Spiders from Memory
The Seelie court is gone, and the Tower has fallen into darker hands. Now nightmare creatures terrorize the Fey races, and the whole Fey world turns to frost and shadow.
Liz Larson holds the last remnant of the Seelie Sidhe's power. The elves look to her for guidance, but all she has to offer them is the disturbing story of their origin, the final truth that will turn many of them against her. With her dwindling number of allies, Liz needs to reopen the borders, to find the missing Marcus Bramble, and to avoid the sudden, terrifying attention of the new Fey ruler, the Unseelie Speaker and new master of the Sidhe Tower.
While her friends in Mundanity race to pry open the gates, and Marcus searches for the answer to a puzzle that could save or damn them all, the Unseelie Speaker marches north, bringing his army and his wrath to focus on Elizabeth.
What can one, fairy-touched human do in the face of the Unseelie court's full fury? How can she fight when the enemy's anger is only partly blind, when she can see all too clearly the traces of justice behind it?
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Hoof beats rang like gunfire down the alley. Their sharp echoes ricocheted along the side of the dumpster, rattling the metal and waking the woman who leaned against it. She groaned and wrapped the rags more tightly across her shoulders. Shadows wove across the alley, and the woman shivered against the cold as much as the unfamiliar sound of hooves on asphalt.
She listened to the beats, pressed her thin frame closer to the brick wall and waited for the authorities to dislodge her. When the noise stopped and no cold voice shouted for her to be up and moving, curiosity got the best of her. She ventured a peek around the dumpster’s rusted corner and squinted against the darkness until she’d nearly written off the sound to her unreliable brain’s imaginings.
Then the blackness snorted. It moved, shifting its weight from one gleaming hoof to the other. It lowered its head as if it knew she watched, as if it waited for her to move. She sighed. A wave of excitement swarmed from the depths of her despair, and she responded, drawn by the flick of an ear and the twitch of a velvet muzzle. Her hand reached out. Her fingers curled toward the temptation of horse flesh.
The beast’s nose stretched closer, and she caught the gleam of an arched neck, the cascade of tangled, black mane. Her hand brushed satin. One of the hooves stamped, loud and hollow against the night. The lips tensed and pulled back from a row of jagged teeth.
The woman froze. She felt the first stutter of panic as the horse’s head tilted to regard her with fiery, red eyes. The silky nostrils vibrated, and a snort like thunder echoed against the bricks. The lips pulled back further, killing the equine resemblance completely. She saw the shoulders, the broad ebony chest, and the thick thighs that bent in the wrong direction. Her panic exploded in a scream, cut short by the first flash of pointed teeth.
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More of chapter one at : http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Spiders+From+Memory