title: The Broken Crown (The Sun Sword, Book 1)
author:  Michelle West 
description: Praise for the Sun Sword series:<br /><br />The seer Jewel ATerafin is an engaging character.... The <b>climactic fireworks are spectacular</b>, and the revelations enticing. <i>Locus</i><br /><br />Michelle provides 687 pages of <b>non-stop excitement</b>, creating spellbinding reading.... Fantasy connoisseurs will have a field day with this mesmerizing work. <i>Romantic Times</i><br /><br />Wests writing is highly <b>embroidered and romantic</b>.... This series is for fantasy readers who relish enormous detail. <i>VOYA</i><br /><br /> This is a <b>complex weaving of tales</b> and plotting that holds your interest. Set some time aside for this one. <i>ConNotations</i><br /> <br /> The Sun Sword is the resolution, the climax, the braiding together of elements that finally brings everything to rest. West <b>pulls it off beautifully</b>. <i>Rambles Magazine</i><br /><br /><b>Fantasy action on a grand scale</b>. <i>Chronicle</i>
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  ## Chapter 23
  
  ![Sword and Hand](../Graphics/sword_hand.gif)
  
  #### _To Lose the Sun_
  
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  Trying to hold the unfamiliar woolen cloak tightly around her with one hand,
  trying not to fall out of the even more unfamiliar saddle, Shalon awkwardly
  heeled her horse forward and followed Harine and her Swordmaster Moad through
  the hole in the air that led from a stableyard in the Sun Palace to . . . She
  was not sure where, except that it was a long open area--a clearing, was it
  called? she thought that was right--a clearing larger than a raker's deck,
  among stunted trees spaced out on hills. The pines, the only trees among them
  she recognized, were too small and twisted for any use but tar and turpentine.
  Most of the rest showed bare gray branches that made her think of bones. The
  morning sun sat just above the treetops, and if anything, the cold seemed more
  bitter here than it had 