Red Sister Read online

  Ace Books by Mark Lawrence

  The Broken Empire

  PRINCE OF THORNS

  KING OF THORNS

  EMPEROR OF THORNS

  The Red Queen’s War

  PRINCE OF FOOLS

  THE LIAR’S KEY

  THE WHEEL OF OSHEIM

  The Book of the Ancestor

  RED SISTER

  ACE

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Bobalinga Ltd.

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ACE is a registered trademark and the A colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lawrence, Mark, 1966–, author.

  Title: Red sister / Mark Lawrence.

  Description: First Edition. | New York, New York : Ace, 2017. | Series: Book of the ancestor ; book 1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016058821 (print) | LCCN 2017004216 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101988855 (hardback) | ISBN 9781101988862 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Epic. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Fantasy / General. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3612.A9484 R43 2017 (print) | LCC PS3612.A9484 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058821

  First Edition: April 2017

  Cover illustration © Bastien Lecouffe Deharme

  Cover photographs: smoke © Honchar Roman / Shutterstock; abstract painting © Apostrophe/Shutterstock

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman

  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.

  Version_1

  To Celyn, who needs no words for eloquence

  CONTENTS

  Ace Books by Mark Lawrence

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Red Class Prologue

  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

  Grey Class Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  RATHER THAN PLACE this background information in an appendix at the back, where you might not notice it until you’ve finished the book (I’ve done that before), I’m putting it here at the front. However, it is best to skip it and return only if you find you need it. All the information here is given to you in the text and unfolds naturally with the story.

  The people of Abeth descend from four “tribes.” These tribes were:

  Gerant: distinguished by their great size

  Hunska: distinguished by their speed; a dark-haired, dark-eyed people

  Marjal: distinguished by their ability to tap into the lesser magics

  Quantal: distinguished by their ability to walk the Path and work greater magics

  The great families of empire adopt the suffix -sis when the head of the family is named a lord by the emperor. The emperor’s own family are the Lansis. Other families of note include the Tacsis, Jotsis, Memsis, Galamsis, Leensis, Gersis, Rolsis, and Chemsis.

  In the Convent of Sweet Mercy novices move through four classes on their way to taking holy orders. A novice must graduate from each class. The classes are named after the four orders of nun:

  Red Class: typical novice age 9–12

  Grey Class: typical novice age 13–14

  Mystic Class: typical novice age 15–16

  Holy Class: typical novice age 17–19

  On taking holy orders novices become nuns. They follow one of the following paths:

  Bride of the Ancestor (Holy Sister): a nun concerned with honouring the Ancestor and maintaining the faith; the most common calling

  Martial Sister (Red Sister): a nun skilled in armed and unarmed combat, usually showing hunska blood

  Sister of Discretion (Grey Sister): a nun skilled in espionage, stealth, and poisons; often showing marjal blood and a talent for shadow-work

  Mystic Sister (Holy Witch): a nun able to walk the Path and manipulate threads; always showing quantal blood

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Nuns (in order of superiority)

  Glass: Abbess of Sweet Mercy Convent, also known as Shella Yammal

  Rose: Sister Superior, Holy Sister, runs the sanatorium

  Wheel: Sister Superior, Mistress Spirit, Holy Sister, teaches Spirit classes

  Apple: Mistress Shade, Grey Sister, also known as the Poisoner, teaches Shade classes

