The Talon of the Hawk
The Twelve Kingdoms
Book 3
Jeffe Kennedy
Genre: Fantasy, Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Kensington
Date of Publication: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 13: 978-0-7582-9447-0
ISBN: 10: 0-7582-9447-6
ASIN: B00ONTR57A
Number of pages: 438
Word Count: ~130K
Cover Artist: Design by Kristine Mills,
Illustration by Don Sipley
Book Description:
A HEAVY CROWN
Three daughters were born to High King Uorsin,
in place of the son he wanted. The youngest, lovely and sweet. The middle,
pretty and subtle, with an air of magic. And the eldest, the Heir. A girl
grudgingly honed to leadership, not beauty, to bear the sword and honor of the
king.
Ursula’s
loyalty is as ingrained as her straight warrior’s spine. She protects the peace of the Twelve Kingdoms with sweat and
blood, her sisters from threats far and near. And she protects her father to
prove her worth. But she never imagined her loyalty would become an open
question on palace grounds. That her father would receive her with a foreign
witch at one side and a hireling captain at the other—that soldiers would look on her as a woman, not as a warrior. She also
never expected to decide the destiny of her sisters, of her people, of the
Twelve Kingdoms and the Thirteenth. Not with her father still on the throne and
war in the air. But the choice is before her. And the Heir must lead…
Excerpt:
The
bright pennants of Ordnung, High King Uorsin’s rampant bear topping them all, snapped in the cool breezes from the
high mountain peaks. Those pristine white towers, the banners of the Twelve
Kingdoms gathered under one, all symbolized my father and King’s greatest triumph. One I believed in with all my
being.
Or had once believed in.
From the ravages of internecine wars
and crippling enmities, Uorsin had united the kingdoms, bringing them together
in lasting peace, capped by the shining castle he built on the ruins of the
past. Always, no matter in what condition I returned home, I’d felt a surge of elation at the sight, pride in my
legacy and sacred duty.
Not this sick dread.
As we rode closer, the formidable
grandeur of Ordnung only mocked me for my many failures of the past months.
Soon I would stand before my King, and I had no idea how I would explain myself
and my actions. Or what price he would exact.
“Nervous?” Dafne, riding on her gentle
palfrey, studied me with serious eyes. A scholarly woman with a quiet manner,
she asked with complete sincerity what might sound like a taunt from another.
“Being nervous would imply that I’m
uncertain about the confrontation to come,” I told her. “I am…readying myself for King Uorsin’s sure
disappointment.” And his rage. Never forget
the bear’s towering fury. As if I
could.
“You don’t need me to tell you, but you
did the right thing, Your Highness. I wasn’t sure which you would choose—love or duty.”
“Think you I could have ripped a newborn from my baby sister’s arms, with her barely recovered from thinking her
daughter dead, hard upon the heels of her husband’s murder?”
Dafne considered the question with
due gravity. Which made her interesting. No court sycophant she, with ready
answers to most please the people who governed her fate.
“Before I answer, I’d like to make clear that I
don’t agree with the word ‘murder.’ You did not kill Prince Hugh
in cold blood, but rather in the heat of battle. More self-defense than
anything.”
Remembering the sickening feel of my
sword cutting through Hugh’s neck, realizing I’d killed my sister’s husband, I knew better. All of it had happened so fast—Hugh lunging to kill Rayfe, my other sister Andi
thrusting herself between them. I’d acted without thought,
though hardly without consequence.
“Self-defense means defending one’s own
self. I was in no danger. He was my ally and did not deserve to die by my
blade. Nor for me to compound my guilt by fobbing off responsibility for it
onto Andi and the Tala.”
“Queen Andromeda was right to insist on taking the blame. If Princess
Amelia hadn’t taken it as a reason to
incite Avonlidgh to civil war, Old King Erich would have.”
“Which is happening anyway. Warring over an infant heir.” The disgust and frustration that had ridden me these
past months leaked into my tone. Speaking to Dafne, though, and surrounded by
my loyal Hawks, I could say what I normally would not. Ami and Hugh’s son belonged neither to Uorsin nor to Old Erich,
though you wouldn’t know it from the way the two
kings behaved, both claiming him as heir. If I hadn’t killed Hugh, we wouldn’t be in this particular
battle. One the Twelve, already plagued with problems, could ill afford.
“That’s on Erich, not you. As for
the question of murder, I’d put forth that defending
your sister is the same for you as defending yourself. Both of your sisters are
part of you on a profound level. In a way that even Queen Andromeda and
Princess Amelia don’t fully appreciate.”
A legal scholar’s mind, there. Always useful in a companion for someone in my position. “And the answer to my question?”
“Yes,” Dafne decided. “I think you would and could do anything. You’re certainly capable. If you believed it to be the
right thing to do.”
