Maledicte (Antyre, Band 1) - Softcover

Robins, Lane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034549573X ISBN 13: 9780345495730

Verlag: Del Rey, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

From a dazzling new voice in fantasy comes a mesmerizing tale of treachery, passion, intrigue, betrayal, and an act of pure vengeance that threatens to bring down a kingdom.

Seething with decadent appetites unchecked by law or gods, the court of Antyre is ruled by the last of a dissolute aristocracy. But now to the kingdom comes a handsome, enigmatic nobleman, Maledicte, whose perfect manners, enchanting charisma, and brilliant swordplay entice the most jaded tastes . . . and conceal a hunger beyond reckoning.

For Maledicte is actually a woman named Miranda—a beautiful thief raised in the city’s vicious slums. And she will do anything–even promise her soul to Black-Winged Ani, the most merciless of Antyre’s exiled gods—to reclaim Janus, the lover whose passion still haunts her dreams. As her machinations strike at the heart of Antyre’ s powerful noble houses, Miranda must battle not only her own growing bloodlust, but also her lover’s newly kindled and ruthless ambitions. As Ani’s force grows insatiable and out of control, Miranda has no choice but to wield a weapon that may set her free . . . or forever doom her and everything she holds dear.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lane Robins was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of two scientists, and grew up as the first human member of their menagerie. When it came time for a career, it was a hard choice between veterinarian and writer. It turned out to be far more fun to write about blood than to work with it. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Beloit College, and currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

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Chapter 1

NESTLING

·1·

Maledicte lived and Maledicte died

And only at his birth did anybody cry.

How many people did he kill?

One, two, three . . .

—Children’s skipping song


Baron Vornatti was an old man, hunched in his chair, staring at the wonders of his extensive library with a jaded and bleary eye. A sable pelt poured over his wasted legs. Absently, he ruffled the furs while he flipped pages of the book of pornographic woodcuts on his lap. A hedonist and a sensualist, he was much withered by time and pain; on a cold winter’s night, he fondled old memories as he once did flesh. But all his precious memories, of women’s softly rounded shoulders and mounded breasts, the sweet juncture at their thighs, of young men’s ripe buttocks, greedy mouths, and strong square hands, all these could not distract him as they used to do.

His back flared and spasmed. His glassy eyes flew to the old grandfather clock by the door. “Gilly,” he roared. “Time!”

Grinding his teeth, Vornatti sagged forward in the chair to ease the strain. The book fell to the floor, splayed on opened pages. He wanted a distraction, something beyond the torment of his bones and illusory remembrances of the flesh. Once, he had found engrossment in the bloody game of court intrigue, but even that had palled with his mastery of it.

In the distant recesses of the library, beyond the firelight, beyond the lamps, glass broke with a sound like cracking ice. Slow, crunching footsteps echoed.

A chill serpent of air wound around Vornatti’s ankles, hissing with blown snow.

“My lord?” Gilly said from the doorway. The large silver tray of drug and drink was dwarfed in his hands. His voice put a temporary stop to the footsteps.

“We have an intruder,” Vornatti said, straightening with a wince.

“Who’s there?” Gilly said, as the footsteps resumed their slow progress, now thudding against the bare wooden floor. He squinted against the glare of the built-up fire, set the tray down on the thick carpeting beside Vornatti.

The footsteps gained the carpet and disappeared in the muffling softness. Gilly lifted a book pole, holding it across his chest, the hook facing the shadows.

“Put it down, damn it, Gilly. Put it down, and give me my Elysia. Let the bastard wait.”

Gilly hesitated, but finally set the book pole back against Vornatti’s chair.

He bent, turning his back to the shadows, and cradled Vornatti’s withered arm against his own. He drew the Elysia into the glass syringe in a cloudy swirl that held something of its origin in it, the elixir left in Naga’s serpent-scaled wake. Letting it settle long enough so that the contents stopped their eddying, Gilly pushed the needle into the old man’s ropy veins. Vornatti closed his eyes as Gilly worked the plunger, hissed against the bite of it in his blood.

