Winter Moon: Moontide / The Heart of the Moon / Banshee Cries. C.E. Murphy
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Praise for
MERCEDES LACKEY
“She’ll keep you up long past your bedtime.”
—Stephen King
“[A] wry and scintillating take on the Cinderella story…resonates with charm as magical as the fairy-tale realm she portrays.”
—BookPage on The Fairy Godmother
“With [Lackey], the principal joy is story; she sweeps you along and never lets you go.”
—Locus
Praise for
TANITH LEE
“Lee’s prose is a waking dream, filled with tropical sensualities.”
—Booklist
“Tanith Lee is an elegant, ironic stylist—one of our very best authors.”
—Locus
Praise for
C.E. MURPHY
“Murphy delivers interesting worldbuilding and magical systems, believable and sympathetic characters and a compelling story told at breakneck pace.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Heart of Stone
“Thoroughly entertaining from start to finish.”
—Award-winning author Charles de Lint onThunderbird Falls
MERCEDES LACKEY
is the New York Times bestselling author of the Heralds of Valdemar and A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, plus several other series and stand-alone books. Mercedes has more than fifty books in print, and some of her foreign editions can be found in Russian, Czech, Polish, French, Italian and Japanese. She has collaborated with such luminaries as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey and Andre Norton. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and frequent collaborator, Larry Dixon, and their flock of parrots.
TANITH LEE
was born in 1947, in England. Unable to read until she was almost eight, she began to write at the age of nine. To date she has published almost seventy novels, ten short-story collections and well over two hundred short stories. Lee has also written for BBC Radio and TV. Her work has won several awards, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is married to the writer/artist John Kaiine. Readers can find more information about Lee at www.TanithLee.com or www.daughterofthenight.com.
C.E. MURPHY
holds an utterly impractical degree in English and history. At age six, Catie submitted several poems to an elementary school publication. The teacher producing it chose (inevitably) the one Catie thought was the worst of the three, but he also stopped her in the hall one day and said two words that made an indelible impression: “Keep writing.” It was sound advice, and she’s pretty much never looked back. More information about Catie and her writing can be found at www.cemurphy.net.
Winter Moon
MERCEDES LACKEY
TANITH LEE
C.E. MURPHY
CONTENTS
MOONTIDE
Mercedes Lackey
THE HEART OF THE MOON
Tanith Lee
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
BANSHEE CRIES
C.E. Murphy
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
MOONTIDE
Mercedes Lackey
Dedicated to my fellow “Lunatics” at www.LUNA-Books.com, without whom I would be a great deal less sane
Dear Reader,
The world I created for the Five Hundred Kingdoms stories is a place where fairy tales can come true—which is not always a good thing. But it is important to remember that most people living in this world go about their lives blissfully unaware of the force that I call “The Tradition” and its blind drive to send certain lives down predestined paths. As long as their lives are not touched by The Tradition, as long as they do not find themselves replicating the story of some tale, song or myth, most people go about their business never even guessing that such a force exists.
Such are the characters in this story, “Moontide.” There is no mention of The Tradition, nor of fairy godmothers. These folks have magic, indeed, but it is small magic for the most part. Do not underestimate the small magics, however. A great deal can be done with a very little magic at the right time and place. And even more can be done with a heart full of courage, and someone you can trust at your side.
Sincerely,
Mercedes Lackey
Lady Reanna watched with interest as Moira na Ferson took her chain-mail shirt, pooled it like glittery liquid on the bed, and slipped it into a grey velvet bag lined with chamois. It was an exquisitely made shirt; the links were tiny, and immensely strong; Moira only wished it was as featherlight as it looked.
“Your father doesn’t know what he’s getting back,” Reanna observed, cupping her round chin with one deceptively soft hand, and flicking aside a golden curl with the other.
“My father didn’t know what he sent away,” Moira countered, just as her heavy, coiled braid came loose and dropped down her back for the third time. With a sigh, she repositioned it again, picked up the silver bodkin that had dropped to the floor, and skewered it in place. “He looked at me and saw a cipher, a nonentity. He saw what I hoped he would see, because I wanted him to send me far, far away from that wretched place. Maybe I have my mother’s moon-magic, maybe I’m just good at playacting. He saw a little bit of uninteresting girl-flesh, not worth keeping, and by getting rid of it he did what I wanted.” Candle- and firelight glinted on the fine embroidered trim of an indigo-colored gown, and gleamed on the steel of the bodice knife she slipped into the sheath that the embroidery concealed.
“But to send you here!” Reanna shook her head. “What was he thinking?”
“Exactly nothing, I expect.” Moira hid her leather gauntlets inside a linen chemise, and inserted a pair of stiletto blades inside the stays of a corset. “I’m sure he fully expected to have a half-dozen male heirs by now, and wanted only to find somewhere to be rid of me at worst, and to polish me up into a marriage token at best. He looked about for someone to foist me off on—which would have to be some relation of my mother’s, since he’s not on speaking terms with most of his House—and picked the one most likely to turn me into something he could use for an alliance. You have to admit, the Countess has a reputation for taking troublesome young hoydens and turning out lovely women.” The ironic smile with which she delivered those last words was not lost on her best friend. Reanna choked, and her pink cheeks turned pinker.
“Lovely women who use bodkins to put up their hair!” she exclaimed.