As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness

by Katy Rose Pool

  Anton skidded to his feet and ran away from the falling debris, away from Jude. The pillar smashed into the ground in a cloud of dust and rubble.

  A chunk of rock struck Anton in the back, knocking him to the ground. He closed his eyes and crawled forward.

  He was on his own for the first time since that fateful day when he’d met Jude in a burned down shrine in Pallas Athos. He staggered to his feet. He had to keep going. If not for himself then at least for Jude, who would never forgive himself if Anton died.

  He climbed through the rubble, his lungs heaving and his legs aching. And then through the dust he saw someone standing in front of him.

  “Anton.”

  It was impossible. The Nameless Woman.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “How are you here?”

  “I came for you,” she said. Even in the midst of this destruction she looked as unflappable as ever. The calm in the center of a storm.

  “What do you mean you came for me?” Anton demanded, his throat hot with anger. “You left us in Endarrion!”

  “I had to.”

  “Well, we failed,” Anton spat. “I failed. I couldn’t seal the Gate and now the god—”

  “I know,” she said simply.

  Anton wanted to scream at her, to rage because somehow, all of this was her fault. She’d told him about the Relics, the god, the Gate. It all led back to her.

  “You could have helped us,” Anton pleaded. “Helped me.”

  She shook her head. “I could not enter the city of Behezda. Not while Pallas the Faithful was here.”

  “Why?” Anton demanded.

  “Because I couldn’t let Pallas get to me,” she said. “If I let him kill me, it would have been over. The seal would have broken.”

  “Why would killing you break the seal?” he asked. “Who are you? Really.” He’d asked himself that question every day since she’d shown up in that cardroom in Valletta. “You’re not just a bounty hunter. Or a collector. Or a protector of the Relics. Tell me the truth.”

  “I thought you would have figured it out by now,” she said. “Pallas the Faithful still lives. But he is not the only one.”

  The world, breaking around them, suddenly upended.

  The Nameless Woman. The Prophet without a name. The Wanderer.

  “Anton,” she said, “I think it’s time you learn the truth about where the Prophets came from, and how we killed the god who ruled us.”

  60

  BERU

  PALLAS ATHOS LOOKED JUST LIKE BERU REMEMBERED. WHITE MARBLE columns and austere streets gleamed in the moonlight. It was luminous at night, from their spot in the agora overlooking the city.

  “This was my city, once,” Pallas said. “It will be my city again. And the rest of the Prophetic Cities, too.”

  Beru turned her head to look at him. His face was pale, with sharp features and eyes so blue they put the Pelagos Sea to shame.

  The god was restless inside of her. It was hungry. And it hated. It hated Pallas. It hated being captive. It even seemed to hate Beru, and her frail, mortal body.

  Pallas turned toward the temple that stood on top of the hill in the agora. Its front portico and columns were blackened by fire. Pallas didn’t need to command Beru to follow as he strode toward it. They had left Ephyra captive and bound by Godfire chains in one of the Witnesses’ many hideouts in the city. But she was safe—as long as Beru didn’t forget who she now served. They ascended the marble stairs and with a flick of her hand Beru blew open the doors.

  Several acolytes stared at them from within. “You can’t be in here.”

  Pallas strode into the sanctum. “I think you’ll find that I can.”

  Beru watched the moment the acolytes took in his features. Recognized him as the very Prophet to whom they had dedicated themselves.

  The first fell to his knees. “The Prophet Pallas has returned,” he said, breathless.

  The others followed suit, until Pallas was surrounded by supplicants.

  “Go forth,” Pallas said, waving them up. “And spread my message. Pallas has returned to the City of Faith. The people of Pallas Athos will bow to me again. And soon, the rest of the world.”

  The acolytes leapt to their feet, hurrying out into the night.

  And then it was just Pallas and Beru. And the god who lurked inside her.

  “Come,” Pallas said, beckoning her toward the altar. “We have work to do.”