  Pan: Mistress Path, Holy Witch, teaches Path classes

  Rule: Mistress Academia, Holy Sister, teaches Academia classes

  Tallow: Mistress Blade, Red Sister, teaches Blade classes

  Chrysanthemum: Holy Sister, mostly known as Sister Mop

  Flint: Red Sister, Grey Class mistress

  Kettle: Grey Sister

  Oak: Holy Sister, Red Class mistress

  Rock: Red Sister

  Novices

  Alata: junior novice

  Arabella Jotsis: junior novice, quantal and hunska blood

  Clera Ghomal: junior novice, Nona’s friend, hunska blood

  Croy: junior novice

  Darla: junior novice, gerant blood

  Ghena: junior novice, hunska blood

  Hessa: junior novice, Nona’s friend from Giljohn’s cage, quantal blood

  Jula: junior novice, Nona’s friend, studious

  Kariss: junior novice

  Katcha: junior novice

  Ketti: junior novice, hunska blood

  Leeni: junior novice

  Mally: junior novice, Grey Class head girl

  Ruli: Nona’s friend, m
arjal blood

  Sarma: junior novice

  Sharlot: junior novice

  Sheelar: junior novice

  Suleri: senior novice

  Others

  Emperor Crucical: his palace is in the city of Verity

  Sherzal: the emperor’s sister; her palace is close to the Scithrowl border

  Velera: the emperor’s sister; her palace is on the coast

  High Priest Jacob: head of the Church of the Ancestor

  Archon Nevis: high-ranking priest

  Archon Anasta: high-ranking priestess

  Archon Philo: high-ranking priest

  Archon Kratton: high-ranking priest

  Thuran Tacsis: lord, head of the Tacsis family

  Raymel Tacsis: heir to Thuran Tacsis, Caltess ring-fighter, gerant blood

  Lano Tacsis: Thuran Tacsis’s second son, hunska blood

  Academic Rexxus Degon: senior Academy man

  Markus: child from Giljohn’s cage, marjal blood

  Saida: child from Giljohn’s cage, gerant blood

  Willum: child from Giljohn’s cage, marjal blood

  Chara: child from Giljohn’s cage, marjal blood

  Partnis Reeve: owner of the Caltess fight-hall

  Gretcha: Caltess ring-fighter, gerant blood

  Maya: Caltess apprentice, gerant blood

  Regol: Caltess trainee, hunska blood

  Denam: Caltess trainee, gerant blood

  Tarkax: known as “the Ice-Spear,” renowned warrior from the ice-tribes

  Yisht: warrior from the ice-tribes, serves Sherzal

  Zole: girl from the ice-tribes, Sherzal’s ward

  Irvone Galamsis: high court judge

  Sister Owl: legendary Red Sister (dead)

  Sister Cloud: legendary Red Sister (dead)

  Safira: former senior novice, works for Sherzal

  Malkin: Abbess Glass’s cat

  Argus: prison guard at Harriton

  Dava: prison guard at Harriton

  John Fallon: prison guard at Harriton

  Herber: graveman

  Jame Lender: prisoner executed at Harriton

  RED CLASS

  PROLOGUE

  IT IS IMPORTANT, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.

  From the front of the convent you can see both the northern ice and the southern, but the finer view is out across the plateau and over the narrow lands. On a clear day the coast may be glimpsed, the Sea of Marn a suggestion in blue.

  At some point in an achingly long history a people, now lost to knowledge, had built one thousand and twenty-four pillars out on the plateau: Corinthian giants thicker than a thousand-year oak, taller than a long-pine. A forest of stone without order or pattern, covering the level ground from flank to flank so that no spot upon it lay more than twenty yards from a pillar. Sister Thorn waited amid this forest, alone and seeking her centre.

  Lano’s men began to spread out between the columns. Thorn could neither see nor hear her foe approach, but she knew their disposition. She had watched earlier as they snaked up the west trail from Styx Valley, three and four abreast: Pelarthi mercenaries from the ice-margins, furs of the white bear and the snow-wolf over their leathers, some with scraps of chainmail about them, ancient and dark or bright as new, depending on their luck. Many carried spears, some swords; one man in five carried a short-bow of recurved horn. Tall men in the main, fair-haired, their beards short or plaited, the women with lines of blue paint across their cheeks and foreheads like the rays of a cold sun.

  Here’s a moment.

  All the world and more has rushed eternity’s length to reach this beat of your heart, screaming down the years. And if you let it, the universe, without drawing breath, will press itself through this fractured second and race to the next, on into a new eternity. Everything that is, the echoes of everything that ever was, the roots of all that will ever be, must pass through this moment that you own. Your only task is to give it pause—to make it notice.

  Thorn stood without motion, for only when you are truly still can you be the centre. She stood without sound, for only silent can you listen. She stood without fear, for only the fearless can understand their peril.

  Hers the stillness of the forest, rooted restlessness, oak-slow, pine-quick, a seething patience. Hers the stillness of ice walls that face the sea, clear and deep, blue secrets held cold against the truth of the world, a patience of aeons stacked against a sudden fall. Hers the stillness of a sorrow-born babe unmoving in its crib. And of the mother, frozen in her discovery, fleeting and forever.

  Thorn held a silence that had grown old before first she saw the world’s light. A quietude passed down generations, the peace that bids us watch the dawn, an unspoken alliance with wave and flame that lets both take all speech from tongues and sets us standing before the water’s surge and swell, or waiting to bear witness to fire’s consuming dance of joy. Hers the silence of rejection, of a child’s hurt: mute, unknowing, a scar upon the years to come. Hers the unvoiced everything of first love, tongue-tied, ineloquent, the refusal to sully so sharp and golden a feeling with anything as blunt as words.

