The Crown Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgements

  Praise for The Pearls

  “The characters are compelling, the plot is action packed—with complicated twists that fantasy fans crave . . . This is truly an all-around satisfying book. The sequel can’t come soon enough!”—Romantic Times

  “An enchanting fantasy filled with magical and mundane intrigue, enhanced by a hint of romance.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Praise for other novels by Deborah Chester

  The King Imperiled

  “Chester is a world-class fantasist.”—The Best Reviews

  The King Betrayed

  “Epic fantasy at its romantic best.”—Midwest Book Review

  The Queen’s Gambit

  “A powerful, romantic sword-and-sorcery tale that readers will gain tremendous pleasure from perusing . . . delightful . . . a fantastic fantasy.”—Midwest Book Review

  The Sword, the Ring, and the Chalice trilogy

  The Sword

  “A compelling fantasy that shimmers with magic . . . mesmerizing.”—Romantic Times

  The Ring

  “A lyrical fantasy that is as much about character as it is about magic.”—Romantic Times

  The Chalice

  “A riveting tale of destiny, treachery, and courage.”

  —Romantic Times

  Ace Books by Deborah Chester

  The Ruby Throne Trilogy

  REIGN OF SHADOWS

  SHADOW WAR

  REALM OF LIGHT

  Lucasfilm’s Alien Chronicles™

  THE GOLDEN ONE

  THE CRIMSON CLAW

  THE CRYSTAL EYE

  THE SWORD

  THE RING

  THE CHALICE

  THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT

  THE KING BETRAYED

  THE QUEEN’S KNIGHT

  THE KING IMPERILED

  THE PEARLS

  THE CROWN

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE CROWN

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / December 2008

  Copyright © 2008 by Deborah Chester.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-64013-1

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Chapter 1

  At dawn on the last day, Lea E’non—sister to the emperor and princess of the people—awoke to a tickling of her nose and the unwelcome stench of unwashed male.

  When her eyes flew open, she found herself face-to-face with piggish eyes above a set of puckered lips. His hot breath stank of parsum, jerky, and cheap wine.

  “How’s ’bout a kiss, pretty?” he asked.

  Her fingers tightened around the smooth river stone she’d slept with, and she slammed it into his forehead.

  With a grunt, he toppled backward. Laughter rang out around her, and a shout went up. “Drakshera!”

  Lea sprang from her bedroll in a flurry of long, tangled skirts and unbound hair. Glaring at the laughing mercenaries who were slapping their knees and shoving each other, she dodged a playful grab at her haunch and flung the stone at another man who was coming at her with his arms held exaggeratedly wide, smacking his lips grotesquely for a kiss. Her aim was good, but he skipped aside. The rock thudded harmlessly to the ground.

  Whistling at her through a gap in his rotted teeth, he grinned while his friends swiftly riffled the pockets of the man she’d knocked unconscious.

  “Drakshera, eh, Crad?” one thief said, laughing. “Let’s cut off his eyelids and see if he can sleep without ’em.”

  Crad was still grinning at Lea, still puckering his lips suggestively.

  Repulsed, Lea glanced around the ramshackle camp for the commander, who did not permit these games involving her.

  “Ain’t here, is he?” Crad said, spitting through the gap in his teeth. While he spoke, the other men gathered behind her, blocking her retreat.

  Lea’s heart was thumping, and she found herself breathing fast. It took effort not to look away, not to cry out for help, but she had learned a lot in the difficult weeks since her capture. This morning, the men were in an amiable mood, but they could turn ugly fast. She knew she must not show fear, she must not beg, and she must not call out for help.

  It was dawn. Overhead, the sky looked pearlescent above the cedha trees surrounding the camp. The air stung with the sharp cold of approaching winter, and after the warmth of her bedroll, she could not help but shiver.

  Crad took another step toward her and stopped.

  She frowned, aware that he was playing with her, teasing her. The men at her back jostled and snickered in anticipation. The dangerous games they called drakshera had been adapted to include which man could fondle her or kiss her before she fought back or the commander punished them. T
he men delighted in unnecessary risk. Lea had stopped trying to understand why. She only knew how to play to survive.

