Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
93% positive over last 12 months
Usually ships within 4 to 5 days.
+ $3.99 shipping
73% positive over last 12 months
Usually ships within 3 to 4 days.
+ $3.99 shipping
85% positive over last 12 months

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Paperback – February 2, 2016
Mercedes Lackey (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
Price | New from | Used from |
Enhance your purchase
This Lambda Award-winning trilogy tells the story of Vanyel, persecuted and abused son of a Valdemaran noble, who finds acceptance at Haven when he is Chosen by the Companion Yfandes. Companions like Yfandes are magical horse-like beings with the power to communicate and bond with their Chosen, and trigger the potential for psychic abilities—and magic.
But Vanyel discovers other things about himself at Haven as well…. He discovers love in an unexpected place, and loses it, and nearly his own life. With Yfandes and his aunt, Herald Savil, he will travel to the home of the mysterious Hawkbrothers in search of healing and training, and will grow from a troubled and heartbroken Trainee to become the most powerful Herald-Mage in the history of Valdemar—and the one hope for Valdemar against an implacable foe bent on eradicating magic from the Kingdom entirely
- Print length880 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDAW
- Publication dateFebruary 2, 2016
- Dimensions6.05 x 1.44 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100756411386
- ISBN-13978-0756411381
"The Venice Sketchbook?" by Rhys Bowen
“Rhys Bowen crafts a propulsive, unexpected plot with characters who come vibrantly alive on the page.” ―Mark Sullivan, author of Beneath a Scarlet Sky | Learn more
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Lackey has written another intensely wrought, finely detailed story of heroic victims struggling to do the best with their fate. Vanyel’s magical strengths are countered by his very human insecurities." —VOYA
"Lackey’s characterization, plotting, and wit are all of a high order. A real page-turner for any fantasy collection." —Booklist
"Emotionally tense and full of drama and magic." —Locus
"In Vanyel, [Lackey] has created her most empathetic male character to date, making our emotions run high as he meets his fate. And best of all, the very last plot twist is one of haunting beauty that will touch your heart." —RT Reviews
"In this trilogy, Lackey reaches an intensity she had only begun to achieve.... The story of Vanyel is darker than her earlier books, and the pace is unrelenting." —American Fantasy Magazine
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
“Your grandfather,” said Vanyel’s brawny, fifteen-year-old cousin Radevel, “was crazy.”
He has a point, Vanyel thought, hoping they weren’t about to take an uncontrolled dive down the last of the stairs.
Radevel’s remark had probably been prompted by this very back staircase, one that started at one end of the third-floor servants’ hall and emerged at the rear of a linen closet on the ground floor. The stair treads were so narrow and so slick that not even the servants used it.
The manor-keep of Lord Withen Ashkevron of Forst Reach was a strange and patchworked structure. In Vanyel’s great-great-grandfather’s day it had been a more conventional defensive keep, but by the time Vanyel’s grandfather had held the lands, the border had been pushed far past Forst Reach. The old reprobate had decided when he’d reached late middle age that defense was going to be secondary to comfort. His comfort, primarily.
Not that Vanyel entirely disagreed with Grandfather; he would have been one of the first to vote to fill in the moat and for fireplaces in all the rooms. But the old man had gotten some pretty peculiar notions about what he wanted where—along with a tendency to change his mind in mid-alteration.
There were good points—windows everywhere, and all of them glazed and shuttered. Skylights lighting all the upper rooms and the staircases. Fireplaces in nearly every room. Heated privies, part and parcel of the bathhouse. Every inside wall lathed and plastered against cold and damp. The stables, mews, kennel, and chickenyard banished to new outbuildings.
But there were bad points—if you didn’t know your way, you could really get lost; and there were an awful lot of places you couldn’t get into unless you knew exactly how to get there. Some of those places were important—like the bathhouse and privies. The old goat hadn’t much considered the next generation in his alterations, either; he’d cut up the nursery into servant’s quarters, which meant that until Lord Withen’s boys went into bachelor’s hall and the girls to the bower, they were cramped two and three to a series of very tiny attic-level rooms.
“He was your grandfather, too,” Vanyel felt impelled to point out. The Ashkevron cousins had a tendency to act as if they had no common ancestors with Vanyel and his sibs whenever the subject of Grandfather Joserlin and his alterations came up.
“Huh.” Radevel considered for a moment, then shrugged. “He was still crazy.” He hefted his own load of armor and padding a little higher on his shoulder.