When Gilly looked up, they were no longer alone in the circle of firelight. The intruder shared it with them. It was only a boy, shivering in his thin shirt, blue at the lips. He had shadowed eyes, made darker by a cropped tumble of black curls that seemed to spread shadow out behind him. A thin scar sliced along the left side of his jaw, and he held his right hand behind his back.

Vornatti’s eyes opened and he smiled as if a bit of his past had come back in salacious detail.

“What young toothsome have we here?” he murmured, lazy on a release of pain and burgeoning euphoria. “Gilly, only look what the gods have brought me.”

“Be silent, old man,” the boy said, drawing his arm from behind him. In his hand was a sword.

And such a sword. It was black-bladed, black-hilted. The pommel was a burnished mirrorstone, and the edges were so sharp as to seem blurred in human sight. The cross-hilt was made of stilled, dark wings with wickedly edged feathers more reminiscent of daggers than of flight. Like some remnant from the god-touched times, the sword radiated presence beyond its workmanship.

“Are you Last?” The boy raised the sword, its glitter matched by the wildness in his eyes.

Vornatti wheezed into laughter, slapping Gilly’s arm, startling him. “Last.”

The boy’s face grew red temper lines around the jaw and nose. The scar flared to whiteness. “Don’t laugh at me.” He pushed the blade forward; Vornatti parried with the book pole, still laughing despite the slice the sword had carved in the wood.

Gilly stepped between Vornatti and the blade, and Vornatti stilled his laughter. “There is more than one noble house in Graston. No, boy, I am not Last. Look here.” He thumped the end of the pole on the carpet. “Gilly, get your big feet out of the way and fetch us all drinks.”

He stabbed at the floor again. “See that, boy?”

The carpet was burgundy and blue, and in the center a fantastical creature writhed in golden embroidery.

“I am Vornatti, Baron Vornatti, since you are not likely to know that. An Itarusine subject, now living in Antyre; Aris’s brother-by- law, and accountant. The winged serpent is my crest; Last’s crest is a twisted hourglass, and his motto is ‘only a Last at the last.’ Smug bastard.”

“Who’s Aris?” the boy said.

“Our king,” Gilly said, carrying the tray to the table.

“Oh. Him.” The boy studied the elaborate embroidery on the carpet, the slippers Vornatti wore, the crest imprinted on the spine of the long-forgotten book.

“Are you listening, boy?”

The boy didn’t answer, but his dark eyes flickered to Vornatti’s face, studying the sagging, spotted flesh, the dark rheumy eyes. He let the sword point lower to threaten the floor. “Where do I find Last?”

“What sends you seeking him, blade in hand? Answer me that, first.”

The boy frowned, but visibly needed the answer too badly to play coy. “Last took Janus from me, and left me for dead. I will return the favor, reclaim Janus and leave Last dead. Though I will be less careless and see his heart stop before I go.”

So much emotion was invested in the reply that it seemed a cantrip or incantation, and as rote as a nightly prayer. It silenced Vornatti, and the only sound was Gilly and the chinking of crystal as he poured the requested drinks.

“I doubt that was Last himself,” Vornatti said. “He so rarely soils his hands, and is far more dedicated to a task once undertaken. If it were Last, make no doubts, you would be dead, boy. But who is Janus to warrant such attention?” Vornatti took the goblet Gilly offered him, sipped at the steaming negus. He gestured to Gilly, and Gilly turned the second goblet, the glass meant for him more usually, toward the boy.

Distrust furrowed the boy’s features, and he finally said, “The earl of Last’s bastard son.”

“Last has no living children,” Vornatti said.

Gilly pressed the cup into the boy’s left hand, spoke to Vornatti. “There were rumors. You remember. Celia Rosamunde, the admiral’s daughter.”

“Oh. Her.” Vornatti mocked the boy’s earlier words. “That weak- willed, wanton wench.” He laughed at his own wordplay, and to Gilly’s surprise, even the boy flickered a bitter smile.

“I thought she died,” Vornatti said.

“She was disowned and abandoned when her condition became evident. I heard she made her way to the Relicts and died there.”

“Not...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Del Rey
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 034549573X
• ISBN 13: 9780345495730
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 464
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar