Alison Sinclair - Darkborn Trilogy 01 - Darkborn.pdf - Dokumenty - sysia1544

Table of Contents

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

About the Author

Teaser chapter

Praise for Darkborn

“Alison Sinclair’s unique world of two societies, mortally divided by sunrise and sunset,

provides a fascinating backdrop for a fast-paced thriller of politics and intrigue. Delightful!”

—national bestselling author Carol Berg

“Alison Sinclair’s Darkborn plays like a sweeping historical novel in a teeming preindustrial city

whose residents are divided into those who can only tolerate light and those who can only exist

in darkness. A sprawling cast of characters argue and scheme and practice magic in secret—until

a calamitous chain of events reveals the whole city to be under siege from a mysterious and

ruthless enemy. Despite swift action, broad conspiracies, and monumental life-and-death stakes,

the heart of the book is a delicately rendered love triangle that tracks the human cost of any

grand adventure. I can’t wait to read the next book about these complex and engaging

characters.”

—national bestselling author Sharon Shinn

“[A] wonderful read, with an intriguing setting populated by appealing and memorable

characters.”—Lane Robins, author of Maledicte

ROC

Published by New American Library, a division of

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Published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Roc Printing, May 2009

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sinclair, Alison, 1959-

Darkborn / Alison Sinclair.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-04439-1

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any

means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written

permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

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 Web sites or their content.

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One

Balthasar

T he knock on Balthasar’s door came as the bell tolled sunrise. For Imogene’s Darkborn, it was

the hour of criminals and suicides, the hour of violence or desperation. In this civilized city of

Minhorne, the ancient law of succor was half forgotten, and many might not have opened the

door to an unknown’s knock at the brink of dawn.

Balthasar Hearne was not one of those; he hurried to the door and pulled it open, heavy as it was.

On the step stood a lone woman muffled in a thick traveling cloak. He sonned no carriage at her

back, no living movement within his range except two cats and a small indistinct fluttering of

birds. This close to sunrise the street was quite deserted. “For mercy’s sake,” the woman begged

breathlessly, “let me in.”

He could already feel the sting of imminent daylight on his skin. He stepped back and she

stumbled heavily over the threshold, pulling away from his steadying hand and fetching up

against the little hall table. “Oh, sweet Imogene.” She panted, leaning hard on it with both hands.

“I thought I would never reach here in time. I thought I must surely burn.”

He shut and locked the door against the day. There was nothing else to do. Left outside, she

would burn to ash in an instant at sunrise, as would he. That was the Darkborn’s legacy of

Archmage Imogene’s Curse.

Her heavy cloak had snagged and was dragging one of the ornaments on the table, and Bal

reached out and freed it before it fell. It was one of his wife’s favorites, a horse with its foal

pressed to its flank. He held it cradled in his hands as the woman straightened with an effort and

turned to face him. He felt her sonn sweep over him, shaping him for her perception: a plain,

slender man a little below average height, decently but not fashionably dressed. Certainly not as

befitted the husband of a duke’s daughter, if she knew whom she faced. He returned the sonn,

delicately, as one must, to respect the modesty of a lady. Her small face was puffy above the fur

trimming of her cloak. Her little gloved hand reinforced the clasp. She was still breathing hard.

Like most women of the aristocracy, she was unfit for walking any distance, though she seemed

unusually distressed. He wondered what had brought her here unaccompanied. It augured not

well, for either of them. Her reputation would suffer, and his marriage, if gossip placed them

together through the day.

The bell fell silent. In a few minutes, the sun would rise. They were trapped here, together, until

nightfall. In the meantime his manners reasserted themselves. “The sitting room is in here.” He

gestured her toward it.

She did not move. “Don’t you remember me, Balthasar?” she said in a clear, sweet voice. “Am I

really so much changed?”

He sonned her again, but the voice had already told him, that musical inflection. “Tercelle

Amberley,” he said flatly.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Tercelle Amberley. It has been a very long time.”

The echoes of his sonn faded, leaving him in the grainy haze of all the reflections of random

vibrations around them. He was ashamed of himself for feeling as he did. It was not her fault that

he had tried ten years or more to forget his brother and everyone associated with him.

She directed her next splash of sonn at the hallway, a lady gracefully sidestepping awkwardness.

“Your home has not changed at all,” she said. “Yet you married well.”

“My wife and I have a family home elsewhere,” he said, trying not to sound curt. His domestic

arrangements were none of her business.

She heard the curtness; he heard her take a heavy step forward. “Balthasar . . . Balthasar, I would

not have imposed on you were I not in desperate need. I truly believe you are the only one who

can help me.”

The last he had heard of Tercelle Amberley was the announcement of her betrothal a year ago to

Ferdenzil Mycene, heir to one of the four major dukedoms, and the hero in the campaign to

subdue piracy in the Scallon Isles. Quite a coup for the daughter of a family that had scrambled

their way into the nobility a scant three generations ago. The Amberleys had major interests in

armaments and shipbuilding, which would attract the heir to the most expansionist of the four

major dukedoms even more than the lady’s sweet face and social polish. The betrothal, Bal’s

contemporaries said, was one of the many signs that boded ill for the independence of the

Scallon Isles. Bal could hardly imagine how Tercelle would come to need to throw herself on the

mercy of an obscure physician-scholar, even one married to the archduke’s cousin. Or rather, he

could hardly imagine any good reason for her to do so.

Years of training in courtesy prevailed. “Please”—he extended his arm toward the receiving

room—“do sit down.”

She paused on the threshold, and in the reflections of her sonn he perceived the salon’s

shabbiness, the best room in a house of impoverished minor nobility. He had another home, true,

a fine home to suit the lady he had married, and even though it had been bought and paid for

with her inheritance, not his, when she was there, he felt it home. When she was not, when she

and the children went to one of her family’s estates, he returned here. And no, this house had not

changed; if anything, it had become shabbier than when Tercelle knew it. She had made no

secret of her disdain then, during her long flirtation with his brother. Bal wondered if Lysander

had known how little chance his suit had had, even then. He wondered what he knew now.

She walked into the center of the room and turned with some small effort of balance. “Have you

ever heard from Lysander?”

“No,” Balthasar said, suppressing his slight disturbance at having his thoughts echoed so deftly:

Of course she would be thinking of Lysander, facing his brother. She was no mage.

She sonned him, a delicate lick of vibration. “Are you still angry with him?”

“Leaving,” Balthasar said, “was the best thing he could have done. For us, his family, and for

you.”

“How harsh,” she said in her breathless lilt. “I never thought you would become so unforgiving a

man. You were always so gentle. And you adored Lysander, as I did.”

True, he had, once. “Please, Tercelle, why have you come?”

There was a silence, and then a rustle of movement. “I need your help.” His sonn caught her as

she shrugged the unhooked cloak from her shoulders and let it slide to the ground.

Somehow he was not entirely surprised to know that she was pregnant, though he was

disconcerted by how large and low she was carrying. She must be very near her time.

But her fiancé had been gone over a year, harrying the Scallon pirates and conducting diplomatic

forays into the neighboring island kingdoms to advance the dukedom of Mycene’s claim on the

isles, their territory, and their exports of exotic fruit and spices.

“The child is not your intended’s,” he said, keeping all tone from his voice.

Alison Sinclair - Darkborn Trilogy 01 - Darkborn.pdf

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