by Evie Manieri
she asked, as Eofar started.
Eofar’s pause served as a rebuke. They both knew perfectly well that nothing like a closed border was going to stop her from leaving whenever she chose.
said Eofar.
Lahlil drew Valor’s Storm and held the bronze blade up against the gray sky. She had made it a point never to carry a sword of her own, instead picking up whatever blade came to hand, and then discarding it just as easily for the next. Valor’s Storm was different; it was the first sword that had ever felt like it belonged to her.
said Eofar. He unslung the pack from his shoulder and brought out something of a highly irregular shape wrapped up in a cloth.
She took the object from him and unwrapped the cloth: two silver triffons, wings unfurled, with gold claws and eyes of faceted red jewels: the hilt of Strife’s Bane, bladeless now, like thousands of others.
said Eofar.
* * *
Isa felt a touch on her shoulder. “She’s in Sabina’s cabin,” said the girl behind her. “I’ll show you the way.”
She followed the little girl out onto the deck and down the ladder, then down the hatch to the dim lower deck. Shapes of things—square things, round things, hanging things—went past. The girl led her to a pair of doors and pointed to the one on the left. Isa opened it to find Ani sitting on a stool in the tiny cabin. Her attention was drawn first to a little harp resting in the corner, and then to various items Ani had unpacked on the table.
“What do you want, Isa?” asked Ani.
The question was simple enough, but she had no answer for it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” she said. Then, “I don’t know.”
“Do you want more medicine?”
“Yes,” said Isa with a burst of relief at having remembered why she’d come.
“I’ll give you some. Soon,” Ani amended, as Isa stepped forward to take the bottle from the table. “Sit down now.”
The woolen blanket rubbed against her coat as she sat down on the bunk. The view from the porthole high up on the wall showed nothing but a gray circle, but the sun must have come out because the light in the cabin brightened all of a sudden, and the outlines of the furniture came more into focus.
“You knew I needed Dramash,” said Ani, “and you left him behind.”
“Rho wanted to kill you—I had to get you out.”
Ani put her head to one side and folded her wrinkled hands on her lap. “I know I will have him in the Shadar, and soon, so you are forgiven. Just remember that I’ve had three hundred years to learn the price of indulgence.”
Isa heard a strange rattling and looked down to find her own legs shaking so violently that the buckles on her boots were jangling. A flush of cold went through her whole body, disappearing in an instant, but not without leaving something behind in her mind.
“Do you know who’s poisoning the ashas?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Ani. “My acolytes, at my command—or their descendants, to be more accurate.”
Isa’s arms were shaking now as well. “Then they poisoned Jachad too.”
“The Nomas king?” said Ani, as if they were talking about disposing of a rat. “Perhaps. The Nomas are not worth my attention.”
“I have to tell them the truth.” Isa tried to rise from the bunk, but her legs were wobbling so badly that they wouldn’t hold her and she fell against the cabin wall. The cold came back, only it didn’t leave so quickly this time.
“Do you? Interesting.” Any remaining beneficence drained from Ani’s face all at once, like water down a plughole, and behind it blazed the naked visage of an unhappy god. “You may want to wait until you’re feeling better.”
Icicles stabbed at Isa’s forehead and the pain pushed her down to her knees. She banged her head on the side of the bunk, accidentally the first time, but then she did it again, trying to use that smaller pain to knock away the freezing pain that was nearly unbearable. Then the cold vanished and instead came a heat so intense that she felt she was being burned alive from the inside out. Sweat soaked her clothes in an instant and she tore off her coat in a panic.
Ani lifted the medicine bottle from the table. “Is this what you want?”
Some part of Isa worried that if she went down this road, she might never find her way back; but it was the other part, the part of her still in agony, that reached out a shaking hand for the bottle.
“Everything will be all right,” said Ani, “as long as you do exactly as I say.”
Then the drops hit Isa’s tongue. Afterward, she found herself curled up on her bunk without remembering how she got there, or how day had suddenly turned to night. She would be fine as long as she could stay like this forever, without thinking, without questioning. She didn’t need to eat or sleep. She didn’t need anything except Daryan. Daryan, and the little glass bottle.
* * *
Omir came around the rocks and found Falit and Tamin already waiting for him, furrowing the wet sand with their pacing. The rocks shielded them from anyone walking along further up the beach but no concealment was necessary; there was nothing unusual about three friends talking on the beach. Falit had been smoking a pipe of some stinking herb, but he knocked it against the rock to clear it out after Omir gave him a look.
