by K. B. Wagers
“Your operative? They were supposed to get out, Caspel.”
“I know, Majesty.” Caspel’s look was grim. “They deemed it of greater importance to stay, and while I am angry with them for not following orders, I can’t deny the logic behind the decision.”
“The information they’ve passed on has been invaluable. We’ve been able to prepare for several air strikes because of it,” Alice said.
Running my tongue over my teeth, I considered the next question before I voiced it. The moment it was out in the air I couldn’t take it back, and as ruthless as it was I didn’t see anyone in the room actually arguing with me about it.
Caspel waited patiently; the weight of his eye on me spoke to the possibility he’d already thought of what I was about to ask.
“Caspel, is your operative in a position to kill Admiral Shul?”
Admiral Hassan’s intake of air was barely audible. Alice, true to her upbringing, gaped at me. Taz smiled, a slow feral thing that was a near mirror of Caspel’s look.
“They can, Majesty, should we choose to go down that path.” As reprimands went, it wasn’t more than a slap and it rolled right off me. I’d put a bounty on Phanin because I wanted him to know I was coming. If someone got lucky, that was just a bonus. Admiral Shul wasn’t getting the same warning. I wanted him to know who was responsible when he was choking on his own blood.
“We’re already on that path. They started us down it in the first place. Tell your operative to be ready. When we show up, I want him dead.”
“What about Phanin and Wilson, Majesty?”
Before I could answer, Admiral Hassan jerked and swore. “Majesty, there’s another incoming com link from Pashati. It looks like it’s coming from the palace.”
“Keep Caspel up, I want him to see this. Can we do it so they can’t see him?”
Inana nodded.
“Emmory, behind me. Everyone else out of the picture. I don’t care what happens, keep your mouths shut.” I checked my reflection in the mirror and then straightened my shirt before signaling to Hassan.
“Your Imperial Majesty, what a pleasure at last.” The man on the screen sketched a bow that matched the mockery in his voice. Wilson was tall and broad-shouldered, his gray hair cut short and his piercing blue eyes set deep into his lined face.
“I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” I said.
Malice flickered in his eyes. “Of course you do. Wilson works as good as anything, and you know as well as I do, Cressen Stone, that the names we choose for ourselves are sometimes better than what we had before.”
“Where’s Phanin?”
“Busy.” Wilson waved his right hand. “So much to do to run an empire. He’s happy to do it, which is why I picked him in the first place. I don’t have the time.”
“What are you busy with?”
“Destroying your empire.” Wilson dropped his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “And before you threaten to run off and tell Phanin about it, he knows. The New Indranan Empire will look nothing like what you Bristol bitches have mangled for the last fifteen centuries.”
“Keep him talking, Majesty. His arrogance is getting the better of him,” Emmory subvocalized over our private com link.
“What’s your problem with my family, Wilson? Sounds personal.”
“Oh, so very personal, Cressen. Personal enough to drive me to spend a fortune to wipe your family from existence. And I’m close.” His smile was vicious. “So very close.”
“You’ve been trying to kill me for a while now. Seems like I’m the kabab mein haddi.”
“Yes, the bone in the meatball, so I’ve learned. At first it was extremely annoying, I confess. But now I’ve come to see this as a perfect culmination of years of work. I’ve expanded the scope of my plan, and all for you. I want you to watch everyone you’ve ever cared about die before I finally kill you. I like the poetry of it.”
He jerked Clara into view of the camera and I heard the gasps from behind me that were quickly stifled, but I kept my own face like stone. She was disheveled and obviously injured, the left side of her face matted with blood.
“I’ll find them all,” Wilson snarled. “And one by one I’m going to put them down. You can’t stop me. You can’t save them.”
Clara’s eyes met mine and her pain-induced stupor vanished. She slammed her elbow into Wilson’s gut, folding him over.
“Hail—” Whatever she shouted to me was muffled by the scuffling and ended with the awful sound of a gun being fired.
