PRAISE FOR FICTION BY GUENEVERE LEE
About Pekari:
With its deep and rich lore, Pekari pulls you in and doesn’t let go, keeping you up way past your bedtime! Lee can world build with the best of them. There’s a lot here and even more to be discovered still!
–Ricky Lima, author of Happily Ever Aftr
Even better than the series’ breakout first installment, Pekari—The Azure Fish not only builds on what Orope laid out but widens the world Lee has offered us. Book Two definitely gives us more of the journey we’ve been waiting for.
–Liam Gibbs, author of In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy
From the stars in the sky to the words on people’s tongues, it is delightfully clear how much love and energy went into creating the world of Pekari. Meticulous and richly detailed . . . not an adventure you want to miss.
–Sienna Tristen, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming
About Orope:
I read to escape into my imagination. Orope took me on a journey into a world of historical fiction. This page-turner took me through twists and turns in an astonishing world across the Bronze Age. The author’s writing style, new language, and maps of the magical lands kept me inside the story. I’m a business executive who reads fiction to develop my creative mind. This novel blew my mind, and I can’t wait for the next book. Get it and be prepared to experience history in a fictional way.
–Tom Dutta, author of The Way of the Quiet Warrior
Orope—The White Snake, the debut historical fiction novel by Guenevere Lee, transports us to the Bronze Age, fleshing out Egyptian-like lands, bloodthirsty customs, and god-like kings and queens. Lee does an admirable job of creating this world, bringing to life three characters chosen to complete a seemingly impossible task of appeasing the gods. Every chapter is illustrated with ancient-looking maps, which show their path. The characters take on this task and venture to unknown lands, and the reader is left at the end begging to know where the tale will lead next. Fortunately, a companion book to Orope, Pekari—The Azure Fish, continues the story and is in the works.
–Michele Angello, author of The Secret Key of the Pythagorum
A NOVEL BY
GUENEVERE LEE
NEW YORK
LONDON • NASHVILLE • MELBOURNE • VANCOUVER
Pekari - The Azure Fish
© 2020 Guenevere Lee
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com
ISBN 9781642797404 paperback
ISBN 9781642797411 eBook
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019947667
Cover Design by:
Megan Dillon
[email protected]
Interior Design by:
Christopher Kirk
www.GFSstudio.com
Maps Designed and Illustrated by:
Guenevere Lee and
Sheharzad Arshad
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To my dad,
who always encouraged discovery and creativity.
He took me across oceans and over mountains and gave me the courage to travel…
THE PRINCESS OF THE MOUNTAIN
STOKE THE FIRE
The cold bit at her old bones. On mornings like this, she awoke feeling as though something had gnawed on her joints while she slept. Sometimes she dreamt of the gnashing teeth coming at her in the dark. She would awake to find she’d thrown her blankets off and lay shivering, alone in the black night.
“Princess,” the sweet voice spoke beside her. Kessara looked up through the dim light of her private chambers to see the bright young maid holding a tray of warm bread and lumpy yoghurt in a wooden bowl.
Kessara scowled at the rosy cheeks and tiny red nose. Her bright, almond-shaped eyes seemed to beam in the cold. “On the table,” she ordered, and before the girl had even set the tray down, she snapped, “Help me sit.”
The girl’s smile didn’t waver. This was her second year serving the princess, and she knew what to expect from her mistress. She placed the wooden tray down on the small table along the wall, and then opened the wood shutters in the cold castle walls to let in more light before returning to her bed to help Kessara sit.
She let out a deep groan as the girl let Kessara use her arm for leverage, pulling herself up to a sitting position. When did my body get so stiff? she wondered every morning.
She had been young once. It hadn’t always felt like this, even on the coldest winter mornings. It was nearly spring. Drips of water fell off the icicles lining her windows, which were cut in the black stone of her walls, but the cold was still debilitating. She could still recall what it had felt like when she was a girl on mornings like this, ecstatic to go out and play in the snow, marvel at the tiny snowflakes, and lick the icicles.
When she had been just a girl frolicking in the snow, the first Kessara, her great-grandmother, had been Queen of the Mountain. Those days during the long peace were a blessing she never recognized until they were gone. The summer she turned fifteen she blossomed into a woman and was married. That was the summer the Queen of the Mountain had marched her army to the walls of Hattute, and the mountains had only known blood and cold ever since.
“My new dress,” Kessara croaked, pointing to the wardrobe as the young girl began to fetch the princess’ clothes for the day. The dress had arrived the day before. It was a lovely, dark forest shade, made from the finest wool, copper moons stitched on the long sleeves, and a collar lined with warm, mountain lion fur. The girl helped her stand and dressed her. Kessara tried to remember the girl’s name. She was always forgetting names these days, but the girl reminded her of her cousin, Alassiya. That’s why Kessara had kept the girl on, even though her bubbly attitude sometimes made Kessara want to throw her from the tower window.
