by Helen Lowe
Malian kissed her cheek. “Thank you,” she said, with real gratitude. “I am sorry that I gave you all so much trouble.”
Nesta rolled her eyes and Doria looked resigned. “You always are,” she said, sighing. “But I don’t like your gallivanting off into the Old Keep, nasty cold place that it is. Trouble will come of it—and then what the Earl will do to us all, I shudder to think.”
Malian laughed. “You worry too much,” she said. “But if I don’t hurry I really will be late and my father will make us all shudder, sooner rather than later.”
She blew a butterfly kiss back around the door and walked off as quickly as the black dress would allow, leaving Doria and Nesta to look at each other with a mixture of exasperation, resignation, and affection.
“Don’t say it,” the nurse said to the younger woman, sitting down with a sigh. “The fact is that she is just like her mother was at the same age—too much on her own and with a head filled with dreams of glory. Not to mention running wild, all over the New Keep and half the Old.”
Nesta shook her head. “They’ve been at her since she was a babe with all their lessons, turning her into an earl in miniature, not to mention the swordplay and other skills required by a warrior House. I like it when she acts like a normal girl and plays truant, for all the anxiety it causes us.”
Doria folded her arms across her chest. “But not into the Old Keep,” she said, troubled. “That was her mother’s way, always mad for adventure and leading the others after her. We all know how that ended.” She shook her head. “Malian is already too much her mother’s daughter for my comfort.”
Nesta frowned. “The trouble is,” she said, pitching her voice so that no one else could hear her, “does the Earl realize that? And what will he do when he finds out?”
Doria sighed again, looking anxious. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I know that Nhairin sees it, plain as I do—and that outsider minstrel, too, I’ve no doubt. It’s as though the Earl is the only person who does not see it.”
“Or will not,” Nesta said softly.
“Does not, will not,” replied Doria, “the outcome is the same. Well, there’s nothing we can do except our best for her, as we always have.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Nesta. Her dark eyes gazed into the fire. “Although what happens,” she asked, “if your best is not enough?”
But neither the nurse nor the fire had any answer for her.
About the Author
Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, and interviewer who reads widely and is fascinated by just about everything, but particularly history, astronomy, and the martial arts. She has also been known to drink wine and bake cookies, as well as blog every day on http://helenlowe.info/blog/ and occasionally on other sites.
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By Helen Lowe
The Wall of Night
THE HEIR OF NIGHT
THE GATHERING OF THE LOST
THORNSPELL
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Greg Bridges
Map by Peter Fitzpatrick
Excerpt from The Heir of Night copyright © 2011 by Helen Lowe
THE GATHERING OF THE LOST. Copyright © 2012 by Helen Lowe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 HarperCollins e-books.
Epub Edition APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780062096449
Print Edition ISBN: 9780061734052
FIRST EDITION
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