Brona

Book 2: The First Druids of Shannara

by Terry Brooks, Delilah S. Dawson

Genres: Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy; General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Return to the world of Shannara with the sequel to Galaphile, and discover how the seeds of the greatest evil that the Four Lands has ever known inadvertently grew out of Galaphileʼs dream for peace—from the New York Times bestselling authors Terry Brooks and Delilah S. Dawson.

Years have passed since Galaphile Joss and his life partner, Nirianne, established Paranor as a way to bring harmony to the Four Lands. Now their two sons are becoming men in a land of peace and plenty. Admittedly, it is a land that their eldest child, Abronja, finds rather boring. At sixteen, he longs for a way to prove himself—a chance to show he is every bit the equal of his famous father. But when the excitement he has been longing for materializes, it is in the form of an old evil: a dark sorcerer whom his father had defeated but not destroyed. And who is now back, stronger and deadlier than ever.

Galaphile has always dreaded this wicked resurgence—and not just because of what it means for the wider world. Abronja was conceived while the dark sorcerer had control of Nirianne, and Galaphile has always feared that a spark of malevolence lives on in his beloved child.

Abronja, for his part, is certain he will never be corrupted by evil. He is fully committed to his fatherʼs vision for peace and is determined to make his name by finally destroying the monster that has targeted his family. But tangling with dark magic is not a thing to be taken lightly—especially for a young man as yet untested in the ways of the world. And when the repercussions of this encounter could have consequences for centuries to come . . .

Release date: August 25, 2026

Publisher: Del Rey

Print pages: 368

Sample

One

The warm winds of spring billowed in all the open windows of the fortress of Paranor, which sat atop a high plateau cradled by the rugged, tree-lined slopes of the Dragon’s Teeth Mountains. The past winter had been particularly cold and unforgiving, but the world was waking under the patient fingers of gentle sunshine. Something in the air seemed to shiver with pleasure and beckon—especially to the young man standing at a high window, staring down at the sanctuary his parents had helped carve from the rock. His name was Abronja Joss, and, at sixteen, the world was only just beginning to reveal its secrets to him.

Down below, thousands of people moved through the morning in easy camaraderie. The market was already bustling, its colorful tents flapping in the breeze as good smells began to emanate from clay ovens. Within the wooden city that had sprung up amidst the heavier stone structure, artisans took their looms and beads and lumps of clay out onto their doorsteps to begin their work. Blades flashed in the sun as Humans and Trolls and Elves gathered in the training field and paired off to practice their sword work. All around Paranor, stationed along the ramparts of the massive citadel and hidden along various trails and roads, more seasoned warriors waited, ever on the lookout for the few remaining war parties that dared to approach. It had been years since any real challenge, but the stalwart Peacekeepers did not slacken in their commitment or training.

Paranor was one of the safest places in the world, thanks to the hard work of all its people, finally brought together by Abronja’s father, Galaphile Joss, and his mother, Galaphile’s life partner, Nirianne. Once, the Four Lands had been locked in what seemed to be eternal enmity—the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, and Gnomes fiercely separated and barely managing to eke out a life under the harsh conditions of a world spoiled by past wars. But here on the plateau, all the races lived and worked together in a carefully constructed city that stood as a sparkling example of what might be achieved if people ignored their prejudices and fears and came together in peace and harmony.

Life in Paranor was so safe that it was almost . . . boring.

To Abronja, at least. All his life, he had lived in a fortress that had rarely seen warfare. For all the terrifying stories he’d heard of the Spectre Telle, his father’s sworn enemy, and the cause of their last siege, neither hide nor hair of the dark mage had been seen in seventeen years. Galaphile often sent out new warriors with more experienced fighters to visit the Spectre Telle’s old stronghold at Skull Mountain, but it remained empty and silent. Word had spread to every city and town, with a reward to anyone reporting news of the Spectre Telle, his undead minions, or his enormous reptilian Skelter flying across the sky, but so far, these inquiries had failed to yield any real answers. The reward remained unclaimed.

The Spectre Telle, for all intents and purposes, had disappeared.

Not that Galaphile could ever truly relax. He was a present and loving father to Abronja and his little brother, Ional, of course, but it was obvious that Paranor was his life’s work, that he was driven by something few men possessed: a singular purpose that meant he had to be more, do more, dedicate his soul to something bigger than most would dare to dream. Many a night they would be enjoying a family meal, and a knock would sound on the door to their quarters: a messenger calling for Galaphile’s aid in dealing with some new issue or dispute. Galaphile was always sorry to go and promised to return shortly, but the family knew better. Nirianne would pack up his supper and ask her sons what they’d learned that day in order to get their attention elsewhere, and then dinner would go on as if Galaphile had never been there at all. Abronja was old enough to notice such things, and he tried very hard not to resent them.

