Barrick Eddon. What a strange, strange name. For a moment Qinnitan could not understand why it ran through her head as she lay in the dark, over and over like the words to one of the prayers her father had taught her when she was a child. Barrick. Barrick Eddon. Barrick…

Then the dream came flooding back. She tried to sit up, but little Pigeon was sprawled against her, tangled with her, and it would be too difficult to pry herself loose without waking him.

What did it mean, that vision? She had seen the flame-haired boy several times in dreams, but this last time it had been different: although she could not remember everything they had said to each other, they had shared what she remembered as a true conversation. But why had such a gift been given to her, if it truly was a gift? What did the gods intend? If the vision came from the sacred bees that she had served, the Golden Hive of Nushash, shouldn’t one of her friends from those days, like Duny, have come to her in dream instead? Why some northern boy she had never met or even seen in waking life?

Still, she could not put Barrick Eddon out of her mind, and not only because she finally knew his name. She had felt his despair as if it were her own — not as she sensed Pigeon’s unhappiness, but as if she could truly feel the stranger’s heart, as if the same blood somehow flowed through both of them. But that was impossible, of course…

Courtesy of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, we can get an early look at Shadowrise, book three of the Shadowmarch series.

I’m a big Tad Williams fan and it’s his Shadowmarch series that first convinced me of his skill, leading me to his (admittedly superior) Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy and the Otherland Quartet. Shadowrise is easily one of my most anticipated novels of the year, even coming off the mild disappointment of Shadowplay.