Hero Risen
The third novel in the epic Seeds of Destiny seriesAfter being pulled from the fighting pits where the Emperor’s spymaster Loku sent him to die, Brann emerged a different man. He might have survived, but he became a killer in doing so.Now more determined than ever to stop the spymaster, Brann and his companions travel to the lands of the North where Loku’s depraved cult is spreading. But the truths they uncover there will force them to reconsider everything they thought themselves to be fighting against.Brann and his friends face enemies more powerful than they could have ever imagined. But it is only in great danger that true heroes can rise.
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Hero Risen
ANDY LIVINGSTONE
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017
Copyright © Andrew Livingstone 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017.
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Andrew Livingstone asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008106034
Version: 2017-10-23
For Valerie
Table of Contents
He paused before the door, running his fingertips slowly down the wood smoothed as much by years as by the plane, letting them fall into the curving groove of the traditional mark of luck in its centre. He was prolonging the moment.
The sounds of early evening were all around him, stark in the deserted village, but he heard none. The smells of dusk drifted over him, but he noticed none. Still he stayed his hand from pushing the door.
It was a strange mix of feelings that coursed through him on the final night of a story:
Nerves â that he might not do justice to those whose tale he told.
Pleasure â that the crowd waited on his words: the result of his efforts the previous two nights.
Sadness â that tonight this telling would come to an end.
And eagerness â a quickening of heart and breath. He would be drawn into the telling, the exhilaration confining his awareness within each moment and shortening time.
It was always so.
It was, these days, what he lived for. Keeping the past alive. Ensuring the deeds he had witnessed did not drift and fade with the shifting winds of memory. Helping the lessons of before to be learnt afresh, the mistakes understood, the heroics and sacrifices appreciated.
He pushed on the door, letting the remaining light spill within and hush the murmur of the throng. He moved inside, his adjusting eyes revealing rings of faces turned his way. Close by, one caught his eye. A boy who had decried the stories outside the hall on the first night; the challenging cynicism in his voice now replaced by eager anticipation in his eyes.
He stepped forward.
He was a storyteller. And he had a story to tell.
She sat beside him each afternoon now. Two high-backed chairs were paired on the balcony, fine sand gathering around their short legs of finely carved wood.
It was curious how change eased its way into your life before awareness caught up. He could not remember when her companionship had become routine; he could only recall the day when, with her called on other business, it had seemed strange that she was not there.
The other servants made no comment. They would not dare, of course, in his presence but he knew from his sources that her companionship provided no domestic scuttlebutt in the corridors. Why would it? Nobles, in particular, royals, had a habit of demanding services far more intimate from servants. Gossip is not born in the commonplace.
Her whisper drifted in the baking air. âYou hate this.â
âThe heat?â He snorted. âIt is the only weather I know.â
âNot the heat, as you know quite well.â It was uncanny how a hoarse monotone could yet convey chastisement. âThe waiting.â
He rested his head against the chair and raised his eyes to the deepness of the sky. The same sky that sat above all countries, above all people, and some more specific than others. âYou think you can read my mind, crone, but you are wrong. Not the waiting. Waiting lies within the course of every strategy.â He frowned at the sky. âI hate the not knowing.â
She gave a soft grunt. âAnd the not controlling.â
âI would that I could control you and your prattling tongue.â
It was even more irritating when she did not reply. He let the silence draw out, as if it had not irked him.
âAnd you miss him.â
He cursed inwardly, as much at the involuntary start her words had given him as at the suspicion that she could read his mind after all. He turned slowly and looked at her for a long moment. Her gaze never wavered from the horizon but the slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth hinted that she was aware of his stare.
