Daughter of Blood

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by Helen Lowe


  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 an award-winning novelist, poet, interviewer, and blogger, whose first novel, Thornspell (Knopf), was published to critical praise in 2008.

  Her second, The Heir of Night (The Wall of Night Series, Book One) won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012. The sequel, The Gathering of The Lost, was shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend Award in 2013. Helen has a second-dan black belt in the martial art aikido and represented her university at fencing. She posts regularly on her “. . . on Anything, Really” blog, occasionally on SF Signal, and is also on Twitter: @helenlowe.

  www.helenlowe.info

  www.harpervoyagerbooks.com

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Helen Lowe

  The Wall of Night

  THE HEIR OF NIGHT

  THE GATHERING OF THE LOST

  DAUGHTER OF BLOOD

  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 Don Sipley

  Excerpt from The Heir of Night copyright © 2010 by Helen Lowe.

  DAUGHTER OF BLOOD. Copyright © 2016 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780062198129

  Print Edition ISBN: 9780061734069

  FIRST EDITION

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