Relic (Books of Eva, Band 1) - Hardcover

Buch 1 von 2: The Books of Eva

Terrell, Heather

 
9781616951962: Relic (Books of Eva, Band 1)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1616951966 ISBN 13: 9781616951962
Verlag: Soho Teen, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

The truth will test you...

For fans of Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games: high fantasy and dystopia meet in this high-stakes tale of a civilization built on lies and the girl who single-handedly brings it down.

When Eva’s twin brother, Eamon, falls to his death just a few months before he is due to participate in The Testing, no one expects Eva to take his place. She’s a Maiden, slated for embroidery classes, curtseys, and soon a prestigious marriage befitting the daughter of an Aerie ruler. But Eva insists on honoring her brother by becoming a Testor. After all, she wouldn’t be the first Maiden to Test, just the first in 150 years.

Eva knows the Testing is no dance class. Gallant Testors train for their entire lives to search icy wastelands for Relics: artifacts of the corrupt civilization that existed before The Healing drowned the world. Out in the Boundary Lands, Eva must rely on every moment of the lightning-quick training she received from Lukas—her servant, a Boundary native, and her closest friend now that Eamon is gone.

But there are threats in The Testing beyond what Lukas could have prepared her for. And no one could have imagined the danger Eva unleashes when she discovers a Relic that shakes the Aerie to its core.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Heather Terrell worked as a commercial litigator in New York City for over ten years, but she has always been obsessed with myth, lore, and the gap between history and the truth. This preoccupation has led to several loosely factual historical novels (The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, Brigid of Kildare) and the pure-loreFallen Angel series. Relic is the first installment of The Books of Eva series. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family. Visit her at www.heatherterrell.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Prologue
 
          Eamon throws his axe into the ice above his head.  He hits a perfect depression in the wall, and the ice grips his axe.  Pulling up hard, he kicks the bear-claw toes of his climbing boots into the ice a few feet higher up.  Like some kind of arctic cat, he scales the frozen Ring.
          He repeats the practiced motion, over and over.  Each time, Eamon makes sure to insert an ice screw level with his waist and secure his rope to it.  Just a precaution should he fall.  Not that he ever has.
          Bit by painstaking bit, the top of the Ring nears.  Although he knows he shouldn’t, that it goes against the primary rule of ice climbing, Eamon can’t resist: He looks down at the hundreds of feet of sheer ice below him.
          Even in the dim moonlight, the site amazes him.  The Ring is a near-perfect, mountainous circle of ice at the center of this last remaining land above the seas, New North.  The view makes the risk of climbing -- punishable by exile into the Boundary-lands -- worthwhile, he thinks.  That, and the edge it will provide him in the Tests.
          Eamon looks back up.  Despite the cramps in his hands and calves, he smiles a little.  Only a few feet left to the summit.  Just one more swing of his axe, and he’ll be standing on the peak, staring down at New North.  
          He drives his axe hard into a concavity in the ice.   But Eamon is too hasty.  For the first time in his life, he misreads the ice.  The axe doesn’t hold.  It slips out of the giant wall of ice. 
          Sliding backwards, he plummets twelve feet.  He bounces off sharp outcroppings that lacerate his skin.  His descent is stopped only by an ice screw, his rope, and his harness.  Dangling upside down in the frigid midnight air, hundreds of feet from the ground, he starts to pull himself upright on his rope.  Just as he manages to right himself, he sees that his rope is frayed.
          How, Eamon can’t imagine.  He had made the rope himself with sealskin, and was certain of its strength.  But really, the reason doesn’t matter.  All that matters is how he’ll climb the remaining twenty feet with an injured body and a worthless rope.
          He begins to unhook himself from his harness, and the slight pressure makes the rope unravel further.  Just before it snaps and yanks him down with it, he swings his axe into the ice.  Shaking and bleeding, he clings to the face of the ice wall with only his axes and his bear-claw boots.  He has no choice but to climb back up, this time creeping inch by inch. 
          Stupid.  He should never have risked the Ring, no matter the advantage gained for the Tests.  He needs to win the Archon spot, to make sure he can act on what he’s learned, but he didn’t need to try the Ring.  Because of his cockiness and thirst for glory, he now stands to lose everything, whether by death or exile.  The Tests are not worth his life.  And this is not worth what it will do to Eva.
          He sees the summit.  As he plans out how he’ll hoist his damaged body over the lip, a silhouette of a figure appears against the backdrop of the moon.  Instinct tells him to scale back down; he doesn’t want to face the Ring-guards and certain exile.  But he knows his only chance of survival is surrender.
          “Over here,” he calls out.
          The figure moves toward him, leans toward the edge, and stretches out a hand.
          Eamon leaves one of his axes in the ice so he can reach out his hand.  “Thank the Gods, you’re here.”
          As the figure clasps Eamon’s hand, his face becomes clear. 
          “What are you doing out here?”  Eamon asks, too confused to be scared.       
          “I’m so sorry, Eamon.  You were never meant to make it this far.”
          The figure lets go.  And Eamon falls from the Ring into the darkness.

I.
 
Martius 31
Year 242, A.H.
 
          I watch the night fall.  The polar darkness descends more quickly than usual for early spring, and I am suddenly freezing.  I try to relax, but shiver uncontrollably instead and not just from the cold.  Fear of getting caught out here has literally got me shaking.
          My breath forms an icy cloud.  I should be sitting around the hearth with my family and friends, not risking the frigid winds and ice encrusting the turret or the punishment for disobeying the Lex by coming out here after the None bell.  Especially tonight, the Feast of the Tests.  But here I stand, hundreds of feet above the ground.
          I have good reason.  I need to get a final glimpse of New North before morning comes -- alone -- and no one will look for me here.  The steep, ice-laden staircase to the turret is too dangerous a climb at night for nearly anyone.  Anyone other than me and Eamon, that is, who grew up scaling its heights and knew its stony crevices and dizzying turns intimately.  The turret was our special place.
          Eamon, my twin.  I can barely even think his name.  I’m not ready yet. 
          The glistening Aerie spreads out before me, the fortress of ice and stone at the center of New North.  It is the place where all the Founding families live and work and learn and worship.  It is home.        
          I stare out at the frozen land.  Just over the turret’s edge, I see the ice-walls of the School with its fancifully carved ice-windows gleaming in the low moonlight.  I spot the imposing ice-spires of the Basilick, the place for worship and instruction on the Lex.  Only a glimpse of the Ark in the far distance makes me smile.  The only metal and glass structure on New North, the Ark is our most precious site, where most of the island’s food is grown.  Within its warm, humid walls, I had hoped to find my calling.
          No more.  The innocent Maiden who longed for a peaceful life in the Ark is gone.  She died on the Ring with Eamon, and I became someone else.  But sometimes I don’t recognize the determined girl that replaced her, the one who insists on pursuing her dead brother’s dreams of Testing.  And neither do my poor parents. 
          I take a deep breath and another glimpse.  Encircled by the mountainous icy Ring and set off by the dark Boundary-lands beyond, the Aerie resembles a diamond.  Well, it should look precious since it’s the last true civilization left on earth after the Healing.  The rest of the world lies beneath the seas, a casualty of mankind’s corruption.
          The Ring.  I...

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Verlag
Soho Teen
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1616951966
ISBN 13 
9781616951962
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
277
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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