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Before Winter
Nancy K. Wallace
The exciting conclusion to the Wolves of Llise trilogyAs rumors of Devin's death at his own bodyguard's hands reach the capital, the Chancellor is detained on fabricated charges of treason, which may cost him his life. In the provinces, there are signs of people fighting to reclaim their history – but the forces against them are powerful: eradicating the Chronicles, and spreading darkness and death.Accompanied by a wolf pack and a retinue of their closest allies, Gaspard and Chastel must cross the mountains in a desperate attempt to save the Chancellor before winter makes their passage impossible. But the closer they journey towards Coreé, the clearer it becomes that there are those who don't intend for them to arrive at all.
Before Winter
NANCY K. WALLACE
HarperVoyager
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017
Copyright © Nancy K. Wallace 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Nancy K. Wallace asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008103606
Version: 2017-08-18
Table of Contents
Cover (#u6ffd33cd-f8aa-5aba-94b5-6b0124eea0e0)
Title Page (#uc69930b7-26fc-5746-a181-bdaa8f49242b)
Copyright (#u39843f51-4a0c-5121-8178-f8d260eafb7a)
Prologue (#uf2325172-1641-54c4-95cc-793584ff55ac)
CHAPTER 1: If I Should Die (#udf3417ed-b70d-5e95-8ce8-099211455909)
CHAPTER 2: Vestiges of Betrayal (#ub9ade3d6-8aca-5b87-b6c8-f375a08f6306)
CHAPTER 3: Lavender (#uf89d655f-0690-5e33-adbe-c07413361a05)
CHAPTER 4: Dreams (#u2bb81845-2cff-5841-8a98-add5a4beb6ad)
CHAPTER 5: The Wilderness of Llisé (#u9bd78cc6-78d1-5a5b-9212-80d464086c2b)
CHAPTER 6: Spirits (#ue39b1f2f-d50e-504f-9a9e-53cec924f6a4)
CHAPTER 7: Albion (#ub1383176-d2ce-5cc6-8414-c26ffe90a525)
CHAPTER 8: The Key (#u82c71b1b-1c98-549f-aaca-1858530e9ea9)
CHAPTER 9: Whispers from the Past (#uf82601f4-2c15-5fdd-a153-18b02f278474)
CHAPTER 10: Mysteries and Discoveries (#u6fb23e1f-0b7a-5e3c-93fd-a52e3b276908)
CHAPTER 11: Stolen Secrets (#u4f5d1bd5-b8a7-5fa5-8c8a-56da40d7ea19)
CHAPTER 12: Sanctuary (#u1f092c1e-0aae-5df3-80e4-e6d079265418)
CHAPTER 13: Unexpected Delays (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14: Discoveries (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15: Free Again (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16: The Way of the Wolf (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17: Loss and Remembrance (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18: Amiens (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19: Refuge (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20: Dinner Conversation (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21: Albion Revisited (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22: Old Alliances (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23: Old Habits Die Hard (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24: Honesty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25: Bardic Wisdom (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26: Remembrance (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27: Farewells (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28: On the Run (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29: Eviction (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30: The Cabin (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31: Then There Were Four (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32: Night Terrors (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33: Doubts and Speculation (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34: The Valley of the Shadow (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36: Evidence and Speculation (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 37: The Company of Strangers (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 38: The Hills of Home (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 39: High Hopes (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 40: Unexpected Complications (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 41: A Time of Reckoning (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 42: Confrontation (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 43: Realignments (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 44: Affairs of the Heart (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 45: Beginnings and Endings (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Nancy K. Wallace (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#uea69509b-03a4-509e-b8f2-99fc7e1ab9dc)
Jeanette bent over Devin, her brown curls lightly brushing his cheek. When his eyes fluttered open and focused on her face, she smiled.
“Am I dead?” he asked.
She kissed his cheek. “No, my love,” she assured him. “You aren’t dead but you need help.”
He cupped her cheek with his hand, ran his thumb across her lower lip. “My God, I love you,” he murmured. “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.”
“Not far away,” she answered. “But I have to go now, Devin, I’m sorry.”
He found her hand and held it. “Don’t go,” he protested.
“I can’t help you, Devin,” she explained. “But Marcus is coming back.”
