Tamora Pierce brings readers another Tortall adventure! Alianne is the teenage daughter of the famed Alanna, the first lady knight in Tortall. Young Aly follows in the quieter footsteps of her father, however, delighting in the art of spying. When she is captured and sold as a slave to an exiled royal family in the faraway Copper Islands, it is this skill that makes a difference in a world filled with political intrigue, murderous conspiracy, and warring gods. This is the first of two books featuring Alianne.
Nawat stood against the wall, relaxed and alert. Before him two men-at-arms were preparing to shoot. Dove stood behind one archer with a handful of arrows, while the duchess held arrows for the second archer. Aly's mind told her that the duchess would hardly consent to murder just as the first man shot. The second man shot immediately after him. Then both set fresh arrows to the string and shot steadily, arrow after arrow, one at a time, until they had exhausted all the extras held by the duchess and her stepdaughter.
Nawat caught them all with grace and ease, snatching the arrows from the air as if he had all day to do so. When the archers finished, he gathered the heap of arrows at his feet and carried them back to their owners.
He's so fast, Aly thought in awe. I couldn't do it, and I'm no slouch! She sighed, wishing Da were here to see it. He'd taught her to catch daggers in midair, but this game was much more hazardous.
The game was not done. The men-at-arms repeated the experiment with javelins, then hunting and combat spears. Nawat caught them all, moving so fast Aly couldn't follow his hands. She cheered him and the men-at-arms on.
When the bell rang to remind the household it was nearly time for supper, he looked up at the applauding Aly and waved. "This is my favorite game," he called to her. "Do you want to play?"
"I wouldn't dare!" she cried, laughing, before she retreated into the room. She'd seen men catch knives before. She had seen the finest archers in the Queen's Riders draw an outline in arrows of someone positioned against a wooden fence or wall, just to show they could do it. She had never seen anything like this.
Sarai and Dove ran in. Sarai smiled at Aly. "You should have seen your face! Did you know he could do that?" she asked as she collapsed on her bed.
Dove unstrung her bow, shaking her head. "He's amazing," she said, coiling her bowstring.
"You know, maybe this horrible old place isn't so bad," Sarai told the ceiling. "Not if these wonderful men keep showing up."
Aly raised an eyebrow at her. "I wouldn't try kissing him," she warned. "It wouldn't be what you expect."
Sarai wrinkled her nose. "Aly!" she complained. "I found out he eats bugs! I'm not kissing a man with bug breath!"
Aly blinked. I don't remember him tasting of bugs when he kissed me, she thought. I'd better pay more attention next time.
Her mind promptly reined her up. This was highly improper. There would be no next time. Her task was looking after the Balitang children, not mooning over someone, particularly not a crow turned man.
Even if he could pluck arrows from the air.
The next morning Aly, still on a goatherd's hours, walked out of the keep into the dawn. The sun had just cleared the walls to light the inner courtyard and the young man who straddled a bench there. Aly stopped to watch him carefully glue pieces of feather onto the wooden shaft.
Nawat looked up at her with a smile that lit his eyes. "You are beautiful in the new light," he told her. "If I were the Dawn Crow, I would bring you the sun to hatch as our first nestling."
Aly blinked at him. Her heart felt strangely squeezed by some powerful emotion. She bit her lip to distract herself from a feeling that made her horribly unsure. "Have you been kissing anybody?" she asked without meaning to, and gasped. She had let words out of her mouth without thinking, which was not like her! Worse, they were such personal words, ones he might feel meant personal feelings she did not have! This was the kind of thing that other girls said, those girls who were not bored by all the young men who had courted them. How...
Reviews
Kirkus Reviews...
"Aly arrives fully formed, a snarky, talented uber-heroine. Cameos of old favorites complement a rich cast of new characters. Aly's difficulty with the complexity of colonialism adds surprising, welcome depth."
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