A Tapestry of Spells
Lynn Kurland
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Teaser chapter
“Kurland out-writes romance fiction’s top authors by a mile.”
—Publishers Weekly
Praise for the novels of the Nine Kingdoms
Princess of the Sword
“Beautifully written, with an intricately detailed society born of Ms. Kurland’s remarkable imagination, this is an extraordinary tale for fantasy readers as well as those who just want to read a good love story.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“An excellent finish to a great romantic quest fantasy ... Readers will relish Ms. Kurland’s superb trilogy.”
—Genre Go RoundReviews
“An intelligent, involving tale full of love and adventure ... If you enjoy vast worlds, quiet love stories, and especially fantasy, I would suggest you give this trilogy a try.”
—All About Romance
The Mage’s Daughter
“Engaging characters—family, friends, and enemies—keep the story hopping along with readers relishing every word and hungering for the next installment. [A] perfect ten.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Lynn Kurland has become one of my favorite fantasy authors; I can hardly wait to see what happens next.”
—Huntress Reviews
“The Mage’s Daughter,like its predecessor, Star of the Morning, is the best work Lynn Kurland has ever done. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”
—Fresh Fiction
“I couldn’t put the book down ... I highly recommend this book, the series, and all of Ms. Kurland’s other works. Brilliant!”
—ParaNormal Romance Reviews
“This is a terrific romantic fantasy. Lynn Kurland provides a fabulous ... tale that sets the stage for an incredible finish.”
—Midwest Book Review
Star ofthe Morning
“Kurland launches a stunning, rich, and poetic new trilogy. The quest is on!”
—Romantic Times
“Terrific ... Lynn Kurland provides fantasy readers with a delightful quest tale starring likable heroes ... A magical beginning to what looks like will be a superb romantic fantasy trilogy”
—Midwest Book Review
“Entertaining fantasy”
—Romance Reviews Today
“An enchanting writer.”
—The Eternal Night
“A superbly crafted, sweetly romantic tale of adventure and magic.”
—Booklist
More praise for the novels of Lynn Kurland
Dreams of Stardust
“Kurland weaves another fabulous read with just the right amounts of laughter, romance, and fantasy”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Kurland crafts some of the most ingenious time-travel romances readers can find. Wonderfully clever and completely enchanting.”
—Romantic Times
“A masterful storyteller ... [A] mesmerizing novel.”
—Romance Junkies
“One of our most beloved time-travel authors and deservedly so. Each new book is cause for celebration!”
—Fresh Fiction
A Garden in the Rain
“Kurland laces her exquisitely romantic, utterly bewitching blend of contemporary romance and time travel with a delectable touch of tart wit, leaving readers savoring every word of this superbly written romance.”
—Booklist
“Kurland ... consistently delivers the kind of stories readers dream about. Don’t miss this one.”
—The Oakland (MI) Press
From This Moment On
“A disarming blend of romance, suspense, and heartwarming humor, this book is romantic comedy at its best.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A deftly plotted delight.”
—Booklist
My Heart Stood Still
“The essence of pure romance. Sweet, poignant, and truly magical, this is a rare treat.”
—Booklist
If I Had You
“Kurland brings history to life ... in this tender medieval romance.”
—Booklist
The More I See You
“Blends history with spellbinding passion and impressive characterization, not to mention a magnificent plot.”
—Rendezvous
Another Chance to Dream
“Kurland creates a special romance.”
—Publishers Weekly
The Very Thought of You
“[A] masterpiece ... This fabulous tale will enchant anyone who reads it.”
—Painted Rock Reviews
This Is All I Ask
“Both powerful and sensitive ... A wonderfully rich and rewarding book.”
—Susan Wiggs
A Dance Through Time
“An irresistibly fast and funny romp across time.”
