had signed before her involuntary exile to another world.
Her secretary, Giolana, had put one copy in the office of the Desalination plant and one in her private quarters, in a cupboard that held her important documents. The contents of that cupboard and a couple of others had long since been rummaged through, moved around, traded, swapped, and finally exiled to the myriad attic spaces of the sprawling wings of the palace. She needed the original, not a mere copy.
“Hope?” a welcome, male voice called, words echoing between the stone struts and wooden beams dividing the bays of the attic space in the western wings. “Are you in here? Helloooo?”
“I’m in here, Morg!” she called back, unwrapping another scroll. Scrubbing at her face again, she unrolled the parchment and squinted at the words. She had brought a lightglobe into the attic to provide a decent amount of soft white light, but the writing on this scroll had started to fade.
Oh! I remember this one, she realized. This is one of the ones where that batch of ink was mixed wrong . . . She started reading it, wondering if she should take the time to copy it with better ink so it would last longer, or if she should just try to see if anyone knew if it had come true in the intervening centuries. It wasn’t a bad piece of doggerel prophecy, at least.
“City’s Delight, Island of Sins,
Choose the path that balance wins,
Hostess fades and soon retires;
Select the Host whose help requires
Virtue’s—”
“There you are!” Dropping into a crouch next to her, Morganen leaned forward, scooped her dark curls back from the side of her face, and pressed a kiss to her tanned cheek. Then frowned at her sweat-dotted face. She had donned shorts and a sleeveless top—fashions from the other world well-suited to a warm climate—but he didn’t object to her bared limbs, just the signs of her discomfort. “Why are you so determined to sweat up here while reading these things, when you could’ve just brought them down into a spell-cooled room downstairs?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because I wasn’t thinking? Besides, I thought it’d be a quick trip. Most of my contract scrolls should have been in the same cupboard, and not jumbled up with all my old prophecies. The Katani Council needs to be smacked with the indemnity clause from the delay in the old Portals being shut down—which the Empire will have to pay for, since it was that idiot mage’s fault they took so long to shut the Portals down—but I’m not sure they’ll accept anything but the original, which I think was the one Giolana sent to my quarters. Or the one I gave them was the original. I remember the one in the Desalination office is a copy.
“Help me find it, will you?” she asked him. “Two will make the work go faster. I want to give it to Priestess Saleria, the representative from Katan, so she can ask Kata and Jinga to authenticate it as the original before the Convocation ends.”
“Ahh, how very smart of you,” Morganen praised, grinning. “If the Gods of the Empire approve it as a true contract, and They verify that the delay that caused the destruction of the Desalinator was the Empire’s fault, the Council won’t have any means of protesting your indemnity claim. So, it’s among the scrolls in this cupboard, right?”
“This cupboard, that one, and I think that chest over there,” Hope told him, pointing at the other two pieces of furniture. She wiped again at her forehead and cheeks. “I don’t know if they got mixed up in any others, but I recognize these bits of furniture as having come from my chambers, back when they were still mine.”
“First, I think I should give us both a cooling charm.” Flicking his fingers, Morganen murmured under his breath. Cool air rustled through the furniture-crowded space, rippling old cobwebs and swirling a bit of dust out the way. He wrinkled his nose and muttered another spell, this one stripping all the dirt from their surroundings. Compacting it into a thick ball, he dropped the floating orb to one side with a solid thunk, then opened the chest she’d indicated.
“Oh, bless you,” Hope sighed as the wind gusts cooled her down. “That’s faster than an air-conditioning unit . . . Speaking of which, we need to get Koranen to make some air-cooling sigils before he takes off for Menomon, something we can activate at a touch.”
“If he doesn’t have the time before he leaves with Danau, I’ll chat with Trevan and we’ll work something up,” Morg promised her. Flicking his long, ash-blond braid over his shoulder, he picked up one of the scrolls from the chest, speaking as he untied it. “I think I remember Wolfer tossing these in here, back when we cleared out the dome chamber for Kelly’s use . . . Nope, not a contract.”
