Victory of the Hawk
Page 30
“With blood ties to the elves—to their last known prince, in fact. They know you, or at least the elves of Dolmerrath do. They trust you. And if I’m to make them believe we’re not going to round them all up and make slaves of them again, I must have someone who can guide me. Will you be that advisor, Lord Vaarsen? Anything you ask of me will be yours, if you’ll do the Crown this honor.”
Protests chased themselves back and forth across Kestar’s mind—his lack of court experience, his relative youth, and how dubious his status with Gerren’s people still seemed, even if they’d been willing to let him mourn Merawen’s passing with them. One finally made its way to the fore, and he grimaced even as he voiced it. “I’m from Kilmerry. That makes me Nirrivan, if you and the Assembly of Lords are indeed moving forward with the independence negotiations. Can you even make me such an offer?”
“A very long time ago, Nirrivy and Adalonia were allies,” Margaine replied, undeterred. “I’d like to see those days return. I’m prepared to offer you and your mother permanent welcome on Adalonian soil, or even Adalonian citizenship as well as Nirrivan. I’ll send stipends to your estate, or have your father canonized by the Church—or for that matter, reinstate you in the Order if that’s what you want. Name your compensation, my lord, and it is yours.”
Her tone remained brisk for all of those words, but then, a hint of rose stole across her cheeks—just enough color to let Kestar realize that she had freckles, small ones, just the slightest dusting of brown across one cheek. They didn’t match the demeanor of a princess. But they were a sudden detail that made her abruptly less Margaine Araeldes, Bhandreid-Regent, and more simply Margaine.
A woman who, Kestar thought in a burst of wonder, he could be honored to know.
“I accept, Your Highness,” he said, and as her smile brightened, he felt as if the gods had chosen to speak to him again, to let him know he’d made the right choice. “Let’s get to work.”
* * * * *
To purchase and read more books
by Angela Highland,
please visit Angela Highland’s website
at http://www.angelahighland.com/.
About the Author
The very first thing Angela Highland ever wrote, at age eight, was a short story about a girl who ruled over the leprechauns for a day. She progressed rapidly to pretending to take notes in class when she was actually writing novels, and writing fanfic before she had any idea what fanfic was! Music has been a part of her life almost as long, thanks to six years playing flute and piccolo in school band and an adulthood dabbling in flute, guitar, bouzouki and mandolin. Music is likely to appear in anything she writes.
Angela (Anna the Piper to her friends) lives in Kenmore, Washington, along with her partner and housemate, two cats, and a whole heck of a lot of computers and musical instruments. Despite the fact that she is a mild-mannered former employee of a major metropolitan newspaper, rumors that she is a superhero are exaggerated. (Even if she did pull the door off a refrigerator.)
She also writes the urban fantasy series The Free Court of Seattle under her real-life name of Angela Korra’ti. Come find out more about her works under both her names at angelahighland.com.
Prepare for epic fantasy and relive the battle faced in Rebels of Adalonia!
VALOR OF THE HEALER
Rebels of Adalonia, book one
The Rook… The Hawk… The Dove…
An assassin hired by vengeful elven rebels to kill the calculating Duke of Shalridan, Julian walks into a trap and barely escapes with his life. Healed by a beautiful captive in the dungeons, he’s enthralled and vows to free her from the duke’s clutches.
A Knight of the Hawk duty-bound to cleanse elven magic from Adalonia, Kestar has a secret—and heretical—ability to sense the use of magic from afar. He knows something suspicious is happening in the duke’s keep, but he has no idea how deep the conspiracy goes.
A half-elven healer with no control over her magic, Faanshi is the goddess’s to command. She’s always been a pawn of the powerful, but after healing two mysterious and very different men, she faces a choice that may decide the fate of the whole kingdom…
VENGEANCE OF THE HUNTER
Rebels of Adalonia, book two
The Knight… The Healer… The Hunter…
After nearly being destroyed by a conspiracy within his Order, Kestar faces a crisis. The Knights of the Hawk have always stood against elven magic, but how can he proceed after discovering his own elven heritage? How will his Order react when they discover the truth?
Free of the shackles of the Duke of Shalridan, Faanshi sets out to pursue her destiny with the elves—and finds herself at the head of an open rebellion. But her goddess isn’t done with her yet, and controlling her magic turns into the fight of her life. One she cannot win without both Kestar and Julian by her side.
Rattled to his core after Faanshi healed his eye and hand, and haunted by guilt and a growing love for the elven healer, Julian flees. As he seeks retribution against shadows of his past, convinced of his own unworthiness, he’ll need all of Faanshi’s faith to turn him from the path of vengeance to help save Kestar, and the whole of Adalonia.
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ISBN-13: 9781426899690
Victory of the Hawk
Copyright © 2015 by Angela Korra’ti
Edited by Deborah Nemeth
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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