I forced myself not to turn away as Clara’s body crumpled out of sight.
“I am going to kill you,” I said, surprising myself with how calm my voice was. “I will have you on your knees begging for your life and it will be a pleasure to deny you any mercy.”
Wilson smiled and wiggled bloody fingers at me. Then his screen went black.
I looked at Caspel’s screen. Alice was weeping into Taz’s shoulder, and he held her close with a hand in her black hair. Sorrow etched itself over Caspel’s face and I bit down hard on my tongue to hold my own tears at bay.
“They’re mine, Caspel. If someone has a shot, take it, but otherwise don’t touch them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Taz looked up from Alice, his mouth tight with pain. “Hail, I’m—”
“Take care of her. Tell our people I’m coming home.”
The story continues in…
Book Three of The Indranan War
Keep reading for a sneak peek!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote Behind the Throne in three months and then refined the story over the course of six years with a hell of a lot of input and support from a ton of people. After the Crown came together in the same whirlwind three months but with a lot less time for additional fiddling.
That said, I am eternally grateful for the support of my family and friends during what was admittedly a stressful and chaotic time. Without you I couldn’t have done this. “I love you” isn’t a strong enough phrase to convey the depth of emotion I feel. Thanks for feeding me, for understanding when I turned down invitations because I had to write, for checking in, for forgiving my absence in both physical presence and emotional support.
To my little family—Don, Ben, and Dex. We’ve had a rough time of it; I hope we’re through the worst of it and can sit in the sun for a while.
My critique partners kept up as best as they could with the breakneck pace. Many, many thanks to Lisa and Ana for your emotional support and insight. Thanks also to C.J. for all your love and for being there right when I needed you, I love you. You kept me afloat through a really dark time.
Andrew Zack is the best agent in the world. Thanks for handling all the “other stuff” so I could focus on writing.
Kelly O’Connor, Ellen Brady Wright, and Jenni Hill at Orbit books are a fantastic team, and I count myself lucky to have such amazing women in my corner.
I’d like to specifically thank Beena Gohil for beta reading and being a fan of this story from the beginning. She’s responsible for a number of great things in this series; all the mistakes belong to me. And thanks to my good friend Abby for her advice on how to kill someone just enough while still keeping them slightly alive.
To the folks at Happy Cats Haven for allowing me to come and sit in a roomful of kittens during a truly awful time in my life. You helped soothe a grieving heart. Thank you. Also thanks for our new crew of cats. Please visit www.happycatshaven.org for more about this Colorado Springs no-kill shelter doing great work.
To the crew at Starbucks Southgate5802 for providing me with Saturday morning coffee; and especially to Lion & Christine for your tireless support and excitement for my work. You are great friends and I’m so blessed to have you in my life.
And finally to you, my readers and fans. I’m so glad you loved BTT as much as I did and that you wanted to read this one also.
extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Donald Branum
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K. B. WAGERS has a bachelor’s degree in Russian studies, and her nonfiction writing has earned her two Air Force Space Command Media Contest awards. A native of Colorado, she lives at the base of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and son. In between books, she can be found lifting heavy things, running on trails, dancing to music, and scribbling on spare bits of paper.
introducing
If you enjoyed
AFTER THE CROWN,
look out for
THE INDRANAN WAR: BOOK THREE
by K. B. Wagers
1
The impact of fist to bag echoed up through my arm, a rhythmic shock in time with the beating of my broken heart.
One, one, two. Backhand, two, elbow.
Sweat dripped into my eyes, burning. The sting wasn’t enough to erase the image of Clara Desai’s lifeless body sliding to the floor.
A matriarch of the empire. The head of the council; a woman who’d been there my whole life and had welcomed me back home without the slightest hesitation.
She was dead, slaughtered in front of my eyes by the same man who was responsible for the death of my whole family.
I snarled and slammed my fist into the bag again.
Wilson had engineered it all, from the assassination of my father more than twenty years ago to when he’d looked me in the eye and told me he wouldn’t stop the killing until everyone I cared about was dead.
