Shadows Return

behind her. “Khirnari, you have a visitor.”
    “At this hour?” She turned and found her old friend, the seer Belan ä Talia, standing just behind the servant, and with her a stooped little Retha’noi man. Seneth did not know him, but recognized the witch marks that covered his face and neck under his wild grey curls. The shoulders of their cloaks were dusted with snow, and the hems heavy with little ice balls. Both of them were shivering.
    “My friends, come warm yourselves!” Seneth urged them downstairs to the great hearth in the hall. “Uri, fetch shawls and hot mead for our guests.”
    “Thank you, Khirnari,” the Retha’noi said as he warmed his bony little hands over the flames. More witch marks, the gift of the Retha’noi mother goddess, covered them and what she could see of his arms. She’d never seen so many on one witch, and wondered how she’d never met him before.
    Uri hurried back with one of the young cousins of the house, carrying the shawls and steaming cups. Seneth wrapped both her guests up snugly on the bench closest to the hearth.
    Belan wrapped her hands gratefully around the mug of honey wine. “I would not have disturbed you at such an hour, Khirnari, but I’ve had strange dreams lately, and tonight this witch man, Turmay, came to me with the same vision.” She paused, and Seneth saw that her hands were shaking. “I believe a white child has been made in the south.”
    For a long moment Seneth could only stare at her friend; this was the last thing she’d ever expected to hear.
    “And so I saw,” Turmay said, nodding emphatically. “It meant nothing to me, but the Mother guided me to friend Belan.”
    “What did you see?” Seneth asked.
    “A child that is not a child, Khirnari. One with a dragon in its eyes.”
    Seneth clasped her hands together in her lap. “How? How did this happen?”
    Belan looked away uneasily. “I can think of only one possibility, Khirnari.”
    Seneth closed her eyes as old pain gripped her heart. Twenty years had passed since Ireya ä Shaar’s name had been spoken aloud in this valley. She could not bring herself to say it now. “It isn’t possible! The blood was mixed in half parts.”
    “But I believe something has happened,” Belan told her. “What shall we do, Khirnari?”
    Seneth gathered her will and hardened her heart. “The
Ebrados
must hunt again.”

Fans of Alec and Seregil fear not!
Your favorite nightrunners will return for a thrilling, all-new adventure in
             
    The White Road

    LYNN FLEWELLING
             
    NOT EVEN THE best nightrunners can escape the past.
    Unwilling to abandon the mysterious and enigmatic Sebrahn—Alec’s unnatural child of no mother—Seregil and Alec have no choice but to go in search of the only people who might know the true meaning of its existence: the Hâzadriëlfaie. Bad enough is the Hâzad’s reputation for killing outsiders—including Alec’s father. But even worse, enemies from all quarters are intent on not only taking Sebrahn for their own ends, but reclaiming the only source of creation for more: Alec.
    Seregil, the self-professed disbeliever in fate, now finds himself and his small band of friends inexorably bound by the echoes of their collective pasts as they are forced to choose between loyalty and conscience, peril and peace, and perhaps even between mercy and murder….
             
    Coming in Summer 2009
from Bantam Spectra.

ALSO BY LYNN FLEWELLING
    Luck in the Shadows
    Stalking Darkness
    Traitor’s Moon
    and
    The Bone Doll’s Twin
    Hidden Warrior
    The Oracle’s Queen

SHADOWS RETURN
A Bantam Spectra Book / July 2008
    Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Lynn Flewelling

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    Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks and Spectra and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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    www.bantamdell.com
    eISBN: 978-0-553-90518-2
    v3.0