I have read tablets and scrolls and books. I have read every word chiselled or written about every queen of this realm since its beginning. My own parchment lies thick on the desk before me—and yet I cannot fulfill the task set me by my Queen. The queens’ deeds have not been equal in wisdom or majesty. I will never hold up my own time as a mirror to bygone eras. Such assertions would be untrue, and, even worse, deception.
Sarhenna was the First, and Galha was the Last: this I now know. Galha was the Last, and this realm has been sunk in the shadow of inconsequence ever since. She was a warrior queen, a ruler of passion and prowess. She was a learned queen, whose reign produced an unprecedented number of scribes and writings, both historical and contemporary. And after her? The ancient bloodline of the queens was broken. There were no more mindpowers, and no more resounding triumphs. The Queensrealm lost its hold on its northern and western borders. There were no more consort-scribes; the throne behind the queens’ now belongs to the princes, who neither record nor instruct. The Scribestower is nearly empty, for there are, in my time, but eight students (and only three of these show any promise). Some in the realm insist that the queen whose reign I have long attempted to document is as wise, in her way, as any of her predecessors. Some say that Luhr’s fountains and trees shine as brightly as they did in Galha’s time. I know this is not so. The children who sail their parchment boats in these fountains know this is not so. How, then, can I complete the book my Queen has demanded of me?
I will think more on this tomorrow. Tonight I will imagine myself a child again, listening to tales in the gentle place before sleep—for stories told in darkness are the only ones that shine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caitlin Sweet’s first fantasy novel, A Telling of Stars, was published by Penguin Canada in 2003. Her second, The Silences of Home, was published in 2005. Between them, they were nominated for Aurora Awards, a Locus Best First Novel Award, long-listed for the Sunburst Award, and ranked in the top five of SFSite’s Best Novels of 2005. The Pattern Scars was published by ChiZine Publications in 2011, and was nominated for an Aurora, a Sunburst, and a CBC Bookie (which it ended up winning).
Caitlin’s first YA book, The Door in the Mountain, was a reimagining of the ancient Greek Minotaur myth. It came out in 2014; its sequel (as-yet unnamed) will be published in the fall of 2015, also by ChiZine, under its ChiTeen imprint.
When not working on her own books (which, sadly, is most of the time), Caitlin is a writer/research analyst with the Ontario Government, and a genre-writing workshop instructor at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies. She lives in Toronto with her family, which includes a husband, two teenagers, four cats, a rabbit, a hamster, and a bunch of fish.
Visit Caitlin at: www.caitlinsweet.com
COPYRIGHT
The Silences of Home © 2005, 2015 by Caitlin Sweet
Cover artwork © 2015 by Melanie Luther
Cover design © 2015 by Vince Haig
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Distributed worldwide by
HarperCollins Canada Ltd.
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The Silences of Home
First published by Penguin Canada
The Penguin Group
Penguin Books, a division of Pearson Canada
2005
eISBN: 978-1-77148-321-6
ChiZine Publications
a CZP eBook
Toronto, Canada
www.chizinepub.com
Prepared for publication by Steph Da Ponte
Copyedited and proofread by Michael Matheson
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
Published with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.
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