The hourglass throne, p.1
The Hourglass Throne, page 1
THE HOURGLASS THRONE
Praise for The Hanged Man
“Edwards skillfully blends rigorous characterization with political intrigue, action, and haunting worldbuilding in the exciting follow-up to 2018’s The Last Sun. Edwards conjures a believably dangerous setting filled with tarot imagery and supernatural menaces. Series fans and new readers alike will be hooked.”
—Publishers Weekly
A thrilling and satisfying follow-up to The Last Sun, The Hanged Man proves that K.D. Edwards is the real deal. The story shines with unique and complex world-building, stellar writing, and a fast-paced plot that is rounded out with humor and heart-felt emotional moments. I didn’t want the book to end!”
—Tammy Sparks, BOOKS, BONES & BUFFY
“Much like The Last Sun, The Hanged Man is a quest story, and yet it is much more than that. It is theater of the mind. It is the finest form of escapism I have ever read. There are no proper terms to express how powerfully this book affected me . . . The Hanged Man receives 5 out of 5 Sigils!!!”
—Ben Ragunton, TG Geeks podcast
Praise for The Last Sun
“Edwards’s gorgeous debut presents an alternate modern world that is at once unusual and familiar, with a grand interplay of powers formed by family and the supernatural. Intriguing characters, a fast-paced mystery, and an original magical hierarchy will immediately hook readers, who will eagerly await the next volume in this urban fantasy series.”
—Library Journal STARRED review
“Edwards’s debut combines swashbuckling action, political intrigue, and romance into a fast-paced and enjoyable adventure . . . Intriguing worldbuilding and appealing characters set the stage and pique the reader’s interest for sequels.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Jaw-dropping worldbuilding, fluent prose, and an equal blend of noir and snark make for that most delicious of fantasy adventures, an out-of-this-world tale that feels pressingly real. A smart and savvy joy.”
—A. J. Hartley, New York Times–bestselling author of the Steeplejack series and the Cathedrals of Glass series
“A fast, fun, urban fantasy in a wonderfully original world, full of slam-bang magic and interesting characters.”
—Django Wexler, author of The Thousand Names
THE
HOURGLASS
THRONE
THE TAROT SEQUENCE | BOOK THREE
K. D. EDWARDS
Published 2022 by Pyr®
The Hourglass Throne. Copyright © 2022 by K. D. Edwards. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Cover illustration © Micah Epstein
Cover design by Jennifer Do
Cover design © Start Science Fiction
Inquiries should be addressed to
Start Science Fiction
221 River Street
9th Floor
Hoboken, NJ 07030
PHONE: 212-431-5455
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ISBN: 978-1-64506-055-0 (paperback) | ISBN: 978-1-64506-071-0 (eBook)
Printed in the United States of America
This novel, nay series, would not exist without my writing group. A massive thank you to Scott Reintgen and CS Cheely, in particular, for getting me across the finish line, along with all group members past and present: Blakely (our Founder), CS, Scott, Paige, Ali, Jen, York, Caitlin, Tyler, Kwame, Emmalea, Taylor, Susan, Rhett, Jodi, Ben, Sara, Dan, Debbie, Del, Glenn, and honorary member Mac.
For content warnings on my books, as well as access to a series glossary and free between-the-novels stories and novellas, please visit my website at: http://kd-edwards.com/extra-content/
CONTENTS
The Rejuvenation Center
Sun Estate
The Principality Ciaran
The Gala
The Manse
The Arcanum
The Revelry
The Warrens
Half House
Farstryke
The Carriage House
The Westlands
Endgame, Part 1
Endgame, Part 2
The River
Epilog
Acknowledgments
About the Author
THE REJUVENATION CENTER
“—ucking cut you!”
I slapped Brand’s hand away from the radio dial and swerved back into my lane. “Why do you always jump to cutting?” I demanded. “Use your words if you don’t like the radio station I picked.”
Since the pop rock song was off and he’d got his way, Brand settled into the passenger seat with a smirk.
I was driving our beat-up old Saturn toward a corner of the city almost exactly due south of Sun Estate. While summer brought the earliest sunrises of the year to New Atlantis, we were still a half-hour shy of one. The air around us was the gray-tinged black of pre-dawn.
Nothing short of an emergency would have normally got me out of bed before sunrise, let alone two hours before it, which is when Lady Priestess had called with an urgent request. All I knew was that an unknown barrier had appeared around the rejuvenation center, and they couldn’t reach anyone inside by phone or text.
I’d given myself thirty minutes to add a few stealth and infiltration spells to my sigils—at her vague recommendation—while an even-grumpier Brand went from room to room assembling his leathers and chest harness.
“It takes so much longer to get out the door now,” he yawned. “I miss Half House.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve got dozens of people to boss around now.”