“Obeying the High King is the right thing to do,” I replied, knowing full well I hadn’t done so. The grind of guilt and failure made my bones ache. “Semantic arguments aside, the High King commanded that
I bring Amelia’s son to Ordnung. I could have
and did not.”
“Some truths exceed the law of man.”
“But not the law of the King.”
“The King is but a man.”
“Don’t let High King Uorsin hear
you say that, librarian. You won’t long keep your place—or your head—speaking
that way.”
“Would you report me?” She cocked her head, brown
eyes sparkling with curiosity. No trepidation there—only apparent genuine interest. As if she had already gathered her
information and predicted my actions. The answer I gave her would simply
confirm or deny her theories.
“Have you no fear at all, Lady Mailloux?” I asked, instead of feeding her the insights she sought. Let her
continue to speculate.
She transferred her gaze to the
castle, imposing on its rise, framed by the snowcapped mountains. The corners
of her soft mouth tightened. “It’s always strange to me to see it as it is,” she commented. “In my mind’s eye, I still see Castle Columba, though it’s been gone nigh on thirty years. I don’t know if it’s fear
or something else that digs at me now.”
“And yet, you return, for a second time.”
“It seems to be my fate.” She gave me a wry smile.
Amelia was right that Lady Dafne Mailloux often failed to observe courtesy. Not
that it bothered me. So did my Hawks and the other soldiers I regularly
trained, traveled, and fought with. Something about focusing on a greater
purpose relegated the bowing and scraping to the negligible category. “Besides, I owe you. When we thought Stella dead, you
wanted to spare Princess Amelia the pain of it, to let her rejoice in having
Astar happy and healthy. I expected you to be angry with me for forcing the
truth into the open.”
She would be the one to lay it out
there, when others would avoid the subject. Those had been dark hours, Ami near
death from birthing the twins, then finding the girl, Stella, dead in her
cradle. At least the boy, Astar, had stayed strong.
“I was wrong to conceal it from her.” I shrugged, using the motion to loosen my shoulders. Not that it
worked. “Not only because she had the
wit to see through the trick that I did not.”
“I saw Stella’s dead body, too,” she reminded me. “That black magic fooled us both.”
Enough that we’d even buried her, giving someone enough time to abduct little Stella.
Everything in me champed at the bit to be searching for my niece, to be helping
Amelia instead of riding into Ordnung. Infinitely preferable to facing the High
King with the news I brought. Nevertheless—and though it had nearly killed me—I’d followed my duty and returned home. Though we’d traveled fast, a messenger could have caught up with
us. I kept expecting one, saying they’d
recovered the babe. With each passing hour that the news failed to arrive, my
dread and uneasiness that I’d made the wrong decision
grew. Lately what had once been black and white had shaded into disturbing
grays.
“I disobeyed a direct command,” Dafne persisted. “You would have been within rights to kill or dismiss
me for it. So I owe you.”
“I should have given her credit
for needing to know the truth, for being strong enough to stand up to the pain.
You owe me nothing.”
“Nevertheless, I have an idea of what you’ll have to deal with at Ordnung, and I couldn’t live with myself if I let you face it alone. Returning with you was
the least I could do.”
She meant that well, in all
earnestness, so I didn’t comment. Didn’t say that no one and nothing could spare me my father’s wrath. I’d learned that lesson early.
We’d passed through the outlying farms and rode through the extensive
township that surrounded Ordnung. People moved about busily, with the many
chores of summer at hand. They acknowledged our passing with respectful bows
and salutes—and something else. A sense of
wariness that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
We did not travel with fanfare. Out
of long familiarity with my comings and goings, the people did not dote as they
might have on the rest of the royal family, so I did not expect effusive
greetings. I preferred it this way—in part because it relieved me
to dispense with the pomp and formalities when not necessary, but also because
it gave me opportunity to take the measure of the people of Mohraya, the small
kingdom that housed Ordnung.
Uorsin
saw to his own first, so the Mohrayans generally fared better than the other
eleven kingdoms, regardless of the swings in harvest yields and other variable
producers of wealth. No matter how severe the troubles in other parts of the
Twelve Kingdoms—some I’d seen too much of lately, sorrows that weighed on me—I could usually count on at least Mohraya to be doing
well.
Not so, it appeared. One more problem
added to the precarious pile that threatened to topple over onto us all.
No, things were not right here. The
town burst at the seams, crowded with people. Overly so, despite the increased
activity of the warm season. The farmers and livestock growers ought to be out
on their land, tending to those concerns.
Perhaps I’d lost my count of days and they’d come
into town for market or a fair. But I didn’t think so.
For a start, many of the people
gathering in the squares were neither buying nor selling. I’d never expect to recognize all the faces, but the
citizenry teemed with unfamiliar looks. More men than usual. Tall ones, light
haired, with broad, exotic features.
