Wynter returns from a five-year exile in the bleak Northlands to find her beloved homeland in turmoil. King Jonathan’s civilised, multicultural realm is no more; the gibbets and cages have returned. Days of laughter, friendly ghosts and gossipy cats remain only in Wynter’s memory – the present confronts her with power play, dark torture chambers, violent ghosts, and cats (those still alive) too scared to talk to humans. The Inquisition is a real and present danger.
Crown Prince Alberon is missing. There are murmurings of a ‘Bloody Machine’ of untold destructive power. And as Wynter and her friends, Prince Razi and the mysterious Christopher Garron, seek to restore stability to the fragile kingdom, risking death at every turn, Wynter is forced to make a terrible choice.
BOOK II IN THE MOOREHAWKE TRILOGY
WYNTER TRAVELS alone and unprotected in the bandit-infested mountains, searching for Alberon. But how many of the King’s enemies are lurking in these crowded shadows? It seems that every tyrant or bully who has ever threatened the kingdom is sending delegates to meet with the rebel prince, and Wynter is increasingly nervous of Alberon’s intentions.
Razi and Christopher make a welcome reappearance, but where old friends go, old enemies soon follow, and Wynter finds herself confronted with the infamous Loups-Garous. It is to Christopher and his adopted people, the nomadic Merron, that Wynter and Razi must now turn for sanctuary. But the Merron have sided with Shirken, the woman who has made it her life’s work to wipe their race from the face of the earth. What is behind the conspiracy – and is Alberon at the centre of all this?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BORN AND raised in Dublin, Ireland, Celine Kiernan has spent the majority of her working life in the film business. Trained at the Sullivan Bluth Studios, her career as a classical feature character animator spanned over seventeen years. She spent most of her time working between Germany, Ireland and the USA.
Celine wrote her first novel at the age of eleven (it was excruciatingly bad), and hasn’t stopped writing or drawing since. She has a peculiar weakness for graphic novels as, like animation, they combine the two things she loves to do the most: drawing and storytelling.
For more information about Celine and The Moorehawke Trilogy, see www.celinekiernan.com.
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
THE SCARLET FORD
THE REBEL CAMP
ALBERON
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
SUPPER
MAPS AND PLANS
AN IMPOSSIBLE DEVICE
SCONES AND TEA
A ROAR OF SMOKE
MARY
A WOMAN'S PLACE
MACHINES AND MACHINATIONS
AGAIN
EMPTY WORDS
A STRING OF SILVER LIES
TRINKETS AND HONOUR
THE MUSIC OF MEMORY
THE MERRON WAY
ALLIES TO THE PRINCE
ONE STEP FORWARD
CONSEQUENCES
THE DEFIANT GESTURE
AN UNLIKELY EVENT
VIGIL
DAY SEVEN: BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN
DAY EIGHT: MESSAGES
DAY ELEVEN: CHER FORD
DAY ELEVEN: AN UNDERSTANDING
DAY ELEVEN: THE MACHINE
PADUA: FIVE YEARS LATER
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BOOK I: IN THE MOOREHAWKE TRILOGY
BOOK II: IN THE MOOREHAWKE TRILOGY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR