The Blood Knight (The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 3) - Hardcover
Brimming with passion and adventure, Greg Keyes’s epic saga of a royal family’s fall from power through treachery and dark magic, set amid the return of ancient evils whose malevolence threatens to annihilate humanity, bids fair to become a classic of its kind. Now, in the eagerly awaited third installment, Keyes draws the threads of his tapestry ever tighter, illuminating old mysteries and introducing new ones as events build toward a shattering climax.
The legendary Briar King has awakened, spreading madness and destruction. Half-remembered, poorly understood prophecies seem to point to the young princess Anne Dare, rightful heir to the throne of Crotheny, as the world’s only hope. Yet Anne is hunted by the minions of the usurper Robert, whose return from the grave has opened a doorway through which sinister sorceries have poured into the world. Though Anne herself is the conduit of fearsome powers beyond her understanding and control, it is time for girl to become woman, princess to become queen. Anne must stop running and instead march at the head of an army to take back her kingdom . . . or die trying.
But a mysterious assassin stalks her, so skilled in the deadly fencing style of dessrata that even Anne’s friend and protector Cazio, a master of the form, cannot stand against him, nor can her sworn defender, the young knight Neil MeqVren.
As for Anne’s other companions–Aspar White, the royal holter who bears an enchanted arrow capable of felling the Briar King; and Stephen Darige, the monk who blew the horn that woke the Briar King from his slumber–they cannot help her, as their separate paths carry them ever deeper into a deadly maze of myth and magic from which return may be impossible.
Meanwhile, Queen Muriele is a prisoner of the false king. With no allies but a crippled musician, who is himself a prisoner, and a servingwoman who is both more and less than she seems, Muriele will find herself a pawn in Robert’s schemes for conquest–and a weapon to be used against her own daughter.
The legendary Briar King has awakened, spreading madness and destruction. Half-remembered, poorly understood prophecies seem to point to the young princess Anne Dare, rightful heir to the throne of Crotheny, as the world’s only hope. Yet Anne is hunted by the minions of the usurper Robert, whose return from the grave has opened a doorway through which sinister sorceries have poured into the world. Though Anne herself is the conduit of fearsome powers beyond her understanding and control, it is time for girl to become woman, princess to become queen. Anne must stop running and instead march at the head of an army to take back her kingdom . . . or die trying.
But a mysterious assassin stalks her, so skilled in the deadly fencing style of dessrata that even Anne’s friend and protector Cazio, a master of the form, cannot stand against him, nor can her sworn defender, the young knight Neil MeqVren.
As for Anne’s other companions–Aspar White, the royal holter who bears an enchanted arrow capable of felling the Briar King; and Stephen Darige, the monk who blew the horn that woke the Briar King from his slumber–they cannot help her, as their separate paths carry them ever deeper into a deadly maze of myth and magic from which return may be impossible.
Meanwhile, Queen Muriele is a prisoner of the false king. With no allies but a crippled musician, who is himself a prisoner, and a servingwoman who is both more and less than she seems, Muriele will find herself a pawn in Robert’s schemes for conquest–and a weapon to be used against her own daughter.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Greg Keyes was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse storytelling family. He is the author of The Briar King and The Charnel Prince (Books One and Two of The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone), The Waterborn, The Blackgod, the Age of Unreason tetralogy, and the Star Wars New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, and The Final Prophecy. He lives in Savannah, Georgia.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Part I
The Waters Beneath the World
On the stony west shore of Roin Ieniesse, Fren MeqLier met Saint Jeroin the Mariner, and in Saint Jeroin’s ship they passed over the western waves through sleet and fog until they came to a bleak shore and a dark forest.
“That is the Wood Beyond the World,” Saint Jeroin told him. “Take care that when you step from the boat, your boot does not strike the water. If you but touch the waves, you will forget everything you have ever known.”
—From Frenn Rey-eise: A Tale of Saint Frenn Told on Skern, Sacritor Roger Bishop
The Dark Lady took Alzarez by the hand and pointed at the river.
“Drink from that,” she said, “and you will be like the dead, without memory or sin.”
Then she pointed to a bubbling spring.
“Drink there, and you will know more than any mortal.”
Alzarez looked at both.
“But the river feeds the spring,” he observed.
“Of course,” the Dark Lady replied.
—From “Sa Alzarezasfill,” a Herilanzer folktale
Ne piberos daz’uturo. Don’t drink the water.
—From a Vitellian funerary inscription
Chapter One
Lost
Here’s my wish;
A man with blood-red lips
With snow-white skin
With blue-black hair
Like a raven’s wing.
That’s my wish.
Anne Dare murmured the words to the song, a favorite of hers from when she was younger.
She noticed that her fingers were trembling, and for a moment she felt as if they weren’t attached to her but were instead strange worms clinging to her hands.
