Shardless (Tempris #1)

-An excerpt from Long May She Reign: The Rise and Fall of the Last Queen of Time

Once hailed as the greatest sovereign of the modern age, Queen Raine was a visionary and a philanthropist, a dedicated scholar. A remarkable woman whose final act nearly destroyed an empire.

No one can say why she chose to close the gates, but in the wake of the great disaster—the day many are now calling the Schism—the High Lord and Lady of Earth and Air consolidated their power under the name of the Dawn Court. They created the Sanctorum and declared war upon Queen Raine and her time mages, ushering in an era of fear and bloodshed that has never been rivaled.

With a sigh, Taly pushed open the door to the drafty little room she now called home. It wasn’t much—only a few flecks of paint still clung to the walls, the roof leaked, and stacks of old books she’d found around the gates took the place of furniture. Nevertheless, the rent was cheap, and the woman who managed the tavern downstairs generally did a pretty good job of keeping the riffraff away from the second-floor rooms.