Now that he was sixteen, when such interruptions occurred, more often than not his mother rose and kissed his forehead and instructed him to get his younger sibling fed, cleaned, and into his bed so that she could join Galaphile and strategize with Krunce Torsh or see to some new maintenance issue Sanitov had discovered in the mountain depths of the structure. Nothing ever seemed to amount to much—a scuffle while training, a disease among the cows, a message from the king of the Elves—and Abronja wondered why his parents were so eager to abandon their progeny, but he was proud, at least, that they trusted him.

Well, they trusted him enough to keep an eye on ten-year-old Ional, but they did not trust him enough to take him along on their adventures or to allow him to join one of the training parties on their sweeps to Skull Mountain, hunting for the Spectre Telle. And although Abronja was a responsible and talented student, Galaphile had insisted upon waiting until he was fourteen to teach him any magic.

“That is when I began my own true education, after all,” Galaphile told him once. “I was on my own then, barely scraping out a living in a dust bowl of a town, when Starns found me. Magic is an enormous responsibility, and you will be better equipped to understand the power you wield when you have made great strides in all your other studies—in understanding languages and history and woodcraft and people. Quick thinking kept me alive long before magic ever did, and tracking and hunting are the more valuable daily concerns. Even diplomacy has benefited me more. Focus there, learn what you can, and the magic will follow.”

At the time, Abronja had been furious as only a twelve-year-old boy could be. He’d hungered to learn magic ever since the day he first saw his father perform a spell, sending out a puff of air to save the life of a worker falling from a dangerously high wall. Abronja had done his best to lay out his reasoning, to argue, to explain—and then he had begged and cajoled—but it was all for naught. Galaphile had decided how he would go about educating his elder son, and he would not deviate from that plan.

On Abronja’s fourteenth birthday, as promised, the lessons had finally begun. Little things at first, manipulating water and air and earth and fire. Until Abronja had mastered the elements, he would not move on to the next phase of his education, his father told him.

Oh, but the joy Abronja felt the first time he accomplished a spell! Simply moving a small puddle of water around on a plate brought him happiness like nothing he had ever known. He was clever; everyone had always said so. And he was studious and tenacious and, he thought, wise for his years. But there had always been a question in everyone’s mind, wondering if he would follow in his father’s footsteps. Nirianne had no magic, after all, but she was blessed with an uncanny ability to sense the moods of others and a startling intelligence and will. Galaphile’s parents, so far as he could remember them, had possessed no magic. It was a rare and special ability. In fact, the only other magic users Abronja knew of were Chelm, who could scramble minds, and Ursule Raken, the seer. Although powerful in their own ways, these two mages each possessed a singular talent—and for Ursule, one that could never be fully controlled. There was always a chance that the children of Galaphile Joss might not inherit his abilities at all. And although Nirianne, in her warm and loving way, had assured Abronja that her love for him would never lessen, still the worry festered in his heart that he might not live up to the potential everyone expected in a child of the High Lord of Paranor.

Fortunately, the magic had lain inside him, eagerly waiting to be awoken, and now he used it as often as he could, experimenting with what his father had taught him and also finding new ways to use and combine what he’d already learned. As he stood at the window, looking down at the busy roads of Paranor, feeling the spring sunshine on his freshly shaved face and smelling the flowers twining over the fences far below, he twirled his fingers, moving the air between his hands like a child might play with a ball.

“Good morning, my darling Brona,” Nirianne said as she entered the room—a sort of den around which the rest of the family rooms clustered.

“Good morning, beloved Mother.” Reaching out, Abronja used his magic to pluck a morning glory from its vine near the gardens below and float it up, up, up to the open window. It landed lightly in his hand, velvety purple and dappled with dew, and he turned to tuck it behind his mother’s ear. She had always seemed so tall and statuesque to him when he was a child, but now that he was on the cusp of adulthood, he was already taller than she was, and she seemed quite small and dainty. “Have you gotten shorter?”

“No, but I do wonder if you haven’t used your magic to become a giant overnight.” Her eyes shone with love as she reached out to move the hair falling over his eyes. He hated it, but he let her. He’d fix it later. “Anything interesting happening in our fair city?”

Nothing interesting ever happens here, he wanted to say, but he knew that would only earn him a lecture on how fortunate he was to live in a place without strife or hunger. And truly, he hadn’t seen anything new, just the same things he’d seen all his life. But now he looked down to where the plateau met the neatly planted fields of the surrounding farms and out into the forest beyond, where a flash of movement caught his eye.