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332 pages, Hardcover
First published May 27, 2014
Sand woke, curled in the ashes of a great fireplace.The similarities end pretty swiftly, though (although it's far from a bad thing to be compared to McKillip in my book; and I'm extremely fond of both writers' works). Where Basilisk feels haunted and melancholy, Sand isn't himself born of a tragedy, although he is surrounded by one. He sneezes upon climbing out of the fireplace--where he has no recollection of falling asleep in--and explores the abandoned Sundered Castle where he finds himself. And by "sundered," they mean it: everything in the place has been broken apart, which his father ascribed to an earthquake a few decades ago. Nothing's been spared.
Mixed with the mantel's splinters lay the shattered crest of a great family, their gilded phoenix and silvered swan once entwined, now separated and dismembered.Even loaves of bread. And apples. Even bedsheets have been ripped apart, and when Sand explores the crypts, he finds the body of a girl tumbled from its tomb.
“Some things don't need to be mended. Some things are not meant to be mended.”