“I’ve got dozens of people who need to be bossed around because their heads haven’t grown out their ass yet, which is the state they’d need to be in to do what they should be doing without being told. Why didn’t Lady Priestess tell us any more about what to expect? Were there any background noises?”
“What sort of noises did you expect me to hear?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Scions-clutching-their-pearls angst? Man-being-eaten-by-crocodile screams? We usually know more before we take a job.”
“Good thing it’s not a job then. Can you hand me my coffee?”
I waited a beat, but no coffee edged into my peripheral. As streetlamps sliced blades of yellow across the windshield, I gave him a quick look. “What?”
“This isn’t a job?” he asked.
“No. It’s a favor. I guess that’s the sort of thing Arcana do for each other.”
“So we’re not getting paid?” he asked, louder now. “Is this the sort of thing we can look forward to now that you’re a part of the Arcanum?”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t grumpier than me, because my temper flared. “How should I know? Did you see me leave the last Arcana meeting with an orientation manual, Brand? There was no orientation.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, but handed me my coffee.
I sighed into the plastic lid. “Thank you.”
He waited until I’d taken a long, caffeinated sip. “But she emphasized stealth spells? That’s all you have stored in your sigils—stealth spells?”
“Hell no. Most of my sigils were already topped up. Oh! Addam lent me a sigil with Telekinesis in it. Well, I stepped on his head by accident first, but then he woke up and lent it to me.” I predicted the turn of Brand’s face. “Air conditioning is out in our room, so we slept on the floor. But, hey, Telekinesis. That’ll be fun if I get to use it.”
He flicked a look my way that had us both almost smiling, because let’s be honest: we’d been cooped up on the estate for a while, and the truth was that we really, really hoped we’d get to use more than stealth skills.
We’d relocated to Sun Estate months ago. New Atlantis had been no different from the rest of the world: we struggled with the birth of a novel coronavirus. A heavy investment in magical remedies had allowed us to contain our outbreak so we no longer needed masks or social distancing. But we’d also had to close our borders and cut off contact with the human world until they found their own vaccine solution.
Personally, I’d spent the quarantine months focusing on little except the rehabilitation of Sun Estate. I’d picked up my father’s mantle and was the Arcana of the Sun Throne, and I needed a base of operations. I needed a compound. I needed, eventually and pointedly, a heavily fortified compound.
Kicking out all the ghosts and ghouls that had taken up residence in the ruins of Sun Estate was an expensive and tedious process. Every literal square foot of safe ground we gained was measured in hundreds of dollars and hours of spell-work, largely using an incredibly difficult and special magic taught to me by Lady Priestess—which explained why I was on her radar. But we’d finally reached the point where a sizable percentage of the estate was safe behind wards and other protection.
We’d moved the Dawncreeks onto the estate as well—Anna, Corbie, Layne, and a newly rejuvenated Corinne. Anna, Max, and Quinn spent half a week with us, and half a week at Magnus Academy learning how not to stab someone with the wrong fork during a formal dinner. I had just started hol
“So you and Addam are dressing in each other’s sigils now?” Brand asked.
“I’m not going to be baited.”
“Just making conversation. Take a left up there.”
“It’s easier if we—”
“Left,” he barked. “Look at the windows on that building. There are green and amber lights around the corner.”
His instincts were always quicker than mine. I turned left, and sure enough, there was commotion around the bend in the block ahead of us.
“Does that mean you don’t like Addam being around so much?” I asked him after a pause.
“Don’t you dare fucking use me for cold feet.”
“I don’t have cold feet! I was just worried it might feel weird. I’m checking in with you. Addam’s practically moved into the estate.”
“Yeah, and it was weird the first time he wandered into the kitchen in his boxer briefs. Now it’s called morning.”
“He still hasn’t officially joined the Sun Throne. He’s still technically a member of Lady Justice’s court.”
Brand turned in his seat so hard that the seatbelt groaned. “Why do you sound worried?”
“I didn’t say—”
Brand tapped his head, indicating it hadn’t been anything I’d said out loud.
But amber and emerald lights were now dancing across the hood of our car. Ahead of us, just around a corner, was a line of wooden sawhorses blocking off the mouth of an alley.
Immortality was a myth. Sort of.
Through closely guarded rejuvenation magics perfected by Lady Priestess’s court, Atlanteans could make their bodies go on forever. The mind was another matter entirely, though, which is what made immortality a myth in practice. After half a millennium, most people, one way or another, found ways to die.
I always suspected that those who lasted longer, like the Tower or (reputedly) the Empress, were just smarter at knowing how to reinvent themselves. I suspected the trick was building a mental firebreak between shitty life experiences in order to find the desire or motivation to attempt another hundred years on the same rickety roller coaster.
That said, nearly all Atlanteans of even modest means took advantage of Lady Priestess’s magic. She practiced rejuvenation at two centers on the island, and the particular center before us was the premier facility, where heavily funded courts sent their people for complete life-cycle rejuvenation. It was a process that involved several stages and weeks of residence.
