Seasons of Sorcery

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Seasons of Sorcery Page 39

by Jeffe Kennedy


  Now Kral gaped along with me. “She became a warrior of Danu?” I asked, trying to imagine it.

  Kaedrin smiled, enjoying our bemusement. “Indeed. She was a dancer—I don’t know if you knew that—and many dances have their roots in martial forms. Kaja taught her to use knives instead of jewels within the forms she knew and I helped fill in the holes.”

  At last I could move. “Kaedrin,” I said, and her eyes widened at the urgency in my tone, “is she still in Ehas?”

  She looked rueful, shaking her head. “No. She only stayed a short time. She was running from something, which I suspect you know, so she changed her appearance and her name.”

  Disappointment, a sodden and familiar weight, returned to fill the spaces lightened by hope. “No wonder I could never find her,” I commented.

  Kral’s hand fell heavy on my shoulder, and he looked at me with shared feeling. “It was too much to hope,” he said, “that we might recover her after so long.”

  Kaedrin watched us, a canniness in her gaze. “I know where she went,” she offered.

  Slowly, afraid of shattering the fragile possibility, we both turned to look at the priestess, cautious, Kral’s hand still on my shoulder. Neither of us seemed able to ask the most important question.

  “At least, I sent her news of Kaja’s passing, and I have reason to believe she received it,” Kaedrin added that last enigmatically. “Do you swear before Danu that you mean her no harm?”

  I went down on one knee without a thought. To my surprise, Kral joined me in the same movement. In one voice, we swore it together.

  Kaedrin smiled with a soft radiance unusual for a follower of the sharp-eyed goddess. “I think Kaja would be pleased. She always promised to continue her service as Danu’s handmaiden, to help us along as she saw fit. I shall give you the information, Harlan, as a wedding gift. And her new name: Ivariel.”

  Ivariel. I took it in, a name I could use like a balm to heal those old wounds, so recently purged.

  Kaedrin’s eyes lifted to the chapel entrance. “Time to begin,” she said.

  I rose to my feet and turned, absorbing the final stunning blow of the day—this one a punch of glory. Ursula stood framed in the chapel doorway, a vision of bright light and surpassing loveliness.

  She wore a gown I’d never seen—a spectacular work of art, made entirely of finely worked metal feathers, all in shades of bronze, copper, and gold. The high collar rose to frame her long throat, a ruff of the metallic feathers radiating out from a deep bloodred at their base that matched her hair and picked up the gleam of Salena’s rubies in her necklace and at her ears. From there the gown flowed in gleaming layers, sweeping down into a long, trailing skirt. Zynda, also dressed in a coppery gown, finished arranging Ursula’s train and, giving her a kiss and whispering something that made her cousin smile, slipped aside for me.

  I moved forward to this stunning woman who’d somehow become mine. She wore her crown and a regal smile, though a hint of uncertainty ghosted in her gray eyes.

  “No sword?” I asked.

  She smiled a little. “I thought I owed you that. I can come to you without weapons and trust that I’ll always be safe. Tonight I’m a woman first. With you, always the woman first.”

  Always she knew how to outmaneuver me, taking my breath away with a few words. “I haven’t seen this gown before,” I commented.

  “No, you haven’t, because I hid it away,” she replied, almost shyly. “Just in case.”

  “You’ve always been an excellent strategist,” I conceded.

  “Do you like it?” She asked, hesitant with the question.

  “You are more beautiful in this moment than I have ever seen you,” I told her gravely. “Ursula, my Essla, will you marry me and be my wife?”

  The uncertainty fled, and she smiled in truth, all woman and not the queen. “Yes. Yes, I will, if you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I told her and offered her my arm.

  She didn’t take it right away. “I know I pushed you into this.”

  I laughed, took her hand and placed it firmly on my forearm. “Oh, my little hawk, you should know by now that you can’t push me into doing anything I don’t want to do.”

  With a wry smile, she huffed out a laugh. “I do know that.” She narrowed her eyes. “No wedding bracelets, though, Dasnarian.”

