The Queen's Weapons Read online

  ALSO BY ANNE BISHOP

  The Others Series

  Written in Red

  Murder of Crows

  Vision in Silver

  Marked in Flesh

  Etched in Bone

  The World of the Others

  Lake Silence

  Wild Country

  The Black Jewels Series

  Daughter of the Blood

  Heir to the Shadows

  Queen of the Darkness

  The Invisible Ring

  Dreams Made Flesh

  Tangled Webs

  The Shadow Queen

  Shalador’s Lady

  Twilight’s Dawn

  The Queen’s Bargain

  The Ephemera Series

  Sebastian

  Belladonna

  Bridge of Dreams

  The Tir Alainn Trilogy

  The Pillars of the World

  Shadows and Light

  The House of Gaian

  ACE

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Anne Bishop

  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: Bishop, Anne, author.

  Title: The queen’s weapons: a black jewels novel / Anne Bishop.

  Description: New York: Ace, [2021] | Series: The black jewels

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020038426 (print) | LCCN 2020038427 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984806659 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984806673 (epub)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3552.I7594 Q46 2021 (print) | LCC PS3552.I7594 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038426

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038427

  Cover design by Adam Auerbach

  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.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  For Merri Lee and Michael

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Anne Bishop

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Jewels

  Blood Hierarchy/Castes

  Prologue

  Part One: Weapons Forged

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two: Weapons Unleashed

  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

  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

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  JEWELS

  White

  Yellow

  Tiger Eye

  Rose

  Summer-sky

  Purple Dusk

  Opal*

  Green

  Sapphire

  Red

  Gray

  Ebon-gray

  Black

  *Opal is the dividing line between lighter and darker Jewels because it can be either.

  When making the Offering to the Darkness, a person can descend a maximum of three ranks from his/her Birthright Jewel.

  Example: Birthright White could descend to Rose.

  Note: The “Sc” in the names Scelt and Sceltie is pronounced “Sh.”

  BLOOD HIERARCHY/CASTES

  Males

  landen—non-Blood of any race

  Blood male—a general term for all males of the Blood; also refers to any Blood male who doesn’t wear Jewels

  Warlord—a Jeweled male equal in status to a witch

  Prince—a Jeweled male equal in status to a Priestess or a Healer

  Warlord Prince—a dangerous, extremely aggressive Jeweled male; in status, slightly lower than a Queen

  Females

  landen—non-Blood of any race

  Blood female—a general term for all females of the Blood; mostly refers to any Blood female who doesn’t wear Jewels

  witch—a Blood female who wears Jewels but isn’t one of the other hierarchical levels; also refers to any Jeweled female

  Healer—a witch who heals physical wounds and illnesses; equal in status to a Priestess and a Prince

  Priestess—a witch who cares for altars, Sanctuaries, and Dark Altars; witnesses handfasts and marriages; performs offerings; equal in status to a Healer and a Prince

  Black Widow—a witch who heals the mind; weaves the tangled webs of dreams and visions; is trained in illusions and poisons

  Queen—a witch who rules the Blood; is considered to be the land’s heart and the Blood’s moral center; as such, she is the focal point of their society

  PROLOGUE

  Tersa drooped on the stool in front of her worktable. Her brown hands trembled as she pushed her tangled black hair away from her face. Her gold eyes, dulled by fatigue, stared at the latest tangled web of dreams and visions that she had woven in an effort to understand the uneasiness that kept scratching at her. It would go away for days, sometimes weeks, and then it would return. Scratching and scratching. Daring her to remember a life best forgotten
for everyone’s sake. For her own sake most of all.

  With this latest web, she could almost see . . . something. But the truth of it eluded her, as so many things eluded her. Simple things. Ordinary things. Some days her body and most of her mind were present in Halaway, the village where she lived. Some days she looked at the decorated cakes in the bakery window and saw cakes. Then there were other days when she saw fragmented memories of other windows, other cakes full of sharpness and pain and screams.

