The Daylight War (The Demon Cycle, #3)

by Peter V. Brett

“Hold out your arm, Arlen, son of Jeph,” he told the Northerner when she drew her knife. The chin frowned but didn’t hesitate to roll up his sleeve and hold out his arm. Brave, Inevera thought as she made the cut. The dice seemed to hum in her hands as she shook and threw. A chill ran down her spine as she read the result. No … She pressed her thumb into the chin’s wound. He grunted but did not resist. Inevera wet the dice afresh and threw them again. And a third time. The fate of Arlen asu Jeph am’Bales am’Brook spread out before her, the same on the third throw as it had on the first. Inevera had cast the bones for countless warriors, but never since Ahmann had she seen the like. Could he be the Deliverer? She glanced at the greenlander. He was not much to look at, neither short nor tall, his hair the color of sand and his face bare like a khaffit. He wasn’t uncomely, but neither was he as handsome as Ahmann. But his eyes were hard like her husband’s, and the same potentials buzzed around him like insects drawn to a lamp—futures where men called him Deliverer, where he was martyred, or died alone, or failed, driving humanity into extinction. If only I could take husbands like Ahmann takes wives. Her mind ran through the possibilities, but in the end it was impossible. Her powers were not infinite, and even a dama’ting could not take two mortal husbands. Just one pushed the boundaries. This greenlander, for all his potential, could not be the leader her people followed, a...