Phoenix Unbound
Page 1
Praise for
Phoenix Unbound
“Grace Draven’s exciting romantic fantasy features characters who are fresh and original. Their problems and triumphs will keep you reading into the night.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris
“Fierce and captivating, Phoenix Unbound is the story of a gladiator and a fire witch fighting for their freedom against an empire that wants them enslaved. With impossible odds, breathtaking battles, terrifying magic, and an unlikely love, this book is a must-read. Grace Draven is a master of romantic heroic fantasy.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews
“Fabulous. Quite possibly Grace Draven’s best book yet. I couldn’t put it down, and I didn’t want it to end!”
—C. L. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of The Sea King
“With exquisitely drawn characters and superb worldbuilding, Phoenix Unbound once again proves Grace Draven’s mastery of fantasy romance. This is exactly the kind of sweepingly romantic adventure story that I’ve been yearning for—and I can’t wait for more.”
—Meljean Brook, New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Seas series
“A tale of heartbreak and triumph, Grace Draven’s Phoenix Unbound is truly exceptional. Be prepared to fall under the spell of these fierce, passionate characters and to root for them with all your heart.”
—Amanda Bouchet, USA Today bestselling author of the Kingmaker Chronicles series
“Grace Draven is one of the finest romantic fantasy writers out there . . . Tense, gripping, and entirely believable, [Phoenix Unbound] hooked me from the first page.”
—New York Times bestselling author Thea Harrison
“Stunning! This book entices and mesmerizes to an astonishing degree. Like an intoxicating elixir, the more I read, the more I craved.”
—New York Times bestselling author Darynda Jones
“Grace Draven weaves a spellbinding book that [is] impossible to forget . . . I can’t give this book enough praise. I came into it with stupidly high expectations, and it exceeded them all.”
—Laura Thalassa, author of the Four Horsemen series
“When it comes to fantasy romance, Draven is in a class by herself . . . A phenomenal start to what is sure to be an amazing series!”
—RT Book Reviews
ACE
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2018 by Grace Draven
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Draven, Grace, author.
Title: Phoenix unbound / Grace Draven.
Description: First edition. | New York: Ace, 2018. | Series: The fallen empire; 1
Identifiers: LCCN 2018018971 | ISBN 9780451489753 (paperback) | ISBN 9780451489760 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Romance / Fantasy. | FICTION / Fantasy / Paranormal. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3604.R385 P48 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018018971
First Edition: September 2018
Cover illustration by Arantza Sestayo
Cover design by Adam Auerbach
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Phoenix Unbound is dedicated, in loving memory, to Lora Gasway. I am Grace Draven because of you. Thank you.
CONTENTS
Praise for Phoenix Unbound
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART ONE: EMPIRECHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PART TWO: THE SKY BELOWCHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PART ONE
EMPIRE
CHAPTER ONE
For Gilene, spring was the season neither of rain nor of planting, but of suffering.
She waited beside her mother, sister, and brothers as the caravan of shackled women plodded down Beroe’s market street toward the town square. The slavers of the Empire guided the line, shoving their cargo forward with harsh commands and the occasional warning crack of a whip.
She had already exchanged farewells with her mother and siblings. Each had embraced her, dry-eyed and grim-faced. This wasn’t their first parting, and for good or ill, it wouldn’t be their last.
Her eldest brother, Nylan, squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll be waiting for you in the usual spot,” he said in low tones meant for only her to hear. Gilene nodded, reaching up to pat his hand.
Her eyebrows arched when her mother sidled a little closer, her fingertips brushing Gilene’s sleeve in a hesitant caress. “Come back to us when it’s over.”
Gilene kept her reply behind her teeth. It was never over. Not for her. Despite her mother’s half-hearted gesture of comfort, she wouldn’t defend her daughter. Gilene would endure this every year until her age and her scars crippled her so badly, she could no longer wield her magic well enough to fool the Empire, and her burden became another’s. Her resentment served to blunt her fear. She gave a quick nod before turning her back on her family and striding toward the line of captives.
People hemmed either side of the dusty road. Their gazes, as she walked past them, were fearful, hopeful. Ashamed. A few villagers, however, wore expressions of warning instead of pity on their faces.
Yes, come back to us, they seemed to say. Or else.
Their stares shifted briefly past her shoulder to where her family huddled together to watch her leave.
Not all shackles were fashioned of iron.
Some of the villagers reached out to touch her, their fingers drifting across her sleeves or skirts like dead leaves. Gilene shrugged them off and made her way to the motley group at the end of the path.
One of the slavers snarled an impatient “Get in line!” and shoved her to the end of the queue. A few of the women stared at her empty-eyed; others wept and wiped their noses on the backs of dirty hands, their chains rattling a
s they raised their arms.
Another slaver approached her, a pair of manacles dangling from his fingers. He gave her a black-toothed smile as he snapped them around her wrists and tethered her to the woman next to her.
“Pretty jewelry,” he said and shook the shackles to show there was no breaking them.
The vision of the slaver enrobed in flames and shrieking in agony almost made her smile, but she kept her expression blank and dropped her shoulders in a defeated sag. She had learned years earlier that a broken captive didn’t incite the whip as often as a rebellious one did.
Beroe was the last stop on the slavers’ route to retrieve the living tithe the Krael Empire imposed on its subjects for the annual celebration known as the Rites of Spring. Gilene was the last tithe to join the others before they set off for the capital of Kraelag. She settled into the lurching rhythm of the chained line, dreading the four-day march ahead of her and its final destination even more.
Except for the chain rattle of shuffling feet and the bark of orders from a slaver, all stayed silent, fearful of the stinging flick of the whip.
Their journey was as miserable as it had been the previous year and the year before that: relentless marching under a spring sun that beat down on them with the promise of a brutal summer, nights spent huddled together for warmth as the remnants of winter rolled in with the twilight and whittled through clothing and skin like a knife.
The night before they reached the capital, Gilene curled into the back of her chain mate, a prostitute named Pell, and closed her eyes to the lullaby of chattering teeth and the soft sobs of her fellow prisoners. Her feet throbbed, but she dared not remove her sandals for fear of peeling away layers of skin from the many blisters.
She smelled the city’s reek long before she saw it. When the great walled capital of the Krael Empire came into view, some of the women cried out their relief at the sight. The slavers laughed, yanking on the chains hard enough to make some of their captives stumble and fall. Gilene helped a fallen Pell to her feet before the man fondest of bestowing the whip’s kiss strode toward them. Her fingers burned hot, earning a startled look from the prostitute before Gilene let go and stepped away as far as her chain length allowed. She forced down her fury before the tiny sparks bouncing between her knuckles grew to flames.
Patience, she silently admonished herself.
The slavers herded the women onto a wide, paved road that led to the colossal main gates. The space around them disappeared as they were hemmed in by a milling throng of people, carts, and animals. The noise was deafening, and the combined smells of sewage and unwashed bodies made her eyes water. She lifted her hands to cover her nose, the clink of her chains lost in the cacophony of shouting people, bleating livestock, and creaking wagon wheels as the masses heaved and rocked toward the gates.
Guards perched at their watches high in the two towers flanking either side of the gates, idly watching the crowd—many of whom had come to attend the Rites of Spring—as it squeezed its way into the city’s confines. They casually dropped garbage and other offal on people as they passed beneath them, their raucous laughter carried on the fetid breeze.
A guard leaned out of a tower and shouted down to the crowd. “Any pretty flowers this year, Dolsh?”
The slaver closest to Gilene yelled back. “Does it matter? One roasted hen looks much like another.”
Laughter followed his reply, along with faint weeping. Gilene growled under her breath. A roasted cockerel looked like any other as well. She wanted to burn them all, every last one of them, but she was only one woman with limited power, a power she’d drain to the dregs just so she could survive this madness and keep her compatriots from suffering.
They were whipped, shoved, and cuffed through the narrow closes that branched off the main road like strands on a debris-littered spiderweb. At the web’s center, a man-made hill rose, its top crested with the emperor’s palace. Temples, manors, and bathhouses marched up its sides, and at its base, the arena crouched. A circular, roofless amphitheater whose sole purpose was to entertain Kraelag’s citizens with blood sport and brutality, it was known as the Pit, and to it the slavers herded their charges.
They reached the Pit’s outer walls and an entrance closed off by a barred gate manned by more guards. The sunlight faded as the procession descended several flights of slippery steps, through passages dimly lit by torchlight. The walls narrowed, forcing everyone into a single line. All snaked through the labyrinthine maze until they reached a low-ceilinged chamber in the city’s catacombs.
Gilene inhaled a stuttered breath as she crossed the threshold, knowing what awaited them in the chamber. Fresh from the Pit, covered in gore and reeking of sweat and butchery, the gladiators of the Empire lounged at the chamber’s opposite end and eyed the newcomers.