Finally dressed, she sat at her table and let the girl brush her hair as she broke her bread, mixing it into the honeyed yoghurt. Her hair had been as shiny as copper once but now was nothing more than wispy strands of snow white. She hated to see her reflection, always expecting to see the young girl she had been on her wedding day, not the wrinkly woman who had lived through fifty-six years of civil strife.
“Tell Perithos I will see his new invention at midday,” Kessara spoke with her mouth full of bread. “Before then, I must see my cousin.” Kessara pushed her tray away, finished.
“Yes, Princess,” the girl said, taking the tray and leaving the room with a bowed head.
It was easier to call the Five Sisters her cousins, even though they were very distant cousins at this point. The Five Sisters were all the direct descendants of five real sisters, the daughters of Nesa, the first Queen of the Mountain. Each one was given reign of one of the five western valleys still in their control—the eastern valleys having fallen to the usurper kings in Hattute. They had allowed the lords to rule in their respective valleys, while the sisters took charge of the temples, though only the valley of Nesate was really under their law. This was how the women had managed to keep their hold of the throne for over a century.
The cousin she was going to visit that morning was the youngest of the Five Sisters. She left her chambers, the l
argest in the castle, and made her way down the curved, stone walls filled with guards carrying large swords and sharp spears. The castle had been built like a maze with twisting passages, countless dead ends, and secret chambers hidden behind tapestries and stairways. She knew each stone as though she had placed it there herself.
When the last siege on Hattute had failed to take the city back over two decades ago, they refortified Nesate and the Five Sisters spent an increasing amount of time living in the palace with her, rather than in their own valleys. They said it was to help defend their Queendom, but she knew the truth of it. It was her throne they wanted. The throne one of them would get, because she was an old woman, her husband Alelti had died long ago, and she had never produced a living heir.
It was the price of the Moon God.
When men still ruled Nesate, her father forced Nesa to marry the King Under the Mountain, Hatturigus, hoping to unite the torn kingdom. But Hatturigus was a cruel brute, and instead of the sons Hatturigus desired Nesa gave birth to five girls. They say she conceived many sons, but willed them to shrivel and die. The Moon God did this so the true monarch, the Queen, could rule the mountain. They say Hatturigus burned her alive for the crime. Hatturigus spared the five girls for fear of being cursed by the gods, sending them to be raised in the Moon Temple.
She didn’t know why the Moon God chose her to pay her great-great-grandmother’s debt over a century later. The Moon God and temple was still dear to her, even after being away from it for all these decades and baring its curse. As tradition, all the girls destined to become one of the Five lived there from the time they were nine until their thirteenth year, just like the first Kessara did before winning her throne back from the usurper. Kessara had been there the same time as the Sisters Huzzesa, Alassiya, and Muwesa. They had been as close as real sisters. Muwesa had been the oldest, but Kessara had been the leader of their group. She was the one who would be queen one day.
They were all dead now. Huzzesa had died last winter. Kessara had been convinced she herself would pass this winter, but now that spring was here and she had survived the ice, perhaps she would survive another year.
I will never live to be queen, she thought bitterly. Her mother would turn ninety years old next summer. The Queen was delirious with age, always confused and hardly ever strong enough to walk across the floor, let alone rule, but so long as she drew those raspy breaths, she would be the Queen of the Mountain. Perhaps they would die, mother and daughter, on the same day.
The thought made her shudder, and not because she feared death. Her cousins would tear each other apart like ravenous dogs to claim the throne. Then one of them, one from the army of tiny Kessaras, would either take the throne or lose it to one of the usurpers in Hattute. The tiny Kessaras—that’s what her mother used to call them with a grimace before she had completely lost her mind.
Once the other Sisters had realized she might not produce a living heir, they had begun to name their first daughters Kessara in the hopes of winning some sort of misguided favour, hoping they would be able to charm their elderly princess and be named the heir. The only good thing about that was it had become far simpler to remember all their names, though now and again she’d call over one of the girls and they would huff, “I’m not Kessara. Kessara is my sister.” And their mother would box their ear for being rude to her.
Maybe she would never be queen, but she would choose the next woman to sit on its throne, and so the Sisters were forced to grovel and respect her as though she were queen already.
She had almost had an heir. Her own son nearly sat on that throne. It was after the long peace was shattered and war began again. After one of the Sisters, Ashiyashe, burned herself alive in the Moon Temple. It was after her grandmother ordered the execution of her own sons, furious with her younger brother for trying to steal her throne, decreeing that no man would ever inherit the crown.
When she had given birth that cool summer night, at first there had been silence. She could still hear her voice begging the child to cry, to let her know he was alive, and when the strong wails of her son had finally filled the room, she only had a moment of relief before he was carried away. Her mother entered, sadness etched in her face. The next morning the court heard the news—another stillborn child. And with that, even though she never voiced it, Kessara knew she would never produce an heir for the throne.