Put together, this created a number of uncomfortable scenarios and a dozen times as many questions. The building treated a clientele of powerful people. The idea that someone had created an uncrossable barrier around the facility wasn’t nearly as worrisome as the question of how and why.
The guarda official who appeared at the driver’s window went from bored to formal in a finger snap when I told him my name. I saw him give the Saturn the side-eye, but he ordered one of his people to valet park the car.
“Crowd forming,” Brand murmured when we were on the sidewalk. He nodded in the direction of people in clean uniforms by a nearby sawhorse.
The officer heard that and said, “Morning bakery crew. They were the ones who discovered the barrier and called it in.”
“Still no contact with anyone inside?” Brand asked.
“Nothing. No reply to texts or calls—we’re not even sure the messages are passing through. Lady Priestess herself is on the scene. I can—”
“I am,” Lady Priestess said from behind him. “Here, that is. I’ll speak with Lord Sun now.”
The officer bowed his way out of the conversation as Lady Priestess stepped forward. She was a short woman edging into middle age, with-straight brown hair and cat-eye eyeglasses that pulsed with the power of a sigil. Her voice was as wispy as her wandering attention, which begged to be underestimated.
“The barrier is around the corner. Just down there. I’ve tried all the tricksy magics I had on me, but nothing seems to work.” She said this while staring intently at Brand, who tensed a bit and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.
“Has the guarda ascertained how far the barrier goes beneath the ground?” I asked. “Or whether it’s a dome or wall?”
“Details,” she said, waving a hand airily, and still staring at Brand. She said, with something like pride, “I have had over three dozen children. None of them have ever had a Companion.”
And then she turned and walked away.
Brand and I waited a good ten seconds before exchanging glances.
“Did she just brag that she’s never bought or stolen a human baby?” Brand whispered.
“That would mean she just called me a kidnapper,” I said.
“I wish. Kidnappers usually have plans. You can’t even match your fucking socks. Not to press a button on that whole kidnapping thing, I mean.”
“Not to,” I agreed, but added the weight of the comment to everything else piled on my shoulders.
“Lord Sun, Lord Saint John,” a young woman called. She rolled over in an electric wheelchair from the direction Lady Priestess had vanished. Her hair was short and bleached platinum, and she wore an expensive business suit. She craned her head up at me and said, “My name is Bethan. I’m Lady Priestess’ second oldest. She asked me to answer any questions you might have.”
The Papess Throne was renowned for its fertility. I’d heard somewhere that Lady Priestess staffed her senior roles with direct descendants only, to keep attempted coups within the family.
“What do you know, Bethan? And call me Rune.”
“Brand,” Brand said.
“My lords. I’m afraid we have more questions than answers at this point. When the morning staff tried to enter through the back, they encountered the barrier. My mother and I were on-site within the hour, and we’ve tried what techniques we had on hand to break through. We were unsuccessful. We tried all the elements. We tried to phase through it, and to establish a portal to the other side. Nothing has worked.”
“How far up or down does it go?” Brand asked. “Do you have drone footage?”
“It’s a dome on top. The drones didn’t spot movement in the windows, or anyone in the interior courtyard. We can see that there is electricity inside, though, which is something. As for underground, we sent people into tunnels that extend below the facility and join several buildings in the area. The barrier walls are present there as well, albeit curved. We suspect the totality of the barrier is less a dome than a sphere.”
“Has it injured anyone?” I asked.
“No. Touching it causes no effect. It’s simply . . . there.”
“And you want me to try breaking through?”
Bethan smiled. “My mother appears to think you or Lord Tower may be able to help, yes.”
“You called the Tower?” Brand said before he could help himself. Then he gritted his teeth. “He’s behind me. He’s behind me right now, isn’t he?”
I looked over my shoulder. “Nope.”
“Thank fucking God,” he said under his breath. “It’s too early.”
“What do we know of the people who are supposed to be inside the building?” I asked.
“We have eighteen clients on record from multiple courts. An evening staff of twenty-one, and an overnight staff of thirteen. We haven’t been able to pinpoint our last point of contact, but I have people trying to contact the evening staff, who would have departed by eight o’clock last night. If we can account for them, it helps narrow the incident window.”
Eighteen clients across multiple courts. High-value individuals from different houses. This had the making of a diplomatic incident. I understood now why the Tower had been contacted. If something had happened to the clients, it wouldn’t send ripples through the city so much as fracture lines.
“Show me the barrier,” I said.
Bethan dipped her head and escorted us away from the guarda activity. Her chair made almost no sound at all as it moved. She saw Brand’s glance at the crowd and said, “We’re keeping the employees and guarda out of the building’s sight-lines.”
“Then you’ll want the guarda to turn off their patrol lights. The colors are reflecting everywhere.”
