Sword by Amy Bai
Publication date: February 10th 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publication date: February 10th 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Sword shall guide the hands of men . . .
For over a thousand years the kingdom of Lardan has been at peace:
isolated from the world, safe from the wars of its neighbors, slowly
forgetting the wild and deadly magic of its origins. Now the deepest
truths of the past and the darkest predictions for the future survive
only in the verses of nursery rhymes.
For over a thousand years, some of Lardan’s fractious provinces have been biding their time.
Kyali Corwynall is the daughter of the Lord General, a child of one
of the royal Houses, and the court’s only sword-wielding girl. She has
known for all of her sixteen years what the future holds for
her–politics and duty, the management of a House, and protecting her
best friend, the princess and presumed heir to the throne. But one day
an old nursery rhyme begins to come true, an ancient magic wakes, and
the future changes for everyone. In the space of a single night her
entire life unravels into violence and chaos. Now Kyali must find a way
to master the magic her people have left behind, or watch her world–and
her closest friends–fall to a war older than the kingdom itself.
She
saw it coming from the corner of her eye, but only had time to twitch
uselessly sideways. Another arm immediately followed the first one,
muffling her startled cry and stealing her breath.
Too
shocked to be afraid, she bit down. The hand over her face jerked
away. Her elbow drove backwards and her heel went up into a knee. The
awful crack of bone that followed drew a pained groan from behind
her, and brought her panic in a thundering flood. Her attacker
staggered, pulling her with him. The dropped candle sputtered on the
floor beside them, throwing huge shadows everywhere. Spurred on by
the thought that she might have to finish this struggle in the dark,
she shouted. It was a much softer sound than she'd intended, but the
floorboards above them creaked ominously, the arms around her fell
away, and he screamed, as though she had burned him.
Leaving
this mystery for later consideration, Kyali flung herself at the
steps and scrambled up, leaving the back panel of her skirts in his
fist. Her sword clattered on the floor as she snatched at it. He came
hard on her heels and, as she turned, drove himself obligingly onto
it for her. Stunned, she froze again.
Her
blood sang in her ears. By the look on his face—a fair face, some
much colder part of her noted, with the Western short-beard—he was
at least as surprised as she was. He drew a bubbling breath. A dagger
dropped from his hand and hit the floor between them.
They
stared at one another.
He
made an odd face then, and coughed a gout of blood all over her. She
blinked through the drops. She knew she had to move—not
dead till they stop bleeding,
Father would say—but she couldn't. For all her years of study, all
the secrecy and swordplay, she had never killed a man. She supposed,
watching his face in a perversely distant way, that she still hadn't
quite managed it. But he fell forward onto her then, going limp, and
after the instinctive terror of having him land on her subsided the
sight of his glassy gaze, of her old practice sword sticking out of
his ribs, made it clear that she had done it now.
She
watched his face closely while his blood dripped down her cheek. He
didn't move. He seemed not to be bleeding anymore, though with all
the blood on him already how could one tell? She didn’t intend to
get closer to check. She couldn't hear anyone else in the house.
Through the haze of shock, she was grateful the soldiers weren't here
to witness this bizarrely personal moment.
"Well,"
Kyali said, beginning to be pleased at how well she was taking
this—and then threw up on him.
Damn.
Amy
Bai has been, by order of neither chronology nor preference, a barista,
a numbers-cruncher, a paper-pusher, and a farmhand. She
likes thunderstorms, the enthusiasm of dogs, tall boots and long
jackets, cinnamon basil, margaritas, and being surprised by the
weirdness of her fellow humans. She lives in New England with her
guitar-playing Russian husband and two very goofy sheepdogs.
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT)
- A print copy of Sword (which comes with an extra short story and character sketches) and a poster of the cover.
The Grand Prize Giveaway- ends Feb 26th:
GIVEAWAYS
Individual giveaways:
(1) ebook copy of Sword. Open internationally.
Giveaway Ends March 15th
Prize will be sent out after March 17th.
Awesome cover, love the colors too!
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