  Acknowledgments

  They often say that your second book is the most difficult to write. As it turned out, this one was an utter joy to write, thanks in large part to my amazing editor, Brian Geffen, who shepherded me safely through second-book woes with a deft hand, boundless enthusiasm, and judicious use of in-line emoji. To the incredible women who make up the marketing and publicity team at MCPG—Brittany Pearlman, Molly Ellis, Morgan Rath, Allison Verost, Johanna Allen, Allegra Green, Julia Gardiner, Gaby Salpeter, Cynthia Lliguichuzhca, Melissa Croce, Ashley Woodfolk, Mariel Dawson, and many more—this series, and my career, owes so much to your creativity and hard work. Mallory Grigg, Rich Deas, and Jim Tierney, thank you for making these books look as awesome on the outside as I hope they are inside. To Starr Baer, Erica Ferguson, and Ronnie Ambrose, thank you for your eagle-eyed diligence and your endless patience with my laissez-faire approach to capitalization. To Jean Feiwel, Christian Trimmer, and the rest of the team at Holt and Macmillan Children’s: I feel incredibly lucky every single day to be one of your authors.

  Thank you to my agents, Hillary Jacobson and Alexandra Machinist, for championing this series from the start, and special thanks to Ruth Landry, Lindsey Sanderson, and ICM. Thank you to Roxane Edouard, Savannah Wicks, and the Curtis Brown team for ferrying it around the world. Thank you also to Emily Byron, James Long, and the rest of the team at Little, Brown/Orbit UK.

  To the cult: Meg RK, Amanda Foody, Janella Angeles, Kat Cho, Amanda Haas, Mara Fitzgerald, Ashley Burdin, Erin Bay, Christine Lynn Herman, Axie Oh, Ella Dyson, Melody Simpson, Madeline Colis, and Akshaya Raman—it is a gift to get to watch you all flourish, and to grow alongside you. (Get it, grow? Like trees???) Special thanks to Tara Sim for giving me the perfect emergency writing retreat, and to Alexis Castellanos and Claribel Ortega for not only being incredible friends but also lending your talent as graphic designers/gif-makers/trailer artists/all-around creative geniuses. Traci Chee, Swati Teerdhala, Patrice Cauldwell, Scott Hovdey, Chelsea Beam, and Laura Sebastian, I’m so grateful for your friendship, advice, rides to the airport, baked goods, Skype calls, and so much more. Special thanks to Sara Faring for letting me test out titles on you!

  This book wouldn’t be sitting in front of you without my family. Mom and Dad, thank you for always encouraging me and giving me space to become whoever I wanted to be. Sean and Julia, thank you for your unconditional support and for being my New York landing pad. Thank you to Kristin, for poetry and redwoods. To David, I miss you and I wish you could have read this one. Thank you, Riley, because what’s a book without a signature cocktail (or five)? Thank you to Erica for basically everything, but especially sunset walks, desert nuns, and the medic scene. (You were right, of course, and I should never doubt you again.)

  The biggest thank-you of all goes to the readers who make this all possible. Thank you for coming on this adventure with me.

  extras

  www.orbitbooks.net

  about the author

  Katy Rose Pool was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in history, Katy spent a few years building websites by day and dreaming up prophecies by night. Currently, she resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she can be found eating breakfast sandwiches, rooting for the Golden State Warriors and reading books that set her on fire. There Will Come a Darkness is her first novel. Follow her on Twitter as @KatyPool.

  Find out more about Katy Rose Pool and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net.
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  AS THE SHADOW RISES

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  WE RIDE THE STORM

  The Reborn Empire: Book One

  by

  Devin Madson

  The kingdom of Kisia is divided, held together only by the will of the god-emperor. When an act of betrayal shatters an alliance with the neighbouring land of Chiltae, all that has been won comes crashing down.

  Now, as the fires of war spread, a warrior, an assassin and a princess must chase their ambitions, no matter the cost.

