(The Sunbolt Chronicles #1)
by Intisar Khanani
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: June 17th 2013
Summary from Goodreads:
The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt Arch Mage Wilhelm Blackflame.
When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.
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“Mgeni! Stay a moment; I
have your future for you.”
I grin, turning towards the
voice. Mama Ali sits beneath the cloth shade of her market stall, her husband’s
catch heaped on the wooden counter before her: mounds of sardines, glinting
silver bright in the sun. Today there’s also a single little octopus that must
have gotten tangled in his nets, it’s fleshy body turned over to show the white
of its tentacles.
With her wide smile and heavy
girth, Mama Ali is a well-known fixture of the fish market, her laughter
booming across the crowded aisles and her penchant for sharing people’s futures
indulged in even by the locals. Her son, ten years old and shrewder than a
hundred year-old owl, perches beside her, watching me.
“You can keep my future, Mama
Ali,” I reply. “It will probably do you more good than me.”
My words draw laughter from the
women at the surrounding stalls. The market stalls are packed tightly together,
and every counter offers up the bounty of the sea, scenting the air with salt
and sea. Above the stalls flap brightly-colored cloth shades, protecting both
the women and the fish from the sun’s heat.
I hear someone ask what she
missed, and a woman replies, calling me mgeni again. My smile slips a
notch. I may have adopted the traditional, brightly colored long skirt and
tunic of the local women, as well as the tightly wound head wrap, but my
sand-gold skin and the slant of my eyes will always mark me as someone else.
Mama Ali may use the term as an endearment, but the echoes I hear now brand
me as an outsider.
Mama Ali holds out her hand
imperiously, a queen demanding tribute from the riffraff that forms her court.
“Come, my friend, keeper of secrets, let us see what we can.”
“What will you give me?” I ask,
hoping ‘keeper of secrets’ is just a phrase she uses on potential customers.
Regardless, I don’t have the coin to pay her, so I may as well be clear I
won’t be giving anything.
“Give you? Your future,
muddle-brain! And, because you are always admiring my wares, I will give it to
you for free.”
“Oh, very well.” I acquiesce none
too gracefully, offering Mama Ali my hand. Trying not to fidget, I wait, her
palms clasped around my hand. I may be running a little late, but there’s no
reason to think the meeting will have started on time. Besides, since I wasn’t
invited in the first place, no one will miss me. “Don’t tell me I’m going to
meet someone new, dark of skin and—”
“Short,” Mama Ali agrees.
I nearly choke. “Short?”
She drops her voice. “Well, if I
want to be sure it happens, short is so much more likely than tall, isn’t it?
At least,” she nods her head to suggest the market, not to mention the rest the
island, “here.”
I laugh. I think this must be why
Mama Ali and I get along so well. “Right. Short and dark.”
“No.” She pulls a frown. “For
you, something different.”
I glance towards the sky, gauging
the angle of the late morning sun. Magic is one thing, but divining the future?
Not so much. “I really have to—”
“You are going somewhere,” Mama
Ali intones, closing her eyes. I glance at her son in disbelief. Ali grins
wide, his teeth showing pearly white against his earth-brown skin.
“I was before you stopped me,” I
agree.
Mama Ali heaves a theatrical
sigh, squeezing my hand rather painfully. “Somewhere important,” she clarifies.
She tilts her head as if listening for something. And Mama Ali hears a lot—she has her pulse
on the happenings of Karolene. Maybe there is something she knows. Has she
heard something about the League? Or the Ghost?
She
drops my hand, sitting back with a gasp. “Run!”
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About the Author
Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad and world traveler. Born in Wisconsin, she has lived in five different states as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. She first remembers seeing snow on a wintry street in Zurich, Switzerland, and vaguely recollects having breakfast with the orangutans at the Singapore Zoo when she was five. She currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and two young daughters. Until recently, Intisar wrote grants and developed projects to address community health with the Cincinnati Health Department, which was as close as she could get to saving the world. Now she focuses her time on her two passions: raising her family and writing fantasy. Intisar's next two projects include a companion trilogy to Thorn, following the heroine introduced in her short story The Bone Knife, and The Sunbolt Chronicles, a novella serial following a young mage with a propensity to play hero, and her nemesis, a dark mage intent on taking over the Eleven Kingdoms.
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