Daughter of Redwinter (The Redwinter Chronicles, #1)

by Ed McDonald

The stories of this age begin and end with blood, and mine is no exception.

There is nothing left of me but fear,’ I said. ‘And I am nothing without it.’

What is it that you object to, Ulovar? Her impropriety or her bluntness? You think I can’t see what you’ve done in there? The scar? You want this girl to form part of your little army, but what is she? Half a person? Less? You’ve buried her grief, but do you see what you’ve left behind?

I rather liked Esher. Liked her more than I was comfortable with, in fact. She was a cool breeze on a warm day, and sometimes a hot wind in a desert. She was confident, and pretty, and when I was around her, I felt that I could afford to be soft as well as hard in this place of iron and stone.

And that’s who I was, really. A First Retainer who gave honey and cakes to things that were probably not even there.

If Mama had not made my life so full of tears and woe, I would never have left. Who had hurt her, I wondered, that she became so cold? It was a chain, linking error to foolishness, to pride, to failure.