Vanyel held his peace and trotted down the last couple of stone stairs to hold the door open for his cousin. Radevel was doing him a favor, even though Vanyel was certain that cousin Radevel shared everyone else’s low opinion of him. Radevel was far and away the best-natured of the cousins, and the easiest to talk round—and the bribe of Vanyel’s new hawking gauntlet had proved too much for him to resist. Still, it wouldn’t do to get him angry by arguing with him; he might decide he had better things to do than help Vanyel out, gauntlet or no gauntlet.
Oh, gods—let this work, Vanyel thought as they emerged into the gloomy back hall. Did I practice enough with Lissa? Is this going to have a chance against a standard attack? Or am I crazy for even trying?
The hallway was as cold as the staircase had been, and dark to boot. Radevel took the lead, feet slapping on the stone floor as he whistled contentedly—and tunelessly. Vanyel tried not to wince at the mutilation of one of his favorite melodies and drifted silently in his wake, his thoughts as dark as the hallway.
In three days Lissa will be gone—and if I can’t manage to get sent along, I’ll be all alone. Without Lissa . . .
If I can just prove that I need her kind of training, then maybe Father will let me go with her—
That had been the half-formed notion that prompted him to work out the moves of a different style of fighting than what he was supposed to be learning, practicing them in secret with his older sister Lissa: that was what had ultimately led to this little expedition.
That, and the urgent need to show Lord Withen that his eldest son wasn’t the coward the armsmaster claimed he was—and that he could succeed on martial ground of his own choosing.
Vanyel wondered why he was the only boy to realize that there were other styles of fighting than armsmaster Jervis taught; he’d read of them, and knew that they had to be just as valid, else why send Lissa off to foster and study with Trevor Corey and his seven would-be sword-ladies? The way Vanyel had it figured, there was no way short of a miracle that he would ever succeed at the brute hack-and-bash system Jervis used—and no way Lord Withen would ever believe that another style was just as good while Jervis had his ear.
Unless Vanyel could show him. Then Father would have to believe his own eyes.
And if I can’t prove it to him—
— oh, gods. I can’t take much more of this.
With Lissa gone to Brenden Keep, his last real ally in the household would be gone, too; his only friend, and the only person who cared for him.
This was the final trial of the plot he’d worked out with Liss; Radevel would try to take him using Jervis’ teachings. Vanyel would try to hold his own, wearing nothing but the padded jerkin and helm, carrying the lightest of target-shields, and trusting to speed and agility to keep him out of trouble.
Radevel kicked open the unlatched door to the practice ground, leaving Vanyel to get it closed before somebody yelled about the draft. The early spring sunlight was painful after the darkness of the hallway; Vanyel squinted as he hurried to catch up with his cousin.
“All right, peacock,” Radevel said good-naturedly, dumping his gear at the edge of the practice ground, and snagging his own gambeson from the pile. “Get yourself ready, and we’ll see if this nonsense of yours has any merit.”
It took Vanyel a lot less time than his cousin to shrug into his “armor”; he offered tentatively to help Radevel with his, but the older boy just snorted.
“Botch mine the way you botch yours? No thanks,” he said, and went on methodically buckling and adjusting.
Vanyel flushed, and stood uncertainly at the side of the sunken practice ground, contemplating the thick, dead grass at his feet.
I never botch anything except when Jervis is watching, he thought bleakly, shivering a little as a bit of cold breeze cut through the gambeson. And then I can’t do anything right.
He could almost feel the windows in the keep wall behind him like eyes staring at his back. Waiting for him to fail—again.
What’s wrong with me, anyway? Why can’t I ever please Father? Why is everything I do wrong?
He sighed, scuffed the ground with his toe, and wished he could be out riding instead of trying something doomed to failure. He was the best rider in Forst Reach—he and Star had no equals on the most breakneck of hunts, and he could, if he chose, master anything else in the stables.
And just because I won’t bother with those iron-mouthed brutes Father prefers, he won’t even grant me the accolade there—
Gods. This time I have to win.
“Wake up, dreamer,” Radevel rumbled, his voice muffled inside the helm. “You wanted to have at—let’s get to it.”
Vanyel walked to the center of the practice field with nervous deliberation, waiting until the last minute to get his helm on. He hated the thing; he hated the feeling of being closed in, and most of all hated having his vision narrowed to a little slit. He waited for Radevel to come up to him, feeling the sweat already starting under his arms and down the line of his back.
