When Jill turns thirteen, Cullyn, who has been teaching his daughter swordcraft, buys Jill a silver dagger like his own for a birthday present. Thunder booms from a clear sky – a sign that his oath has been accepted by the Great Ones (transcendent spiritual beings similar to Bodhisattvas). Overwhelmed by guilt and grief, Nevyn rashly swears an oath that he will not rest until he sets things right. Nevyn takes Brangwen away from the Falcon lands, but the distraught girl drowns herself. Gerraent is in turn killed by Blaen's brother. When Gerraent's sworn friend, Blaen of the Boar clan, discovers the incestuous relationship, Gerraent kills him. He even takes Galrion's name from him, and gives him a new name, Nevyn, meaning 'no one.' Adoryc also breaks Nevyn's betrothal to Brangwen, who then falls into an incestuous relationship with her brother Gerraent, and the two promise to end their lives together when autumn comes.

Galrion's father, King Adoryc, is infuriated when he discovers that his son has been studying sorcery, and puts Galrion under house arrest, though the prince escapes by a ruse.Īdoryc soon finds his son and sends him into exile, taking from him all his rank, titles, and property. Galrion considers breaking his betrothal so that he will have more time to devote to the study of sorcery. He begins to fall in love with its power, and out of love with his betrothed, Brangwen of the Falcon clan. Galrion, a prince of Deverry, has secretly begun studying sorcery. He finds a clue when he meets the ten-year-old lord Rhodry Maelwaedd, and sees that the boy's destiny is linked with his and Jill's. Finding Seryan dead, he decides to take Jill with him on his wanderings, which he calls 'the long road.”įor seven years, Nevyn has been searching for Jill, with nothing more than luck and intuition to guide him. Cullyn arrives in Jill's village a month later. Because her father, Cullyn, is a mercenary soldier – known as a 'silver dagger' for the weapon he carries – and visits irregularly, Jill is taken in by a local tavern owner.

Jill, a seven-year-old girl who sometime has precognitive dreams, loses her mother Seryan to a fever. The sorcerer Nevyn sees an omen indicating that a person whose destiny is intertwined with his own has been reborn, and sees the infant Jill in a vision. Main article: Characters in the Deverry cycle Plot summary Įvents are listed here not in chronological order, but in the order they were originally presented in the novel.

Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr