Click on image to enlarge.
|
A Lesser Life [Darkover series]
by Patricia Duffy Novak
Category: Fantasy/Science Fiction
Description: When Rentata's foster son Ari came home from his training in the tower for the coronation of her son Brenton as Lord of Aldaran, he brought a surprise guest: Coryn Hastur, Keeper of Hali Tower, the most powerful laranzu in the Domains. Given her history with Coryn, Renata was ambivalent about his presence. But when the attack that Lord Scathfell had been planning erupted during the coronation ceremony, she had reason to be glad for both Coryn's powers and her own.
eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, 1993 Towers of Darkover
eBookwise Release Date: November 2008
 
23 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [32 KB]
Words: 5864
Reading time: 16-23 min.
The road from Thendara to Hali was neither long nor dangerous, but Renata didn't take it. Instead, she waited for her foster son, Ari, at Hell's Blood Pass, where the road from Thendara to Aldaran linked with the Eastern route to Hali.
Renata looked through the rear window of the coach, at the brooding sky over the trail, and prayed that the winter storms would not descend until after she and Ari had reached Aldaran in safety. She knew she should not have stayed so long in the lowlands, but she had not visited her family in years and had been loath to part from them again. But duty had forced an end to her pleasant sojourn. In little more than a tenday Renata's birth son, Brenton, would be invested as Lord of Aldaran, in the ancient ceremony, and she must be there to hand the rule of the realm to him.
She was not reluctant to end her reign; she found her duties as Warden more of a burden than a pleasure, but when she looked to the future she saw only long, empty years. Hers was to become a life of lesser importance, but still she would not be free from the demands of Aldaran. She must finalize the arrangements for Brenton's marriage and await the birth of his sons--carefully monitoring Brenton's wife to ensure that no girl child of his lived to birth. Brenton carried the deadly Rockraven laran, the legacy of his long-dead father; the storm gift, the dreadful laran of lightning and anger, the laran that flared so easily out of control, killing and maiming without discrimination. A laran that was mercifully recessive in males but tragically dominant in females.
She seemed to see for a moment, etched upon the threatening sky, the face of a young girl, lit by lightning flashes. But Renata closed her eyes against the memory, willing back the tears, refusing to relive the old pain. So much death and heartache!
|
)
