Why would she say that? Then, as he turned back to the small tower window, his eyes took in the seemingly endless brown and gray, the trees without leaves, and the few evergreens that he could see from the height of the tower even looking beaten down, he understood … and swallowed. “How much…?”
Vaelora was silent.
“How much?” he repeated.
“A great area around the Chateau Regis, all the way from the isle of piers to a mille west of the chateau, nothing north of your battle lines within a mille survived. That is what Khalis said. All was ice for days. Even the river froze solid.”
The river he understood, but so much else? “You saw this?”
“Most of the ice had melted when I arrived.”
Quaeryt did not have to ask how many had died. “What about Rex Kharst?”
“He and all his family were in the Chateau Regis.”
“Where is Bhayar?”
“Somewhere below, waiting, doing what he must, and hoping that you will be yourself again. I told him you would be.”
“You saw?”
She smiled. “I know what I know.”
As he turned from the window, he caught sight of an image in the wall mirror—a man with light honey-gold skin and snow-white hair, and white eyebrows, yet the face was yet that of a man young and in his prime, if haggard, except for the darkness in the black eyes, a darkness that went beyond mere black. For a moment, if only a moment, he wondered who that man might be, that man of winter.
Who indeed, to have done what has been done?
“Dearest … you have me … and you have our daughter.”
Quaeryt stopped, then turned back to her, forcing a smile, sad as he knew it to be. “Yes, I do.” And I will need you both … more than even you know.
“And we have our dreams…”
Ah, yes, the dreams of what will be … He kept smiling, hard as it was. “For them, for our daughter … there is tomorrow.” When all will change, change utterly.
Tor Books by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
The Imager Portfolio
Imager
Imager’s Challenge
Imager’s Intrigue
Scholar
Princeps
Imager’s Battalion
The Corean Chronicles
Legacies
Darknesses
Scepters
Alector’s Choice
Cadmian’s Choice
Soarer’s Choice
The Lord-Protector’s Daughter
Lady-Protector
The Saga of Recluce
The Magic of Recluce
The Towers of the Sunset
The Magic Engineer
The Order War
The Death of Chaos
Fall of Angels
The Chaos Balance
The White Order
Colors of Chaos
Magi’i of Cyador
Scion of Cyador
Wellspring of Chaos
Ordermaster
Natural Ordermage
Mage-Guard of Hamor
The Spellsong Cycle
The Soprano Sorceress
The Spellsong War
Darksong Rising
The Shadow Sorceress
Shadowsinger
The Ecolitan Matter
Empire & Ecolitan (comprising The Ecolitan Operation and The Ecologic Secession)
Ecolitan Prime (comprising The Ecologic Envoy and The Ecolitan Enigma)
The Forever Hero (comprising Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, and In Endless Twilight)
Timegod’s World (comprising Timediver’s Dawn and The Timegod)
The Ghost Books
Of Tangible Ghosts
The Ghost of the Revelator
Ghost of the White Nights
Ghosts of Columbia (comprising Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator)
The Hammer of Darkness
The Green Progression
The Parafaith War
Adiamante
Gravity Dreams
Octagonal Raven
Archform: Beauty
The Ethos Effect
Flash
The Elysium Commission
Viewpoints Critical
Haze
Empress of Eternity
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of the Saga of Recluce. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
IMAGER’S BATTALION: THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE IMAGER PORTFOLIO
Copyright © 2013 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Donato Giancola
Map by Jon Lansberg
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3283-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781429965484 (e-book)
First Edition: January 2013