Gillian Anderson: The Sound of Seas

“I pray you are correct—only for their lives, not their divisive beliefs.”

“See to a landing,” the Standor said. Her eyes drifted to the weakened balloon. “We will have to set down very soon.”

“Clearing or treetops?” Femora Loi asked.

“Treetops,” Qala said. “There might be predators and we have no weapons. We can re-rig the plank to descend from there.”

“The balloon?”

Standor Qala considered the question carefully. “Deflate,” she said. “It hasn’t much more life and I would not see it torn.”

“It will be done,” Loi replied.

As the Standor stood there, her beloved airship drifting lower and nearer to the trees, she heard a fresh creaking on the deck behind and below her. She turned to see Bayarma and Vilu, their eyes on the spectacle ahead. Qala motioned them to join her, and they climbed the narrow stairs. Qala could see that the woman’s eyes were damp; she had a birth mother and birth daughter in Galderkhaan, and she had been mourning them in private. But her eyes quickly grew clear, her expression hopeful as she saw the new lands.

“Where are we?” Vilu asked eagerly as he gripped the railing and pulled himself up slightly.

“North,” Standor Qala replied.

“Lasha said there was nothing to the north but water,” the boy declared. “He told us he knew that because he was friends with Tawazh.”

“Lasha and the sky god will have to sort that out between them,” Qala replied. “For we have gone north, quite some distance, and there you see our new home.”

“What’s it called?” Vilu asked.

“It doesn’t have a name, as far as I know,” the Standor told him.

“Then let’s call it Falkhaan-Qala,” he said. “That way people will always know who found it.” The boy beamed. “The greatest Standor in Galderkhaan, in all of history!”

“I’ll think about that,” the Standor said, her gold eyes moving back to Bayarma. “Will you be all right?”

She looked at Qala with soft eyes. “The poet Vol—you know of him?”

“I do, though only from postings in the courtyards of…” Her voice trailed off, unable to say the name of any cities so recently lost. “I have seen some of his words, yes.”

“I read his scrolls to my daughter,” Bayarma said. “He wrote, ‘Nothing is ever truly lost, so long as it is remembered.’ I will never forget those who were unable to join us.” She stopped gesturing briefly to lay her hands on her chest. “They will always live here. And—”

She hesitated. With a look, Standor Qala encouraged her to go on.

“I believe in the Candescents,” the woman told her. “I believe they have a plan for us. I do not think we are here by accident.”

“We are here by the grace of the wind currents and by the heart of our crew,” Qala said. “If those be the work of the Candescents, then we are not here by accident.”

“Hull mooring imminent!” Femora Loi shouted across the deck to all hands.

The Standor put a loving arm around Bayarma’s shoulders, picked up the boy with the other, and stepped back from the railing as the great airship sighed its last and thumped onto the sturdy tops of the great trees below. An emotional cheer rose from all quarters of the ship as the crew, save those who were deflating the balloon, turned toward the command post from their stations, toward their leader, waiting for instructions.

“Let us begin our new lives,” the Standor said as ropes secured the ship and envelope, and the survivors of Galderkhaan moved aft to meet their new home.

A Vision of Fire is the explosive first novel from iconic X-Files star Gillian Anderson and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Rovin: “Fans of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child will find a lot to like” (Publishers Weekly).

From Gillian Anderson, star of the X-Files , and New York Times bestselling coauthor Jeff Rovin comes the second book in the thrilling paranormal series EarthEnd Saga that began with A Vision of Fire, which Marie Claire called “addictive!”

GILLIAN ANDERSON is an award-winning film, television, and theater actor and producer, writer, and activist. She currently lives in London with her daughter and two sons.

JEFF ROVIN is the author of more than 100 books, fiction and nonfiction, under his own name, under various pseudonyms, or as a ghostwriter, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. He has written more than a dozen Op-Center novels for the late Tom Clancy. Rovin has also written for television and has had numerous celebrity interviews published in magazines under his byline. He is a member of the Author’s Guild, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Horror Writers Association.

A Vision of Fire

A Dream of Ice

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin

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First Simon451 hardcover edition September 2016

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