OTB #20: WEBS OF GHOST MAGIC (YA Fantasy)

TITLE: WEBS OF GHOST MAGIC
GENRE: YA Fantasy

In WEBS OF GHOST MAGIC, a princess of Glenwys reaches across two kingdoms to save a prince of Emlyn from a Cadmarian assassin, but saving him reveals her as the dreamer Emperor Cadmar sent his ghost mage to find. And the prince can’t let a dreamer live.

Prince Lael caught his first whiff of murder three weeks before his seventeenth birthday. No one committed murder in the Kingdom of Emlyn.

Lael and his champion were on their way back from the Southern Markets when Lael smelled the corpse. Lael swung down from his horse to investigate—not from any real sense of concern or urgency but because his backside needed a break. They’d spent a lot of time in the saddle over the last few days, setting a much needed renovation in motion. Kellen protested the detour at first, but then he dismounted to follow.

Deep snow grabbed at Lael’s boots, nearly yanking them off with each step he took. Sun shining on the vast expanse of white made him squint to protect his eyes.

Which direction had the wind blown that smell from?

There. A patch of brown splotched the white to his left, not far from a tall pine tree. Lael veered toward it. Wavy brown hair covered most of the bloated face. A girl. She lay stretched out on her side, arms flung wide. Up close, the stench made him hold his breath. It was difficult to tell her age, but she looked younger than he was. Horrified, he reached for the knife handle protruding from her shoulder.

“Don’t touch that,” Kellen said, investigating the surrounding area. “It isn’t safe this close to the border, my prince. We should go.”

“But we aren’t that close to the border, Kel, and this little knife shouldn’t have killed her.”