The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [0]
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Map of The Dominions
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Two
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part Three
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part Four
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Part Five
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part Six
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
About the Author
Also by Mark Anthony
Perilous Destiny
Preview of The First Stone
Copyright Page
For Carl, Carla, Aurora, and Aidan—
With warm memories of our own winter adventure together
in Salt Lake 2002
“Love shall yet defy you.”
1.
It was the dead of winter when he reached Ar-tolor.
Dusk was falling, and gold lights shone from the windows of the castle on the hill above, beckoning with the promise of crackling fires and steaming cups of wine. He could not remember the last time he had been warm—truly warm—and these last few leagues had been the coldest yet. His feet might as well have been lumps of stone, and despite the rags he had wrapped around them, his fingers were raw and bleeding. All he craved was to ride up to the gates and beg hospitality.
Instead, he turned his gelding away from the road and urged the beast toward a grove of trees that clung, feathery as fog, to the slope beneath the castle. That was where he would find her—not in the bright halls of Ar-tolor, but here, where blue shadows gathered.
He brought the horse to a halt at the edge of the trees, climbed from the saddle with clumsy motions, and threw the reins over a branch. The horse snorted, breath ghosting on the air, and dug at the snow with a hoof. It was Geldath now, the Ice Month; the beast would find nothing to eat. He left the gelding and trudged deeper into the grove, boots crunching on newfallen snow.
Branches wove themselves overhead, sharp and black as ink on parchment, making a broken mosaic of the colorless sky—just as the webwork of scars made of his face. Here and there, where branches intersected, he fancied he could make out the familiar shape of a rune. There was Lir. Light. And over there, three twigs that sketched Krond, the rune of fire. He imagined stretching his fingers toward dancing flames. . . .
Those were foolish thoughts; the cold had frozen his mind as it had his hands and feet. However, he knew he had to thaw his wits, for if he did not choose his words with care, they would betray him. Just as he meant to betray her. He muttered Ber, the rune of strength, and kept walking.
It was the silence that warned him. Somewhere off in the grove, a mourning dove had been singing. The music ceased. He turned around, and his heart became a lump of ice in his chest. A figure in a black robe stood next to a tree. The hem of the robe fluttered, though there was not a breath of wind. Only one set of footprints marred the snow: his own.
He shivered, and not simply from the chill. Every instinct told him to flee. Instead he willed his stiff legs to move, bearing him toward the other. He clutched a hard bundle beneath his cloak as he came to a halt an arm's reach away. At her feet lay a dove, its neck twisted. Blood spattered the snow like winter berries.
A voice emanated from within the robe's hood, sharp as breaking sticks. “Why has it taken you so long to come?”
“It is a long journey from the Black Tower.” His lips seemed molded of clay; it was an effort to speak. “I rode with all possible haste.”
“Is that so? Your steed did not seem overly exhausted when I came upon it.”
He peered back the way he had come. Through the trees, he could just make out a large form sprawled