With blood-red lips . . .
Anne had seen blood before, plenty of it. But never like this, never with such a striking hue, so brilliant against the snow. It was as if she were viewing the true color for the first time rather than the pale counterfeit she had known her whole life.
At the edges it was watered pink, but at its source, where it pulsed into the cold whiteness, it was a thing of utter beauty.
With snow-white skin
With blue-black hair . . .
The man had flesh gone gray and straw-colored hair, nothing like the imagined lover of the song. As she watched, his fingers unclenched from the dagger he’d been holding, and he let go the cares of the world. His eyes went round with wonder as they saw something she could not, beyond the lands of fate. Then he sighed a final steaming breath into the snow.
Somewhere—very far away, it seemed—she heard a hoarse cry and the sound of clashing steel, followed by silence. She detected no motion through the dark trunks of the trees except the continuing light fall of snow.
Something chuffed nearby.
In a daze, Anne turned to find a dappled gray horse regarding her curiously. It looked familiar, and she gasped faintly as she recalled it charging toward her. The snow told that it had stamped all around her, but one trail of hoofprints led in from over a hill, the direction from which it must have come. Part of the way, the prints were accompanied by pink speckles.
The horse had blood in its mane, as well.
She stood shakily, feeling pain in her thigh, shin, and ribs. She turned on her feet to take in the whole of her surroundings, searching for a sign that there was anyone else nearby. But there were only the dead man, the horse, and trees stripped to bark by winter’s winds.
Finally she glanced down at herself. She wore a soft red doeskin robe lined with black ermine and beneath that a heavy riding habit. She remembered she’d gotten them back in Dunmrogh.
She remembered the fight there, too, and the death of her first love and first betrayer, Roderick.
She pushed her hand under the hood and felt the curls of her copper hair. It was growing back but was still short from the shearing she’d had in Tero Gallé what seemed like an age ago. So she was missing hours or days, not ninedays, months, or years. But she had still misplaced time, and that frightened her.
She remembered leaving Dunmrogh with her maid Austra, a freewoman named Winna, and thirty-eight men whose company included her Vitellian friend Cazio and her guardian Sir Neil MeqVren. They’d just won a battle, and most were wounded, including Anne herself.
But there had been no time for leisurely recovery. Her father was dead, and her mother the prisoner of an usurper. She’d set out determined somehow to free her mother and reclaim her father’s throne. She remembered feeling very certain about the whole thing.
What she didn’t know, couldn’t remember, was where those friends were and why she wasn’t with them. Or, for that matter, who the dead man was, lying at her feet. His throat had been cut; that much was plain enough—it gaped like a second mouth. But how had it happened? Was he friend or foe?
Since she didn’t recognize him, she reckoned he was most likely the latter.
She sagged against a tree and closed her eyes, studying the dark pool in her mind, diving into it like a kingfisher.
She’d been riding beside Cazio, and he’d been practicing the king’s tongue . . .
“Esno es caldo,” Cazio said, catching a snowflake in his hand, eyes wide with wonder.
“Snow is cold,” Anne corrected, then saw the set of his lips and realized he’d mispronounced the sentence on purpose.
Cazio was tall and slim, with sharp, foxy features and dark eyes, and when his mouth quirked like that, he was all devil.
“What is esno in Vitellian?” she demanded.
“A metal the color of your hair,” he said in such a way that she suddenly wondered what his lips would taste like. Honey? Olive oil? He’d kissed her before, but she couldn’t remember . . .
What a stupid thought.
“Esno es caldo is Vitellian for ‘copper is hot,’ right?” she translated, trying to hide her annoyance. By the way Cazio was grinning now, she knew she certainly was missing something.
“Yes, that’s true,” Cazio drawled, “if taken literally. But it’s a sort of pun. If I were talking to my friend Acameno and said ‘fero es caldo,’ it would mean ‘iron is hot,’ but iron can also mean a sword, and a sword can mean a man’s very personal armament, you see, and would be a compliment to his manhood. He would assume I meant his iron. And so copper, the softer, prettier metal can also represent—”
“Yes, well,” Anne quickly cut in, “that will be enough Vitellian colloquialism for now. After all, you wanted to work on your king’s tongue, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, but it’s funny to me, that’s all, that your word for ‘cold’ is my word for ‘hot.’ ”
“Yes, and it’s even funnier that your word for ‘free’ is ‘lover,’ ” she countered sarcastically, “considering that one cannot have the second and be the first.”
As soon as she saw the look on his face, though, she wished she hadn’t spoken.
Cazio immediately raised an interested eyebrow. “Now we’re onto a topic I approve of,” he said. ”But, eh—‘lover’? Ne commrenno. What is ‘lover’ in the king’s tongue?”
“The same as Vitellian Carilo,” she replied reluctantly.
