The Last Lullaby

Résumé

THE LAST LULLABY is the story of Brionwy, daughter of Branwen, a courtesan in the harem of the Lord Overseer, Rajan Adani, who is the head of a Great House under the rule of the Masters, the Dragons. In this post-Apocalypse story, magic exists, but only for a few. Brionwy befriends Crispy, a little girl, or fawn, who has escaped from the pens in which all humans but the serving slaves of the Overseer, the guards, and the “humble and pathetic” Beauties in the harem are kept like animals.

Crispy has named herself for the burns that cover half of her body and have withered one of her arms. She considers herself slightly abled because of her baby arm; it looks useless but is almost as strong as the other. Tough, cynical, and quick to laugh at herself or others, Crispy’s life changes the day that she peeps through a hole in the harem wall and listens to Brionwy playing her lute and singing a heart-rending lullaby. Together, the two girls who come from the most different backgrounds imaginable, and with the help of Crispy’s gang of dwarfed, misshapen, deaf, and otherwise abled misfits, solve the mystery of a strange prophecy that leads to the secret of the nearby caverns and of how to fight the Masters. Despite the fearsome Guntra, Head Dwenna of Brionwy’s Concubine Pavilion; despite the Overseer and the great Master Dragons themselves, Brionwy and Crispy find themselves leading a revolution that will change the lives of all who belong to the Overseer’s Great House forever.