Magic's Promise
core novel 1990 Valdemar
Record
| First published | 1990 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.22 (22,557 ratings, collected 2026-09-12) |
| Page count | 320 |
| First-edition ISBN | 0-88677-401-2 |
| First-edition date | 1990-01 |
Synopsis
The second book of the Last Herald-Mage trilogy finds Vanyel, now a Herald-Mage in his own right, returning to Valdemar after service in a military campaign, still grappling with grief and with confusion over his own sexuality amid ongoing pressure from his family to change who he is. Alongside his mentor Savil and his Companion Yfandes, Vanyel reconnects with the armsmaster Jervis and his young nephew Medren, a talented bard. His return is interrupted by a psychic summons to the neighboring kingdom of Lineas, where he finds a Herald violently interrogating the traumatized young Prince Tashir, who is suspected of murdering his own family through sorcery. Vanyel must determine what actually happened to Tashir's family and uncover the truth behind Lineas's history of forbidden magic, even as the disturbed young prince's own fate hangs in the balance.
Where it sits
- Universe: Valdemar
- Series: The Last Herald-Mage core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mercedes Lackey
Notes
- ISFDB discrepancy (manual pass, 2026-08-10): ISFDB's own title record lists 1989-01 as the date field, but its only linked publication record is dated 1990-01. This book's recorded first-edition date (1990-01) uses the publication-backed date, not the title record's date, per this project's standing practice of recording a discrepancy explicitly rather than silently picking one figure without saying why.
- From the series record (The Last Herald-Mage): Internally set ~600 years before the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy (Valdemar Wiki timeline).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Last Herald-Mage: position 2 of 3: previous Magic's Pawn (1989) · next Magic's Price (1990)
Sources
- Mercedes Lackey official site
- Valdemar Wiki (Fandom)
- https://www.isfdb.org
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes_Lackey
- https://valdemar.fandom.com/wiki/Magic%27s_Promise
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Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.