Misrule Read online

  Misrule 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 © 2022 by Heather Walter

  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.

  Del Rey and the Circle colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Walter, Heather, author.

  Title: Misrule / Heather Walter.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Del Rey, [2022] | Series: Malice duology ; book 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021057106 (print) | LCCN 2021057107 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984818683 (hardcover ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781984818690 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.A44683 M57 2022 (print) | LCC PS3623.A44683 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20211206

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2021057106

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2021057107

  International edition ISBN 9780593499146

  Ebook ISBN 9781984818690

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Ella Laytham

  Cover illustration: Aykut Aydoğdu

  ep_prh_6.0_139899382_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part II

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Part III

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Father,

  I am waylaid in Cardon, as my ship cannot manage the remainder of the voyage home.

  Briar is sacked.

  My crew and I barely escaped the harbor with our lives. The Briar King is dead. The realm aflame. I heard that Princess Aurora was cursed to sleep or to die, I do not know which is true. But she cannot have survived. There was a…a creature. Winged and ravenous and brutal. I saw it rip a man in two with its claws, like something from a nightmare. But the monster is real.

  And the beast rules Briar.

  —Missive from Prince Elias to the king of Ryna. Age of the Rose, 976

  PROLOGUE

  A wispy plume of golden smoke curls up from the mash of ingredients in the mortar, tinged with the honey-sweet scent of Grace blood. I flex my fingers, stiff after gripping the pestle for so long, and roll away the tension in my neck.

  “I found this book in Willow House,” I say. Or what was left of it. “You remember how strong those healing Graces were. One almost ascended to be a Royal Grace. There was that courtier—I forget her name now—she was rumored to be over a hundred years old because of their elixirs.”

  I take the mortar and a spoon and go to the bed, still encased in bramble. Callow, my kestrel, warbles from her perch on a nearby stack of books.

  “You see? Even Callow agrees. This must be the one.”

  At my touch, the intertwined vines slither apart, revealing the sleeper inside. Even after all this time, my heart still flutters at the sight of her.

  Aurora.

  It’s been nearly a year since that terrible night in the black tower when her hand met the spindle. But her bronze-kissed cheeks still carry their healthy glow. Her eyelashes flutter as she dreams, and her lips are slightly parted, as if she might wake up at any moment and end the nightmare of the last months. Day after miserable day of failed attempts to break her curse.

  “Please wake up,” I whisper to her, tipping a small amount of elixir past her lips.

  The golden liquid slides over her tongue and into her throat. I hold my breath, clutching her hand. The seconds drag on. And then—her pulse might be beating faster, stronger. The movement beneath her eyelids is more pronounced. I know—I know—that she inhales a deeper breath. Yes. This is it. She’ll wake, and then we can—

  Aurora’s body abruptly goes slack. The heartbeat in her wrist slows until it is as faint as it ever was. Tears sting against my eyelids. One rolls down my cheek and splashes onto Aurora’s coverlet, staining the embroidered line of dragons in flight. Damn everything to the bottom of the sea and back. I hurl the mortar across the room. Its crash echoes in the tomblike chamber.

  “We’ll try again.” I swipe my sleeve over my nose, attempting to convince myself as much as Aurora. “I found two more Graces in the ruins of the Common District yesterday. Maybe their blood is capable of what we need. I’ll go to the dungeons and—”

  A muffled thunk sounds in the distance, drawing me away from the bed and to the craggy gap in the wall. The wreckage of Briar sprawls toward the sea. Smoke curls in long green tendrils from the husks of buildings and empty streets. Sometimes a shadow scurries from one hiding place to the next, likely a surviving citizen thinking I care which rank hole they choose to burrow into and live out their miserable days. It makes no difference to me so long as they don’t trouble us. At least they’ve stopped trying to breach the palace.

  Another explosion reverberates on the wind. Beyond the districts, a fleet is cutting across the waves, closing in on the scraps of wood that used to be the harbor. More humans from across the sea, announcing their presence with cannon fire. I assume the arrogant fools seek to stake their claim on Briar and its Etherium, like all the rest who have sailed to these shores. They would do better to turn around and go home. But none ever do. I sigh and prepare
to Shift.

  Wait, a shadowy voice in my head instructs, both mine and not mine. Let us greet them from here.