I
called over my lieutenant. “Marskal.” I kept my tone easy, conversational, so he wouldn’t go on alert. “What am I seeing here?”
“Seems the population has grown during our travels, Captain,” he replied blandly. He’d been taking note, too, then. Part of why I relied on him.
“What do you put it down to?”
“We’ve long heard of the increasing
conscription rates.”
“Those are foreigners, not raw recruits and new conscripts.”
“True,” he agreed.
“I’ve read the people of Dasnaria
across the Onyx Ocean described as such,” Dafne,
still riding on my other side, observed. “Tall,
fair-haired, strongly built.”
“Is that so,” I replied. Both of them,
knowing I did not ask a question, remained silent. I misliked it, foreboding
crawling up my already aching spine. They could be here only with Uorsin’s knowledge, which made no sense to me. But then, so
much of his behavior had become erratic. Ever since Andi rode home with the
Tala on her tail. Absolute loyalty to my King and father meant I should not
question him. As his heir, it fell to me to give him my unqualified faith and
support.
I hated feeling that erode, even in
the quiet depths of my heart, where I harbored doubts I spoke of to no one.
That I could hardly bear to examine myself.
The nearer we drew to the castle
walls, the more of these exotic men we spied. All hardened warriors to my eye,
all heavily armed. Uorsin had dropped hints about having other resources beyond
the somewhat questionable loyalty of the Twelve. Ordnung’s guards manned the outposts and the usual positions on the walls—and then some. I counted surreptitiously, lazily
turning my face to the sun. More than twice the standard posting. Looked like
he’d dug into those other resources after all.
The conflict with the Tala and the
overall unrest in the Twelve had made the High King wary. Understandable. But
these changes edged past that into paranoia. Along with an expense we could not
afford. More fears I’d never give voice to.
“Jepp reported no alert, correct?” I asked
Marskal. I knew our scout hadn’t, but it never hurt to
confirm.
Jepp, at Marskal’s head tilt, jogged her agile mountain pony closer. “Captain.” She nodded at me. “I checked only at the guard gates, and they gave the
all clear. No mention of… this.”
“Pass the word to be on alert, then.”
Jepp saluted and fell back. Not that
I needed to tell my Hawks that something was awry in Ordnung. They knew it as
well as or better than I did. As much as we could not be less than on alert,
telling them so meant that they pulled in closer, taking long-rehearsed
positions. Dafne remained placid, a pleased smile on her lips, though she had
to be aware of her vulnerability.
“You might have done better to stay at Windroven, after all,” I commented to her.
“I’ll stick with you, if that’s all right. Right with you. I’ll keep up.”
Before we undertook this journey, I
had doubted that. Now I felt certain she could keep up with the best of my
Hawks. Unless we fled flat out, and it was frankly too late for that. Even if I
hadn’t been honor bound to return
to Ordnung to face the King with the bad news, my instincts warned we’d have to fight our way free—impossible odds, not to mention a traitorous act.
On that thought, guards stepped up
to bar our passage into Ordnung. More of the foreigners, their helms making
them look even taller.
“Who approaches Ordnung?” one demanded in our Common Tongue,
though his accent twisted the words.
I stared him down, showing my great
displeasure at being questioned, transforming the deep unease into righteous
fury. “Who dares raise a blade to a
Princess of the Realm, Heir to the High Throne of the Twelve Kingdoms?”
Jepp and Marksal drew up closer,
their battle readiness almost an audible buzz in my ears. For a moment, it
seemed it might come to that, the foreign guard undaunted, scrutinizing me for
some sign that I was who I claimed to be. I flexed my hand on the hilt of my
sword, edging Dafne more behind me.
A series of shouts in another
language relayed from the walls and my challenger cocked his head, nodded, and
stepped aside. “Welcome home, Your Highness.” He bowed but did not apologize. I ignored him and
rode forward, not feeling welcome at all.
We passed through the outer gates,
the shadow of the walls passing chill over me.
I'm super excited to feature Jeffe Kennedy on my blog today as one of the feature authors at the Reading Until Dawn Convention happening in October 2015. RUDC will take place in Denver, CO from October 8 -11. I was lucky enough to get to hang out with Jeffe earlier this year and can say she is every bit as awesome as her books. Registration for RUDC is still open and promises to be a super fun time hanging out with authors and readers.
About
the Author:
Jeffe
Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include non-fiction, poetry,
short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received
the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson
Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications,
including Redbook.
Her
most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance
novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of
Passion, and an erotic contemporary
serial novel, Master of the Opera. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The
Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and book 1, The Mark of
the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and has been nominated for
the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose, has been
nominated for best fantasy romance of the year. A fifth series, the highly
anticipated erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, released starting with Going
Under, followed by Under His Touch and Under Contract.
She
lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range
lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe
can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the
popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter
@jeffekennedy. She is represented by Connor Goldsmith of Fuse Literary.
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