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The Bone Palace

Page 39

by Downum, Amanda


  His eyes adjusted as they led him past the row of iron doors, the row of tombs. Deep beneath the city, these cells, the bowels of the Çiraan. A place to bury murderers and violent madmen and unlucky mercenaries like him. Screams and curses rose up as the guards’ boots rang on stone, taunts and pleas for attention, protestations of innocence. After the silence of his cell, the noise drove spikes into his skull. The smell of his captors’ sweat and leather and garlic-and-paprika-steeped skin dizzied him after the unchanging stench he’d grown accustomed to.

  The guards didn’t speak. A small mercy. It took effort enough making his legs work. No sun in these halls, no wind or seasons or any hint of time, but Adam knew he’d never been confined so long before. To die like this would be a miserable joke—the gods’ favorite kind.

  Down the hall and up a flight of stairs. The guards carried him by the top of the steps, bruising his arms and stubbing his toes as they dragged him. The slighter one cursed and Adam nearly laughed—all the weight must have wasted off his bones by now.

  He dreaded more stairs, but instead they unlocked a door—bronze-bound wood instead of rusting iron—and shoved him inside. He fell with a rattle of chains, scraping hands and knees on the cold stone floor.

  The guards spoke and a woman answered—the timbre of her voice sent prickles of familiarity across his nape. He couldn’t see her face, though there was nothing in the room to cast the shadow that hid her. “Leave us,” she said, her Skarrish heavily accented.

  “Are you certain, effendi? He is dangerous—” Adam could smell the man’s nerves. They couldn’t be afraid of him, not like this.

  “Does he look like a threat now?”

  Adam couldn’t decide whether to laugh or snarl at the dryness in her voice, the casual dismissal.

  “As you wish.” The door slammed shut as the guards retreated.

  He knelt, head down, letting his eyes adjust to the candlelight. The sight of his hands sickened him: bone-gaunt talons, ragged and embedded with grime. Soft where they had been hard with sword calluses. The manacles hung loose around the knobs of his wrists. Matted cords of hair fell in his face; he was crawling with lice, and for once glad he couldn’t grow a beard.

  “I know I’m pretty,” he said when the silence stretched, “but did you have me brought up here just to stare?” His voice cracked with disuse and he spat thick phlegm.

  She laughed and stepped closer. Her scent cut through his own stench: clean skin, cool and bittersweet, threaded through with poppy oil and cloying myrrh. Recognition came with it, quickening his pulse.

  “Isyllt?”

  “Saints and shadows,” she said, in Selafaïn this time. “You look like you crawled through all nine hells, and a sewer besides.”

  “Or a war and an Iskari prison. What are you doing here?”

  “Rescuing you.”

  The light was unkind when she cast aside her shadow—she’d lost weight where she had none to spare, and bruises darkened her cool grey eyes. With her white skin she looked like the bardi beyaz—the white jackal women who prowled cemeteries and sang for those about to die. Small wonder the guards feared her.

  He hadn’t seen Isyllt Iskaldur in years—in all his dreams of rescue, freedom had never worn her face. But now she knelt before him and unlocked his shackles.

  “I’m not dead, am I?” He could imagine her gaunt, aquiline features on the Lady of Ravens all too easily.

  She laughed, but her smile twisted sideways and fell away. “Not yet. We’ll see how long you survive my company.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Not here,” she said, helping him stand. The room blurred and spun as he rose. Isyllt reached to steady him and he flinched away from her hand, from the shock of human contact. He shrugged apologetically, leaning against the wall.

  She smiled wry understanding. “Come on. Bath first, then news.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could never have finished this book without the help and support of so many people. These include but aren’t limited to: Elizabeth Bear, Jodi Meadows, Jaime Lee Moyer, Leah Bobet, Celia Marsh, Liz Bourke, and everyone in the drowwzoo chat, for endless brainstorming and commiserations; the Partners in Climb, for moral support and getting me out of the house on a regular basis, and for never dropping me on my head; all my blog readers who listen to me bitch and look interested and sympathetic; my fabulous agent Jenn Jackson and equally fabulous editor DongWon Song, and everyone at Orbit.

  Thank you!

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Adrastos Agyros - the king’s seneschal

  Anika Sirota - an ingénue

  Aphra - an elder vampire, Spider’s maker

  Ashlin Idaran Alexios - crown princess of Selafai, wife of Nikos Alexios

  Azarné Vaykush - a vampire

  Cahal - a lieutenant in Ashlin’s retinue

  Ciaran - a musician and friend of Isyllt

  Dahlia - an urchin

  Ferenz Darvulesti - a Sarken margrave, Phaedra’s husband

  Forsythia - a prostitute

  Ginevra Jsutien - a courtier, heir of House Jsutien

  Hekatarin Denaris - captain of the prince’s guard

  Iancu Sala - steward of House Severos

  Isyllt Iskaldur - necromancer and Crown Investigator

  Kebechet - a perfumist, proprietor of the Black Phoenix

  Khelséa Shar - police inspector

  Kirilos Orfion - sorcerer and spymaster, Isyllt’s mentor

  Mathiros Alexios - king of Selafai, Nikos’s father

  Mekaran Narkissos - owner of the Briar Patch

  Mikhael Kurgoth - captain of the king’s guard

  Nadesda Severos - archa of House Severos, Savedra’s mother

  Nikos Alexios - crown prince of Selafai

  Phaedra Severos Darvulia - a sorceress

  Savedra Severos - Nikos’s mistress

  Sevastian Severos - Savedra’s father, Nadesda’s husband

  Spider - a vampire and rabble- rouser

  Tenebris - an elder vampire

  Thea Jsutien - archa of House Jsutien, Ginevra’s aunt

  Varis Severos - sorcerer and member of the Arcanost, Savedra’s uncle

  Whisper - a vampire, Forsythia’s lover

  Various other citizens, courtiers, vampires, and redshirts

  Table of Contents

  FRONT COVER IMAGE

  WELCOME

  DEDICATION

  EXTRAS

  MEET THE AUTHOR

  A PREVIEW OF THE KINGDOMS OF DUST

  PART I: Crepuscule

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  PART II: Nocturne

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  PART III: Aubade

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  APPENDIX I

  APPENDIX II

  BY AMANDA DOWNUM

  COPYRIGHT

  BY AMANDA DOWNUM

  The Necromancer Chronicles

  The Drowning City

  The Bone Palace

  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 © 2010 Amanda Downum

  Excerpt from The Kingdoms of Dust copyright © 2010 by Amanda Downum

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Orbit

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  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  www.twitter.com/orbitbooks.

  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.

  First eBook Edition: December 2010

  ISBN: 978-0-316-08400-0

 

 

 


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