  Here? The harbor is miles away, and I’m so high up that the ships appear as small as my fingernail. There’s no way I could possibly—

  Anything is possible with us, pet.

  A shiver of delight trills down my spine. I dive within myself and find that den where my power lives. But it’s not just mine anymore—not since that fateful night in the black tower, when Mortania’s magic was released from her medallion prison and melded with my own, creating the most formidable Vila power in existence. At a mere thought, the tether of magic unfurls. It races across the districts at impossible speed, and I’m hit with the competing scents of charred earth and iron-laced stone—all bits of magic I could grasp with mine and control, the same way I did when I took this realm. But I do not linger on such petty hearts of magic, amazed that the limb of my power does not strain in the slightest. I’ve been testing its limits over the last months—using it to mend holes in the palace walls and summoning giant waves to block encroaching fleets. Mortania’s power has bolstered my own abilities to levels I’d never dreamed possible. Even so, I’ve never done this.

  My magic slams into the hull of a ship. The shock of it vibrates in my bones. Shifting my eyesight, I can just glimpse the massive vessel teetering like a child’s toy. I sense the fear of the drowning sailors through the cord of my power. Hear the faint crunch of a mast snapping. An instant later, the sea claims the ship, swallowing it down in one gulp. My magic moves on to the next. And the next. Power sings across every nerve and raises the roots of my hair.

  Yes, pet. This is what you were made for.

  I draw myself up, savoring her praise.

  But I wasn’t always so receptive to the voice of Mortania. When I was the Dark Grace, her spirit haunted my nightmares. I’d been terrified of becoming as wicked as the stories rumored her to have been. By all accounts, I was. Shortly after my siege, the full weight of what I’d done to Briar settled over me. As I watched the realm burn, I thought of the citizens in the Common District, many of whom might have hated the nobles as much as I did. The children. Even Hilde, the apothecary, who treated me almost as a friend. But she’d fled like all the rest, horror-struck by the winged beast unleashing its wrath on Briar.

  Take care you do not become the monster they believe you to be, she’d said.

  But a monster was what I needed to be all along.

  Mortania taught me that, and so much more in the last months. Her presence now is like a missing piece put back into place. One I do not intend to lose again.

  “It’s you.”

  Callow screeches a warning, and my concentration shatters. I whirl around. The barrier of oil-skinned trees that blocked the door against Tarkin’s army yawns wide, and there is a stranger standing at the entrance to the library.

  “Who are—” But my voice falls flat as my eyes travel over her. The long, lean-muscled limbs. Jet hair threaded with russet. A gash just below a spike of bone on her forehead is scabbed with green—green—blood. More bone spikes travel down her rich brown forearms, along her collarbones, and across her forehead like a crown. Her eyes sparkle like emeralds. Deep in the place where my magic lives, Mortania’s presence undulates.

  I have to peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “You’re…” I almost cannot say it. “Vila. Like me.”

  She shakes her head, slowly. “I don’t think anyone is like you.” The stranger steps farther into the library. Glass crunches under her boots as she crosses to the gap in the wall. I’m stunned into stillness. Callow flaps to a nearer perch, protective, but the stranger is too focused to notice her. “Did you really just sink that fleet from all the way back here? It took me half a day to travel to the palace from the harbor.”

  A breeze gusts in through the gap. The last ship surrenders to the sea. Angry waves crash against the slick red rock of the Crimson Cliffs. I must have pushed back dozens of others in the last months. Their bones litter the seabed. “I…yes.”

  “Then all the stories are true. The Vila who seized the realm responsible for the blight on Malterre. One of us.”

  One of us. The words brush a chamber in my heart I didn’t know existed. Callow screeches again, at last capturing the stranger’s attention.

  “Is that your bird?” she asks. “It looks like it might want to eat me.”

  The kestrel mutters in reply and clacks her beak.

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” I assure the stranger. “Her name is Callow.” The kestrel flares her wings, showing off.

  “Hello, Callow. I’m Regan.” She reaches a tentative hand toward the kestrel, who allows herself to be stroked. My suspicion ebbs. If Callow approves of her, then so do I. Mortania’s presence ripples in something that might be agreement. “And you?”

  “Al—” No, that name is from another time. “Nimara. Call me Nimara.”

