Heartborn
By Terry Maggert
Genre: YA Fantasy/Romance
Release Date: September 1, 2016
Synopsis
Her guardian
angel was pushed.
Keiron was never
meant to be anything other than a hero. Born high above in a place of war and
deception, he is Heartborn, a being of purity and goodness in a place where
there violence and deceit are just around every corner.
His
disappearance will spark a war he cannot see, for Keiron has pierced the light
of days to save a girl he has never met, for reasons he cannot understand.
Livvy Foster is seventeen, brave, and broken. With half a heart, she bears the
scars of a lifetime of pain and little hope of survival.
Until Keiron
arrives.
In the middle of
a brewing war and Livvy’s failing heart, Keiron will risk everything for Livvy,
because a Heartborn’s life can only end in one way: Sacrifice.
Fall with Livvy
and Keiron as they seek the truth about her heart, and his power, and what it
means to love with someone who will give their very life to save you.
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Excerpt
Chapter One: The Leap
The relentless wind cooled his skin as he
mustered the courage to jump. It was a long way to fall, and he’d been poised
on the edge for nearly an hour. It wasn’t fear that kept him rooted to the
spot, but the effort of reaching through time to see what consequences his
action might bring. To think of leaving was akin to dropping a boulder in the
pool of his own history; there was no way to foresee what the ripples might
cause. Or the waves, since this would make waves, not ripples. It was all an
undiscovered thing.
No one had done what he meant to do; at least
not in the memory of his House.
Under the points of his boots, featureless
mist curled away to reveal an enticing glimpse of color and life so unlike his
own home. Gray, he thought. I am so very tired of all the gray in these clouds.
The longer he looked at the myriad of colors below, the more acute his hunger
to see what mysteries rolled beneath him, unknown and vibrant. The land looked
like a fairy tale made real, its hills and rivers gleaming like a promise in
the early morning light. The sheer distance and appeal of it all clutched at
his chest like a physical thing, making him cover his heart. His body fizzed
with excitement and fear, and he liked it.
“You won’t go, you know.” His brother’s voice
was bored to the point of insolence, a tone he’d perfected from years of
practice. Like others who kept their face an impassable mask, he’d lost much of
the joy in his life, if ever he knew it. Brother Garrick appeared from the
sullen gray mist that hid the secret columns and towers of their home. Walking
toward Keiron, a smile quirked at the cruel lips, so unlike his own. “We’ve
already been to the edge of the scrying pool. You won’t go. It is known to us.”
A look flickered across the impassive face, something ugly and hot. His control
was slipping. That was new, as was his belief that he was equal to their
parents. Or older siblings, at that.
“Yes. I will.” Keiron’s voice sounded small
in the silence. Even the wind died out of respect for what he was about to say,
and if his resolve held, what he would then do.
A sad shake of the perfect head said that was
a lie. Garrick was beautiful to the point of distraction. His pupils were
nearly colorless in a face framed with fine blonde hair that called sunlight to
mind, so different from his brother. Garrick was light, while Keiron was dark,
with skin golden from the sun and eyes the black of a starless night. A long,
aquiline nose gave him a regal quality that Garrick, for all his perfection,
could not possess. His hair was curled and ebony to the point of being liquid,
a black mass that he pushed back with irritation at Garrick’s verbal assault.
Keiron was lean and tall, and in the stages of bloom where men first leave
boyhood behind when they are no longer concerned with a young man’s things.
Garrick spoke again, substituting arrogance
for wisdom. “No. There is no escaping that which has passed. Even if you were
to—”
A swift cut of Keiron’s hand broke the
thought. His brother looked shocked, then amused, and then angry.
He didn’t like being spoken to that way. “I
can, and I will. I know how to shift the light of days, and I know when to do
it, too.”
“Really? A secret of that size, and you, a
minor son, have figured it out? Do tell, fledgling.” He loved using Keiron’s
youth as an insult, even though he was barely a year older.
“If you paid attention to anything other than
yourself, you’d know that there is logic behind the Moondivers. There have been
others, you know.” A hint of smugness colored Keiron’s defense, but his brother
had it coming.
The reaction was volcanic.
Real anger spat forth from Garrick now,
contorting his features into something crude and ugly. It was, Keiron thought,
the first honest thing he’d seen of his brother in all these years. It was the
face of fear and rage, and he knew why. This entire outburst was about power,
or the lack of it. To control time was the province of elders, not some child
who thought that he could move the forces of worlds to right a wrong. It was
arrogance of a kind unlike anything he’d ever embraced, and his brother’s hate
for him grew by the second because he knew that for all his perfection, the
younger of them was more pure. The elder boy was ambition personified, but
without courage and purity he would never control the clocks. For that matter,
Garrick would not even control himself, a fact that dawned on him as he
sputtered with rage.
