-Raven's Cry Trilogy-
Book One: Iron and Stardust
"Her eyes are pure stars, and her fingers, if they touch you, freeze you to the bone."
Virginia Woolf
Full Summary: Eirlys Nielsdottir is certain that she's not meant to be a hero. Wild girls from the north are not the stuff of legends, and she has accepted that.
Until, that is, her half-brother vanishes while on a trading a trip and no one in her village even tries to find him. So she decides she's going to do it herself.
But the world is a much wider and stranger place than Eirlys knows, and her search for her brother draws her closer to the darkness simmering at the heart of Middle Earth; a darkness that has nothing to do with the return of the One Ring and everything to do with the secrets her family keeps.
And it will be something of a miracle if she manages to survive long enough to figure out what those secrets are.
Prologue: Kingdom's End
200 Years Ago
"She's coming, you know."
The woman's words, spoken quietly but firmly, cause her husband to turn around. He rakes a hand through his short, dark hair and sighs.
"I do."
She bites her lip and looks down at the baby in her arms. "Then what are we to do? There is no weapon we have that can stop her."
The man sighs again and turns back to the open window. Moonlight streams into the room, illuminating the crest on the wall; a silver circle, inside of which is a swooping raven and a crescent moon.
When her husband does not respond, the woman's eyes widen. "Is there? Rowan, is there?"
"Yes," the man, Rowan, says heavily. "But I fear what using it will cost."
The woman gets to her feet and walks over to her husband. "What cost could be too great?"
"How does destroying the Diacrys sound to you, Melisande?"
"What?"
Rowan nods sadly. "I spoke with the White Wizard. He said that the only way to destroy her power is to destroy the thing that gives her power. It is our misfortune that the thing that gives her power is the thing that gives all of us power."
"The Diacrys does more than give us power!" Melisande cries. "If you destroy it, we will not long survive!"
"You have so little faith in us," Rowan says softly. "But you are partially right. Which is why we have a terrible choice to make."
Silence falls. The baby half-wakes, making sleepy cooing noises.
"Shh," Melisande says. "Go back to sleep, Lorelei."
Rowan stares down at the baby and purses his lips. Something steely spreads over his face; a decision in his his eyes. Melisande looks back up, and she sees it. A tired sigh escapes her lips.
"You're going to do it, aren't you?"
"You know the answer."
"You'll doom us all, then."
"If it will stop her...so be it."
A/N So yeah. Hi. Hopefully this will go better than the last couple of times I've tried to write Lord of the Rings fanfiction. I'm going to try very hard to make this original, and I hope you like the result.
Please review!
P.S. Dedicated to my cousin, who would not stop pestering me about writing this.