  “Nimara.” She draws it out, like she’s tasting it. Her dark lips curve into a soft smile. And wings flap in my belly. “After the first Vila?”

  “You know about her?”

  “We Vila may be exiled, but we take pride in our history.” She tilts her head, studying me. “Nimara is the perfect name for you.”

  Kinship sears through me. And there are a hundred things I want to say, to ask. But then a growl interrupts the quiet—Regan’s stomach. Until now, I hadn’t fully registered the ragged state of her clothes. The scrapes and cuts crisscrossing her limbs, and the salt crusting her unraveling braid. “What happened to you?”

  She looks down at herself and grins. “You did. I sailed here in the cargo hold of a ship bound for Briar. It didn’t exactly receive a warm reception.”

  Because I blasted it apart with my power, like I’d done to all the others. Wonderful. I’ve welcomed the first other Vila to Briar by nearly drowning her. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t apologize. This”—she indicates the smoking wreckage of Briar—“is glorious. And so are you.”

  My flush deepens. I tug at the sleeves of my gown. “You need to eat something.” Besides today, the last fleet I remember spotting was weeks ago. Dragon knows what Regan has been surviving on since she pulled herself out of the sea. I hurry to a table, where my half-eaten breakfast sits on a plate. The bricklike scone and dried meat isn’t exactly appetizing. “You’ll have to forgive me. The fresh things spoiled ages ago, and I’ve no particular skill in the kitchen.”

  The food is one of the only things I miss about former Briar. Fruit-filled pastries and decadent cakes and buttery cheeses—delicacies I’ll likely never taste again. Maybe one of the cooks is still alive. I should have checked. Regan accepts the plate and bites off a piece of scone with effort. “This is a feast.”

  “I can do something about those cuts as well.” I busy myself at a table, where I have some leftover ingredients from my attempts at waking Aurora.

  The various powders and leaves are nothing compared to what would have been available in my Lair at Lavender House, but it will have to suffice. I pick through jars and inspect vials of multicolored oils, calculating which would be best to—

  “Who is that?”

  I freeze. Dragon’s teeth. I’d been so wrapped up in Regan’s arrival that I’d forgotten all about the bed of bramble. And I suppose Regan didn’t notice, either—until now. She veers in the direction of the bed. My senses come back to me in a violent whoosh. Vila or not, Regan is a stranger. With a snap of my fingers, the branches cinch closed. Regan has to jump back before a thorned vine whips her in the face.

  “Don’t touch her.”

  Regan backs away, one hand holding up the remainder of the scone in a placating gesture. “I mean her no harm. Is she sick?”

  “She’s…” I hesitate. Somehow I doubt that Regan will be thrilled to discover Briar’s last princess
sleeping under my protection. I’m not sure how she’ll react if she knows. But there’s no point in lying. Aurora’s portrait is everywhere in this palace. It’s only a matter of time before Regan figures it out. “Aurora. Princess Aurora. And she’s not sick—she’s cursed.”

  The cry of a raven carries through the room.

  “Cursed?” Regan repeats, swallowing down her mouthful. Her lips twitch up. “Did you do that, too?”

  “What? No. Well, sort of.” Mortania’s presence rumbles, and I tamp her down, uncomfortably reminded that, as much as I appreciate her power, the ancient Vila is partly responsible for Aurora’s sleep. “It was my magic that caused the curse, but I didn’t mean to use it against her. She’s my…friend.”

  I cannot bring myself to confess more. Regan wouldn’t understand. Besides, I will not repeat the mistake of the last time I trusted someone who didn’t deserve it. The shadows of the room seem to dance and writhe, as they did in the black tower.

  “Oh.” Regan peers through the narrow slats of bramble, at Aurora. “Judging from the state of things, I didn’t expect you to be a friend of the royals.”

  “Aurora is different,” I explain. “She respects my dark magic. Before all of this, we were going to change the realm. Root out the corruption. But then the curse happened, and I…”

  “Took matters into your own hands,” Regan finishes. I nod. “I like it.”

  Salt-laced wind gusts in from the sea, stirring torn book pages. And I let myself relax. Regan isn’t questioning or challenging me about Aurora. She crosses back to Callow, who mutters on her perch and rearranges herself.