A War in Crimson Embers Read online

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  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 © 2017 by Alex Marshall

  Map Copyright © Tim Paul

  Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

  Cover Copyright © 2017 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.

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  Simultaneously published in Great Britain and in the U.S. by Orbit in 2017

  First Edition: December 2017

  Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

  The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  The epigraph on p. 1 was written by Pak Hyogwan (1781–1880). The translation is from The Book of Korean Shijo, by Kevin O’Rourke, published by the Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2002. Copyright © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used with permission of the Harvard University Asia Center.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Marshall, Alex (Novelist), author.

  Title: A war in crimson embers / Alex Marshall.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Orbit, 2017. | Series: Crimson empire; 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017023271| ISBN 9780316340724 (hardback) | ISBN 9780316340717 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781478915348 (downloadable audio book)

  Subjects: LCSH: Warriors—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Epic. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Fantasy / Historical. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3602.U42 W37 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023271

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-34072-4 (hardcover), 978-0-316-34074-8 (ebook)

  E3-20171006-JV-PC

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  MAP

  PART I: MORTAL COILS 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

  PART II: INFERNAL FREEDOM 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

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BY ALEX MARSHALL

  ORBIT NEWSLETTER

  For Shandra

  PART I

  MORTAL COILS

  I wished to sweep away the clouds that blot the sun, to see an age of peace ensue,

  but my galloping horse stopped and aged,

  my keen sword rusted and tarnished. White hair importunes

  as time goes by; I cannot curb my indignation

  —Pak Hyogwan (1781–1880), The Book of Korean Shijo, edited by Kevin O’Rourke

  CHAPTER

  1

  Born unto a dying Star, where violence and corruption were woven into the very weft of the world, Pope Y’Homa III came of age in the darkest era of recorded history. She weathered evil upon evil, witnessed yet worse sins, and, in her sixteenth year, sacrificed that which was most precious to her so that she might save the souls of all—she renounced her station, her empire, and, if need be, her life. As her fleet of the righteous sailed from Desolation Sound, the mountaintop behind them threw a garish light up into the iron clouds, fulfilling yet another of the prophecies of the Chain Canticles. Without the Black Pope’s presence to hold down the chthonic inferno that had smoldered since the Age of Wonders, the city of Diadem burned, just as foretold … but Y’Homa only learned this from the Holy See after the fact, being far too devoted to her cause to look back herself. Instead she kept her unblinking eyes on the gauzy grey horizon, beyond which lay her birthright: the Risen Kingdom of Jex Toth. Her rituals had brought it back from beneath the waves, and now it patiently awaited the coming of its keeper.

  A final trial arose to thwart the Chainite pilgrims on the cusp of salvation, but Y’Homa paid the Immaculate blockade no more respect than she did the sharks that followed in the shifting shadows of her galleon. Just as a pod of sea wolves would race up from the deep to feast upon the scavenging sharks, so, too, would the Imperial fleet prey upon the Immaculate navy if they chose to force the issue. A headwind ensured that the semaphore exchange between Y’Homa’s vessel and the nearest Immaculate turtleship was brief, the Chainites calling their bluff and swiftly sweeping past the foreign boats without a shot being fired.

  “They were not prepared for the strength of our ranks,” said Cardinal Audhumbla as they left the blockade in their wake.

  “Nor for the strength of our faith,” Cardinal Messalina replied.

  “They were not prepared for us at all,” said Cardinal Diamond. “Thin as they are spread, I suspect their orders are to watch for any activity leaving Jex Toth, not protect against a fleet approaching it.”

  “Their motives are as inconsequential as the scuttling patterns of lice upon a dying ape,” said Y’Homa. “Whatever the cause of their cowardice, it has bought them but a brief reprieve—soon the waves of blood shall be lapping at the shores of Othean, and every other iniquitous corner of the Star.”

  Cardinal Diamond cleared his throat. “With all due respect for Your Grace’s certitude, in light of their naval presence so close
to the coast we must consider the possibility that the Immaculates have already made landfall and—”

  “They have not,” said Y’Homa, ending the conversation.

  While the Holy See had fretted and frowned over the possibility of the Immaculates invading the Risen Kingdom long before the Crimson ships could reach it, their Shepherdess had known the foreign heretics would be unable to set foot on those hallowed shores. The Fallen Mother had ordained Y’Homa to be the first to enter the Garden of the Star, and no mortal nor devil could prevent her from realizing her destiny. She would loose the Angelic Brood of the Allmother to cleanse the world, defeating the Deceiver once and for all, and in doing so transcend her mortal flesh to rule eternal as the Fallen Mother’s avatar. From her flaming throne Y’Homa would sit in state for perpetuity, her proud virtue a beacon that would outshine and outlast both sun and moon, calling home the souls of the faithful who had been left behind upon the Star.

