Rating: 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Magic
There once was a man named Kjell of Jeru who was not easy to love.
He had slayed monsters and men, he had bathed his hands in blood and he protected his heart with a shield of stone, afraid to feel, afraid to dream. When he learned he was a Healer, blessed by the Gods, it was not easy for him to find the balance between his sword and the cure he could offer, he could not understand how to care for anyone other than his brother. But one night, under sharp rocks and with sand in his clothes, he met his Fate.
“She saw him.
He saw her.
And they saw nothing else.”
There was once a woman named Sasha with hair like fire and a heart full of compassion.
She did not know who she was, where she came from and what was her place in the world. But she did know Kjell of Jeru. She came to love and cherish him, she saw beneath his cold mask and removed it. But love was denied. Oaths unraveled. Stars fell from the sky and ancient trees came to life, harbingers of sorrow, heartache, and truth. And Kjell of Jeru faced a destiny he was sure it was never meant to be his.
“In the lands we cannot see,
In the hearts we do not know,
In the kingdom of the trees,
Where my brother now must go.”
Kjell and Sasha's story was divine. Sacred. It was made of strands of light interwined with the deepest color of the darkest night. And this story needed to be told. To be given to mankind. For this mission, they chose a mortal woman with her soul in her hands. She was a Teller named Amy Harmon. Her Gift was bestowed by the Muses. She could infuse words with a storm of emotions. She could paint green landscapes and tumultuous waters and nightmarish monsters and imposing castles with mere sentences. She could create beauty so devasting, so overwhelming, that the heart could not contain it, but releashed it in the form of tears. She breathed life into her pages, and her pages breathed life into her readers' lungs, until every vein and every shell and every pore was full of Kjell and Sasha.
She did their story justice.
“He was not good. He was not generous. He was not courageous or compassionate. He simply loved her. And love made him a better man. That was all.”
In The Queen and the Cure duty battled with longing. Kjell, the soldier and the healer, was a man special. Devoted. Firm. And when he loved, he did not hold back. Sasha was the epitome of kindness. She was unaware of the concept of lies, her Gift was mostly a burden, but she never lost faith. She was regal in every way. She was the haven to Kjell's tempest, and no one, not spiteful and power-thirsty Changers, no Spinners and visions could take that away. The only danger to their love, was herself. Their journey was not easy. Their road was not paved with flower petals. Their song was both gleeful and mournful, a ray of sunlight and a lamentation that broke you piece by piece. But it was beguiling, and once you were caught in the nets Amy Harmon intricately wove, you belonged to her. To them.
“Come to me, and I will try to love you. I will try to love you, if you but come back.”
In the land of Jeru, magic can be found in trees and animals, even stars. In our world, it can be found in stories. And Amy Harmon's stories are the most solid proof that magic exists.
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