River Kings' Road

A thrilling new voice in fantasy makes an unforgettable debut with this 'intriguingly twisted tale of treachery and magic' (New York Times bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr.). Liane Merciels The River Kings Road takes us to a world of bitter enmity between kingdoms, divided loyalties between comrades, and an insidious magic that destroys everything it touches. . . . The wounded maidservant thrust the knotted blankets at him; instinctively, Brys stepped forward and caught the bundle before it fell. Then he glimpsed what lay inside and nearly dropped it himself. There was a baby in the blankets. A baby with a tear-swollen face red and round as a midsummer plum. A baby he knew, even without seeing the lacquered medallion tucked into the swaddlinga medallion far too heavy, on a chain far too cold for an infant who had not yet seen a year. A fragile period of peace between the eternally warring kingdoms of Oakharn and Langmyr is shattered when a surprise massacre fueled by bloodmagic ravages the Langmyrne border village of Willowfield, killing its inhabitantsincluding a visiting Oakharne lord and his familyand leaving behind a scene so grisly that even the carrion eaters avoid its desecrated earth. But the dead lords infant heir has survived the carnagea discovery that entwines the destinies of Brys Tarnell, a mercenary who rescues the helpless and ailing babe, and who enlists a Langmyr peasant, a young mother herself, to nourish and nurture the child of her enemies as they travel a dark, perilous road . . . Odosse, the peasant woman whose only weapons are wit, courage, and her fierce maternal loveand who risks everything she holds dear to protect her new charge . . . Sir Kelland, a divinely blessed Knight of the Sun, called upon to unmask the architects behind the slaughter and avert war between ancestral enemies . . . Bitharn, Kellands companion on his journey, who conceals her lifelong love for the Knight behind her flawless archery skillsand whose feelings may ultimately be Kellands undoing . . . and Leferic, an Oakharne Lords bitter youngest son, whose dark ambitions fuel the most horrific acts of violence. As one infants life hangs in the balance, so too does the fate of thousands, while deep in the forest, a Maimed Witch practices an evil bloodmagic that could doom them all. . . .