The Bird
and The Sword
By Amy
Harmon
Genre:
Fantasy, Romance
Release
Date: May 11, 2016
Cover
design by: Hang Le
Swallow,
daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep
inside your soul, hide them ‘til they’ve time to grow. Close your mouth upon
the power, curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour. You won’t speak and you won’t
tell, you won’t call on heaven or hell. You will learn and you will thrive.
Silence, daughter. Stay alive.
The day my mother was
killed, she told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died,
he would die too. Then she predicted the king would sell his soul and lose his
son to the sky.
My father has a claim
to the throne, and he is waiting in the shadows for all of my mother’s words to
come to pass. He wants desperately to be king, and I just want to be free.
But freedom will
require escape, and I’m a prisoner of my mother’s curse and my father’s greed.
I can’t speak or make a sound, and I can’t wield a sword or beguile a king. In
a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left, and who could
ever love . . . a little bird?
He
waited for me to continue, but I was holding myself tightly, refusing to think
at all, so I wouldn’t share more than I wanted to.
“They would have killed us. All of
us. You saved so many.”
“I killed so many.” My voice snapped back at him, lashing
out like a snake. He left his bed and came toward me. I turned and braced myself
for his touch, but he stopped before he reached me.
“Yes. You did. It was like
nothing I’ve ever seen before.” His tone was frank. Admiring. I wanted to
scream. My fingers curled into fists at my sides.
“I am not a sword.”
“What?” he asked, surprise coloring
the word.
“I am not a sword!”
I squeezed my eyes shut against
the hot tears that rose immediately. I didn’t want to share any of this with
him. But my thoughts were unruly, and he was listening intently.
“I am not a weapon. I don’t want to
be a weapon!”
“You are what you are. I am what I
am. It matters little what we want.”
“I
am not a weapon.” The words were a cry, mournful and resistant. I felt him
draw closer, but still he didn’t touch me, and for that I was grateful. If he
touched me I would break down.
“I never wanted to be king. But it
is what I am. It matters little what we want,” he repeated. I turned and stared
up into his face, filled with an anguish that wouldn’t abate.
“You’re wrong. It is the thing that
matters most.”
“Why?” he murmured, his eyes
intense.
“Because without desire, there is
only duty.” My lips trembled, and I
bit down on them, bidding them to be still.
He pressed a thumb against my mouth,
freeing my lower lip from the grip of my teeth. “Do you desire me?”
I jerked, resisting the coiled need
that suddenly sprang from my belly and filled my chest. His eyes flared and his
breath caught, and I wondered what I’d given away. I could only guess. I
stepped around him, but he caught me up, lifting me off the ground, one arm
beneath my hips, one braced around my back. He walked back to the thick furs
where he slept and laid me down on them.
“This is not my duty. Or my desire.”
“It is both,” he responded, his
arrogance setting my teeth on edge.
Amy
Harmon is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New
York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing
was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs
and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without
a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she
developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being
published in twelve countries, truly a dream come true for a little country
girl from Levan, Utah.
Amy Harmon has written ten novels - the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as The Law of Moses, The Song of David, Infinity + One, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her newest release, The Bird and The Sword will be released in the spring of 2016. She will release From Sand and Ash in October of 2016, via Lake Union Publishing.
Amy Harmon has written ten novels - the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as The Law of Moses, The Song of David, Infinity + One, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her newest release, The Bird and The Sword will be released in the spring of 2016. She will release From Sand and Ash in October of 2016, via Lake Union Publishing.
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