  Perhaps the cakes had held those things. Perhaps not. Sometimes it was difficult to tell one thing from another because she was a broken Black Widow—and a shattered crystal chalice.

  The breaking had been done to her, the savage rape destroying her potential and turning her into another witch whose power had been broken by a man’s spear. But the shattering that had fragmented her mind and left her forever wandering the roads in the Twisted Kingdom? That had been her choice in order to regain the Hourglass’s Craft. She had done it in order to see, to give warning and hope to her boy and the winged boy.

  So many years had passed since the night when she had told Daemon Sadi and Lucivar Yaslana that Witch was coming. So much had happened—joy and pain, sorrow and celebration.

  And now . . .

  Tersa closed her eyes and let herself slide away from the border between sanity and the Twisted Kingdom. There was often clarity in madness.

  She followed a familiar road, stopping when the road began to fragment into paths that might hold the answer—or might hold some terrible memory. As she stood before those paths, knowing she could lose her way and never find the road back to the border, back to her boy, she wondered if all the pain and sorrow, if all the prices that had been paid, had been for nothing.

  *I am Tersa the Weaver, Tersa the Liar, Tersa the Fool.* She spoke the words she’d said once before, sent those words into the Darkness on a braided thread of power and madness.

  A midnight voice, rising from deep in the psychic abyss that was part of the Darkness, replied, *Not a liar, and not a fool.*

  *Something’s coming, but I cannot see.* She wondered if her ability with the Black Widow’s Craft, the ability she’d paid for with her sanity, was fading. Failing.

  *Even if you can hear the sound of a man’s feet marching on the road, can you see him when he’s still on the other side of a hill?* Witch asked.

  She considered that for a moment. *Not until he reaches the crest of the hill and becomes visible.*

  *Well, then?*

  Tersa looked at the fragmented paths that would fragment into more paths that would fragment into even more paths. So easy to get lost in the fragments, where yesterday might be tomorrow. So hard to remain close to the border and its noisy, everyday living.

  But her boy needed her. The winged boy needed her. Even the girl, the assassin, needed her.

  *You will help the boy?*

  *I will help him.*

  Turning away before she couldn’t resist the lure of following just one of the fragmented paths, Tersa began the climb back to the border of the Twisted Kingdom.

  She opened her eyes and grabbed the edge of the worktable as she swayed on the stool, adjusting to the harsh return to the tangible world. As soon as she felt steady enough, she disposed of the tangled web and cleaned the wooden frame that had anchored all the threads of spider silk. Then she locked her tools and supplies in their trunk before tidying up her worktable. When everything was in order, she left the workroom she’d created in the attic of the cottage she shared with the Mikal boy, locking the door before going downstairs.

  Because of the vision in this tangled web, she’d heard the warning sound of footsteps, but it wasn’t time yet to see. She had to believe there would be enough time to see.

  That night, Tersa dreamed she was standing in a place full of mist and stone—a place with a chasm that held an enormous web of power that spiraled down, down, down into the Darkness. As she stood there, feeling the weight of that place pressing on her skin, Witch whispered, *Keep watch, Sister. Listen for those approaching footsteps.*

  *What will you do?* Tersa asked.

  *I will make sure that, when the time comes, all the weapons are honed for war.*

  PART ONE

  Weapons Forged

  ONE

  Using Craft, Daemonar Yaslana called in a ball of twine and then considered the puzzle in front of him. After adjusting a couple of pieces for a better fit, he began lashing together the fallen branches he and his cousin had gathered for this harebrained, idiotic, get-their-asses-kicked-for-this idea—an idea that sounded intriguing enough that he might have tried it on his own at another time if he’d been able to talk Jaenelle Saetien out of building a raft today and testing it on the river.

  It was a warm summer day, and floating on a raft sounded like fun, but there were rapids downriver and a waterfall. Testing himself against those things on a raft made out of branches and twine appealed to him. After all, he was an Eyrien Warlord Prince, and until he was old enough to test his strength and skill by making the Blood Run, this could be considered practice. Right?