  Now, with the commander absent, she used her special gift to silently summon the earth spirits to her aid.

  “Come on, pretty,” Crad said softly, the amusement in his ugly face darkening to lust. “Let’s have a kiss, then. A good long one before old Ironguts comes back.”

  “No.”

  He pounced. Lea dodged, but he was quicker than she and grappled her swiftly into an embrace. His mouth, coarse and hot, covered hers, and she nearly gagged on his sour breath. Twisting her face away, she pushed at his chest, bruising her fists on his armor.

  There came a slight tremor in the ground beneath her feet, signifying the approach of an earth spirit.

  “Dust!” she cried.

  Dirt shot up into the air between Lea and Crad, parting them with a force that knocked him sprawling. Stumbling off balance, Lea was caught by one of the men behind her. He pinched and groped, while she elbowed her way free.

  Dirt shot up again into the air, and the ground rumbled and shook enough to scatter the men away from her. Swearing oaths and clutching their amulets, they scuttled for cover as though under attack, leaving Lea standing alone on the rippling, unstable ground. She sent her thanks to the earth spirit, but it seemed fretful and unappeased, rumbling again and shaking the ground until little pebbles bounced on top of the hard soil.

  Then, without warning, it vanished.

  The air crackled and grew heavy as though a thunder-storm was imminent. But there were no clouds in the dawn’s sky, only a glow of sun radiance. The commander stepped into view and paused among the trees to survey the camp. A rim of sunlight shone behind him, casting his face in shadow and making his black armor look even darker than usual.

  Shadrael tu Natalloh, ex-commander of an Imperial legion, praetinor of the empire, and discredited hero, wore his shadow-sworn magic like an inky cloak of dark misdeed. From the spikes at his shoulders to the polished silver bars of rank embedded in his breastplate to the heavy war gauntlets held in one hand, everything about him, including his posture, short-cut hair, and clean-shaven jaws, was in sharp contrast to the slovenly men in mismatched armor who served him.

  An eagle among crows, he gazed at the camp of scattered bedrolls, a small cooking fire burning unattended, the unconscious man lying in the dirt, the rest of the men crouched and wary, and Lea standing straight and angry in her ragged, travel-stained gown, her hair spilling in an unbound tangle down her back, her blue eyes hot with indignation.

  She did not have to say anything. He obviously knew what had happened.

  Ducking his head beneath a low-hanging branch, the commander strode forward with all the dangerous assurance of a general about to order inspection. As he drew nearer to Lea, however, she saw the pallor of his face and the almost feverish darkness of his eyes. He looked haggard from lack of sleep and whatever else preyed on his conscience. Although he gave her only one glance, she saw no mercy for herself in his eyes, no softening.

  And it was the last day. A ragged sense of disappointment welled inside her, but she capped it swiftly, refusing to think about that now.

  “Commander,” she said, “have I permission to go to the stream? Alone?”

  His gaze was on his men. He gestured to them, and they emerged from cover, looking guilty and sheepish as they silently formed up.

  Lea drew an impatient breath. “Commander?”

  He nodded curtly without looking at her.

  Swiftly Lea folded her bedroll into a neat bundle and gathered up her fur-lined cloak. Without looking back, she walked swiftly away into the trees, knowing the commander would not grant her much time for privacy.

  She could hear his voice berating the men, laced with magic and pitched to hurt. It pained her to listen; she could not bear him like this, so harsh and hostile to everyone, so cruel and wrapped in shadow.

  As soon as she gained the cover of the cedhas and squatty pines, she ran.

  The woods were sparse, with almost no undergrowth besides occasional patches of short, brittle scrub. Not much could grow on this parched, stony ground. Her red boots—once so pretty but now worn and scuffed—crunched over shale and hard soil until she fetched up at the edge of the stream. It was tempting to cross and just keep running, but there was nowhere she could go that the commander would not find her.

  The men could track her easily. The commander kept a finger of awareness on her at all times. She had no hope of running and hiding herself, unless she slipped between. Yet without the power of her special necklace, which he’d stolen from her, she could not slip from this world unaided.

  Sighing, she rubbed her chilled, reddened hands dry on her skirts before raking her long blond hair forward over her shoulder, combing through the worst of its snarls and tangles with her fingers and plaiting it loosely.