—Stella Cameron
Titles by Lynn Kurland
STARDUST OF YESTERDAY
A DANCE THROUGH TIME
THIS IS ALL I ASK
THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU
ANOTHER CHANCE TO DREAM
THE MORE I SEE YOU
IF I HAD YOU
MY HEART STOOD STILL
FROM THIS MOMENT ON
A GARDEN IN THE RAIN
DREAMS OF STARDUST
MUCH ADO IN THE MOONLIGHT
WHEN I FALL IN LOVE
WITH EVERY BREATH
TILL THERE WAS YOU
The Novels of the Nine Kingdoms
STAR OF THE MORNING
THE MAGE’S DAUGHTER
PRINCESS OF THE SWORD
A TAPESTRY OF SPELLS
Anthologies
THE CHRISTMAS CAT
(with Julie Beard, Barbara Bretton, and Jo Beverley)
CHRISTMAS SPIRITS
(with Casey Claybourne, Elizabeth Bevarly, and Jenny Lykins)
VEILS OF TIME
(with MaggieSbayne, Angie Ray, and Ingrid Weaver)
OPPOSITES ATTRACT
(with Elizabeth Bevarly, Emily Carmichael,and Elda Minger)
LOVE CAME JUST IN TIME
A KNIGHT’S VOW
(with PatriciaPotter, DeborahSimmons),and Glynnis Campbell)
TAPESTRY
(with MadelineHunter) Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Karen MarieMoning)
TO WEAVE A WEB OF MAGIC
(with PatriciaA. McKillip,Sharon Shinn, and Claire Delacroix)
THE OUEEN IN WINTER
(with Sharon Sbinn, Claire Delacroix, and SarahMonette)
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2010 by Lynn Curland.
Excerpt from Star of the Morning by Lynn Kurland.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / January 2010
Library of Congess Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kurland, Lynn.
A tapestry of spells / Lynn Kurland.—Berkley Sensation trade pbk ed.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-19551-2
1. Magic—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.U645T37 2010
813’.54-dc22 2009038221
http://us.penguingroup.com
Prologue
The evil leapt up like a geyser,cascaded down, and washed the boy away with it.
It wasn’t unexpected, that eruption from the well, but it was terrifying in its quickness and horrifying in its ferocity. The lad wouldhave stopped that spewing, or mitigated its effects,or reached out but a moment sooner to take his younger sister‘shand if he could have managed it, but events happened too guickiy for him to do aught but struggle frantically to find his footing on top of that wave so he wasn’t pulled beneath it and drowned.
Yet even with all his efforts,he was dent tumbling over and over again through the forest until,bruised and battered, he came to rest against a mighty oak.
Time padded withouthis having any sense of it until he came to himself and realized he was alive. He pushed himself up to his knees but couldrise no farther. After many moments of simply trying to gain his bearings he managed to turn and crawl painfully back through the trees, back the way he’d come. He knelt at the edge of a particular glade and looked at what another might have considered to be the remains of a great battle.
He knew better.
It had been a slaughter,a hopeless,unforgiving slaughter.He sought frantically for signs of life, but saw none. No doubt the force of the eruption had been enough to wash away all the others—save his mother who was still there, lying motionless by the well. He watched her for several minutes, hoping beyond hope that. . .
He looked away quickly. Obviously, he was the only one left alive. He pulled himself up by means of an obliging tree, then staggered from trunk to trunk, forcing himself to scour the surrounding area for any sign that he had judged amiss.But nay, there was none moving save him. He realized suddenly, with a certainty that left him cold, that he wouldjoin the slain if he didn’t flee.
The evil was still there, alive and seeking.
The thought of leaving hiskin behind was a hot dagger thrust without mercy into his chest, sopainfui that he could hardly bear it, but he knew he woulddie if he didn’t run, so run he would have to. He had failed that day to stop the destruction, but if he could stay alive long enough to regroup to fight another day, to avenge his mother, and his brothers, and his wee sister. . .
He turned and staggered away. He managed to keep his feet for perhaps half a league before the effort became too much.He fell to his hands and knees in dirt that would have been tolerable before but was now full of the marshy, putrid leavings of what had recently washed over it. He ignored the foulness.He had to get away and there was no other direction but forward.
Time continued to stretch, from minutes to hours to days. He continued to creep along, stopping to restonly when he couldn’t manage another step.The ground eventually became rugged paths through mountains,then well-worn tracks over in hospitable plains, and then unpleasant slogs through muddy farmland.
It wasthen that he began to notice the magic.