  They tried to kill me four times before I could walk. Seven before I held any memory of the world. Every time thereafter I knew fear, but it was anger that chipped sharp edges into my soul.

  I had done nothing but exist. Nothing but own the wrong face and the wrong eyes, the wrong ancestors and the wrong name. Nothing but be Princess Miko Ts’ai. Yet it was enough, and not a day passed in which I did not wonder whether today would be the day they finally succeeded.

  Every night I slept with a blade beneath my pillow, and every morning I tucked it into the intricate folds of my sash, its presence a constant upon which I dared build dreams. And finally those dreams felt close enough to touch. We were travelling north with the imperial court. Emperor Kin was about to name his heir.

  As was my custom on the road, I rose while the inn was still silent, only the imperial guards awake about their duties. In the palace they tended to colonise doorways, but here, without great gates and walls to protect the emperor, they filled every corner. They were in the main house and in the courtyard, outside the stables and the kitchens and servants’ hall—two nodded in silent acknowledgement as I made my way toward the bathhouse, my dagger heavy in the folds of my dressing robe.

  Back home in the palace, baths had to be taken in wooden tubs, but many northern inns had begun building Chiltaenstyle bathhouses—deep stone pools into which one could sink one’s whole body. I looked forward to them every year, and as I stepped into the empty building, a little of my tension left me. A trio of lacquered dressing screens provided the only places someone could hide, so I walked a slow lap through the steam to check them all.

  Once sure I was alone, I abandoned my dressing robe and slid into the bath. Despite the steam dampening all it touched, the water was merely tepid, though the clatter of someone shovelling coals beneath the floor promised more warmth to come. I shivered and glanced back at my robe, the bulk of my knife beneath its folds, reassuring.

  I closed my eyes only for quick steps to disturb my peace. No assassin would make so much noise, but my hand was still partway to the knife before Lady Sichi Manshin walked in. “Oh, Your Highness, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were here. Shall I—?”

  “No, don’t go on my account, Sichi,” I said, relaxing back into the water. “The bath is big enough for both of us, though I warn you, it’s not as warm as it looks.”

  She screwed up her nose. “Big enough for the whole court, really.”

  “Yes, but I hope the whole court won’t be joining us.”

  “Gods no. I do not wish to know what Lord Rasten looks like without his robe.”

  Sichi untied hers as she spoke, owning none of the embarrassment I would have felt had our positions been reversed. She took her time about it, seemingly in no hurry to get in the water and hide her fine curves, but eventually she slid in beside me with a dramatic shiver. “Oh, you weren’t kidding about the temperature.”

  Letting out a sigh, she settled back against the stones with only her shoulders above the waterline. Damp threads of hair trailed down her long neck like dribbles of ink, the rest caught in a loose bun pinned atop her head with a golden comb. Lady Sichi was four years older than my twin and I, but her lifelong engagement to Tanaka had seen her trapped at court since our birth. If I was the caged dragon he laughingly called me, then she was a caged songbird, her beauty less in her features than in her habits, in the way she moved and laughed and spoke, in the turn of her head and the set of her hands, in the graceful way she danced through the world.

  I envied her almost as much as I pitied her.

  Her thoughts seemed to have followed mine, for heaving another sigh, Lady Sichi slid through the water toward me. “Koko.” Her breath was warm against my skin as she drew close. “Prince Tanaka never talks to me about anything, but you—”

  “My brother—”

  Sichi’s fingers closed on my shoulder. “I know, hush, listen to me, please. I just . . . I just need to know what you know before I leave today. Will His Majesty name him as his heir at the ceremony? Is he finally going to give his blessing to our marriage?”

  I turned to find her gaze raking my face. Her grip on my shoulder tightened, a desperate intensity in her digging fingers that jolted fear through my heart.

  “Well?” she said, drawing closer still. “Please, Koko, tell me if you know. It’s . . . it’s important.”

  “Have you heard something?” My question was hardly above a breath, though I was sure we were alone, the only sound of life the continued scraping of the coal shoveller beneath our feet.

