“They came back for us,” Rosemary said. She directed her gaze toward her glass of pear brandy, but the corners of her lips were turned up. “Huh.”
Jake’s heart soared. They hadn’t abandoned him, or the dark protoss. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised—although he was very happy.
“They did indeed. I was forced to return Ehlna to their control or have my father’s lovely and very expensive ships blown out of the skies.”
“But…all that knowledge…that’s exactly what you’ve been looking for,” Jake said. “Hell, it’s what I’ve been looking for.”
“My father would exploit it, and if he could not, he would destroy it. I’d rather the information be preserved, protected—even if it means I never learn it myself. And I confess, there’s a small box of crystals tucked away in my quarters for perusal at a later date.”
Jake smiled a little and sipped the brandy. It was almost unbearably sweet, the ripe kiss of the pear warm in the sunshine ready to fall from the tree, thick and syrupy and golden. For a moment, he thought about the last time he and Valerian had shared a drink.
I know some have notions that this is a very romantic, exciting profession. But really, it’s a lot of hard work and practical puzzle solving. It’s a wonderful intellectual challenge, certainly, but there’s little romance in it when all is said and done.
“What are you grinning about?” Rosemary said. He smiled down at her.
“I was remembering what I said to Valerian the first time we met. That there was very little romance in archaeology. I was wrong and you were right. This has been…”
He could find no words, nor could he link minds anymore to express in thought what words could not. “I…I’m not just a detached observer anymore. I’m not a preserver, not the way the protoss are, but I’m a storyteller now. A keeper of the lore. I’ve always been the skeptic, the scientist. But you were right, Valerian. It is about the discovery of wonders.”
He looked at Valerian’s face, with its barely concealed curiosity and excitement and eagerness to listen. He looked at Rosemary, even more beautiful now than she was when he’d first seen her, as she looked back at him with a soft smile. Thoughts and images tumbled in his head: Darius, Kendra, Rosemary, Devon Starke; Alzadar and Ladranix and Vartanil; Selendis and Mohandar and Zeratul; and at the beginning and end of it all, a protoss spirit with a wry sense of humor and a great heart named Zamara, trading a peaceful passing for eternal battle. Impulsively, he lifted his glass.
“A toast. To courage, and curiosity, and sacrifice, and…and the stories.” The little glasses clinked and Jake, surprising himself and the other two, downed his in a single gulp. He held out the glass and, grinning, Valerian refilled it.
“Let me tell you about what happened,” Jake said in a voice that shook with deep joy and pride. “Let me tell you…everything.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Golden launched the TSR Ravenloft line in 1991 with her first novel, the highly successful Vampire of the Mists, which introduced elven vampire Jander Sunstar. To the best of her knowledge, she is the creator of the elven vampire archetype in fantasy fiction.
She is the author of several original fantasy novels, including On Fire’s Wings, In Stone’s Clasp, and Under Sea’s Shadow (currently available only as an ebook), the first three in her multibook fantasy series The Final Dance from LUNA Books. In Stone’s Clasp won the Colorado Author’s League Award for Best Genre Novel of 2005, the second of Golden’s novels to win the award.
Among Golden’s other projects are over a dozen Star Trek novels and the first two books in this StarCraft Dark Templar trilogy, Firstborn and Shadow Hunters. An avid player of Blizzard’s MMORPG, World of Warcraft, Golden has written several novels in that world—Lord of the Clans, Rise of the Horde, and most recently, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King—with two more in the works. She has also written two Warcraft manga stories for Tokyopop, “I Got What Yule Need” and “A Warrior Made.”
Golden is currently hard at work on three books in the major nine-book Star Wars series Fate of the Jedi, in collaboration with Aaron Allston and Troy Denning. Her first book in the series, Omen, is due out in July 2009.
Golden lives in Colorado with her husband and two cats. She welcomes visitors to her website, www.christiegolden.com.
Table of Contents
Cover
“Are you not at all even curious as to how my essence ended up inside a terran body?”
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
ABOUT THE AUTHOR