by Nick Martell
I swallowed hard. All the weeds were gone. The next step was to sweep off the snow that covered his headstone. He deserved as much after all these years.
“I hope you can forgive me. It was just so… hard. But that’s not an excuse, is it? Not a good one, anyway. I’m a terrible son, aren’t I? I don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry. And that I’ll try to be a better son.
“I’m doing better. As good as I can be, I guess. Angelo is still out there, and he’ll retaliate, now that I know his secret. I’ll have to get evidence and make sure I know the whole story of what happened before I do anything. Domet hasn’t contacted me yet, though I’m sure he will eventually. With Ma back to normal… and she is back to normal, Da. The Light Fabrications, or the Nullify Fabrications, worked, and she’s back. We don’t know why, and we don’t really care.
“We’re all living together now, and Lyon, Gwen, and Ma have been amazing. Gwen says I’m the first Mercenary Kingman in written history. Which she claims is a big deal, since our family has done everything, so I’ve found my legacy by accident… and it was all Lyon’s idea… He saved my life.
“Then there’s Dark… I’ll have to start working with him soon. I don’t know why he agreed to save me. I don’t know what he has planned for me. I don’t know anything… Da, I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve made so many mistakes, where do I even begin to make amends? I feel so overwhelmed.”
My father’s tombstone was silent and still as it always was and always would be. He couldn’t give me any answers. But he had shown me what love and courage were with his final actions, and through his example I knew who I wanted to become. Step by small step.
“It looks better,” Lyon declared, with Gwen at his side as they joined me at the grave. She was holding a bouquet of Moon’s Tears, while Lyon carried a bucket of soapy water. Our Mother was behind them, a chicken leg in her hand as she tried to regain some of the muscle and fat she had lost over the years.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Gwen said. “We brought Moon’s Tears for Father.”
Lyon knelt next to me, dipped his brush in the water, and began to clean the gravestone. We had divided the tasks for this. I cleared it, Lyon cleaned it, and Gwen provided the finishing touches. Family is family, no matter what. It had just taken us a while to figure that out.
“Your father should be in the crypt below Kingman Keep with the rest of the family,” my mother said. “We’ll have to arrange that—soon.”
“That requires us to have Kingman Keep again,” I said. “Which isn’t likely.”
“Why not?” my mother asked. “It’s our home, and I’d love to see who stops me from returning.”
“We’re not High Nobles anymore, Ma.”
“So?”
“We can’t live there, it’s—”
“It’s our home. Always has been and always will be. Let them tell me otherwise.”
I didn’t know how to respond; she gave me butterflies in my stomach. If my siblings heard us, they didn’t respond. Lyon was too busy cleaning the headstone, muttering to himself as he did. Gwen sat on the cold ground behind him, Moon’s Tears in her lap. I suppose, after all these years, waiting a few more minutes to put flowers on my father’s grave was nothing.
She had been right after all. Our father was an innocent man.
He may have left me with nothing but a beating heart, a tainted name, and the belief that family was the most important thing in the world. But he had given me the opportunity to become the man I wanted to be. Everything the Kingman family would be known for from now on would be because of us and what we chose to do… or what we chose not to do. The world would not be kind to us. But, together, I knew anything was possible. The Kingman legacy was not mine to bear alone anymore.
“Ma,” I said as I went to my feet. “I’m going to go—”
My mother kissed my forehead. “Go. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be at home; bring your friends for dinner if you see them, and don’t be late?”
I lingered in front of my father’s grave for a moment, playing with his ring. I didn’t cry. I didn’t have a reason to anymore… and even as I thought that, tears found their way down my face anyway. I walked through the cemetery with my head down, watching my breath float away whenever it left my mouth.
Trey was pacing back and forth at the entrance of the cemetery. I slowed, trying to find something to say to him, and he stopped when he saw me. We stood in mutual silence.
“Trey,” I said finally.
“Michael.”
We looked at anything but each other.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“Visiting my father. Are you seeing your mother and Jamal?”
Trey nodded. “I haven’t been here since… since Jamal died, and I wanted to see where they buried him. He’s supposed to be next to my mother. Not that either of them have headstones… or plaques… or anything that identifies them.”
“Well, I’ll let you—”
“I don’t remember.”
I paused. “What?”
Trey stared at the ground. What was he so ashamed of?
“I don’t remember where my mother was buried,” he said. “I’ve been here for a while, trying to remember, but I can’t. I can’t remember where she is, which means I can’t find Jamal’s grave and… and… and I want to say goodbye to him.”
Had he lost that memory in the castle when he used the Light Fabrication on me? I put my hand on his shoulder and smiled as best as I could. “I remember. I’ll take you there.”
He nodded like a child. Together we went to their graves, silent the entire way. When we arrived, he collapsed to his knees in front of two freshly dug mounds. One of them was much more recent and smaller than the other. “Thank you.”
“You would’ve done the same for me.”
“Maybe.” A pause. “I never told you how my ma died.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“If I tell you… will you tell me whether you actually killed the king or not?”
“Of course,” I said. And I meant it.
Trey watched the cold-snap sparrows fly through the sky. “I killed her. She came at me, eyes burning red, and I stabbed her. In the stomach, and in the heart, and then in the shoulder before she stopped moving.”
I didn’t respond, letting him talk.
