“As long as I’m with you. You’re my home, Neri.”
Her cheeks reddened and her face broke into a smile, the most beautiful he had ever seen.
Hosei whistled. “You can wipe that drool off your face now, Jorr. We’re not out of the water yet.”
But they were, as far as he was concerned. He came up to join Hosei, sword in hand, ready to cut down whatever stood in their path. They left the meadows behind.
Dawn came, lighting the sky on fire.
An Excerpt from THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO, now available from Orbit Books
They called me the Bitch Queen, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and exiled my king the night before they crowned me.
Hurricanes destroy the villages and they call it senseless; the winter winds come and they call it cold. What else did they expect from my people, the Oren-yaro, the ambitious savages who created a war that nearly ripped Jin-Sayeng apart? I almost think that if my reign had started without bloodshed and terror, they would have been disappointed.
I did not regret killing the man. He had it coming and my father had taught me to take action before you second-guess yourself. My father was a wise man, and if the warlords could’ve stopped arguing long enough to put their misgivings behind them, he would have made them a great king. Instead, they entrusted the land to me and my husband: children of that same war they would rather forget. The gods love their ironies.
I do regret looking at the bastard while he died. I regret watching his eyes roll backwards and the blood spread like a cobweb underneath his wilted form, leaking into the cracked cobblestone my father paid a remarkable amount of money to install. I regret not having a sharper sword, and losing my nerve so that I didn’t strike him again and he had to die slowly. Bleeding over the jasmine bushes—that whole batch of flowers would remain pink until the end of the season—he had stared up at the trail of stars in the night sky and called for his mother. Even though he was a traitor, he didn’t deserve the pain.
More than anything, I regret not stopping my husband. I should have run after him, grovelled at his feet, asked him to stay. But in nursing my own pride, I didn’t give his a chance. I watched his tall, straight back grow smaller in the distance, his father’s helmet nestled under his arm, his unbound hair blowing in the wind, and I did nothing. A wolf of Oren-yaro suffers in silence. A wolf of Oren-yaro does not beg.
Almost at once, the rumours spread like wildfire. They started in the great hall in the castle at Oka Shto when I arrived for my coronation, dressed in my mother’s best silk dress—all white, like a virgin on her wedding day—bedecked with pearls and gold-weave, and no husband at my side. My son, also in white, stood on the other side of the dais with his nursemaid. Between us were the two priests tasked with the ceremony—a priest of the god Akaterru, patron deity of Oren-yaro, and a priest of Kibouri, that foreign religion my husband’s clan favoured, with their Nameless Maker and enough texts to make anyone ill. They could pass for brothers, with their long faces, carp-like whiskers, and leathery skin the colour of honey.
My husband’s absence was making everyone uncomfortable. I, on the other hand, drifted between boredom and restlessness. I glanced at my son. He had stopped crying, but the red around his eyes had yet to disappear. It was my fault—on the way to the great hall, he asked for his father as any two-year-old would, and I snapped in return. “He’s gone,” I told him in that narrow corridor, where only the nursemaid could hear. “He doesn’t want us anymore.” The boy didn’t understand my words, but the sharp tone was enough to send tears rolling down his cheeks, a faint reflection of how I had spent the night before.
Now, Thanh rubbed his eyes, and I realized I didn’t want to wait a moment longer. I turned to the priests and opened my mouth. Before I could utter a single word, the doors opened.
“Crown her,” my adviser said, breaking into the hall. His face had the paleness of a man who had looked into a mirror that morning and seen his own death. His sandals clicked on the polished earth floor. “Prince Rayyel Ikessar left last night.”
You could hear the weight of the words echo against the walls. In the silence that followed, I thought I could make out the rising heartbeats of every man and woman in that room. Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of what was lost to my father’s war; even bated breaths could signal the start to that old argument, that old fear that I, too, may one day plunge the land into blood and fire once more.
Eventually, the Kibouri priest cleared his throat. “We must delay until the prince can be found.”
“This day was approved by our order, set in stone years ago,” the Akaterru priest replied. “It is a bad omen to change it.”
“Every day is like any other,” the Kibouri priest intoned. “You and your superstitions…”
My adviser stepped up the dais to face them. Both priests towered over him. His mouth, which was surrounded by a beard that looked like a burnt rodent, was set in a thin line. “Warlord Lushai sent a message this morning, congratulating Jin-Sayeng’s lack of a leader. He will march against us by tonight for breaking the treaty if we do not crown her.”
I didn’t bother to pretend to be surprised. “Rayyel is hiding there, I assume,” I said. It was such a bald-faced move: put me in a situation where I could not do anything but create trouble. Throw the wolf into a sea of sick deer—whatever will she do? Warlord Lushai once considered himself my father’s friend, but daring me to make trouble in front of the other warlords was one step too far.
My adviser turned to me and bobbed his head up and down, like a rooster in the grass.
