Shardless (Tempris #1)

Taly could feel an uncomfortable crick forming in her neck, and even in her languid state, she could tell that she was resting against something hard. None of that mattered, though. She was having the loveliest dream, and she wasn’t nearly ready to return to the waking world.

She was back at the cottage in Vale, but for the first time in her life, there was no fire. She barely would’ve recognized the place had it not been for that strange vision in the woods. The sun felt warm on her face as she lay on the ground, staring up at the sky through the leaves of an old oak tree. If she strained her ears, she could just make out the sounds of birds chirping in the woods outside the garden wall. It was the kind of summer day that poets might’ve described as idyllic.

A woman sat next to her. The same woman she had seen night after night in her dreams ever since she was a child—her mother. The older woman’s clothes were plain but well made, and her golden hair spilled down her back in long waves. She leaned against the trunk of the tree, humming to herself as she wiped down the blade of a black rapier. The sweepings of the hilt, crafted to look like the tentacles of a kraken, gleamed so brightly in the afternoon light that Taly couldn’t help but reach out and run a finger along the lustrous metal.

“Your father gave me this,” the woman said, smiling as she ran a hand through Taly’s hair. Taly leaned into her touch, clinging to that feeling even as the dream started to fade around her. “On the day I passed the rites to become his Guardian. I told him it was too expensive, but the man never would listen to reason.”