“Marcus tried to kill me,” he said.
She shook her head, her eyes big in her slender face, and rose from her knees. Her dress swirled around her bare feet. “I have to go.”
“Don’t go!” he begged.
She kissed her finger and stooped to touch his mouth. “I must,” she said. “Be still.”
“When will I see you again, Jeanette?” he asked, raising his head. The pain sent him back down into darkness, her name still on his lips.
CHAPTER 1 (#uea69509b-03a4-509e-b8f2-99fc7e1ab9dc)
If I Should Die (#uea69509b-03a4-509e-b8f2-99fc7e1ab9dc)
Devin’s head pounded in time with his heart as it slowly pumped his life’s blood onto the forest floor. He lay in deep, velvety darkness as rain spattered the leaves of the trees above him and slid in rivulets down his cheeks like tears. Gone was the fragrance of pine, the wind fresh off the ocean. The air stank of burned paper and cloth. The Chronicles were gone … he had tried and failed to save them and now they were lost forever. The entire history of the provinces had been destroyed by ignorance and flame. Ultimately, his trip to the provinces to preserve the Chronicles had led to their destruction and he would forever bear the guilt of it.
He opened his eyes to a dizzying view of tree trunks and rocks spinning in front of him. He swallowed convulsively and tried to shift to his back to see for himself if perhaps some small part of the repository remained. Nausea rolled over him in waves and he stopped moving and lay very still, half on his side, the way he’d wakened. Minutes passed as the sickness that threatened to overwhelm him finally stilled. He lay stiffly, his teeth clenched, one hand digging into the earth.
Finally, he touched his temple gingerly and found the whole side of his face was caked with a sticky mass of blood, pine needles, and dirt. His hand involuntarily rummaged in his pocket searching for a handkerchief and found it completely empty. Even Marcus’ rosary was gone.
Last night seemed decades ago, when he and Marcus had sat and talked on the banks of the stream, weathering a storm together. What had Marcus told him? “Trust me.” And Devin had. He had trusted Marcus with his life and Marcus had shot him. So, where was his bodyguard now? In some tavern toasting René Forneaux’s bid for chancellorship? Did he regret having shot the current chancellor’s son when he had been sworn to protect him? Or did he accept his new position with the same intensity that he accepted his role as Devin’s bodyguard? What kind of man was Marcus Berringer, anyway, to change loyalties like the wind?
Devin let out a deep breath. He was on his own now. He’d need to find his way back to La Paix … to Chastel, Armand, and Gaspard. Together they would plan a way to thwart this new regime and Marcus would be forever marked as an enemy, not an ally.
Devin tried again to move … to catch some small sight of the repository that had housed the Chronicles. Perhaps there was something left … even a few pages that could be salvaged and reassembled. But the forest lay shrouded in mist and smoke and drizzling rain; here and there an evergreen branch appeared momentarily before the mist swallowed it again. Everything seemed muffled and unreal. Even the birds were silent.
A frightening notion wiggled into Devin’s thoughts like a worm. Perhaps, he would die here after all, only a few feet away from the greatest discovery in Llisé’s history. At least, he had seen this arcane library and touched it with his own hands – the collected histories of every province in the empire. For a populace that was forbidden to learn to read and write, they had not only recorded their oral history on paper; they had organized it and filed it alphabetically. If René Forneaux assumed he was fighting ignorant provincials he was going to be in for shock.
Devin hoped he would be there to see it but from the amount of blood that continued to soak the neck and shoulder of his jacket, he was beginning to doubt whether he would. His head ached unbearably and he curled up on his side like a child and waited for morning. Sleep came fitfully, dragging him down into nightmare and releasing him, cold and shivering, into the darkened forest once again.
CHAPTER 2 (#uea69509b-03a4-509e-b8f2-99fc7e1ab9dc)
Vestiges of Betrayal (#uea69509b-03a4-509e-b8f2-99fc7e1ab9dc)
“Dear God!” said a familiar voice. “Devin?” Hands eased him onto his back. He groaned as the world spun and lingering raindrops fragmented like a hundred prisms of light as the sun’s rays pierced the trees.
Marcus was bending over him, slapping him lightly on the cheek. “Can you hear me?” he asked insistently.