They didn’t approach, but the weight of their leers pressed down on her as she and the other women huddled together. She pretended not to see them. These were the men who had survived the day’s games, and their reward would be the sacrificial victims known as the Flowers of Spring. As one of those unfortunate blooms, Gilene would whore for her village tonight and burn for it tomorrow.
The girl on the other side of Pell shuddered and chanted a desperate prayer in a foreign tongue. Gilene leaned past her chain mate and grabbed a stretch of links attached to the praying girl’s manacle, giving it a quick jerk. The girl gasped, prayer forgotten as she stared wide-eyed first at Pell, then at Gilene.
“Shh,” Gilene instructed her in a soft voice. “Be still. Be silent. Some lust for beauty, others for fear. Don’t show them yours.”
The other woman nodded, her lips moving in a now-soundless chant. Gilene gave her a brief smile of approval. She could offer little else, at least for tonight.
Pell leaned down to whisper in Gilene’s ear. “Her prayers are in vain. She’s too pretty, even under all the dirt. She should pray the one who chooses her will be gentle.” Her words were blunt rather than merciless.
Gilene sighed. “Gentleness has little meaning when one is unwilling.” She stared at Pell, wondering at the woman’s practical calm. Gilene had made this horrific trip four times before this one. She knew what to expect. The only unknown was how terrible each year would be compared to the one before it. “What will you pray for, Pell?”
The slattern’s calculating smile deepened the lines around her mouth and those fanning the corners of her kohl-lined eyes. “I haven’t prayed in years, girl. Wouldn’t know how to go about it even if I tried. I’ll be happy to get one of those fine stallions with the blood washed off him and enough skill between the blankets to make it worth spreading my legs for free.”
Gilene admired Pell’s bravado. The woman knew what awaited her with the dawn yet still held on to a cynical wit.
Pell made to say more but stopped when a short, muscled bull of a man strode into the chamber. Dressed in mismatched armor and carrying both whip and dagger, he was a formidable sight. Blue markings decorated his skin, sleeving his bare arms. The marks curled over his shoulders and crept up a thick neck to cap his bald head. Some of the women in line cowered away from him, and he grinned.
Hanimus, gladiatorial master trainer, still presided over this event each year with relish. Like Pell, Gilene didn’t pray, but if she did, she’d beseech the gods for Hanimus’s death. He represented all that was rotten about the Empire.
He walked the long row of women, pausing at times to lift the chin of one with his whip handle or fondle the breast of another. His fighters called out encouragement and vulgar suggestions for what they wanted to do to their chosen prizes.
“They sent us a good crop this year, lads,” he proclaimed. “Too bad you only have them for a night.” Groans and ribald laughter filled the room, drowning out the softer weeping.
“We’ll all grow old before we can choose,” one impatient fighter protested.
The trainer’s eyes nar
rowed, and he spun to glare at the men. They snapped to attention. “You’ll wait your turn,” he warned. “Azarion is still fighting. If he lives, he’ll have first choice as Prime.”
As if on cue, the boisterous cheers of the arena’s crowd vibrated against the stone walls of the catacombs, sending dust raining down on everyone’s heads. The death bell pealed a sonorous song—tribute to the victor, a dirge to the slain.
“Lot of good it’ll do him,” someone muttered. “Herself will summon him like always. She rides that cock every chance she gets.” A chorus of ayes answered him.
Hanimus shrugged. “He still has first pick.”
Gilene bowed her head to hide her anger. Most of the women in chains had been separated from husbands and children, parents and siblings. Brought to Kraelag for the sole purpose of dying, they shouldn’t have to suffer this final degradation.
A part of her recognized they were alike in some ways—the condemned women of the villages and the enslaved gladiators of the arena. They had once been beloved sons and brothers, maybe husbands and fathers. Now they were all fodder for indifferent gods and the entertainment of the Empire, their deaths more valuable than their lives to those who ruled. Still, she couldn’t find it within her to pity these men who would subjugate them.
An expectant silence descended on the group as the crowd’s triumphant chant swelled to a thunderous bellow.
“Azarion! Azarion! Azarion!”
Hanimus smacked his whip handle against his thigh and grinned. “Ha! I knew he’d take the fight. The Margrave of Southland owes me a goodly sum now.”
The march of feet soon sounded on the steps leading down to the catacombs—the last victorious gladiator and his entourage of guards. Gilene watched the doorway from the corner of her eye, her stomach knotting itself in dread of seeing the man who would come through the entrance.
Like the other gladiators already here, he’d be dressed in blood-spattered armor. Unlike the others, he’d suck the air out of the room with his presence. She remembered Azarion from her previous annual treks to the capital. Worse, Azarion seemed to remember her.