Knight’s Wyrd is a YA novel by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald; it won a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature in 1993. Will is the heir to a barony; on the eve of his knighting, Will is told his wyrd: “You can take up the sword and be Sir William Odosson all your life long. But you’ll meet death before any other title come to you.”
We-the-readers recognize the ambiguity of that phrasing, but Will doesn’t. However, that’s about the only thing that this reader, at least, recognized before its revelation. As always, Doyle and Macdonald take their stories in interesting and unexpected directions, to the point that practically anything else I could say about the plot feels like a spoiler. Much more high-fantasy than the Circle of Magic series, this is nevertheless grounded by its characters and pleasingly tense. Recommended.
This was the first Doyle/Macdonald book I read. I enjoyed it a lot. The ending seemed to me to be setting the stage for a sequel, but either I was mistaken, or the authors changed their minds (or the publishers didn’t think it would sell, I guess).
I can see how a sequel could come out of it, but I didn’t read it as an obvious sequel hook or that a sequel was required, more a life-goes-on ending (like _Tigana_ before the last sentence). I’d certainly read it if they cared to write and publish it, but that rather goes without saying.