Keiron squared his feet and repeated his
intentions like a prayer. “The days will bend for me. I can feel it, and your
anger will not change the truth.” His words rang with a kind of surety that
made his legs shake, if only briefly.
It was something Garrick would say, and for
that he was frightened and proud, since unlike his brother, Kieron meant every
word of it and aimed to see it through.
In two long strides, his brother came close
enough that he could smell the wind herbs on his breath. They were sour with
hate, just like the expression contorting his face. “She’s already dead.”
Keiron went rigid, but fought mightily to
gain control of the anger that bloomed in his chest. Heat spread like sunlight,
and he took three long breaths to contain his next words. “She is now, but she
won’t be when I get there. I told you. I can do it.”
“You think falling through time and distance
can save her? Landing in that mud-spattered wallow that they crawl about in
like feral swine? You don’t even know why they were driven from the land, let
alone if death awaits you. What about you? Who can save you?” His brother
barked with laughter, a short noise of jealousy and fear. “What if she doesn’t
want to be saved? You’re a child. A favored pet who is loved because of his
youth. You’re nothing but an amusement to this family.”
The wind blew harder as spots filled Keiron’s
vision. He could not lose control, not now. He worked his jaw to let the words
out. The sounds followed each other, chastened by the force of his will. “I
have watched. I have learned. And I tell you, I am going, and she is worth
saving.”
Garrick shrugged as the boredom returned to
his face, now a mask of beautiful disinterest. “You actually care about them,
don’t you? Those things down there? Those glorified cattle? Do you think
they’re even capable of understanding us? We are not the benign, soft creatures
that have been reshaped by their pitiful legends. We were born for war, not
love. We are made to hurt, not heal.” He shook his head with a mocking grin.
“You’ve always been weak, but this is beyond anything the family expected. It’s
practically—”
“It’s decent, that’s the word you’re looking
for.” Keiron’s voice was like iron, despite a small quiver at the end of his
words. His jaw set again, and for an instant Garrick saw their grandfather’s
stern profile there, lurking like a boulder under the surface of a still pool.
“You’re not even worth saving, let alone one
of them.” Garrick’s eyes flicked down to the vista that unspooled under their
feet, or perhaps it was above. It was difficult to tell with the curving
horizon and shifting light. Part of what he saw was green, unlike their home.
There were blue rivers, brown and green fields, and stony places worn by wind
and weather. It was alien, but enticing. He let a woven cord of animal hide
fall into his hand. On either end, a heavy molar prized from the jaw of a
Windbeast acted as a weight. The teeth were well worn, and tied in with strands
of fine leather. It had been a mature beast, killed to make things that the
people of the wind needed. Like teeth. And rope.
“Then I belong with them, don’t I?” Keiron’s
question was rhetorical.
Again, Garrick shrugged, this time with one
shoulder. His lips peeled back to reveal perfect teeth, but there was no
kindness in the gesture. “Fine, but you’ll need to know something first.” The
cord spun outward from Garrick’s hand in a blur, spinning around Keiron’s wings
with brutal efficiency. The weight of the heavy teeth spun the strand tight to
bind him, flightless, as Garrick drew his sword and cut downward in a wicked blow
that sent Keiron’s wings spinning away into the clouds below.
Paralyzed by pain and betrayal, Keiron stood
swaying as Garrick stepped calmly forward, placing both hands on his brother
and pushing him into a chaotic tumble from the ledge of House Windhook.
Spatters of blood swept up and away in the swirling winds, the last sign of a
boy who had been bound, and cut, and sent into the sky in less time than he had
to register the sensation of being flightless and wounded.
Keiron’s stomach raged upward as glare and
shadow coursed around him in a never-ending circle of dizzying light, and he
began the long, cold fall through layers of sky and time that tore the scream
from his throat even as it began.
From above, he heard Garrick’s last words,
mocking and fat with poisonous joy. “Let us see if you can truly fly.”
Meet the Author
Left-handed.
Father of an apparent nudist. Husband to a half-Norwegian. Herder of cats and
dogs. Lover of pie. I write books. I've had an unhealthy fascination with
dragons since the age of-- well, for a while. Native Floridian. Current
Tennessean. Location subject to change based on insurrection, upheaval, or
availability of coffee. Nine books and counting, with no end in sight. You've
been warned.
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