  That almost sounded like a reasonable explanation for doing this. He’d have to remember it if—okay, when—his father found out about this adventure. And he’d have to figure out a suitable reason why he wasn’t alone on the raft. Maybe Auntie J. could help with that—if she didn’t give him a whack upside the head before his father had a chance to do it.

  Jaenelle Saetien set the next load of branches beside the ones he’d laid out. Then she sighed. “Why can’t we just use Craft to hold the branches together? Tying them is going to take forever.”

  “You afraid we’re going to get caught before we get this thing in the water?” he asked, lashing two more branches together.

  “Maybe.”

  He looked at her. Jaenelle Saetien SaDiablo had the straight black hair and gold eyes of all the long-lived races, but her skin was a lighter, sun-kissed brown and her delicately pointed ears were a sign that some of her bloodline had come from the Dea al Mon, a race of warriors often called the Children of the Wood. She was smart, usually sweet in a feisty kind of way, and she sometimes had more backbone than sense.

  Then again, so did he or he wouldn’t be out here helping her build a raft that most likely would break apart when they hit the rapids and waterfall.

  “Your father takes calculated risks, not foolish ones,” his grandfather had said once. “He measures risk against his own strength and skill, as well as the strength and skill of the people with him. As you get older, he’ll expect you to do the same.”

  “There is a difference between taking a calculated risk and a foolish one,” Daemonar said, echoing words that lingered in his memory. “We take the time to make this ride a calculated risk, or we walk away.”

  She wouldn’t walk away. Not completely. If he insisted on walking away today, she’d test a raft and a river at another time in another place without him, and that was unacceptable. She was family, and it was his duty and privilege to honor, cherish, and protect.

  “But . . .”

  “What are you going to say to our fathers if either of us gets hurt because you were impatient?” he asked.

  She sat back on her heels and sighed. “That’s hitting below the belt.”

  That was where truth, when it was inconvenient, usually hit.

  Jaenelle Saetien might want to try things that were risky, but she would yield if he would get in trouble because of her actions. Well, she would yield most of the time, unless the impulse to do something overwhelmed every bit of common sense that should warn her about how her father would react to a particular scheme.

  She was the daughter of the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, and even though she loved her father, sometimes being the daughter of a powerful man was a burden. Daemonar understood that kind of burden. He was the son of the Warlord Prince of Askavi—the fea
red Demon Prince of Askavi. Those two men were not only brothers united by family and their service to a Queen unlike any other in the history of the Blood, they were also the most powerful, and dangerous, men in the entire Realm of Kaeleer.

  But they were still men, and fathers, and if their children felt a reckless need to explore what could be done with Craft, that inclination must have been inherited from them. Right?

  He’d point that out if he had a chance to argue his reasoning for doing this harebrained adventure before his uncle or father killed him flatter than dead.

  Jaenelle Saetien sighed again. Then she shrugged, accepting the need to put in the work before having fun, and began helping him piece the branches together to provide the snuggest fit, using Craft to trim them to the best shape while he wrapped power from his Green Birthright Jewel around the twine to make it stronger without making it thicker.

  Finally satisfied that the raft was the best one they could make, he secured the last branch. “I guess we’re ready.”

  Daemonar looked at Jaenelle Saetien. She looked at him. And they grinned.

  He wore a Green Jewel. She wore an extraordinary Birthright Jewel called Twilight’s Dawn, which had a range of Rose to Green power. It had been a gift from Witch, the Queen of Ebon Askavi, the living myth. Auntie J. no longer walked among the living, but she was still his Queen. Would always be his Queen. And that was a secret known only to the other men who also still served her—his father and uncle.

  Now Jaenelle Saetien tapped into the Green strength in her Jewel to help him float the raft on air and guide it to the water. He steadied the raft until she stepped on it and had her balance. Then he got on behind her, his legs spread in a fighting stance, his dark membranous wings opened halfway to help them keep the raft balanced. Calling in the last branch they’d collected and hadn’t used, he pushed off from the bank, dropped the branch, and settled his hands on his cousin’s waist.