  Oh, how ecstatically Y’Homa shivered upon first spying the holy land through the captain’s hawkglass. It was just as Diadem Gate had foretold on the Day of Becoming, a luxuriously green realm set like an emerald in the shiny blue silk of the sea. She bit her lip as she scanned the mountains of the interior, beyond which lay the antediluvian cities of Jex Toth that would soon house the refugees of a diseased world. Here dwelt angels in need of a mortal mistress, an army in need of a commander.

  Excited as the thought made her, when next the captain passed her his instrument with shaking hands she saw something more glorious still: the ancient harbor of Alunah coming into sight, and what a sight it was! The Burnished Chain’s charts of Jex Toth were the only ones that remained from the Age of Wonders, and while the relics had steered them true to their destination no mark on a map could hint at the majesty of the place itself. Here the verdant foliage only poked out intermittently through the frozen fall of white stone that poured down from the headlands to fill the entire bowl of the cove, spreading out and across the water in a fan of ivory jetties. The buildings were in disrepair when they were not outright ruined, and Y’Homa nodded in understanding at the Fallen Mother’s wisdom. The Garden of the Star was not a static realm where the idle could reap the same harvest as the industrious, but a paradise reserved for those worthy souls eager to work toward its restoration.

  The black-armored angels perched on the rooftops and quays stood out against the pale stones of the city they had held fast for five hundred years awaiting the arrival of the Black Pope, and Y’Homa returned the hawkglass to the quaking captain. Well might the frail quaver before the divine, she thought, sitting up straighter in her teak throne at the prow of the ship. Pay true power the respect it deserves.

  Yet even here, with the world of mortals at her back and immortal glory glinting in the sunlight ahead, the ache that had lodged in Y’Homa’s heart ever since the Day of Becoming throbbed and throbbed. It was her last temptation, this sorrow in her uncle’s sudden decline, and the impure hopes that hatched like maggots from that sorrow. He was demented, plain and simple, and much as she wanted him healed and sane again, that desire ran counter to everything she held most dear—her faith that the Fallen Mother would help only those who helped themselves. Shanatu was too far gone for that.

  “Please, please, please,” he said from where he cowered behind her on the deck, but Y’Homa did not turn away from the approaching harbor. She didn’t want the papal guards who minded the madman to see the tears in her eyes as her once-brilliant mentor broke her heart anew with his deranged rambling. “I was wrong, we all were, don’t go, turn back, back, another trick of the Deceiver, another plot … those are not angels, they are naked devils, and they will devour the Star, Jirella, please, you must stop, you must—”

  “Put his gag back in,” Y’Homa barked over her shoulder, Shanatu’s use of her mortal name instead of her papal one a blasphemy too far, even for a condemned apostate’s last words. How far he had fallen …

  All through her reign he had been there for her, advising and encouraging. While the terms of the Burnished Chain’s truce with Queen Indsorith had prevented Shanatu from sitting on the Holy See, his counsel meant more to Y’Homa than the rest of the church combined. Who else could understand the burdens of the papacy but her only living predecessor? He had been the voice of the Fallen Mother for longer than Y’Homa had been alive, and his abdication of the post had been entirely strategic—their savior continued to speak directly to her uncle, whereas Y’Homa only caught whispers here and there, in the midst of her most intense rites, and relied on Shanatu to interpret their meaning.

  Then came the Day of Becoming, when the obedient servants of the Fallen Mother gazed through the window that had opened in Diadem Gate and beheld the Garden of the Star and its angelic guardians. All those with eyes clouded by the Deceiver fell back, demented and delirious from the vision of absolute grace. It was then that Y’Homa’s true test presented itself, and Allmother protect her, she had been found wanting.

  Pity was a cardinal sin, and mercy a graver one, yet when the time came she had been unable to have Shanatu crucified along with the rest of the false clerics. Surely one who had sat at the foot of the Fallen Mother could still be saved, she had told herself, surely the mere sight of Jex Toth would restore sanity to the servant who had dedicated his life to bringing about its return.

  The mortal heart is capable of such hubris. Looking out over the baroquely carved bowsprit as her armada fast approached the magnificent white harbor of Jex Toth and its jet-black throngs of angels who heralded her arrival, Pope Y’Homa III gave the most difficult order of her papacy.

