The Hero and the Crown
Language: English
Pages: 246
ISBN: 0141309814
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A Newbery Medal Winner
Although she is the daughter of Damar's king, Aerin has never been accepted as full royalty. Both in and out of the royal court, people whisper the story of her mother, the witchwoman, who was said to have enspelled the king into marrying her to get an heir to rule Damar-then died of despair when she found she had borne a daughter instead of a son. But none of them, not even Aerin herself, can predict her future-for she is to be the true hero who will wield the power of the Blue Sword...
“[The Hero and the Crown] confirms McKinley as an important writer of modern heroic fantasy, a genre whose giants include C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin.”—The Washington Post
“An utterly engrossing fantasy.”—The New York Times
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, Book 7) (US Edition)
Her sitting-room, or rather when she hated her bed so thoroughly that Teka could no longer keep her in it, she had to make her way around the castle by feeling along the walls, for neither her eyes nor her feet were trustworthy. Creeping about like one of her father’s retired veterans escaped from the grace-and-favor apartments in the rear of the castle did nothing for her morale, and she avoided everyone but Teka, and to some extent Tor, even more single-mindedly than usual; and she stayed out.
Down, mixing, applying and watching the wood burn—for so long that her movements were deft and exact with long practice even while her brain tended to go off on its own and contemplate her next meeting of swords with Tor, or the nagging Teka was sure to begin within the next day or two for her to darn her stockings since they all had holes in them and lately she had perforce always to wear boots when she attended the court in the great hall so that the holes wouldn’t show. She was thinking that.
The next couple as they waited for the music for the next figure to begin, and they turned, mildly irritated, to see what was happening; and suddenly the entire hall was watching. The musicians in the gallery laid down their instruments when they should have played their first notes; it didn’t occur to them to do anything else. Perlith, especially when he was feeling thwarted, was formidably Gifted. A little space cleared around Perlith and Aerin, and the focal point of the vast hall was a.
Quiet, but many people watched them as they rode by; and from the corners of her eyes she could see many of their audience touching the backs of their hands to their foreheads and flicking out the fingers in the Damarian salute to their sovereign; but Arlbeth rode at his daughter’s heel. A breeze wandered among them and riffled Aerin’s ruined hair, and the sunlight shone pitilessly on her scarred face; but the audience was still silent, and motionless but for the right hands and the flicking.
Well, but Aerin paid attention and was careful, and he worked out of it. Before the darkness came upon them a second time they had nearly passed the Airdthmar on their right hand; and by the third evening Aerin could see the fault in the topline of the Hills that was the pass to the forested plain before the City, for her way home was short when she knew where she was going. Tomorrow, perhaps, they would stand in that pass. Her friends slept with her again that night, but they had a less.