  Thorn waited. Fearless as flowers, bright, fragile, open to the sky. Brave as only those who’ve already lost can be.

  Voices reached her, the Pelarthi calling out to each other as they lost sight of their numbers in the broken spaces of the plateau. Cries rang across the level ground, echoing from the pillars, flashes of torchlight, a multitude of footfalls, growing closer. Thorn rolled her shoulders beneath black skin armour. She tightened the fingers of each hand around the sharp weight of a throwing star, her breathing calm, heart racing.

  “In this place the dead watch me,” she breathed. A shout broke out close at hand, figures glimpsed between two pillars, flitting across the gap. Many figures. “I am a weapon in service to the Ark. Those who come against me will know despair.” Her voice rose along with the tension that always presaged a fight, a buzzing tingle across her cheekbones, a tightness in her throat, a sense of being both deep within her own body and above and around it at the same time.

  The first of the Pelarthi jogged into view and, seeing her, stumbled to a halt. A young man, beardless though hard-eyed beneath the iron of his helm. More crowded in behind him, spilling out into the killing ground.

  The Red Sister tilted her head to acknowledge them.

  Then it began.

  1

  NO CHILD TRULY believes they will be hanged. Even on the gallows platform with the rope scratching at their wrists and the shadow of the noose upon their face they know that someone will step forward, a mother, a father returned from some long absence, a king dispensing justice . . . someone. Few children have lived long enough to understand the world into which they were born. Perhaps few adults have either, but they at least have learned some bitter lessons.

  Saida climbed the scaffold steps as she had climbed the wooden rungs to the Caltess attic so many times. They all slept there together, the youngest workers, bedding down among the sacks and dust and spiders. They would all climb those rungs tonight and whisper about her in the darkness. Tomorrow night the whispers would be spent and a new boy or girl would fill the empty space she left beneath the eaves.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Saida said it without hope, her tears dry now. The wind sliced cold from the west, a Corridor wind, and the sun burned red, filling half the sky yet offering little heat. Her last day?

  The guard prodded her on, indifferent rather than unkind. She looked back at him, tall, old, flesh tight as if the wind had worn it down to the bone. Another step, the noose dangling, dark against the sun. The prison yard lay near-deserted, a handful watching from the black shadows where the outer wall offered shelter, old women, grey hair trailing. Saida
wondered what drew them. Perhaps being so old they worried about dying and wanted to see how it was done.

  “I didn’t do it. It was Nona. She even said so.” She had spoken the words so many times that meaning had leached away leaving them just pale noise. But it was true. All of it. Even Nona said so.

  The hangman offered Saida the thinnest of smiles and bent to check the rope confining her wrists. It itched and it was too tight, her arm hurt where Raymel had cracked it, but Saida said nothing, only scanned the yard, the doors to the cell blocks, the outer buildings, even the great gates to the world outside. Someone would come.

  A door clanged open from the Pivot, a squat tower where the warden was said to live in luxury to rival any lord’s. A guardsman emerged, squinting against the sun. Just a guardsman: the hope, that had leapt so easily in Saida’s breast, crashed once more.

  Stepping from behind the guardsman a smaller, wider figure. Saida looked again, hoping again. A woman in the long habit of a nun came walking into the yard. Only the staff in her hand, its end curled and golden, marked her office.

  The hangman glanced across, his narrow smile replaced by a broad frown. “The abbess . . .”

  “I ain’t seen her down here before.” The old guardsman tightened his fingers on Saida’s shoulder.

  Saida opened her mouth but found it too dry for her thoughts. The abbess had come for her. Come to take her to the Ancestor’s convent. Come to give her a new name and a new place. Saida wasn’t even surprised. She had never truly thought she would be hanged.

  2

  THE STENCH OF a prison is an honest one. The guards’ euphemisms, the public smile of the chief warden, even the building’s façade, may lie and lie again, but the stink is the unvarnished truth: sewage and rot, infection and despair. Even so, Harriton prison smelled sweeter than many. A hanging prison like Harriton doesn’t give its inmates the chance to rot. A brief stay, a long drop on a short rope, and they could feed the worms at their leisure in a convict ditch-grave up at the paupers’ cemetery in Winscon.