At first he saw it only out of the corner of his eye. He turned aside several times to reach for it, only to have it disappear. He began to suspectit was, nothing more than a cruel trick played on his weary mind until one particuLar moment on that interminable journey through his dreams.He saw a piece of magic lying on the ground in the shape of a page from a book. He stumbled over to it, then reached out to touch it.
The spell reached up, took hold of him, and pulled him down into itself . . .
Ruith of nowhere in particular found himself on his feet in front of his own hearth without knowing quite how he’d gotten there. He was breathing harshly, as if he’d run for leagues without pause. He’d done that regularly over the course of his thirty winters, so he felt fairly safe in comparing the two. He leaned over and put his hands on the long table there, sucking in desperately needed breaths until he thought he could manage a few normal ones without feeling as if he were drowning.
He didn’t dream often. In fact, he had spent more of his youth than he should have not sleeping in an effort to avoid dreaming. In time, he had learned to simply sleep dreamlessly.
It had taken years, but he had also eventually learned not to remember how he’d managed to crawl up the rugged path to what had turned out to be an empty house, bury his magic deep inside himself with a single, powerful spell, then surrender to the weariness he had no longer been able to fight. He rarely thought about how he’d woken later in front of a stone-cold hearth only to find wood chopped and ready for his use, food preserved and set aside to keep him from starving that first winter, and a library large enough to engage his ten-year-old’s curiosity.
Eventually, he had settled quite comfortably into an existence that was physically and mentally demanding in a strictly pedestrian sort of way. If he could sense the spells that surrounded his house and protected him, or if he sometimes amused himself by thinking on ways they could have been fashioned differently, or if he now and again found himself tempted to add something extra to the local alemaster’s latest offering, well, those were things that other men thought on without incident.
Surely.
He hadn’t used a single word of magic in a score of years, not since that last spell he’d woven, a dwarvish spell of concealment. He was, for all intents and purposes, just a man—or, rather, a man pretending to be a mage whom the nearby villagers feared too greatly to approach. He sometimes wondered what he would have done had one of them dared beg for a decent piece of magic to be wrought on their behalf, but that never required much thought.
He wouldn’t have used magic if his life had depended on it.
He straightened, took another deep, cleansing breath, then turned and walked back into his bedchamber. He pulled on boots and a heavy tunic, then walked back to his front door. He snatched up a brace of hunting knives and strapped them to his back. He might have been out merely for a run, but he was also not fool enough to leave the safety of his house without some sort of weapon to hand.
He buckled the belt for his sheathed knives and winced at the pain in his hand. He looked down at that hand and frowned. There was nothing to be seen, of course, but he felt the remains of his dream wrapped around his arm, from his wrist up past his elbow. He clenched and unclenched his fist, then purposely ignored the discomfort
. Overindulgence in Master Franciscus’s finest pale ale, no doubt. Spending the better part of the morning running would be penance enough, perhaps.
It was odd, though. He hadn’t had dreams of that sort in at least a decade. He’d all but forgotten that he’d ever had them.
He pulled his door shut behind him, then loped off down the path. Dawn was still an hour off, but the darkness didn’t deter him. He had run through the woods surrounding his mountain for so long, he likely could have run them with his eyes closed—
Which at the moment might not have been such a wise thing to do. He was almost on top of a man strolling through the woods before he realized it. He supposed ’twas a fortunate thing he was as light-footed as he was, or he might have had a battle on his hands he didn’t particularly want to fight. He drew back and waited until the man continued on past him, walking without haste, apparently oblivious to what was in the woods around him. Ruith watched him go, then shook his head. The fool would likely end up in a ditch somewhere, dead and missing not only his very fine cloak but his boots as well.
He consigned the almost-encounter to the list of rather odd things that had happened to him in the past several hours, then decided that perhaps he should make a vow to swear off more than a single glass of ale at a sitting. Perhaps Master Franciscus’s brew was more potent than he’d led himself to believe all these years.
He considered the direction the man was taking, then frowned. He had no stomach for conversation and now south was apparently denied him. He muttered a curse, then put his head down and took a direction he hadn’t intended to take.
