title: The Lord-Protector's Daughter (Corean Chronicles)
author: L. E. Modesitt
description: Modesitt returns to the setting of two earlier trilogies with a stand-alone novel that keeps readers engaged right up to the perfunctory conclusion. As oldest daughter of the ruler of Lanachrona, Mykella has high rank but no real power. Though intelligent and diligent enough to uncover an embezzlement plot, she cannot inherit and expects to be married off for political alliance. Then she receives a supernatural warning of danger and is told she must discover her psionic Talent to save her loved ones. As she struggles to defeat both evil nonhuman powers and treachery within her own family, her fumbling but determined efforts are endearing. Unfortunately, the abrupt ending leaves unresolved the larger issues of the role of magic in public life and the position of women in society. <i>(Nov.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  L. E. MODESITT, JR.
  
   **THE**
  
   **LORD-PROTECTOR'S**
  
   **DAUGHTER**
  
   _The Seventh Book of the Corean Chronicles_  
  
  The river boiled, and blood turned to ice,
  
  And Alectors fell to the soarers' device,
  
  Yet deep in the void, they lurk in the dark
  
  Awaiting the time to return to their mark.
  
  Who will protect those who remain;
  
  Whose Talent will our lives sustain?
  
  Lord-Protector, daughter or son,
  
  In whose blood will Talent so run?  
  
   **1**
  
  In the late afternoon of Octdi, Mykella dismounted at the base of the ramp
  leading to the north end of the Great Piers of Tempre. The top of the ramp
  ended some twenty yards short of the squarish one-story stone structure that
  held the portmaster and his clerks. Immediately to the north of the
  portmaster's building stood the shimmering green tower that dominated the
  northern end of the Great Piers of Tempre.
  
  Behind Mykella, her younger and taller sister Rachylana also dismounted, if
  reluctantly, as did two of the four Southern Guards, in th