Maledicte

In the southernmost tip of the island kingdom of Antyre, a carriage set a rapid pace through the city streets of Murne. The horse-and-four racketed down the broken cobblestone street, shuddering and jolting on the uneven surface. Mid-morning sunlight lanced off the blue-lacquered carriage, lighting it like a jewel in a tarnished crown. On either side, narrow houses listed and shed fragments of their facades, littering the streets below with rubble. Once this had been a prosperous merchant neighborhood, the most common thoroughfare between the palace and the sea--before a girl's prayer had been heard by black-winged Ani, that treacherous god of love and vengeance.

About the Author

When I was eight, I was making up adventures for Luke, Leia, and Han Solo that got so involved, I had to take notes (in crayon, mind you). But I wanted to be a deep-sea explorer, a marine biologist just like my parents. Stories were just for fun and I soaked up sea-life like no one's business. Graduate students took me to rescue loggerhead sea turtles, took me to the stacks where fish in formaldehyde-filled jars waited to be identified and watched us with glassy eyes. My parents' colleagues took me to feed the lemon sharks in the tanks where they studied their optical nerves and their migration patterns. Yup, marine biologist. Absolutely.