orbitbooks.net
orbitshortfiction.com
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Leo Carew
Excerpt from A Crown for Cold Silver copyright © 2015 by Alex Marshall
Excerpt from A Time of Dread copyright © 2018 by John Gwynne
Author photograph by Leo Carew
Cover design by Patrick Insole
Wolf cover image by Lee Gibbons; other cover images © Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Orbit
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
orbitbooks.net
orbitshortfiction.com
Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Wildfire and in the U.S. by Orbit in 2018
First U.S. Edition: April 2018
Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017962150
ISBNs: 978-0-316-52137-6 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-52136-9 (ebook)
E3-20180222-JV-PC
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map of Albion
Prologue
Part I — Autumn
1 Broken Clockwork
2 The Hindrunn
3 The Inferno
4 The Severed Head
5 House Vidarr
6 Ash
7 Out of the Mist
8 Two Hanged Corpses
9 Guard Him
10 The Pass Beside the Sea
11 The Fight by the Fire
12 Open the Gates
Part II — Winter
13 The Honour Hall
14 The Barn
15 The Giant Elk
16 One by One
17 Vengeance Is for Now
18 The Hybrid
19 The Stump
20 The Kryptea Do Not Knock
Part III — Spring
21 Garrett Eoten-Draefend
22 The Lightning Bolt
23 Uvoren the Mighty
Epilogue
Roll of Black Legions
Houses and Major Characters of the Black Kingdom
Acknowledgements
extras
meet the author
A Preview of A Crown for Cold Silver
A Preview of A Time of Dread
Orbit Newsletter
For Mum, with love
Prologue
It rained as though the world was ending. In a cobbled street made dark by the clouds that covered moon and stars, a hooded figure struggled towards the door of a stone house, dragged back by a bitter wind. The figure leaned forward against the rushing dark, one hand grasping the top of its hood as the wind threatened to unmask it. The roof of the house ahead was unravelling and the air was thick with swirling reed. So great was the pressure the wind exerted on the dwelling that, when the figure reached it and lifted the latch, the door swept inwards and rattled off the stone behind. Within, the darkness was complete. No candles burned, no lamps were lit and there was no natural light on this wild night. Water was pouring somewhere in the dark.
The figure hesitated on the threshold for a moment, casting around. Then it groped inside, forcing the door shut behind. The wind stopped roaring and began to moan instead as it was banished from the room. In the pitch-darkness, the figure lowered its hood.
Footsteps were ringing through the dark.
The figure stood still as light began to erode a corner of the blackness. Into this growing pool of light strode a tall, dark-haired man; his fine features illuminated by a candle which he clutched in a pewter holder. There was a touch of grey at his temples and his eyes were narrowed. He stopped dead at the sight of the figure by the door and dropped his hand to a long dagger at his belt. “Who’s that?”
The figure stepped forward into the glow of the candle and resolved itself into the form of a golden-haired woman, hair tied back and gleaming with rain. She smiled and the man’s mouth fell open. He stared at her for a moment. “You’ve been wandering the streets alone?”
“Nobody’s out in this,” replied the woman. The man took a couple of steps towards her so that the candlelight was able to bring her face into greater resolution. Her clothes were dark with rain, but so fine they obviously belonged to a woman of the highest birth. But here her resemblance to the other noblewomen of the land ended. She was not like them: paled, painted, adorned, frail and delicate. Her beauty was harsher; in the bones of her face, the lines around her eyes and the ease of her stance. She wore no gold or silver and her skin was not chalk-white but browned and lined by the sun.
“Where is His Majesty?” asked the man.
“Sleeping. His physician has administered one of his brews: he won’t wake up. He fears the lightning.” The golden-haired woman rolled her eyes.
He observed her for a moment. The wind whispered through the cracks in the door, making the candle flicker. “You’re mad.”
She smiled and raised her eyebrows a little, her eyes slightly narrowed. “That’s what the court says about you. ‘Be careful of Bellamus of Safinim, Your Majesty. The upstart is not right.’”
Bellamus of Safinim held out an arm and she crossed to him, placing one of her own about his waist and supporting his upon her shoulder. Bellamus looked down at her upturned face, her eyes still narrowed, still smiling, and he kissed her. He raised his hand from her shoulder and inspected a finger and thumb, shining with moisture from her clothes. “You are in need of a fire.”
They turned away and into the dark. The candle fought silently with the void, briefly revealing the pool in the centre of the hall into which water fell in sheets from an aperture in the centre