I gritted my teeth. “Get that crown.” I didn’t want to give them a reason to think I wasn’t fulfilling my end of the bargain.
The Kibouri priest was closer to it. He didn’t move.
“My lords,” I said, looking at the warlords, the select few who were not too ill or infirm or couldn’t find the right sort of excuse to avoid the coronation. “You agreed to this alliance. You all signed it with your own blood. Do you remember? Five years ago, you all cut your arms, bled into a cup, and drank from it to mark the joining of Jin-Sayeng as one. Not even Lord Rayyel and I have the power to stop this.”
There was a murmur of assent. A whisper, not an outcry, but I went with it. I turned to the priests. The Akaterru priest had already dropped his head, eyes downcast. The other eventually forced his knees into a bow.
They took the smaller crown. It was made of beaten gold, both yellow and white, set on a red silken headpiece. My father had it made not long after I was born, commissioned to a famous artisan from some distant town. I stared at it while the priests began their rituals, one after the other. I could have done without the Kibouri, but I didn’t want to risk offending the Ikessar supporters in the crowd.
They crowned me with reluctance. No spirits came to crest a halo around my brow or send a shaft of light to bless the occasion. In fact, it was cloudy, and a rumble of thunder marked the beginning of a storm. I wondered when they would discover the body, or if they already had and were just too afraid to tell me.
Even after I became queen, the rumours continued. I was powerless to stop them. I should have been more, they said. More feminine. Subtle, the sort of woman who could hide my jibes behind a well-timed titter. I could have taken the womanly arts, learned to write poetry or brew a decent cup of tea or embroider something that didn’t have my blood on it, and found ways to better please my man. Instead, Rayyel Ikessar would rather throw away the title of Dragonlord, King of Jin-Sayeng, than stay married to me.
It changes a woman, hearing such things. Hardens your heart. Twists your mind along dark paths you have no business being on. And perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t loved Rai, but I did. More than I understood myself. More than I cared to explain.
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Praise for THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO
“THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO is intricate, intimate, and intensely plotted. Full of subtle poignancy and remarkably genuine characters—even the rotten ones. I loved this book.”
— Nicholas Eames, author of KINGS OF THE WYLD
"A remarkable tale of nonstop tension, action, and betrayal."
-Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Readers will be swept in by this strong protagonist and stunning worldbuilding, with a plot full of questions and surprises. Villoso's cunning, exciting debut is a new fantasy epic that readers will clamor for."
-Library Journal (Starred Review, Debut of the Month)
"A tale balanced on the blade's-edge between intrigue and action — and then Villoso twists the knife.”
— Gareth Hanrahan, author of THE GUTTER PRAYER
“A powerful new voice in epic fantasy. Villoso deftly creates an intricate and compelling world of high fantasy intrigue and adventure dominated by a crafty, whip-smart heroine determined to unite her kingdom at any cost.”
— Kameron Hurley, author of THE LIGHT BRIGADE
“Deeply compelling and wonderfully entertaining, THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO feels at once timely and timeless. K. S. Viloso’s lush and finely crafted world envelopes readers from the first page, as she takes us on an adventure full of heartache, hope, and triumph. It’s a fabulous read!”
— Josiah Bancroft, author of SENLIN ASCENDS
"Both intimate and epic, THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO compels you to read on, because it's a story about people not characters, civilizations not settings, and deadly power plays not sanitized throne-room politics. It drags the tropes of queens, kings, knights, and the soldiers of yore into the streets, throws them to their collective knees, and demands that they face their fates like the leaders and power brokers of all real revolutions. So, don’t come to this wanting to leave with your hands clean. Villoso is too honest to let you off so easily.”
—Evan Winter, author of THE RAGE OF DRAGONS
“THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO delivers complex and intriguing characters, an action-packed plot full of surprising twists, and deep, vivid worldbuilding. I can’t wait for the next book!”
— Melissa Caruso, author of THE TETHERED MAGE
Find out more at www.ksvilloso.com
Table of Contents
The Dragonlord’s Call and Other Short Stories
(Untitled)
The Dragonlord’s Call
The High King’s Blizzard
(Aina’s Breath Prologue)
The Architect and the Fork
Jagged Slate on Blue
(A Prequel Story for Jaeth’s Eye)
Fresh Off the Boat
An Excerpt from THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO, now available from Orbit Books
— Nicholas Eames, author of KINGS OF THE WYLD
-Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
-Library Journal (Starred Review, Debut of the Month)
— Gareth Hanrahan, author of THE GUTTER PRAYER
— Kameron Hurley, author of THE LIGHT BRIGADE
— Josiah Bancroft, author of SENLIN ASCENDS
—Evan Winter, author of THE RAGE OF DRAGONS
— Melissa Caruso, author of THE TETHERED MAGE
The Dragonlord's Call Short Story Collection Page 9