Then he’d killed Clara.
One, one, two. Backhand, two, elbow. Elbow. I grabbed the bag and rammed my knee into it twice with a scream of rage, backing off only to wipe the sweat from my face before I surged forward again.
“How long has she been at that?” Zin’s question floated through the air to my ears.
“About an hour,” Cas replied.
“She looks ready to drop. Why haven’t you stopped her?”
“Emmory wouldn’t.”
“Don’t look at me,” Indula said. “I don’t want to get punched today.”
“Her Majesty’s care and feeding isn’t my area,” Hao replied, but the laughter in his voice was tinged with the slightest hint of concern.
He was right to be concerned. Clara’s death had hit us all hard, drowning out our euphoria from our defeat of the Saxon forces at Canafey.
I spun, my bare heel slamming into the bag, and the men fell silent.
“Hail.”
I swung at Zin, my fist coming around in what would have been a brutal haymaker had it connected. As per usual, my BodyGuard leaned out of the way of my punch with an exhale. He caught my wrist on its way past, guiding it past his expressionless face.
Fool that I was, I tried to hit him with my other hand as I sailed by, but Zin was already gone, his grip on my wrist a fading memory. I spun, fists raised.
“You know I’m not going to fight you again,” he said. His voice was too gentle, teasing aside the anger in my gut to get at the pain underneath. “Stop.”
I stared at him and sucked in a lungful of air before I replied, “I can’t.”
If I stop I’ll fall apart.
A sad smile flickered over his face. “I know, ma’am. Keep moving. Don’t stop. You’ll break apart in front of everyone and be no use at all. I know. I did just that when you needed me most.”
“Zin—”
He shook his head, and I swallowed back my words. I’d ordered him to stay with Emmory when my Ekam had been shot—killed, if we were being honest. Zin had done what I told him, but the cost to my BodyGuard’s confidence was written all over his face.
I filed it away to bring up with Emmory later. We still had some downtime, and it was time best spent healing—for all of us.
“Majesty,” Zin said, his voice more formal. “Your Ekam would like to see you.”
I took the out he handed me along with the towel Hao passed over. I didn’t have the energy to fight with my BodyGuard and we both knew it. Zin could take me down even at my best, anyway, and right now I was far from my best.
The others formed up around us and the two Royal Marines inside the door of the gym snapped to attention, opening the doors as we approached. The other three Marines were on guard outside the gym—all five handpicked by Emmory—in the last week as supplemental BodyGuards.
My rock star status had gone through the roof since the battle of Canafey, and only someone truly insane would make an attempt on my life right now. That didn’t stop my Ekam from being excessively paranoid.
Rumors swirled about my part in the fight for Canafey, despite my best attempts to downplay my involvement and turn the attention to Admiral Hassan and the real heroes of the fight. The “Gunrunner Empress” of Indrana was on everyone’s lips, and, if Hao was to be believed, in everyone’s hearts.
Also by K. B. Wagers
THE INDRANAN WAR
Behind the Throne
After the Crown
Praise for
BEHIND THE THRONE
“This debut ranks among the best political SF novels in years, largely because of the indomitable, prickly Hail… [a] fast-paced, twisty space opera.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Taut suspense, strong characterization, and dark, rapid-fire humor are the highlights of this excellent SF adventure debut.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Full of fast-paced action and brutal palace intrigue, starring the fiercest princess this side of Westeros.”
—B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
“Promising science-fiction series… for fans of stories with plenty of action and political maneuvering.”
—Booklist
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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 © 2016 by Katy B. Wagers
Excerpt from The Indranan War: Book Three copyright © 2016 by Katy B. Wagers
Author photo by Donald Branum
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover image © Arcangel Images
Cover copyright © 2016 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.
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First Edition: December 2016
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ISBNs: 978-0-316-30863-2 (paperback), 978-0-316-30862-5 (ebook)
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