Mer Cycle

THERE IS NO MOON...Yet there is lightlaid out upon the surface of the water like a stole of palest green. No, not on the water, beneath itwithin it.The old man writhes upon his couch, Struggling to turn his head away from the vision, desperate to close his eyes to the dream. There is no turning away. That radiancehe has seen it before with his material eyes, a young man, then, at the end of a long journey. Yet on this shore stands a girl, waiting for a favor from the Divine, a favor to which she has no right. For Mereddyd-a-Lagan seeks a favor only bestowed upon young menthe Kiss of the Meri, the bestowal of the station of Osraed.The brilliance of the water grows, and holds out ethereal arms to the one who waits. The old man cries in his sleep at his scene of diabolical heresy: The Inhabitant of the gleaming water beckons; the girl answers the call. What follows, the old man cannot comprehend, for instead of destroying the young woman as he expects, the Meri calls her into a lover's embrace and draws her beneath the Sea. He waits for some sign that the girl has drowned, but instead, sees her rise from the waves, dripping glory.Only when she has reached the shore, clad only in the gleaming jewels of salt spray, does he realize his mistake; this is not the same girl. Where Meredydd-a-Lagan had chestnut hair and eyes, this girl has eyes the color of the sea and hair of flax. She laughs, her eyes seeming to find him, though he is invisible, and shakes the last beads of liquid light from her long hair.He knows her. Ealad-hach is certain he knows her, but he recalls no name, no circumstance, only fear that, because of her, some hideous fate looms over the Land Between Two Rivers.

She is the sign of God on earth; she is the personification of evil. She is the rebirth of the religion of Caraid-land; she is its complete undoing. Some call her Taminy-OsmaerDivinely Glorious. Some call her Taminy-Wicke and ward against her.Which of these is the petite seventeen year-old who has fled with her followers to the high crags of the Gyldan-Baenn? This is the question that tears Caraid-land apart, splitting families, pitting the noble Houses against each other and throwing the religious order into chaos.Daimhin Feichthe man who would be kingknows only this: Taminy-a-Cuinn, whether angel or demon, has something he must have if he is to redeem his own fortunes and that of his House. Among her devotees is the young ruler of the divided nation and Daimhin Feich means to get the boy back by any means, even if it destroys the land he hopes to rule.Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff is a New York Times bestselling author who has been addicted to writing since she discovered that words spawn worlds. She credits her father who let her stay up to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still. Maya and her husband are musical partners in an independent recording studio.

A WOMAN ALONE IN A MAN'S WORLD OF MAGIC..."Aye, that Mereddyd be Wicke, sure as Colfre is Cyne," said the townboy in a secret voice. "Brys ain't here today, and she's a' fault. It's his tongue, it is. Just flops between his teeth like a dying fish. He can't use it for naught."Chilled to the bone, Mereddyd fled. She had thought it. She remembered thinking it: May you forget how to use your tongue, Brys-a-Lach.Just that. Did that make her Wicke?According to the Osraed Ealad-hach it did, for a female was forbidden to wield the powers tradition reserved for men alone.There is only one way to prove her innocence: Mereddyd-a-Lagan must go on Pilgrimage to the Western Sea where a mysterious Being called the Meri will decide her fate. She will be the only female in one hundred years to attempt the journey, and she will remember, every step of the way, that the last young woman to challenge tradition never returned.Will Mereddyd become Caraid-land's first female Osraed, or will she die a heretic's death in the icy Western Sea?