  “Cut out my uncle’s tongue and crucify him on the mast; our saviors will not find a single apostate among our number.”

  As soon as the words escaped her salt-cracked lips Y’Homa felt her soul lighten, and letting go of this final attachment to the deceitful world of the flesh provoked an immediate reaction from Jex Toth. Colossal ivory entities glided up through the pale blue waters of the bay to greet her navy, the leviathans trailing fronds as long as the Chainite ships, and far smaller envoys of similar cast winged down from the headland that cradled the harbor. Y’Homa wept at the sight of the Fallen Mother’s children, grown monstrous by the Deceiver’s seed but destined to play a role as saintly as that of the Black Pope herself. At long last the Shepherdess of the Lost had come home; she would deliver the Key to the Star to this heavenly host and they would go forth to cleanse the world of sin.

  Behind Y’Homa came the sound of pounding hammers and muffled screams, but nothing could ruin the moment.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Over the years Zosia had dreamed countless nightmares, and fought her way through nearly as many waking ones. Never before had she experienced this particular combination, however, of stirring from a bad dream to find herself exactly where the nightmare had left off: hunched over in this devildamned throne.

  She shifted about in the all too familiar seat, pulling her dew-chilled furs up around her cold neck and scrunching her eyes tighter in defense against the evil sunshine that was trying to jimmy its way inside her bleary skull. This was Zosia’s luck all over. The one bloody time she would have welcomed the dark clouds that usually hung like a leaden halo over the Black Cascades they went and burned off.

  Choplicker gave his customary whining yawn to signal the start of the morning, but she clung to her exhaustion, desperate to pull herself back under. As her devil got up and padded around, Zosia pretended his nails were clicking on the pine boards of her old kitchen instead of the obsidian floor of the Crimson Throne Room. She was only ever truly happy in dreams and the spaces between them, now, and in this familiar drowsy fantasy if she could just fall back asleep for a little longer when she awoke it would be to Leib stroking her heavy head, whispering in her ear that she had promised him apple scones if he let her sleep in, and here the sun was already halfway up the aspens …

  The dream soured. They always did. She had made him his favorite treat but
he couldn’t appreciate them; the monstrous young knight had placed Leib’s severed head just out of reach of the plate of pastries, and try as her dead husband might to stretch out his tongue across the checked tablecloth he couldn’t lick up more than a few crumbs …

  No. Zosia shut that shit down, trying to replace the hot horror of her vision with cool black nothingness. Dawn had been creeping over Diadem’s rim before she’d drifted off, and if she could just get comfortable on this cruelly designed hellchair before her conscience woke up enough to start needling at her she could get some much-needed rest and … and …

  And it was too late to fall back asleep. The memory of finding Indsorith in the dungeons prodded at her more insistently than the sun or any nightmare. Even half-asleep Zosia now realized what a stupid, hopeless venture it had been, carrying the dying queen all the way up here to the top of the castle and then spending the night forcing juice down her throat and cleaning her wounds when she was already too far gone to ever come back. Bad as the Burnished Chain had worked over their rival for control of the Crimson Empire, it was Zosia who had inflicted the final tortures … not that Indsorith had even seemed aware of what was happening to her by that point, her moans and gasps simple animal response to the worst kinds of provocation.

  And for what? To make Zosia feel a little better, to tell herself she’d done all she could, when the more humane course would have been to put Indsorith out of her misery down in her cell as soon as she’d found her. But no, Zosia had done exactly what she always did and got so hung up on hoping she could make a difference that she didn’t even notice she was making matters worse until it was too late. Indsorith was just the latest victim of Zosia’s sanguine streak, but by all the devils in the First Dark she would be the last—from this day forward Cold Cobalt would be as hopeless as she was, well, hopeless.

  “You’re sitting in my chair.”

  Insistent as the sun had been to get all up in Zosia’s face you’d think it would cut her some slack when her eyes snapped open, but no. By the time she’d rubbed her face and properly taken in the impossible sight of Indsorith standing before her, naked save for bandages, the younger woman had begun to sway in place. Zosia barely got out of the throne in time to catch her as she fell. Her skin didn’t feel as hot as it had the night before, and some of the color had come back to her ashen flesh, but it was a wonder she could even sit up in bed, let alone wander all the way out here. She shivered in Zosia’s arms, slipping under again, and as Choplicker merrily trotted beside them Zosia lugged the Crimson Queen back to the royal bedchambers, marveling at the girl’s tenacity. Who would even want to come back from that kind of a hurt?