“No,” Austra said. Anne jumped guiltily, for she had almost forgotten that her maid was riding with them. She glanced over at the younger woman.
“No?”
Austra shook her head. “Carilo is what a father calls his daughter—a dear one, a little sweetheart. The word you’re looking for is erenterra.”
“Ah, I see,” Cazio said. He reached over and took Austra’s hand and kissed it. “Erenterra. Yes, I am approving of this conversation even more with each revelation.”
Austra blushed and took her hand back, brushing gilden curls back up into the black hood of her weather cloak.
Cazio turned back toward Anne.
“So, if ‘lover’ is erenterra,” he said, “I must disagree with you.”
“Perhaps a man can have a lover and remain free,” Anne said. “A woman may not.”
“Nonsense,” Cazio said. “So long as her—eh, lover—is not also her husband, she can be as free as she likes.” He smiled even more broadly. “Besides, not all servitude is unpleasant.”
“You’ve slipped back into Vitellian again,” Anne said, lacking entirely Cazio’s affection for the subject. She was sorry to have brought it up. “Let’s return to the topic of snow. Tell me more about it—in the king’s tongue.”
“New thing for me,” he said, his voice going instantly from glib near music to clumsy, lumbering prose as he switched languages. “Not have in Avella. Very, eh, fullovonder.”
“Wonderful,” she corrected as Austra giggled.
In fact, the snow didn’t seem wonderful to Anne at all—it seemed a nuisance. But Cazio sounded sincere, and despite herself, it made her smile to watch as he grinned at the white flakes. He was nineteen, two years older than she, but still more boy than man.
And yet she could see a man in him ...
The Waters Beneath the World
On the stony west shore of Roin Ieniesse, Fren MeqLier met Saint Jeroin the Mariner, and in Saint Jeroin’s ship they passed over the western waves through sleet and fog until they came to a bleak shore and a dark forest.
“That is the Wood Beyond the World,” Saint Jeroin told him. “Take care that when you step from the boat, your boot does not strike the water. If you but touch the waves, you will forget everything you have ever known.”
—From Frenn Rey-eise: A Tale of Saint Frenn Told on Skern, Sacritor Roger Bishop
The Dark Lady took Alzarez by the hand and pointed at the river.
“Drink from that,” she said, “and you will be like the dead, without memory or sin.”
Then she pointed to a bubbling spring.
“Drink there, and you will know more than any mortal.”
Alzarez looked at both.
“But the river feeds the spring,” he observed.
“Of course,” the Dark Lady replied.
—From “Sa Alzarezasfill,” a Herilanzer folktale
Ne piberos daz’uturo. Don’t drink the water.
—From a Vitellian funerary inscription
Chapter One
Lost
Here’s my wish;
A man with blood-red lips
With snow-white skin
With blue-black hair
Like a raven’s wing.
That’s my wish.
Anne Dare murmured the words to the song, a favorite of hers from when she was younger.
She noticed that her fingers were trembling, and for a moment she felt as if they weren’t attached to her but were instead strange worms clinging to her hands.
With blood-red lips . . .
Anne had seen blood before, plenty of it. But never like this, never with such a striking hue, so brilliant against the snow. It was as if she were viewing the true color for the first time rather than the pale counterfeit she had known her whole life.
At the edges it was watered pink, but at its source, where it pulsed into the cold whiteness, it was a thing of utter beauty.
With snow-white skin
With blue-black hair . . .
The man had flesh gone gray and straw-colored hair, nothing like the imagined lover of the song. As she watched, his fingers unclenched from the dagger he’d been holding, and he let go the cares of the world. His eyes went round with wonder as they saw something she could not, beyond the lands of fate. Then he sighed a final steaming breath into the snow.
Somewhere—very far away, it seemed—she heard a hoarse cry and the sound of clashing steel, followed by silence. She detected no motion through the dark trunks of the trees except the continuing light fall of snow.
Something chuffed nearby.
In a daze, Anne turned to find a dappled gray horse regarding her curiously. It looked familiar, and she gasped faintly as she recalled it charging toward her. The snow told that it had stamped all around her, but one trail of hoofprints led in from over a hill, the direction from which it must have come. Part of the way, the prints were accompanied by pink speckles.
The horse had blood in its mane, as well.
She stood shakily, feeling pain in her thigh, shin, and ribs. She turned on her feet to take in the whole of her surroundings, searching for a sign that there was anyone else nearby. But there were only the dead man, the horse, and trees stripped to bark by winter’s winds.
Finally she glanced down at herself. She wore a soft red doeskin robe lined with black ermine and beneath that a heavy riding habit. She remembered she’d gotten them back in Dunmrogh.
She remembered the fight there, too, and the death of her first love and first betrayer, Roderick.