“Did you find her?” he asked.
“No,” Falit answered, scowling at a patch of bird dung on the rock in front of him. A gull flew over and landed just above it, stretching its wings out to catch the late afternoon sun. “The little bitch went to ground, just like a rat.”
“She went to the resurrectionists,” said Omir. “I know it. They’ve been waiting for a chance to get their hands on an asha.”
Tamin cinched his robe closer around his wiry frame and asked, “Then shouldn’t we move against the resurrectionists right now? I mean, we can’t wait, can we?”
“We can’t go in there slashing,” said Omir. “They need to be arrested. I need more time to convince Daryan. He’s still upset about Isa and I can’t get his mind to fix on anything else.”
“You said we were well rid of that Dead One—you said you’d have proper control of the daimon with her gone,” said Falit.
“We’re not here to talk about that,” said Omir, stepping back as the tide rushed up to his sandals. His footprints
in the sand looked twice the size of Tamin’s. “We have to decide what to do about Yash.”
“I say we do nothing,” said Tamin. “So he did something on his own? So what? I say it can’t hurt to have that Nomas bastard out of the way.”
“Can’t hurt?” said Omir, wetting his lips and tasting the salt from the sea air. “If the Nomas figure out that wine was poisoned, they’ll trace it right back here to the Shadar.”
“So what?” Falit repeated. “Our families—our cabal—kept these plans secret for three hundred years, even through invasion and thirty years of occupation. Those sand-spitters won’t ever find us.”
Omir walked around the rocks, looking at their wind-worn crags and pits and knitting his big, clumsy fingers together. His shoulders were still sore from lifting stones to build their new prison, and tonight he had to represent Daryan at another pointless meeting about what they were going to do about the feral triffons.
“I don’t like it. It’s messy,” he said, when he came back around the rocks to where he started. “Deal with him.”
“Omir—” Falit began.
“It’s my decision. If you can’t do it, I’ll do it myself.”
“No, I’ll do it,” said Falit, swiping the back of his dirty hand over his bearded chin. “We dug in the mines together for ten years. It should be me.”
“Good. You think I’m being harsh, but I’m the First Acolyte, just like my father and his father and back to the Fall. It’s my job to make sure everything is perfect for her.” Omir walked down toward the waves, letting the water run over his sandals, and looked out to sea as if he could already see her ship on the horizon. “And after three hundred years, Anakthalisa is finally coming home.”
The story concludes in
the final part of
The Shattered Kingdoms
STRIFE’S BANE
Dramatis Personae
The Norlanders
Aline—Kira’s hand-servant, Berril’s sister
Arvald—a soldier in the Shadari garrison
Bekka Eotan—a high clanswoman
Berril—Cyrrin’s assistant, Aline’s sister
Betran Eotan—presumptive heir to the Norlander throne
Cyrrin—a physic, founder and leader of Valrigdal
Dara—a resident of Valrigdal, a cook
Dell—a soldier, friend of Rho
Denar Eotan—elderly Norlander general
Eofar Eotan—current governor of the Shadar, brother to Frea, Isa and Lahlil, Oshi’s father
Falkar—lieutenant of the Shadari garrison
Frea Eotan—deceased, sister of Eofar, Lahlil and Isa
Gannon Eotan—Emperor of Norland
Gothar Peltran—a high clansman
Gyr—a soldier in the Shadari garrison
Herwald—a soldier in the Shadari garrison
Ingeld—a deserter from the Shadari garrison
Isa Eotan—youngest sister of Eofar, Frea and Lahlil
Jaen Arregador—a high clanswoman
Kira Arregador—wife of Trey Arregador
Lahlil Eotan—sister of Eofar, Frea and Isa, also known as the Mongrel, the General and Meiran
Laine—Ani’s prison guard
Olnara Eotan—Gannon’s daughter, Scion of Norland
Orina Arregador—Exemplar of the Arregador Clan
Peel—a tavern keeper
Remi Arregador—a friend of Trey’s
Rho Arregador—a soldier in the Shadari garrison, brother of Trey
Tovar—a soldier in the Shadari garrison
Trey Arregador—lieutenant in the Norlander Army, brother to Rho
Vrinna Eotan—Captain of the Guards at Ravindal
The Shadari
Ani—a Shadari asha also known as Anakthalisa
Binit—leader of a group of dissidents
Daryan—daimon, King of the Shadari
Dramash—a young boy with asha powers
