The beautiful Averil is heir to the Duchy of Quitaine, in the Kingdom of Lys. She is a powerful mage, trained by the Ladies of the Isle, but when her father calls her home to take up her duties, she must leave that life behind. In her city of Fontevrai, she meets Gereint, raised as a common villager but greatly gifted in magic, a novice of the magical order of the Knights of the Rose. The Knights and their sister order, the Ladies of the Isle, defend a great secret: the means and location of the Serpent's imprisonment a thousand years ago by the Young God in whose name their order was founded. Quitaine is under subtle attack by the King of Lys, who has secretly become an adept of the hidden order of the Serpent, and he will let nothing and no one stand in the way of his quest to discover how to free his God. But the Knights of the Rose, and the Ladies of the Isle believe that if the Serpent is freed, the world will be enslaved to chaos: humanity will destroy itself, and all that man has made will be corrupted. The War of the Rose and Serpent has begun again, after a thousand years. A thousand years ago, the Young God defeated the Serpent that ruled the chaos that was then creation but died of his wounds. His followers bound the Serpent and founded the Knights of the Rose and the Ladies of the Isle to keep it bound. Now King Clodovec of Lys' niece Averil is summoned to her duties as heir to the powerful duchy of Quitaine. She must travel secretly, for Quitaine is under subtle attack by Clodovec, an adept who seeks to free the bound god by destroying the Young God's paladins by treachery. In her home city, Averil encounters low-born Gereint, a novice Knight of the Rose with a great gift for magic. A few days later, Clodovec strikes down her father and attacks the paladins in the duchy. She and Gereint are for the moment all who stand against Clodovec and chaos. Bryan uses an archetypal but well-crafted plot and convincing characters and setting to open a series that should please lots of fantasy and romance fans. Roland Green Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Kathleen Bryan lives in Vail, Arizona. She is the author of The Serpent and the Rose. The Serpent and the Rose By Bryan, Kathleen Tor Books Copyright © 2007 Bryan, Kathleen All right reserved. ISBN: 9780765313287 1 The hayrick exploded in a swirl of straw and dust and squawking chickens. The yard dogs yelped and fled with their tails between their legs; the bull bellowed in his pen. Gereint stood in the middle of the whirlwind, eye to eye with a shape as insubstantial as it was powerful. He had an impression of wings and fangs and eyes—a hundred eyes, each different from the next, and all fixed on him. Studying him. Reducing him to absolute insignificance. God knew, he was used to that. "My apologies," he said as politely as he knew how. "I didn’t mean to disturb you." The whirlwind plucked at his hair with unexpectedly gentle fingers, running them through it, then tugging on the tail of his shirt. It seemed more amused than not. When he bowed, it rippled in what might have been laughter. Then it scattered, dividing into a hundred tiny breezes. They danced through the barnyard and set the remains of the hayrick to spinning before, with a sigh, they fluttered to the ground. "Gereint." His mother’s voice was quiet. That was much more disturbing than a full-throated bellow. He turned slowly, shedding bits of hay. "I was only trying to—" "Don’t say it," she said. But he had to. Not that she would ever understand, but he never stopped trying. "I was going to feed the cows, and I thought, you know, if the hay could move itself, how much more time I’d have to milk them. I didn’t mean to—" "You never do," said Enid. A great anger was rising in him. It was years old and miles deep, and he had been throttling it down for as long as he could remember. He dared not let it loose. It was bad enough that he had scattered a month’s worth of hay all over creation. A very small part of it escaped him. Words, that was all they were. Nothing else. "If you would let me learn how to control this thing—if you would just acknowledge that I have it—" It was no use. Her face had shut down, just as it always did. "Now you have the yard to rake as well as the cows to milk and feed. Salvage what hay you can. It can go for bedding if it’s too far gone for anything better." "Mother," he said. He knew it was futile, but if he did not say it, the top of his head was going to fly off. "Mother, for once in your life, please listen. It’s happening more often, and it’s getting worse. You can’t just keep on ignoring it." "Rake," she said. "Feed. Milk." Then she was gone, back to hitching up the wagon. It was market day, and she had a stall to tend. The thing inside Gereint was so strong he could barely see. There was a buzzing in his ears and a drumming in his skull. He prayed he could keep it from bursting