Once a month, we’re spotlighting a Tor book that will soon become available in paperback. Today, we’re featuring Fortune’s Blight by Evie Manieri, to be released October 6.
Fortune’s Blight, the second in Manieri’s Shattered Kingdoms novels, continues the conflict begun in Blood’s Pride. King Daryan struggles not only to maintain peace for the Shadari people, but bring to a halt an unknown murderer killing anyone with magical powers. The foundations of Shadari and Norland begin to crack, all while a mysterious figure watches from Rivindal Castle, knowing that her years of patience will soon be rewarded. Please enjoy this excerpt.
Chapter One
Lahlil sat on the carpet beside her nephew’s cradle, waiting and willing something to happen. The light filtering in through the sailcloth tent had faded down to nothing and the hush of twilight had replaced the noises of the Nomas camp outside, but she hadn’t yet lit the lamp. Oshi looked up at the ceiling of the tent with his round silver-blue eyes shining faintly in the darkness, indifferent to her presence. She reached into the driftwood cradle to adjust a fold of his swaddling and accidentally set the finely balanced vessel rocking. The clinking noise of the little suns and moons dangling over it drifted through the tent. A dozen versions of herself winked back at her from the twisting medallions, illuminated by the pale gray glow of her skin: the smooth oval eye-patch, the nicks and tiny scars, the jagged line pulling up her lips at one corner.
At least the sleeve of her Nomas sailor’s blouse hid the scaly pink scars that ran over her left forearm—scars nearly as old as she was herself.
Let all so afflicted be numbered among the damned.