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Informationen zum Autor Alison Sinclair Klappentext Minhorne is a city divided. An ancient curse makes darkness anathema to the Lightborn, while a touch of sunlight kills the Darkborn. Thus its people share a home but live forever separate. Until a prince's death turns Darkborn against Lightborn, earthborn against mage, as conspiracies and betrayals are revealed in both worlds... Leseprobe Telmaine She had never , thought Telmaine Hearne, been so glad to have a train journey over . Not because the bells were tolling sunset, and the end of the killing sunlight. Not because they had come to the end of their journey without any sign of threat. Not even because, a scant twelve hours before, she and her dear husband had run for the coast-bound train with no certainty that both or either of them would return. No, it was the company she kept, and the explanations that would be awaiting her at the end of this journey. Small consolation if her fellow passenger shared her feeling. Lord Vladimer Plantageter, her noble cousin and half brother to the archduke, had all the prejudices of his sex and class, enhanced by a temperament both reclusive and distrustful. Only the urging of a man he respected and who had just saved his life would have made him accept the company of a woman on this journey, much less a woman who was also a mage. And as for Vladimer accepting her protection . . . Nor would she have done it, except at the behest of the two men who had asked her. She sighed, but silently. Who was it who wrote, “I can mind my enemies, but the Sole God protect me from my friends”? Had her husband been with her, she would have asked him, but even at this moment Balthasar might be boarding a train bound south to the Borders and a threatened invasion. That, too, she could set against Lord Vladimer’s account. She heard the door to the stateroom open. Her sonn resolved a man in the blazer and cap of the railway who leaned into Lord Vladimer’s private cubicle to apologize that they could not draw up to their regular platform as two specials were preparing to depart—the hour after sunset being the busiest hour of the night—and would have to use one of the public platforms. “Have it cleared,” Vladimer said without hesitation. “And have a coach waiting.” “And for the lady . . . ?” the conductor said. “The lady comes with me.” He might at least try to avoid giving the impression that he was taking her in for interrogation, if only for the sake of her reputation. Which he could ruin with a very few words, should he choose. Amongst Darkborn, mages belonged on the fringes of society, not in its finer families and upper social circles. She had stepped out of her class to marry Balthasar Hearne, whose fine old blood was attenuated through generations of daughters and younger sons, but was still acceptable. To be revealed as a mage would be not a stepping out but an irredeemable plunge. To her husband, a physician and one insatiably curious about mind and society, the Darkborn aversion to magic and mages was less because of history than because of present society. Eight hundred years ago, magic had divided Darkborn from Lightborn, condemning the Darkborn to perpetual darkness, the Lightborn to perpetual light. In daylight, the Darkborn burned to ash; in darkness, the Lightborn melted excruciatingly away. But eight hundred years ago was a time long past, particularly for the forward-gazing Darkborn; Balthasar thought the aversion was less due to what mages had done than what they could do, even though the knowledge that had underlain the Curse was lost. Even the weakest mage could read thoughts with a touch, and most had strength enough to heal. A stronger mage, such as she seemed to be, could cast her thoughts into another’s mind, influence others with her will, force sleep upon the unwilling, walk—sh...