“I couldn’t bear how she treated us. Like we were her bank,” he continued. “I snapped. I thought I could live with killing her if it meant our lives would be better… only, as she died… she said she was sorry. She asked me to forgive her, said that the Blackberries fucked up her head. She said she still loved me. Even if I had killed her.”
“Trey, you—”
“I don’t blame anyone except her for what happened. She was the one who chose to indulge in Blackberries,” he growled. “It was the right choice. She was a parasite on my life. But I could never bring myself to tell Jamal. I just didn’t want him to leave me. And now he has.”
“Trey,” I said softly, “what do you plan to do when you find your father?”
“I’m not going to kill him,” he said slowly. “I need answers first, and then I’m going to make him regret leaving me. I’m going to rise above the East Side and rewrite all the useless rules this country was founded on, to make sure my life can never happen to another. My brother deserved more. In his memory, I’ll make sure others like him get it.”
“Why do you want to know if I killed the king?”
“Can’t you tell? I’m the villain, Michael, and I want to know if you’ll be in my way or by my side. Rewriting the rules of this country means tearing everything down… and, well, you are a Kingman. So, did you kill the king?”
“No, he killed himself,” I said. “Though I came close. My father didn’t kill Davey Hollow, either. He was set up by someone and I found out who.”
Without hesitation, he asked, “Who was it?”
“Angelo Shade.”
Birds chirped from the branches ab
ove.
“Your foster father? Why?”
“I’m not completely sure. But the High Nobles did something to him and his family and he’s wanted revenge against them ever since.”
Trey shook his head and climbed back to his feet. “What happens now? Are you just going to find Angelo and then shoot him in the head to get revenge?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not going to throw away my life like that. My father wouldn’t have wanted me to.”
“You’re going to give up on getting revenge? That doesn’t—”
“Oh, I’m going to get it. I’m going to take everything from him, piece by piece, until he wishes I’d killed him in that church. Then I’ll get the Rebel Emperor, for what she’s done to my father’s memory and for everyone else those rebels have hurt—Jamal included. They might be able to escape Hollow’s justice but not mine.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
“With my family back, I’m going to make myself a king. A Mercenary King.”
“Michael,” he said, staring me in the eyes so there was no confusion, “if you rise to become a king or even remain at the side of the princess, I will tear you down. No more kings. No more queens. No more nobility. Because if they exist, so will people like me and Jamal. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I do. But I don’t have any other solution right now, so I’ll do what I must. If you come up with one that doesn’t involve killing every noble there is, I’ll listen.”
“But not before.”
“Not before.”
And under the cold winter sun we stood together in front of two graves, enjoying each other’s company before we went down separate paths, breathing and alive and together for now.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank all the wonderful people at JABberwocky Literary Agency, John Berlyne, and my agent, Joshua Bilmes. I was lucky enough to find someone who believed in me and has been my biggest advocate every step of the way. Words cannot express how much it has meant to me.
Next, thank you to everyone at Saga Press, Gollancz, and my editors, Joe Monti and Gillian Redfearn. Joe was willing to listen to me rant about the nitty gritty of what I was trying to do in this book, showing me that someone might want to discover all the secrets within it. Gillian’s surgical editing pen cut away all the nonessential bits and constantly questioned what I was doing and why. Without them, all the good parts might not have made it in.
Thank you to my copyeditors, Stephen Breslin and David Chesanow. Also, thank you to my proofreaders, Christopher Milea and Katie Rizzo.
Thank you to Lauren Jackson, Madison Penico, Stevie Finegan, and Brendan Durkin for all their hard work.
Thank you to my cover artists, Richard Anderson and Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme, for their breathtaking art.
So much effort goes into taking a book from conception to print that it makes writing look like the easy part. All of you helped the book in my head become the book in print, and I will always be grateful.
Thank you to my mother, my family, my grandparents, the Church of the Overlord, the Aikens Group and that Graham kid, Jamie Nelson, Joshua Palmatier, Elise Salada Hazlett, Kyle Van Larr, Erin McKeown, and everyone else who helped me get here.
Lastly, thank you to my dad. He once asked me, back when I was in the eighth grade, if I was serious about this writing thing. And said that if I was, he would support me every step of the way. Over a decade has passed since then, but here I am, finally. It’s been a long time coming.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NICK MARTELL was born in Guelph, Ontario, where he lived for eight years before moving to Huntington, New York. He began writing in the fifth grade, building elements he would later take and put into The Kingdom of Liars.
Nick attended Susquehanna University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and a minor in French.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Nick-Martell
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Nicholas MacDonald-Martell
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First Saga Press hardcover edition May 2020
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Jacket design by Jae Song
Jacket illustration by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme
Author photograph by Kyle Van Laar
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Martell, Nick, author.
Title: The kingdom of liars : a novel / Nick Martell.
Description: First Saga Press hardcover edition. | New York : Saga Press, 2020. | Series: The legacy of the mercenary king Identifiers: LCCN 2019047936 (print) | LCCN 2019047937 (ebook) | ISBN 9781534437784 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534437807 (epub)
Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3613.A77766 K56 2020 (print) | LCC PS3613.A77766 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047936
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047937
ISBN 978-1-5344-3778-4
ISBN 978-1-5344-3780-7 (ebook)