The Hidden Queen, page 1
The Hidden Queen is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Peter V. Brett
Maps copyright © 2021 by Nicolette Caven
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Published in the United Kingdom by Harper Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Chapter opener and Ward artwork designed by Lauren K. Cannon, copyright © Peter V. Brett
Family tree: design by Edwin Vazquez; texture map © NaokiKim
Del Rey and the Circle colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Hardback ISBN 9781984817112
Ebook ISBN 9781984817129
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Edwin A. Vazquez, adapted for ebook
Cover design: David G. Stevenson
Cover illustration: © Martina Fačková
ep_prh_6.3_146382208_c0_r0
Chapter 1: Tear Bottles
Chapter 2: Eulogies
Chapter 3: Sneakin’
Chapter 4: Broken Bonds
Chapter 5: Kissy Stories
Chapter 6: Escort
Chapter 7: Sandstorm
Chapter 8: Linavah
Chapter 9: Blood Prince
Chapter 10: Challenge
Chapter 11: Damajah
Chapter 12: Cups and String
Chapter 13: Prince Kaji
Chapter 14: Harmony
Chapter 15: Enemies at Tea
Chapter 16: A Spare Key
Chapter 17: Debts of the Father
Chapter 18: Intended
Chapter 19: Holy Mother
Chapter 20: Tower of Nothing
Chapter 21: Trio
Chapter 22: Darin Bales Is Magic
Chapter 23: Messenger Road
Chapter 24: Homecoming
Chapter 25: Reception
Chapter 26: My Old Room
Chapter 27: Watchtower
Chapter 28: Baroness
Chapter 29: Holy House
Chapter 30: Favah
Chapter 31: Havin’ It Out
Chapter 32: Solstice
Chapter 33: Loyalties
Chapter 34: Alone
Chapter 35: Like a Gwil in the Night
Chapter 36: Rhiney
Chapter 37: Duchess Araine
Chapter 38: Nightwolves
Chapter 39: Detour
Chapter 40: Anoch Dahl
Chapter 41: The Web
Chapter 42: Skulking
Chapter 43: The Gate
Chapter 44: Spores
Chapter 45: Suckers
Chapter 46: The Crown
Chapter 47: Spear of Ala
Chapter 48: Squeezing Out the Pain
Chapter 49: The Priest
Chapter 50: Jailbreak
Chapter 51: The Heir
Chapter 52: The Father
Chapter 53: Hatchling
Chapter 54: The Well
Chapter 55: The Spare
Chapter 56: Sacrifice
Chapter 57: Dragging
Family Tree
Krasian Dictionary
Ward Grimoire
Acknowledgments
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I’m Darin Bales, and I’m looking for my mam.
Never knew my da. He died before I was born. Savin’ the world, if you believe I’m telling honest word. Ask around if you like. Walk a hundred miles, and folk will all tell you Arlen Bales went down to the Core and sacrificed himself. How his last act was seen in the sky in the form of great, blazing wards that turned the tide of the demon war, burning the corelings to ash. Even those with him at the time say it. My bloodfather. My mam.
I was there, too, in a manner of speaking. Still in Mam’s belly when he died, but she says I spilled out onto the stone floor of the demon hive just minutes later.
Missed my only chance to meet my da by minutes. Might as well be years. Goin’ back a minute, a single second, ent any easier.
I’m starting to think folk were wrong, though. World still needs savin’. And if they’re wrong about that part, why not the other? My aunt Leesha is a fortune teller. She cast her demonbones in my blood, and there was magic about the throw, to be sure. Her words have replayed in my mind so many times they’ve become part of me.
The father waits below in darkness for his progeny to return.
Might mean other things. Ent such a fool I’d trust a prophecy to say everything it seems to. But it ent crazy to wonder if something of my da is still down there, stuck halfway to the Core, like a cork in a bottle.
Is it?
But while my da might be alive, I know my mam is. And I know the thing that’s got her is trying to fatten her up like a choice pig for a wedding feast.
Din’t know my da growin’ up. Saw other boys with theirs and knew I was missin’ something, but it’s hard to really miss someone you’ve never met.
Mam was the one who was always there for me. Who fed me and taught me and kept me safe. Mam, who felt strong as the sun.
Now she’s gone. Taken. And I’m left to care for myself, best I can. It’s good I got help, because I don’t think I could do it alone. Since my first born day, folk have been trying to see something of Mam and Da in me, and they always go away disappointed.
And it ent just myself I need to take care of. All those years Mam looked out for me, what kind of son would I be if I din’t come after her? Even if it means walking into the lair of a creature the Jongleurs have a dozen names for, each scarier than the last. The demon king. The Father of Evil.
Alagai Ka. He has some plan to hatch a new hive queen, and if he does…
What did Da even die for, if I let Alagai Ka bring it all back? If I let him feed Mam to a hatchling queen and repopulate the hive with a new generation of demons, just when folk were startin’ to have a taste of what life could be without ’em?