The halls of the castle were always dark and cold, even during the summer. There was a constant chill on the mountain. Kessara hugged herself, wishing she had thought to put on a warm cloak. She was almost to her destination though. She went through the large wooden doors and down the hall that displayed the statues of all the old kings before the War of the Five Sisters, before the War of the Brothers, before war was all the mountain knew. The faces on the statues were gruff men with moustaches and long beards on their chins, their eyes made of glass that looked off into the distance. It was the same look her husband had the moment after he’d died.
The chambers were warm and filled with young women. One of them was reclining on a soft chair, being fussed over by everyone. It was still early, but everyone had come to call on her first thing, to congratulate the young woman.
“Sister Kessara,” the princess greeted her namesake, and everyone bowed their heads as she entered. This Kessara, one of the Five Sisters, had held the position her entire life, her mother having died in childbirth. The girl was in her twenties now, with long black hair that hung with a thick plait over her shoulder. On her forehead, she wore a simple crown with a topaz eagle on it.
Until she wore her own crown, this young Kessara and the other three Sisters technically had power over her. She couldn’t describe the sensation that suddenly overcame her as the young girl laughed, the topaz on her forehead glinted, and her pale, delicate hand fell onto her stomach, where her baby had begun to grow.
“The Queen sends her fondest congratulations,” Kessara said kindly enough, though she knew her smile looked more like a wince.
“And you, sweet cousin?” Zidewa asked from the corner of the room.
Kessara turned to Zidewa, another of the Five Sisters, Muwesa’s daughter. She and Muwesa had been pregnant at the same time and had spent days imagining how their daughters would grow together and be like sisters. That was the first daughter she had lost. Zidewa was well into her fifties. Her hair revealed streaks of dark grey and white, but her eyes were still dark amber and intelligent. Her crown bore an eagle as well, but hers was made of copper.
“I am overjoyed,” Kessara spoke through gritted teeth. “May you give birth to the happiness I was denied.”
With that out of the way, Kessara had to go around and give a polite hello to everyone assembled. There were children running around the room playing, their mothers gently reminding them to stay away from the lit fire pits under the open windows. There were no men. They would be with the proud father-to-be. Kessara hoped she would have a son. It would be one less person to line up for her crown.
She left before any other ladies arrived to whom she would have to smile and be pleasant. She instead made her way to the throne room. It was the oldest part of the castle. A king had built the great hall, but they called it the Queen’s Hall now all the same. A statue of the first Kessara stood at its doors. It was the same place the real Kessara had stood when her father ordered her to walk naked through the city to exile— the walk that caused the riot that ended with Kessara returning to this same room to sit on the throne for the first time.
It’s said she was still naked as she sat on the stone chair and was given her crown. The statue was not naked, though. It depicted a woman wearing the scale armour and leather jacket of a soldier, a helm bearing the symbol of a triangle encircled by a gold band, and holding a sword aloft. Kessara went out of her way to go through the main entrance, wanting to see Queen Kessara’s face. She saw herself in the woman’s strong jaw and small eyes. The Queen’s Hall was mostly empty, save for a few guards. She walked down the hall, st
aring up at the high windows that let in very little light. Most of the light came from the torches and fire pits lit along the walls. At the end of the hall was a dais, five stone thrones set in a line. The one in the middle was far larger and grander than the others, though. She walked up the stone stairs and sat in the middle, the queen’s throne, feeling the cold stone cool her skin, and wanting to dig her nails into it and scream how it was hers.
“Princess,” a man spoke, and Kessara turned to see the singer. He looked like a young man to her, although he was nearly fifty. He had a smooth face, almost beautiful, without a single hair. His body was thin and lithe, his fingers long and delicate. He had been a eunuch from birth. He held a small square harp under his arm.
Kessara smiled at the man, her face softening. “Sing for me,” she commanded gently.
“What song shall I sing?” he asked, taking a seat on the steps, looking up at her with smoky topaz eyes—eyes like her husband, Alelti, had had.
“Sing of the walk, sing of the day my great-grandmother won my crown,” she purred, and the singer smiled.
He began immediately, his eyes closed, but his fingers still managed to find every note flawlessly. His voice was soft and high like a bird’s. That voice had moved her to tears many times.
“The long winter had passed,
And with it the King’s son.
The usurper feared he’d be the last.
Kessara’s exile had begun.”
The riot would have failed if Hatturigus had been in Nesate, but he was away in Hattute. Didn’t they know? she wondered. All who hold Hattute are cursed. But instead of blaming the curse, Hatturigus blamed his own daughters. He could have ordered Kessara and her sisters executed, but he hadn’t the courage. He didn’t know that sometimes you had to sacrifice your child to save your kingdom.
When the song ended he continued to play, and Kessara let him, closing her eyes and nodding her head back, feeling as though she could fall asleep and pass away peacefully. What difference would it make if she died now or later? Her life was over anyway. She would have no crown, no legacy. She would have a cold tomb of stone.
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