  A soft splash startled her. Upstream, a large blue-plumaged bird on long stiltlike legs fished for its breakfast. It did not seem afraid of her as it plunged for a fish and swallowed it in one great gulp.

  How I wish you were Thirbe, riding to my rescue, she thought. But remembering her gruff, tireless protector, who had died in his attempt to rescue her, only made her sad. She pushed his memory away.

  It was time to return to camp before someone came to fetch her.

  When she shifted her gaze from the bird, however, she saw a face staring at her from the bushes across the stream.

  Her hands clenched involuntarily on her gown, and her breath froze in her lungs.

  It was a Choven face, as young as her own, with delicate masculine features and a pair of large, fawn-brown eyes. The barest touch of something warm and gentle brushed against her senses, something kind, without menace.

  A rush of gladness and relief overwhelmed her. Trembling, she barely stopped herself from jumping to her feet and screaming for help. She must not, she told herself breathlessly, squander this chance. Be sensible, she warned herself. Be careful.

  She lifted her hand in the Choven manner of greeting. “May the three harmonies find you well, my friend,” she said in the tongue of the People.

  The large eyes blinked at her, then vanished. But the youth emerged cautiously from the thicket and ventured as far as the water’s edge. He was as alert and wary as a deer, tilting his head to listen to the occasional shouts and murmurs coming from the camp.

  His garb, woven intricately of many colors and hues, was not that of any clan she recognized, nor fashioned in the styles worn by Choven who mingled readily in the towns and settlements of the empire. For a moment she feared he would retreat as abruptly as he’d come, without answering her greeting.

  But then the youth slowly lifted his hand in response and his mouth quirked in a fleeting smile before he made the gesture of farewell and turned away.

  Lea shot to her feet. “Wait,” she called softly, afraid some of the mercenaries would hear and come running. “Please don’t go.”

  The youth hesitated, turning back to face her with visible reluctance.

  An earth spirit bumped the ground beneath her feet, momentarily distracting her. “Do not change the future,” it warned her silently. “Do not. Do not.”

  Lea frowned, and the earth spirit moved away.

  But the youth had vanished.

  Disappointed, she looked both upstream and down, wondering if she dared cross the stream and go after him. For the first time in her life, she knew annoyance with an earth spirit for interfering.

  The large water bird spread its wings and lifted ponderously into the air, gliding upward into the sunlight, its feathers radiant in colors of blue and gold.

  One long tail feather drifted down in its wake, swirling momentarily over the surface of the water before landing on the bank near Lea. She picked it up, twirling it in her fingers so that its rich colors shimmered, but her attention wasn’t really on it.

  “Please,” she whispered, and extended her inner quai.

  The youth
emerged from cover once more, his gaze fastened on the feather she held. In the tiny clearing, all became quiet and peaceful, the jaiethqual as calm as the surface of a lake on a clear day. The youth warily touched his quai to hers, flinching away from that initial contact, then touching again.

  His quai was as gentle and warm as a child’s sleeping breath, as pure and untainted as the sky. In contrast, she felt the scars in her own, scars that the commander—and her recent experiences—had created.

  Even so, it felt good, this sevaisin. Smiling, Lea closed her eyes and let balance flow between them. The tranquil peace of the youth’s spirit refreshed hers, and although she urgently desired to ask for his help, for a moment it was enough just to share.

  He withdrew first. Opening her eyes, Lea pulled back as well, although she was reluctant to break the joining. They exchanged shy smiles, their quaieth still touching very slightly, as was polite.

  “You are blessed,” he said, his voice low and melodic. “The feather of the pa-crane holds both powers of water and sun within it, perfect balance, good blessing.”

  Lea twirled the feather in her fingers once again. “Are you in migration?” she asked, knowing she could not plunge straight to the point. “Do your people travel to the glaciers of Trau or farther away?”

  “We are Gosha bi Choven,” he replied. “Of the Tol tribe, of the north lands. Weavers of cloth and leather.”

  “My greetings to your tribe, your elders, your family, and to you.”

  He nodded. “All the Gosha will be honored to learn I have conversed with Lea of E’nonhold.”