He started to scroll it up again, then paused. Frowning, he read the lines of verse quietly to himself.
Hope glanced at him when he muttered, and smirked a little. “Addictive, aren’t they? Little tantalizing puzzles waiting for time and circumstances to unveil their meanings, warnings, and clues.”
“This one could almost apply to recent events,” Morg told her, unrolling it further so he could tilt the parchment her way. It wasn’t particularly long, but it was eight verses. “The pattern of five lines per verse is very much like Seer Draganna’s verse of the Curse of Eight, the ones we just suffered through. The first line of each verse ties them all together, with the remaining four lines speaking of a specific event.”
“That’s not uncommon when an over-arching prophecy is about seemingly unrelated events that actually are intertwined,” Hope said, checking the next scroll in her hands. “Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s about us, though.”
“It mentions Painted Lords, which we’ve just dealt with . . . and a Painted Lady,” he allowed. “Plus a Darkhanan Witch, a Voice—which might or might not refer to Evanor’s song-based magics—plus an island city and royalty . . . though I sincerely hope this bit about a ‘Groom’s mistake and bride’s setback’ doesn’t refer to us. Especially as I still haven’t wed you, yet. Though it could’ve referred to Dom and Serina’s troubles right after they married . . . except he’s the third brother, not the eighth.”
“Ah, but the precursor line speaks of Guardians having a goal. You’re not a Guardian, nor are the majority of your brothers, so it couldn’t possibly be about you and me,” Hope pointed out, tapping the first line of the final verse. “Besides, we have all the Gods and Goddesses on hand to bless our union . . . and my heart-sister Kelly to make sure They toe the line when it comes to those blessings.”
Morg chuckled. “Better her than me. I think they respect our new queen all the more for not having magic, yet still being fearless as she faces Them. Okay, so it’s not in this scroll.” He rolled it up and retied the ribbon, then looked at the other scrolls stacked around her crossed legs. “Does it go in a special pile?”
“This one here, since it has several verses referencing different known locations,” Hope directed him, patting a small stack of scrolls. She wiped one last time at the sweat on her forehead, since the air was now comfortably cool around both of them. “The Dragon verse probably means the Draconan Empire . . . and the Harper, I think I overheard one of the priests or priestesses mentioning that as their title. I’m hoping to ask a lot of our Convocation visitors about these prophecies, to see if any have been fulfilled already, or if they know of any budding circumstances that might match. We only have a limited amount of time to question people about these things bef
ore the Convocation ends.”
“A Seer’s work is never done,” Morg teased. He set the scroll in his hands on the pile indicated, then reached for a fresh one. “Now that your Goddess is back, we’ll have to get you a new scribe to follow you around. Or maybe some sort of Artifact that can record your words, like Evanor’s brass music tokens, so your new prophecies won’t be lost.”
“Just keep looking for the indemnity contract,” Hope ordered lightly. “We’ll have plenty of time to record new prophecies when they come along, but with all the Gods and Goddesses here, with Their attention focused on the petitions being laid before Them, it’s highly unlikely They’ll speak through any Seer for the duration of the Convocation. And even if They do, these are old prophecies. Either they’ve come true already, or they have not. I can only make enquiries to see if they have. The Council, on the other hand, is a pain I can do something about. Something I can help you with.”
Nodding, Morganen leaned over and kissed her, then shifted back to select and unwrap the next scroll. “And that help is deeply appreciated, my love. If and when these prophecies do come true, we’ll probably only know it after the fact.”
ONE
When serpent crept into their hall:
Danger waits for all who board,
Trying to steal that hidden tone.
Painted Lady saves the lord;
Tower’s master’s not alone.
VALLEY OF THE TOWER, EASTERN AIAR
SIX OR SO MONTHS EARLIER
One of the mirrors arrayed on Jessina’s desk shifted, revealing the image of a blond man in his late forties. “Topside Control, this is Base Maintenance.”
“Go ahead, Base Maintenance,” Jessina stated, her voice smooth and calm. It was in her job description to always be calm while on the job. So was Brennan’s.