  “No, oh no, just the talk. That His Majesty is seeking a treaty with Chiltae, and they want the succession confirmed before they talk terms.”

  It was more than I had heard, but I nodded rather than let her know it.

  “I leave for my yearly visit to my family today,” she went on when I didn’t answer. “I want—I need to know if there’s been any hint, anything at all.”

  “Nothing,” I said, that single word encompassing so many years of uncertainty and frustration, so many years of fear, of knowing Tana and I were watched everywhere we went, that the power our mother held at court was all that kept us safe. “Nothing at all.”

  Sichi sank back, letting the water rise above her shoulders as though it could shield her from her own uncertain position. “Nothing?” Her sigh rippled the surface of the water. “I thought maybe you’d heard something, but that he just wasn’t telling me because he . . .” The words trailed off. She knew that I knew, that it wasn’t only this caged life we shared but also the feeling we were both invisible.

  I shook my head and forced a smile. “Say all that is proper to your family from us, won’t you?” I said, heartache impelling me to change the subject. “It must be hard on your mother having both you and your father always at court.”

  Her lips parted and for a moment I thought she would ask more questions, but after a long silence, she just nodded and forced her own smile. “Yes,” she said. “Mama says she lives for my letters because Father’s are always full of military movements and notes to himself about new orders and pay calculations.”

  Her father was minister of the left, in command of the empire’s military, and I’d often wondered if Sichi lived at court as much to ensure the loyalty of the emperor’s most powerful minister as because she was to be my brother’s wife.

  Lady Sichi chattered on as though a stream of inconsequential talk could make me forget her first whispered entreaty. I could have reassured her that we had plans, that we were close, so close, to ensuring Tanaka got the throne, but I could not trust even Sichi. She was the closest I had ever come to a female friend, though if all went to plan, she would never be my sister.

  Fearing to be drawn into saying more than was safe, I hurriedly washed and excused myself, climbing out of the water with none of Sichi’s assurance. A lifetime of being told I was too tall and too shapeless, that my wrists were too thick and my shoulders too square, had me grab the towel with more speed than grace and wrap it around as much of my body as it would cover. Sichi watched me, something of a sad smile pressed between her lips.

  Out in the courtyard the inn showed signs of waking. The clang of pots and pans spilled from the kitchens, and a gaggle of servants hung around the central well, holding a variety of bowls and jugs. They all stopped to bow as I passed, watched as ever by the imperial guards dotted around the compound. Normally I would not have lowered my caution even in their pre
sence, but the farther I walked from the bathhouse, the more my thoughts slipped back to what Sichi had said. She had not just wanted to know, she had needed to know, and the ghost of her desperate grip still clung to my shoulder.

  Back in my room, I found that Yin had laid out a travelling robe and was waiting for me with a comb and a stern reproof that I had gone to the bathhouse without her.

  “I am quite capable of bathing without assistance,” I said, kneeling on the matting before her.

  “Yes, Your Highness, but your dignity and honour require attendance.” She began to ply her comb to my wet hair and immediately tugged on tangles. “And I could have done a better job washing your hair.”

  A scuff sounded outside the door and I tensed. Yin did not seem to notice anything amiss and went on combing, but my attention had been caught, and while she imparted gossip gleaned from the inn’s servants, I listened for the shuffle of another step or the rustle of cloth.

  No further sounds disturbed us until other members of the court began to wake, filling the inn with footsteps. His Majesty never liked to linger in the mornings, so there was only a short time during which everyone had to eat and dress and prepare for another long day on the road.

  While I picked at my breakfast, a shout for carriers rang through the courtyard, and I moved to the window in time to see Lady Sichi emerge from the inn’s main doors. She had donned a fine robe for the occasion, its silk a shimmering weave that defied being labelled a single colour in the morning light. Within a few moments, she had climbed into the waiting palanquin with easy grace, leaving me prey to ever more niggling doubts. Now I would have to wait until the end of the summer to discover what had troubled her so much.