I ent up to the job of stoppin’ him, of course. I’ve got fifteen summers, and the demon king is older than a mountain. Got a bit of magic I can use—more by frightened instinct than control—but the Father of Evil wields power as easily as I play a tune on my pipes. Alagai Ka’s got nothin’ to be scared of, and I’ve never felt anything but. If I go alone, I’m more likely to die tryin’ than put a rock in front of his plow.
But I’m not alone. Got a lot of friends, all of them better than me at one thing or another.
Olive Paper’s got magic of her own—bound to her in the form of muscle and bone. Reckon she could pick up a milk cow and throw it through the barn wall. Demon’s got her mam, too, and she’s none too pleased about it.
Selen Cutter ent as strong as Olive, but she’s a fair sight bigger’n stronger than me. Smarter, too. Don’t know I would have dared any of this, trekking hundreds of miles through a desert to find Olive, if I hadn’t known Selen would be around to keep me safe.
Arick and Rojvah, my cousins in all but blood, project confidence and assurance I can never have. Arick is built like a prize bull, and the best fighter I’ve ever seen short of Olive. Rojvah’s music puts mine to shame, luring demons—and folk—in close and putting them under her spell.
I can’t save our parents alone, but maybe all of us together can.
Want to get on with it. To get on the road and run at the thing I’m scared of, hoping the momentum, and not wanting to disappoint my friends, will keep pushing me forward when I get too spooked.
But first, we got some business left to attend.
* * *
—
The funeral ent all that different from one of Tender Harral’s Seventhday services back home in Tibbet’s Brook. Bunch of long, loud, boring prayers mixed with bits of half-sung lyrics, sandwiched between tedious sermons. Only here the prayers and lectures are all in Krasian, and instead of the little chapel up on Boggin’s Hill, I’m in legendary Sharik Hora.
I’ve been in grand Holy Houses before. The Cathedral of the Deliverer in Hollow. The great Library and Cathedral of Miln. Even the new Sharik Hora in Everam’s Bounty—which took my breath away, first time I saw it—pales in comparison with the real Sharik Hora, the temple of heroes’ bones in Fort Krasia, or Desert Spear, as the locals call it.
There’s magic here. Old magic, and…sleeping, but I can sense it, even if most folk can’t.
It’s different from what I’m used to. Ent like the demonbone magic Aunt Leesha uses, or the raw magic of the Core Mam used to Draw upon. Not like the magic inside me, born in darkness, or the demons themselves, saturated with magic from the dark below.
It’s just past dawn, sun streaming through the stained-glass windows to fill the place with color and light. Sunlight burns magic away, but it has no effect on this place.
Not like it does on me. I’m as covered up as custom allows, showing nothing but my face and hands. Still the light hurts, and not just my eyes. It dizzies me, and makes my skin itch and burn. Magic comes out at night and
At night the Temple of Heroes’ Bones comes alive, like it’s got a will of its own. Reckon it does—shaped by the dying emotions of warriors who gave their lives defending humanity from the corelings.
That…purpose radiates from the bleached and lacquered bones that decorate every surface of the temple, a golden light that can only be seen by those with magic of their own.
Chandeliers made of hundreds of skulls stare down at us. I can sense every bone in a body, even if I ent got names for ’em all. Altar’s got a bit of everythin’, arranged like a jigsaw, floor-to-ceiling. Even the chalices and fonts pool blessed water in the tops of human skulls.
Alcoves around the room hold entire skeletons of great kai, captains of the demon war, holding spear and shield even in death. The pews are made of thigh and calf bones, lashed and glued together. Even through three layers of cloth between my bottom and the seat, I can feel the texture of bone. I squirm at the places where joints meet.
It’s unsettling. Even a little scary. But I feel safe here, too. This is one place the demons can’t touch.
Everything stinks of incense, and the chemics used to prepare the dead. For once I don’t mind. Helps mask the smell of thousands of worshippers, their sweat and perfume and the clay dust on their sandals.
Like Seventhday services in the Brook, the pews in Sharik Hora are divided, with men stage right and women stage left. It’s a bit old-fashioned—the Free Cities stopped the practice ages ago—and one of many reasons I used to skip services whenever I could get away with it, which was most of the time.
Here it means I’m on the men’s side with Olive, Arick, and a few hundred Sharum warriors. Meanwhile, Selen and Rojvah are stuck across the aisle from us with the women.
Don’t make a lot of sense to me, splitting up families across the aisle like this. And what about folk like Olive, who fit on both sides? Or maybe neither.
Not that she looks out of place. I’m the one who doesn’t fit. Everyone in my row, Olive included, has at least six inches and a hundred pounds on me, not counting their armored robes, which puff them up even more. And it ent exactly subtle that I’m the only one not wearing black, or Krasian robes at all. Stand out like a sheep in a nightwolf den.
Across the aisle, Selen stands out just as much. She’s taller than most men, and towers over the other women, thick with muscle and puffed by armored robes of her own. Like me, Selen refuses to dress Krasian, which has its disadvantages. Rojvah blends better in her clerical white, but I know she hates it.
Someone coughs, startling me enough that Olive spares me a glance.
“All right, Darin?” she asks, too quietly for others to hear.