Harotha—deceased, Eofar’s wife, mother of Oshi
Falit—Omir’s man
Omir—a government official
Tamin—Omir’s man
Yash—Omir’s man
The Nomas
Arva—bursar on the Argent
Behr—wagon-master of Jachad’s caravan
Callia—queen-to-be of the Nomas
Grentha—first mate on the Argent
Hela—a sailor on the Argent
Jachad Nisharan—King of the Nomas, son of the sun god Shof
Leth—cook on the Argent
Mairi—healer on the Dawn Gazer
Mala—healer on the Argent
Nisha—Queen of the Nomas, captain of the Argent
Sabina—second mate on the Argent
Tobias—King of the Nomas, deceased
Triss—Behr’s young daughter
Yara—cabin girl on the Argent
Others
Alack—a mercenary in the Mongrel’s crew
Bartow—a mercenary in the Mongrel’s crew
Dredge—a mercenary in the Mongrel’s crew
Fellix—an Abroan, a former strider
Jaspar—Dredge’s lover
Josten Drey—a bounty hunter
Nevie—a mercenary from Marshmere
Oshi—infant son of Eofar Eotan and Harotha of the Shadar
Savion—an Abroan strider
The Gods
Amai—the Nomas moon goddess
Onfar—the Norlander god
Onraka—the Norlander goddess
Pengar—a Stowari god
Shof—the Nomas sun god
Valrig—Norlander traitor god, god of the cursed
The Norlander Progenitors/High Clans
Aelbar—color: yellow; sigil: a cudgel
Alvarig—color: red; sigil: an ember-flower
Arregador—color: forest green; sigil: a pine bough
Birindor—color: white; sigil: an icicle
Dargon—color: brown; sigil: a pine tree
Eotan—color: blue; sigil: a wolf’s head
Garrador—color: pale blue; sigil: an ursa
Olsdan—color: orange; sigil: a flame
Paragor—color: pale green; sigil: a thorn branch
Peltran—color: purple; sigil: a plum
Rilndor—color: black; sigil: a hawk
Vartan—color: gray; sigil: a mountain peak
The Swords
Blood’s Pride—now Isa’s sword, formerly her sister Frea’s
Fealty’s Strength—Falkar’s sword
Fortune’s Blight—Rho’s sword
Honor’s Proof—Trey’s sword
Strife’s Bane—Eofar’s sword
Virtue’s Grace—Kira’s sword
Valor’s Storm—Eowara’s bronze sword, claimed by Gannon
Acknowledgments
Comparing the creation of a book to childbirth is both hackneyed and insulting to anyone who’s had a human being come out of her body, but if a book is “birthed,” then this book was twins in the back of an unlicensed cab on the southbound FDR Drive at rush hour on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. It owes its life to the many people who came to its rescue: Stacy Hill, who gently but firmly steered me away from the cliff from which I was so determined to hurl myself; Miriam Weinberg, who swooped in with her enthusiasm, wit, and quick-fire brain; and Jo Fletcher—detector of quirks and eradicator of same—who taught me the word “furbelows” along with a million ways to be a better writer. Zoë DiMele helped me dig out of a deep, dark hole with patience, humor, and a love that I am only just learning to accept. I need to thank Julie Heron Harreld, my beta reader and tireless booster, whose suggestions were dead-on and who took time away from curing cancer (really!) without ever making it seem like a chore. I have to thank Ann Pinto McCarney because she knows where the empty wine cooler bottles are buried, and because she’s a wonderful friend, certifiable lunatic, and just maybe the most caring person I’ve ever met; and Dean McCarney for making her so happy and for fathering their four precious children. Fellow
authors Alison von Rosenvinge and Laura Snyder and my agent, Becca Stumpf, are to be thanked for their stalwart friendship, and for listening to me whinge about problems I’m lucky to have. Lisa Rogers has to be thanked for her (usually) thankless job of keeping me relatively sane and getting me out of the house, even when she had more than her own fair share of crap to manage. Finally, thanks to my mom, Joanne—sorry for all the times you received monosyllabic answers to your phone calls—my husband, Lou, who continues to get smarter and more handsome just to spite me, and to my daughter, Prudence, the love of my life.
About the Author
EVIE MANIERI has a degree in medieval history and theater from Wesleyan University. Blood’s Pride was her first novel. She lives with her husband and daughter in New York City. Sign up for email updates here.
Also by Evie Manieri
Blood’s Pride
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Maps
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31