Spellbreaker: Book 3 of the Spellwright Trilogy
The long awaited sequel to SPELLBOUND, which was listed by Kirkus Reviews among the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2011.'Blake Charlton has created one of the few truly original magical systems we've seen in fantasy fiction’ Tad Williams‘An absorbing read' Robin HobbLeandra Weal has a bad habit of getting herself in dangerous situations.While hunting neodemons in her role as Warden of Ixos, Leandra obtains a prophetic spell that provides a glimpse one day into her future. She discovers that she is doomed to murder someone she loves, soon, but not who.Leandra’s quest to unravel the mystery of the murder-she-will-commit becomes more urgent when her chronic disease flares up and the Ixonian Archipelago is plagued by natural disasters, demon worshiping cults, and fierce political infighting. Everywhere she turns, Leandra finds herself amid conflict.As chaos spreads across Ixos, Leandra and her troubled family – her misspelling wizard father Nicodemus Weal and dragon-of-a-mother Francesca DeVega – must race to uncover the shocking truth about a prophesied demonic invasion, human language, and their own identities–if they don't kill each other first.
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Published by HarperVoyager an imprint of
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First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016
Copyright © Blake Charlton 2016
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Map by Rhys Davies
Blake Charlton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of 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.
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Source ISBN: 9780007368914
Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780007368952
Version: 2017-09-28
To my father, Randolph Seville Charlton, M.D.,
for many books read aloud and lessons in survival
What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.
â WERNER HERZOG
Where there is a monster, there is a miracle.
â OGDEN NASH
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
â WILLIAM BLAKE
Contents
To test a spell that predicts the future, try to murder the man selling it; if you can, it canât. That, at least, was Leandraâs rationale for poisoning the smugglerâs blackrice liqueur.
On a secluded beach, they knelt and faced each other across a seaworn bamboo table. Above, a clear night sky crowded with stars and two half-moons. To Leandraâs left, a grove of slender palms, crosshatched moonshadows, short green grass. To her right, an expanse of dark seawater and lush limestone formations known as the Bay of Standing Islands.
Leandraâs catamaran rocked between two such limestone formations that rose narrow from the bay but widened into craggy rock, vines, and ferny cycads. âMountains on stilts,â her illustrious father had once called the standing islands.
Across the table, the smuggler cleared his throat. Leandra, using several intermediaries, had agreed to meet him on this beach east of Chandralu. Both parties had asked that names not be used; however, as was the way of such meetings, neither party had asked that homicidal duplicity not be used. So Leandra picked up the smugglerâs porcelain bottle of blackrice liqueur. Calmly she poured the ambercolored spirit into his wooden cup.
He was watching her every action, but it was too late. She had already drawn a needle from her sleeve and held it against the bottleâs neck so the liqueur poured over its poisoned point. Then she filled her own cup, knowing the toxin had washed off.
The smuggler was a handsome man of middle yearsâflawless black skin, black goatee chased with silver, wide nose, large eyes. He wore a blue lungi and loose white blouse as if he were of the Lotus People, but his posture was laxer, his speech quicker than was polite in Lotus culture.
Also notable, the smuggler had wrapped a cloth around his head to conceal the spell he was selling. In places, a crimson glow shone through the headwrap. Because Leandra perceived some divine languages as red light, the glow suggested that the man was what he claimed to beâwhich is to say the kind of man that filled Leandra with hatred so molten hot that it would transform any sensible woman into an eye-gouging, throat-biting whirl of violence. Fortunately, Leandra was not a sensible woman.