  “No one could chain you, my Hawk.”

  Her answering smile faded as she studied me. “Why do you look so strange? Something has upset you.”

  She saw through me so well. “Kaedrin knows where my sister is. Her name is Ivariel now.”

  Ursula’s eyes widened in shock. “I sense Danu’s hand in this,” she murmured.

  “I believe that may be so.”

  “We’ll look for her,” Ursula said. “Whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, love.” I turned her to face Danu’s altar and we walked toward it, side by side, partners in this, as in all things.

  Kneeling before Danu, we bowed our heads to Her clear-eyed justice and wisdom, listening as Her priestess bound us together in law and spirit as we’d long been in our hearts.

  Though we had the shortest of nights to celebrate together, I fully intended to savor every sweet moment of it.

  Titles by Jeffe Kennedy

  OTHER FANTASY ROMANCES

  A COVENANT OF THORNS

  Rogue’s Pawn

  Rogue’s Possession

  Rogue’s Paradise

  THE TWELVE KINGDOMS

  Negotiation

  The Mark of the Tala

  The Tears of the Rose

  The Talon of the Hawk

  Heart’s Blood

  For Crown and Kingdom

  THE UNCHARTED REALMS

  The Pages of the Mind

  The Edge of the Blade

  The Snows of Windroven

  The Shift of the Tide

  The Arrows of the Heart

  The Dragons of Summer

  THE CHRONICLES OF DASNARIA

  Prisoner of the Crown

  Exile of the Seas

  Warrior of the World

  SORCEROUS MOONS

  Lonen’s War

  Oria’s Gambit

  The Tides of Bára

  The Forests of Dru

  THE FORGOTTEN EMPIRES

  The Orchid Throne

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

  Shooting Star

  MISSED CONNECTIONS

  Last Dance

  With a Prince

  Since Last Christmas

  CONTEMPORARY EROTIC ROMANCES

  Exact Warm Unholy

  The Devil’s Doorbell

  FACETS OF PASSION

  Sapphire

  Platinum

  Ruby

  Five Golden Rings

  FALLING UNDER

  Going Under

  Under His Touch

  Under Contract

  EROTIC PARANORMAL

  MASTER OF THE OPERA E-SERIAL

  Master of the Opera, Act 1: Passionate Overture

  Master of the Opera, Act 2: Ghost Aria

  Master of the Opera, Act 3: Phantom Serenade

  Master of the Opera, Act 4: Dark Interlude

  Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet

  Master of the Opera, Act 6: Crescendo

  Master of the Opera

  BLOOD CURRENCY

  Blood Currency

  BDSM FAIRYTALE ROMANCE

  Petals and Thorns

  OTHER WORKS

  Birdwoman

  Hopeful Monsters

  Teeth, Long and Sharp

  Thank you for reading!

  About Jeffe Kennedy

  Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) as a Direct
or at Large.

  Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms hit the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world, beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms. Book one in that series, The Pages of the Mind, has also been nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and won RWA’s 2017 RITA® Award. The second book, The Edge of the Blade, released December 27, 2016, and is a PRISM finalist, along with The Pages of the Mind. The next in the series, The Shift of the Tide, came out in August, 2017. A high fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria, taking place in The Twelve Kingdoms world began releasing from Rebel Base books in 2018.

  She also introduced a new fantasy romance series, Sorcerous Moons, which includes Lonen’s War, Oria’s Gambit, The Tides of Bàra, and The Forests of Dru. She’s begun releasing a new contemporary erotic romance series, Missed Connections, which started with Last Dance and continues in With a Prince and Since Last Christmas.

  In 2019, St. Martins Press will release the first book, The Orchid Throne, in a new fantasy romance series, The Forgotten Empires.

  Her other 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; an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera; and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, 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 SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.

  jeffekennedy.com

  facebook.com/Author.Jeffe.Kennedy

  twitter.com/jeffekennedy

  goodreads.com/author/show/1014374.Jeffe_Kennedy

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