Baroness of Blood

PROLOGUE

The Seer, Sagesse, had lived for nearly a century in the great cave in Tygelt Mountain. She had long since forgotten how she had come to be there, who her parents might have been, or where she had been raised. Tygelt Cave, with its tall pillars of amethyst crystal and milky white limestone, was her only past, her dreamlike present, and most importantly the all too real glimpses she had of the future.

She'd long ago understood that her gift was responsible for her lack of memory, as well as the fact that one day seemed so much like the last. She did no work except to care for herself. The merchants of Tygelt, the miners who dug for gold in the depths of her mountain, and all the others of Kislova, from the rich to the abjectly poor, kept her in food and clothing-in exchange for a glimpse of their futures.

She made no demands, because she needed little. Of late, her clothing had been tattered, her food more scant, but she understood. She had looked in the milky waters of the cave pools and seen the battles raging across the land, and the terrible future of her people. Her warnings were so dire that nearly all stopped seeking her advice.

It made no difference any longer. In her last vision, she had seen her own death.