Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [200]
Denlin said, “And I can kiss good-bye to putting my feet up and growing old disgracefully.”
“Denlin, Randur—I owe you great rewards. Please, will you stay with me?”
“I’m going where the lad goes,” Denlin replied.
Randur turned to Eir. “I go where this one goes.”
Eir shrugged. “Well, I don’t fancy being constantly hunted down and then slaughtered. So I guess we’re all in this.”
Her sister leaned back with a sigh.
Doesn’t anyone just want a quiet life? Randur thought.
“Thank you,” Eir whispered, words meant for his ears only. Her glistening eyes fought back tears of exhaustion.
Given all the problems of this world, Eir offered him so much comfort, and that was maybe enough, wasn’t it, just to find someone to love, and to get through life with that person alongside you, because there were no certainties in this world except maybe uncertainty itself.
As the boat was dragged by the breeze, he could see the orange glow of light in the windows of a handful of houses along the shore, warm and inviting but distant and untouchable, and it was as if they weren’t just sailing away from Villjamur but from all the comforts and luxuries they had been used to, from their own lives as they had been lived.
From the world as they knew it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARK CHARAN NEWTON was born in 1981 and holds a degree in Environmental Science. After working in bookselling, he moved into editorial positions at imprints covering film and media tie-in fiction, and later, original science fiction and fantasy. NIGHTS OF VILLJAMUR is his first novel, but he is just wrapping up the sequel. For more information visit his website markcnewton.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/MarkCN. He currently lives and works in Nottingham, UK.
Nights of Villjamur is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Mark Charan Newton
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Spectra, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in the United Kingdom by Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd, in 2009.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Newton, Mark Charan.
Nights of Villjamur / Mark Charan Newton.
p. cm.—(Legends of the red sun ; bk. 1)
eISBN: 978-0-345-52086-9
1. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6114.E975N54 2010
823′.92—dc22 2010009845
www.ballantinebooks.com
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