She pushed her hand under the hood and felt the curls of her copper hair. It was growing back but was still short from the shearing she’d had in Tero Gallé what seemed like an age ago. So she was missing hours or days, not ninedays, months, or years. But she had still misplaced time, and that frightened her.
She remembered leaving Dunmrogh with her maid Austra, a freewoman named Winna, and thirty-eight men whose company included her Vitellian friend Cazio and her guardian Sir Neil MeqVren. They’d just won a battle, and most were wounded, including Anne herself.
But there had been no time for leisurely recovery. Her father was dead, and her mother the prisoner of an usurper. She’d set out determined somehow to free her mother and reclaim her father’s throne. She remembered feeling very certain about the whole thing.
What she didn’t know, couldn’t remember, was where those friends were and why she wasn’t with them. Or, for that matter, who the dead man was, lying at her feet. His throat had been cut; that much was plain enough—it gaped like a second mouth. But how had it happened? Was he friend or foe?
Since she didn’t recognize him, she reckoned he was most likely the latter.
She sagged against a tree and closed her eyes, studying the dark pool in her mind, diving into it like a kingfisher.
She’d been riding beside Cazio, and he’d been practicing the king’s tongue . . .
“Esno es caldo,” Cazio said, catching a snowflake in his hand, eyes wide with wonder.
“Snow is cold,” Anne corrected, then saw the set of his lips and realized he’d mispronounced the sentence on purpose.
Cazio was tall and slim, with sharp, foxy features and dark eyes, and when his mouth quirked like that, he was all devil.
“What is esno in Vitellian?” she demanded.
“A metal the color of your hair,” he said in such a way that she suddenly wondered what his lips would taste like. Honey? Olive oil? He’d kissed her before, but she couldn’t remember . . .
What a stupid thought.
“Esno es caldo is Vitellian for ‘copper is hot,’ right?” she translated, trying to hide her annoyance. By the way Cazio was grinning now, she knew she certainly was missing something.
“Yes, that’s true,” Cazio drawled, “if taken literally. But it’s a sort of pun. If I were talking to my friend Acameno and said ‘fero es caldo,’ it would mean ‘iron is hot,’ but iron can also mean a sword, and a sword can mean a man’s very personal armament, you see, and would be a compliment to his manhood. He would assume I meant his iron. And so copper, the softer, prettier metal can also represent—”
“Yes, well,” Anne quickly cut in, “that will be enough Vitellian colloquialism for now. After all, you wanted to work on your king’s tongue, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, but it’s funny to me, that’s all, that your word for ‘cold’ is my word for ‘hot.’ ”
“Yes, and it’s even funnier that your word for ‘free’ is ‘lover,’ ” she countered sarcastically, “considering that one cannot have the second and be the first.”
As soon as she saw the look on his face, though, she wished she hadn’t spoken.
Cazio immediately raised an interested eyebrow. “Now we’re onto a topic I approve of,” he said. ”But, eh—‘lover’? Ne commrenno. What is ‘lover’ in the king’s tongue?”
“The same as Vitellian Carilo,” she replied reluctantly.
“No,” Austra said. Anne jumped guiltily, for she had almost forgotten that her maid was riding with them. She glanced over at the younger woman.
“No?”
Austra shook her head. “Carilo is what a father calls his daughter—a dear one, a little sweetheart. The word you’re looking for is erenterra.”
“Ah, I see,” Cazio said. He reached over and took Austra’s hand and kissed it. “Erenterra. Yes, I am approving of this conversation even more with each revelation.”
Austra blushed and took her hand back, brushing gilden curls back up into the black hood of her weather cloak.
Cazio turned back toward Anne.
“So, if ‘lover’ is erenterra,” he said, “I must disagree with you.”
“Perhaps a man can have a lover and remain free,” Anne said. “A woman may not.”
“Nonsense,” Cazio said. “So long as her—eh, lover—is not also her husband, she can be as free as she likes.” He smiled even more broadly. “Besides, not all servitude is unpleasant.”
“You’ve slipped back into Vitellian again,” Anne said, lacking entirely Cazio’s affection for the subject. She was sorry to have brought it up. “Let’s return to the topic of snow. Tell me more about it—in the king’s tongue.”
“New thing for me,” he said, his voice going instantly from glib near music to clumsy, lumbering prose as he switched languages. “Not have in Avella. Very, eh, fullovonder.”
“Wonderful,” she corrected as Austra giggled.
In fact, the snow didn’t seem wonderful to Anne at all—it seemed a nuisance. But Cazio sounded sincere, and despite herself, it made her smile to watch as he grinned at the white flakes. He was nineteen, two years older than she, but still more boy than man.
And yet she could see a man in him ...
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- PublisherDel Rey
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 0345440684
- ISBN 13 9780345440686
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages512
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