My senses work differently from other folk’s. Nose like a hound and ears like a bat, Mam used to say. Words whispered to the Creator are as clear to me as those shouted across a taproom.
But it’s more than that. I can feel the heartbeats of the others in my row, vibrating the bones of the pew. I can taste the tea and spiced meat on their breath, and tell you which ones snuck a swig of couzi before services. A fly on the windows a hundred feet above our heads sounds like it’s buzzing right in my ear. If I look up, I could count the facets of its eyes.
“Fine,” I murmur, and Olive is happy to retreat to her own thoughts. Everyone’s got a broken heart today, but Olive most of all.
Sometimes my senses come in handy, but mostly they’re more trouble than they’re worth. I hate crowds like this, but just like in the Brook, sometimes you can get away with skippin’ services and sometimes you can’t. Nothing for it now but to endure.
I focus on the loudest voice, Damaji Aleveran, speaking from a pulpit designed to use the acoustics of the great dome to project his sermon far and wide. It gives me a place to lay my attention, and that helps keep the other sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches from overwhelming me.
I don’t pay much attention to his words—some tampweed tale about how everything is the Creator’s will—my other senses tell me more. I know what kind of bleach was used on his pristine white robe, and catch the scent of parchment and ink on his fingers. I count the lines on his face and smell the years on him, but Damaji Aleveran is haler than most men his age. I can smell his strict diet, and see the calluses on his hands. Beneath the layers of robes I hear firm muscles bunch and shift against the cloth.
Aleveran’s heartbeat is strong and steady. That and his scent tell me he believes what he’s saying. Believes the Creator is up there in the sky, looking down on us and caring what we do.
Not every Holy Man does. Some give a convincing performance, but I ent easy to fool. The ones with doubts and good intention I can forgive, but not the ones who lie on purpose. But plenty of folk have real faith, and I envy that. Wish I could believe everything happens for a reason. That everything’s gonna be all right.
Wish it was that easy.
At last, the main service comes to an end, and attention turns to the bodies lying in state at the front of the altar—two princes and a princess. Clerics file out of the front rows of pews and ascend the altar, with the men of the council of dama standing stage right, and the women of the council of dama’ting standing stage left as they speak prayers over the fallen.
Already the bodies of the other martyrs who fell on new moon have been turned over to clerics who specialize in boiling away flesh and bleaching bones to add to the power of this place. Selen says it’s barbaric but if I’m to tell honest word, I think it’s beautiful.
Still, it ent every day there’s a set of royal bones to add, much less three. Prince Chadan, grandson of Damaji Aleveran. Prince Iraven, Olive’s half brother. And Princess Micha, Olive’s half sister.
It’s hard to think of Nanny Micha as a princess, much less a famed warrior, but turns out she was both. Mostly I remember her as a stern but loving shadow, following along just out of sight as Olive, Selen, and I romped through the halls of Aunt Leesha’s keep, oblivious to the dangers beyond the wards. Micha was more bodyguard than nanny, even if none of us knew it.
It’s a bit of a scandal for her to be on the altar, even so. In thousands of years, no woman has ever had her bones displayed in Sharik Hora, but these days, heroes’ bone magic is sorely needed. Desert Spear is a shadow of itself, the outer city destroyed, and sand demons still form storms out on the dunes. The Majah need all the protection they can get.
Krasians are good at letting pride get in the way of their decisions, but I hope they ent fool enough to turn up their noses at the bones of a powerful martyr just because she’s a woman. I can sense Olive’s tension about it, but there’s not much I can do.
Like Micha, this Olive is different from the spoiled princess of Hollow I grew up with. Here she is Prince Olive, a famed kai’Sharum with a demon kill count to make many an older and more seasoned warrior green with envy.
Olive doesn’t smell like she used to, either. Before coming here, don’t think she ever went a day without a bath. Truer is, she was more likely to have two than skip a day, with soaps that smelled like a flower garden’s sick-up. Not to mention all the paints and powders and fragrances she layered on the moment she was dry. Now she smells more like a man than I do—all sweat and dust and hava spice. So different, I almost didn’t recognize her at first. Almost.
But same as back then, beneath it all, she still smells like Olive Paper, the first friend I ever had in the world. Magic quickened Olive and me faster in the womb than other children. We were walking in weeks, and chasing each other around the room for almost a year before Selen found her feet. I learned to smell Olive’s moods before I learned to speak. Right now she’s full of sorrow and anger in equal measure, and who could blame her? She’s lost almost everything, and it din’t have to be this way.
I expect someone who smells like that to be weeping, or raging, but Olive keeps her composure out of respect for the dead. It is not appropriate for Sharum men to cry in Krasia, or to question Everam’s will when He calls His warriors back to Heaven, if you believe that sort of thing. Olive didn’t used to, but a lot has changed, and I’m not sure how well I know her anymore.
To my right, Arick stands and smells much the same. Micha was not only Arick’s aunt, she was his mother’s spear sister, and perhaps the first warrior of renown who accepted him for who he was. Like Olive, he blames himself for much of what happened in the demon tunnels, even though it ent their fault.
