Pronunciation Guide
Feel free to use this guide as you wish. If you’d rather come up with your own pronunciation or prefer not to check until you’ve finished the book, go right ahead! I believe that the pronunciation of characters and other names, such as countries, belongs more to the reader than to the author. I made a lot of the below up, so there’s no one way to do it ‘right’.
840 Like two separate numbers. Eight Forty.
Alharys Al-huh-ris
Alt Võina I pronounce Alt like the key on my keyboard, and Võina like Voi (think void)-nuh.
Ash As in ‘he blew them to bits and ashes.’
Cairdh Like ‘care’, but with a th at the end
Ceallach an Eòlas The first two parts are something like kay-uh-luck uhn, and the third part is like Legolas but without the l and the g. Just rock your best Scottish accent and you’ll be fine.
Ceidir Kay-deer
Doran Door-an
Dràbheinn Druh-bane
Dunhă Doon-ya
Ellasan Like the name Ella and sun, but sun is a long sound. Ella-suuuun.
Hjeva Like the ye in yesterday and vuh. ye-vuh.
Islirrin Is and lyric but with an n instead of a c.
Ithrean Ith-ree-an
Kult A mixture between cult and cool, short and snappy.
Kuuldam Cool-dum
Kwenjande Quen-jun-day
Levi Le-vee
Llian’In Lee-un-een
Lyrinaan Like lyrics again plus naan. Like naan bread but inedible because she’s a goddess, not food.
Meviris Meh-vee-ris. Like Kult, it’s short and snappy.
Naavah Ora Nuh-vuh Ora
Naverys Nuh-ve-ris
Onwwe On-way
Suf’afir Soof-uh-fear. It sounds a bit like a mixture of suffering and fear, but they’re good people.
Vahimees Wuh-he-mees
Valynaan Vuh-lee-naan. That’s right, more naan bread!
Vaska Vas-kuh
Vasael’In Vuh-sail-een
Z’rasi The s is sharp, like the Spanish word for yes. Si-ruh-si
To Jess, the sweetest star
Darkness had fallen over Dunhă. Naavah Ora looked at the city at the heart of the spirits’ haven and mourned its lost light.
She mourned the loss of herself, too. It had been slow and invisible like poison, but now it was too late. She feared she’d never know the difference between her mind and Ithrean’s again.
But Ceallach had corrupted Dunhă, and whether her mind was her own or Ithrean’s, she would have her revenge.
For no one disturbed the souls’ peace while she was their guardian. Ithrean would burn the darkness out of her creation.
And together, they would return its light to even the darkest corners.
Day 157
I saw it. Grass as red as blood. A sky as violet as the most delicate flowers. Beautiful, but when I stepped on the meadow, the grass wilted beneath my feet. Other spirits were everywhere I looked, but they weren’t like mine. They looked at peace, like what Elsbet and my mother believed in.
The connection to every one of my spirits snapped when I followed the voice. I can’t describe what I did, but when I tried to bind one of these new spirits to me, something shoved me back and I fell. I blinked, and I was back in my castle.
My spirits have vanished.
But it doesn’t matter. I can start over.
Chapter 1 – Naavah Ora
Naavah Ora sat on a red-meadow rise above a white lake below purple skies and wondered what her mind was worth. She watched the city at the heart of Dunhă, darkened with corruption and its light slowly dying, and remembered the three rules every Suf’afir had to follow—Don’t wander. Don’t make contact. Observe, but don’t interfere. A part of her never wanted to reach the city. Another, much larger part would have given anything for the opportunity… once, when anything had meant a lot less.
She’d broken the first two rules when she was five and had got lost in Dunhă. Suf’afir—elves able to enter the realm of the dead—couldn’t move once on this side of the gate, but her little feet had carried her so far in her amazement that she hadn’t found the way back. A spirit had found her and had led her back to the portal her grandmother had opened. She had wandered, and she had made contact. Now it looked like she would break the third rule too.
As Dunhă was losing its light, Naavah Ora was losing herself. She’d never get used to sharing a mind with a goddess, but now it looked like she wouldn’t need to. Ithrean’s mind was so much more. Naavah Ora’s neither compared nor fit, but she had every intention of using it while she had it. She would do more than interfere—she would save Dunhă, and she would do it together with the goddess of the dead.
Naavah Ora hugged her staff to her chest. Her grandmother had made it just for her in time for Naavah Ora’s birth. After everything that had happened, it was the only thing she had left from her old life. It anchored her to herself like nothing else could. She’d be all right while she still had it, and she would never give it up.
She had always wondered why she could walk through Dunhă, why that spirit had saved her when she had been taught her entire life that movement wasn’t possible and that communicating with the dead was forbidden, but she’d never really questioned it. She had been the heir to her clan, after all. The elves in her village expected great things from her, so she had seen it as a gift. Nothing bad had ever happened to her in Dunhă, so why try to fix something that wasn’t broken when she could use it to help her clan?
But it had never been her. She’d never been special. Since birth, she had harboured a goddess like a parasite, and that was who Dunhă and the spirits had responded to. It was Naavah Ora’s destiny to lose herself in the dead’s realm to a goddess she had revered her entire life.
She ripped out a fistful of red grass and threw it away from her. The blades floated on the windless breeze for a few seconds, then turned into starlight and shimmered in the air as they rose into the purple sky she had loved so much.
‘Why me?’ she asked the parasite in her head. ‘Why now?’
She knew Ithrean was listening, but exactly how they talked was a mystery to her. Ithrean heard her every thought and responded with more thoughts in a voice that wasn’t Naavah Ora’s in her head. It had been disorienting the first time, but she was getting used to it. There was no point fighting it—she’d never win in a battle of willpower against a goddess, and they both wanted the same thing: for Dunhă to be the promised safe harbour.
Ithrean had created a whole new plane of existence out of nothing. It had given the spirits a place to stay and be at peace until Ceallach had come along and ruined it. It was a long story, and Naavah Ora didn’t have the patience for it anymore. She didn’t even care why Ceallach had done it, though she suspected his motivation had been power. He’d also slaughtered her clan—her family—and she would make him pay no matter what it cost her.
‘WHY NOT YOU?’ Ithrean said or thought or whispered into her head. Naavah Ora wasn’t sure about the specifics. ‘IT IS HARD TO EXPLAIN WHY NOW, BUT I WEAVED A CONDITION INTO THE SPELL I USED TO SLEEP. YOU MIGHT CALL IT A FAIL-SAFE. I WAS TO SLEEP FOR LONGER, BUT CEALLACH IS PREPARING FOR WAR NOW. MY MAGIC SENSED IT AND WOKE ME SOONER.’