The Child Foretold by Nicholas Kaufmann

Author:Nicholas Kaufmann [Kaufmann, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781789992403
Published: 2019-10-31T14:36:19+00:00

About the Author

Nicholas Kaufmann is the critically acclaimed author of numerous works. Professionally immersed in books his whole life, he’s been the Publicity Manager for a small literary press, a pitchman for a PR firm specialising in TV and radio author appearances, a bookstore clerk and an independent bookstore owner. Nick lives in Brooklyn, NY.

An extract from The House of Night and Chain.

‘It’s haunted,’ Katrin said the first time she saw Malveil. She spoke with the adamantine assurance of an eight-year-old, and Zander, who was four, began to cry.

‘It is not,’ Eliana said. She crouched beside our daughter and gave her a hug, but her face showed alarm at Katrin’s blasphemy. ‘Never say that.’

I lifted Zander in my arms. He rested his face against my shoulder, wetting my uniform with his tears. He did not turn his eyes from the house, though. He stared at it, terrified, his sister’s statement confirmation of what he had already decided for himself.

We were standing at the gates to the grounds of Malveil. The house was some distance away, brooding at the top of its hill. From this vantage point, under the leaden sky, the great mansion was a dark shape, the silhouette of its towers jutting up from the walls. The details of the facade were invisible. Malveil was a hard mass of black, and I could understand the children’s reaction, even as I regretted it. The grounds were rugged and broken, gnawed apart by the generations of mining. The industry that had burrowed into the stony hill was the foundation of the Strock family’s wealth and power, though much of the machinery was quiet now. The seams were almost exhausted. We would not be drawing much more wealth out of the ground. We no longer needed to. With enough accumulation, wealth and all that flows from it is self-sustaining.

‘Ghosts do not exist,’ I told Zander and Katrin. ‘Do not offend the Emperor by believing in such nonsense.’ I spoke gently, but I needed them to know there were ideas no one should have. I patted Zander’s shoulder and smiled at Katrin. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be frightened of Malveil. You should be proud. This is our family’s home. It is a great house. The greatest on Solus.’

‘If it is our house, why don’t we live there?’ Katrin asked. She did not sound eager to do so, but at least it was curiosity, rather than fear, that prompted her question.

‘My uncle Leonel lives there now. It is his home, because he is lord-governor of Solus.’ Over time, the line between family estate and governor’s palace had blurred. Though Malveil was not officially the seat of government, it had become so in practice since the rise of the Strocks to prominence. As long as a Strock was governor, Malveil would be the governor’s residence. Our line had had its share of travails, but there was still no sign that power might slip from our grasp. Even in the present circumstances.

‘But you’re governor,’ Katrin said.

‘Governor-regent,’ I said.

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