Radevel swung—but instead of meeting the blow with his shield as Jervis would have done, Vanyel just moved out of the way of the blow, and on his way past Radevel, made a stab of his own. Jervis never cared much for point-work, but Vanyel had discovered it could be really effective if you timed things right. Radevel made a startled sound and got up his own shield, but only just in time, and left himself open to a cut.
Vanyel felt his spirits rising as he saw this second opening in as many breaths, and chanced another attack of his own. This one actually managed to connect, though it was too light to call a disabling hit.
“Light!” Vanyel shouted as he danced away, before his cousin had a chance to disqualify the blow.
“Almost enough, peacock,” Radevel replied, reluctant admiration in his voice. “You land another like that with your weight behind it and I’ll be out. Try this for size—”
He charged, his practice blade a blur beside his shield.
Vanyel just stepped aside at the last moment, while Radevel staggered halfway to the boundary under his own momentum.
It was working! Radevel couldn’t get near him—and Vanyel was pecking away at him whenever he got an opportunity. He wasn’t hitting even close to killing strength—but that was mostly from lack of practice. If—
“Hold, damn your eyes!”
Long habit froze them both in position, and the armsmaster of Forst Reach stalked onto the field, fire in his bloodshot glare.
Jervis looked the two of them up and down while Vanyel sweated from more than exertion. The blond, crag-faced mercenary frowned, and Vanyel’s mouth went dry. Jervis looked angry—and when Jervis was angry, it was generally Vanyel who suffered.
“Well—” the man croaked after long enough for Vanyel’s dread of him to build up to full force. “—learning a new discipline, are we? And whose idea was this?”
“Mine, sir,” Vanyel whispered.
“Might have guessed sneak-and-run would be more suited to you than an honest fight,” the armsmaster sneered. “Well, and how did you do, my bright young lord?”
“He did all right, Jervis.” To Vanyel’s complete amazement Radevel spoke up for him. “I couldn’t get a blow on ’im. An’ if he’d put his weight behind it, he’d have laid me out a time or two.”
“So you’re a real hero against a half-grown boy. I’ll just bet you feel like another Veth Krethen, don’t you?” Jervis spat. Vanyel held his temper, counting to ten, and did not protest that Radevel was nearly double his size and certainly no “half-grown boy.” Jervis glared at him, waiting for a retort that never came—and strangely, that seemed to anger Jervis even more.
“All right, hero,” he snarled, taking Radevel’s blade away and jamming the boy’s helm down over his own head. “Let’s see just how good you really are—”
Jervis charged without any warning, and Vanyel had to scramble to get out of the way of the whirling blade. He realized then that Jervis was coming for him all-out—as if Vanyel was wearing full armor.
Which he wasn’t.
He pivoted desperately as Jervis came at him again; ducked, wove, and spun—and saw an opening. This time desperation gave him the strength he hadn’t used against Radevel—and he scored a chest-stab that actually rocked Jervis back for a moment, and followed it with a good solid blow to the head.
He waited, heart in mouth, while the armsmaster staggered backward two or three steps, then shook his head to clear it. There was an awful silence—
Then Jervis yanked off the helm, and there was nothing but rage on his face.
“Radevel, get the boys, then bring me Lordling Vanyel’s arms and armor,” the armsmaster said, in a voice that was deadly calm.
Radevel backed off the field, then turned and ran for the keep. Jervis paced slowly to within a few feet of Vanyel, and Vanyel nearly died of fear on the spot.
“So you like striking from behind, hmm?” he said in that same, deadly quiet voice. “I think maybe I’ve been a bit lax in teaching you about honor, young milord.” A thin smile briefly sliced across his face. “But I think we can remedy that quickly enough.”
Radevel approached with feet dragging, his arms loaded with the rest of Vanyel’s equipment.
“Arm up,” Jervis ordered, and Vanyel did not dare to disobey.
Exactly what Jervis said, then—other than dressing Vanyel down in front of the whole lot of them, calling him a coward and a cheat, an assassin who wouldn’t stand still to face his opponent’s blade with honor—Vanyel could never afterward remember. Only a haze of mingled fear and anger that made the words meaningless.
But then Jervis took Vanyel on. His way, his style.
