Chapters (70)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Map
- Epigraph
- BEGINNINGS
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- PART II
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- TRICKSTER
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Also by Susan Dennard
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
Aeduan’s vision sharpened. He had not thought the Rook King still alive. “He remembers who he is?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should have killed him.”
Evrane glared. “I would have, but I was weak. I had only just awoken. Besides, he would have simply been reborn again.” Her gaze flittered toward their prisoners. “Like Saria, like Midne.”
And like we should have been. Aeduan’s nostrils flared. Evrane was right, of course: there was only one way to kill a Paladin, and simple death was not it. Still, a Rook King newly reincarnated was better than one at peak power.
“What does he look like?” he asked. The Rook King of a thousand years ago, the Rook King who had killed Aeduan with his magicked blade, had been tall and dark. He’d worn thick furs and a silver crown—plain, simple, cold as the mountains on which he’d dwelled.
“I didn’t see his face,” Evrane admitted.
“Then how do you know it was the Rook King and not someone else?”
“Because he had that bird with him.” She shuddered—and Aeduan hated that he wanted to shudder too. He had never liked that bird. Death on glossy wings.
“On whose side is he? Does he serve the Exalted Ones or the Six?”
“I do not know.” Her eyes swiveled to Aeduan’s, two pools of black in the shadows. “He could have killed me, though, and he did not. He simply told me it was good to have me back again…” A pause. A twitch of a grim smile. Then: “And he asked me if I’d slept well.”
Of course he did. A thousand years the Rook King had lived. One life after the next. No danger, no Threads, no vengeful Old Ones to get in his way. Now he mocked Evrane. He mocked them all.
If Aeduan ever encountered him—if this new iteration of the Rook King had the audacity to ever cross Aeduan’s path—then Aeduan would end him. A blade in the heart, exactly as the Rook King had done to him. Then when the Paladin soul was reborn, he would track down that new body and kill it too. Over and over again, for a thousand years. Over and over again, for the rest of time.
He gulped back the remnants of his soup, scarcely noticing the taste, the oiliness, the temperature too cold. Then he stared into the darkness with unseeing eyes and imagined pain on glossy black wings.
The end of the night could not come soon enough. Safi had danced until she could dance no more, and though Henrick had not touched his chain of command again, cold had lingered. An aching too, like illness coming on.
Hell-gates, but she had never hated the Emperor more.