Caught in Crystal: A Lyra Novel Read Online Free PDF

they invaded the mainland on the flimsiest of pretexts, intending to teach the upstarts their place. But the Varnans were badly outnumbered, despite their magic, and the war dragged on for over twenty years before finally spluttering out.
    The Wizard’s War, as the Varnan-Alliance conflict came to be called, reawakened the mainlanders to the possibilities inherent in the magic they had lost during the years of struggle for survival. Wizardry became an obsession, particularly in the southeastern lands that had borne the brunt of the Varnan invasion. As the interest in magic intensified, the non-human races became more and more unpopular. They were looked upon with suspicion because they had not employed their presumed magical arts in the War. Relations between humans and the other races deteriorated, culminating in the murder of hundreds of Shee, Neira, and Wyrds at Darkwater in 1183 A.W.B .
    The Estarren Alliance began to disintegrate. One after another, outlying countries and principalities recalled their representatives from the Senate in Kith Alunel. The few Wyrds and Shee remaining in such places either quietly left or were systematically persecuted in hopes of learning their supposed secrets. By the time of the Half-Day War between Varna and the Neira in 1517 A.W.B., the Estarren Alliance had collapsed completely into independent, squabbling countries. Virtually all of the nonhumans had left the southern lands or gone into permanent hiding.
    The sinking of Varna by the Neira as the culmination of the Half-Day War added a new and unwelcome set of refugees to the population of the mainland. The Varnans had been feared and resented ever since the Wizard’s War, and their casual assumption of superiority had done nothing to improve their popularity in the years since. No village, city, or country was willing to welcome them, and the refugees were forced steadily northward. In 1533 A.W.B. they reached the mouth of the River Selyr and settled there, the first human inhabitants of the lands that eventually became Alkyra.
    — From the introduction to A History of Alkyra , by Flindaran Kensal Sterren, Journeyman Historian of the Ciaron Minstrel’s Guildhall. Presented to Alethia Tel’anh Atuval in 3030 A.W.B. on the thirtieth anniversary of her coronation as Queen of Alkyra.

PART I
Hearth and Sword

CHAPTER
ONE
    T HE TRAVEL-CHARIOT WAS BLACK and so were the horses that drew it. It came down the road silently, like a moving shadow or the fingers of death. Kayl pushed her brown hair out of her face with the back of one hand and made herself continue sweeping the stone step. Some Prefect with a macabre sense of humor, no doubt, or perhaps a wealthy merchant. Horses were rare in Mindaria; only a noble or an exceptionally wealthy tradesman would hire… Kayl’s thoughts froze as she realized that the travel-chariot was turning onto the hard-packed area that served as a courtyard for the inn.
    The rasping of the cicadas was suddenly loud in her ears. She forced herself to breathe. “It’s a customer,” she said under her breath. “Just a customer.”
    The customer’s chariot halted just in front of her in a cloud of dust. Kayl knew immediately that this was no aristocrat’s whim; she could feel power emanating from the chariot, pulling at the old bond— She cut the thought off as she realized where it might take her, and waited.
    The driver jumped down from his seat and pulled back the curtains that hid the interior of the chariot. With a rustle of movement, a tall woman emerged. Her robes were black, her hair was black, and her eyes were the color of midnight. On her right hand she wore a ruby ring the color of blood, on her left an emerald green as poison, and in the hollow of her throat, suspended from a chain as thin as a spider’s web, hung a tiny silver skull with diamond eyes.
    “You have a room,” the visitor said, and her voice was dark music.
    Kayl moistened lips that had gone suddenly dry, but her voice was