Heir to Sevenwaters
Read Heir to Sevenwaters Online
Authors: Juliet Marillier
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Historical, #General
Table of Contents
Also by Juliet Marillier
THE SEVENWATERS TRILOGY
Daughter of the Forest
Son of the Shadows
Child of the Prophecy
Wolfskin
Foxmask
THE BRIDEI CHRONICLES
The Dark Mirror
Blade of Fortriu
The Well of Shades
For young adults:
Wildwood Dancing
Cybele’s Secret
ROC
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, November 2008
Copyright © Juliet Marillier, 2008
eISBN : 978-1-440-60888-9
Sevenwaters Family Tree by Gage Godfrey-Nicholls of Inklings Calligraphy Studio
(
www.inklings.com.au
)
All rights reserved
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Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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In memory of my mother,
Dorothy Scott (Johnston)
December 1911-July 2007.
All her life she practiced selfless love.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could not have been what it is without the assistance of my family. I thank Ben for brainstorming the original story with me, and Elly and Simon for reading the manuscript and helping me with plotting. My writers’ group gave me useful feedback along the way and kept me working through the difficult patches.
I’m immensely grateful to the three editors who have worked on the book: Brianne Tunnicliffe at Pan Macmillan Australia, Anne Sowards at Roc, and Stefanie Bierwerth at Tor UK. Heartfelt thanks to Gage Godfrey-Nicholls for her beautiful Sevenwaters family tree. A special thank-you to my Australian copyeditor, Julia Stiles, for an excellent job. Cate Paterson at Pan Macmillan has continued to be a source of great support.
My agent, Russell Galen, has assisted me during the planning and writing of this book with his usual blend of professionalism and common sense.
Heir to Sevenwaters
is dedicated to my mother, who died in mid-2007. Mum, thank you for reading my handwritten childhood sagas with such patience, and for always saying nice things about them! Thank you for teaching me the value of storytelling. You encouraged me to dream.
CHARACTER LIST
CHAPTER 1
M
y fingers numb with cold, I fastened a length of gold-embroidered ribbon around the hawthorn and murmured a prayer to whatever spirits might be listening. “When it’s time for the baby to be born, please don’t let my mother die.” Another ribbon, higher up in branches burgeoning with spring’s fresh green. “And please let the child be healthy.” A third, slipped between twigs that scratched my skin, drawing bright blood. “And if you can, make it be a boy. Mother wants a son more than anything in the world.”