It was a hopeless fight from the beginning, even if Vanyel had been good at this particular mode of combat. In moments Vanyel found himself flat on his back, trying to see around spots in front of his eyes, with his ears still ringing from a blow he hadn’t even seen coming.
“Get up,” Jervis said—
Five more times Vanyel got up, each time more slowly. Each time, he tried to yield. By the fourth time he was wit-wandering, dazed and groveling. And Jervis refused to accept his surrender even when he could barely gasp out the words.
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Product details
- Publisher : DAW (February 2, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 880 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0756411386
- ISBN-13 : 978-0756411381
- Item Weight : 1.69 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.05 x 1.44 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #188,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #749 in Military Fantasy (Books)
- #3,701 in Dark Fantasy
- #7,477 in Romantic Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Mercedes Lackey is the acclaimed author of over fifty novels and many works of short fiction. In her "spare" time she is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator. Mercedes lives in Oklahoma with her husband and frequent collaborator, artist Larry Dixon, and their flock of parrots.
Photo by Elkman (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
The setting is more about people and cultures than it is about geography, something of a departure for well-loved fantasy series set in a kingdom or land, and the protagonist and hero, Vanyel, is both a mage and homosexual in a land where tolerance is perhaps more successfully preached than it is practiced. A large part of the book deals with Vanyel's quest for acceptance and self-acceptance; if g-rated homosexuality bothers you, you will probably want to avoid this book. In addition to Vanyel himself, there are a couple of other major characters, some love interests and some friends, who are also homosexual. It is certainly possible to view Vanyel as tormented, whiny and self-absorbed, he's a genuine character with flaws as well as strengths, and on the whole he's more interesting for his flaws than he is irritating (though Lackey succeeded perhaps too well in capturing his teen angst).
The magic system is interesting and reasonably well-developed without destroying the mystic nature of magic; there are plenty of little mysteries and whatnot in terms of that to keep the reader interested. There's also lots of character development and introspection, sometimes to the detriment of robust conflict, but on the whole action, characterization and description are all well-balanced and generate an exciting story worth reading.
Finally, on a very positive note, while often older books and omnibus editions converted to Kindle format have significant issues with editing (i.e., there wasn't any, and someone trusted their optical character recognition too much), there is little to be seen in terms of errors here.
In Magic's Pawn we meet Vanyel who will become the last Herald-Mage. Here Vanyel, a gay teen, grows from a young popinjay to the kind of person who cares for and protects others -- in short, a Herald.
Magic's Promise requires a tissue warning! Sometimes the middle book of a trilogy is a weaker one than the ends. This one is a powerful book in its own right. Vanyel has come into his own as one of the most powerful (if not THE most powerful) Herald-Mages ever. Valdemar is still taking the geographic shape it would have in the Arrows trilogy. This story is one of personal sacrifice made for the good of others.
Magic's Price is a strong and moving conclusion to Vanyel's story. I like Vanyel, in part because he does his best, but isn't perfect. His strengths and flaws make this book a powerful story of love (of people and country) and duty. There are some scenes of sexual violence that are more implied than graphically covered, but that violence is integral to the story.
If you enjoy fantasy and have not yet read this trilogy, then I urge you to do so. I don't think you will regret the time you spend reading it.
So what to expect:
Not a romance
Not for the people that can't stand a homosexual relationship. (I wasn't into that part, but it didn't really bother me)
Not sci-fi
It DOES have some romance - as above homosexual.
It DOES keep you involved at every step of the way. I laughed and cried and overall loved these books.
It DOES take you from a young boy to an experienced hero
It DOES have talking horses that are magical
Violence - check
Magic - check
Romance - check
Good ending - wait and make up your own mind.
Sexual content - check but not primary focus as the romance isn't primary
Rape - unfortunately check
Our hero Vanyel is not perfect. He has some serious flaws. It makes him human. He is self-involved. He makes mistakes along the way and grows into a legend. Some key players do die. Hence the tears. It has warring countries. I just don't want to say too much. You just have to read it. Lately the reads for Valdemar have not been very good. BUT these early ones, EPIC.
Top reviews from other countries




I really did.
I read two books of the trilogy before realising that, no, in fact, it was not going to get better.
It's boring, it's outdated, the main character is *miserable* ALL THE TIME.
And the whole soulmate stuff is both annoying and makes room for HORRIBLY TOXIC ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS.
If you are looking for actually good queer fantasy, look somewhere else.
