I am super super excited to announce that I have been chosen as one of the advocates for the compelling Bone Season Series by Samantha Shannon. I have been a huge fan of this series since I first reads books 1 and 2 last year, and feel truly privileged to be able to bring to you exclusive content and updates on both the next book,
The Song Rising, due out in March 2017 and the rest of the series in general.
This series is one of the most original series I have encountered in a long long time and I cannot tell you how impatient I am in awaiting the release of book 3. The world building is incredible, the characters vivid and real, the story line gritty, compelling and unforgettable.
Please note there will be spoilers to books 1 and 2 in the below post.
Today's special treat is a is an exclusive prelude to book 3, The Song Rising. At the end of book 2, Paige Mahoney has won the fight to become Underqueen and goes to confront Nashira Sargas by possessing one of the guards. However another surprise finds her there.
The ending to book 2,
The Mime Order, came as something as a shock and the below prelude picks immediately where The Mime Order finished. Read on to enjoy an exclusive sneak peak at the prelude to Samantha Shannon's book 3 of the Bone Season series, The Song Rising:
Prelude
The lights scalded my borrowed eyes. I was still inside a
different body, standing on the same floor, but everything
had changed.
There was a smile on his lips. That old gleam in his eye, like I’d
just brought him good news from the auction house. He wore a
black waistcoat embroidered with interlinked gold anchors, and a
scarlet cravat was tied at his throat. One silk-clad hand grasped an
ebony cane.
‘I see you have mastered possession at a distance,’ he said. ‘You
are full of surprises.’
The cane’s handle was porcelain, shaped like the head of a white
horse.
‘I believe,’ Nashira said, her voice soft, ‘that you are already
acquainted with my new Grand Overseer.’
I let out my first breath since laying eyes on him.
He had tried to stop me. The scheming worm had silenced me
for weeks, kept me from telling the world about the existence of
the Rephaim. Yet here he was, looking as easy with them as he was
with his own shadow.
‘Oh, dear. Have you swallowed that pilfered tongue?’ Jaxon let
out a deep laugh. ‘Yes, Paige, I am here, with the Rephaim! In the
Archon, wearing the anchor! Are you aghast? Are you oh-so- scan-
dalised? Is this all a terrible shock to your fragile sensibilities?’
‘Why?’ I whispered. ‘Why the hell are you here, Jaxon?’
‘Oh, as if I had a choice. With you as Underqueen, my beloved
syndicate is doomed to self-destruction. Consequently, I have
decided to return to my roots.’
‘Your roots?’
His smile widened.
‘You have chosen the wrong side. Join this one, darling,’ he
continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I can’t tell you how it hurts me
to see you in the pocket of those despicable Rephaim who call
themselves Ranthen. Unlike the Rag and Bone Man, I have
always believed you could be saved from their indoctrination.
From Arcturus’s . . . seduction. I thought you had more sense than
to blindly obey the man who was once your master.’
I stared at him coolly. ‘You’re asking me to do that now.’
‘Touché.’ A fresh bruise cast a shadow on his cheekbone. ‘To
Terebellum Sheratan, you are a convenient pawn in an age-old
game. Arcturus Mesarthim is nothing but her lure. Her bait. He
took you under his wing in the penal colony on her orders, to
entice you into the Ranthen’s net. And you, my darling – you fell
for it . . . and everyone but you can see it.’
A chill warned me that something was wrong. Elsewhere in the
citadel, someone had touched my body.
‘This is a fight you cannot win. Don’t mutilate the syndicate, O
my lovely,’ he purred. ‘It was never meant as a weapon of war, and
you were never meant to rule. Step back from the brink. All any of
us in the Archon want is to protect you – you, and the wonder of
your gift. If we must pull off your wings to stop you casting your-
self into the fire, so be it.’ His pale hand reached out. ‘Come to us,
Paige. Come to me. All this can be avoided.’
He had shocked me. We both knew it. If he thought he could
scare me, he would have to try harder.
Another shiver. I felt myself falling out of the stranger’s dreams-
cape, back into the æther’s embrace.
‘I’d rather burn,’ I said.
My brain was liquid, slithering out through my nose and down my
front. I had to get out, get air into my lungs . . .
A hand took hold of my arm, but my skin was taut with goose-
flesh, excruciatingly sensitive. I clawed off the oxygen mask, got
the door open, and spilled out of the car in a jumble of limbs,
gasping. The jolt peeled open the stitches in my side, wetting my
shirt.
All of my composure fell apart. Jaxon was many things, but I
couldn’t believe that he had gone to Scion. He had made his career
out of living in their shadow, not their arms.
My wounds from the scrimmage flared, white-hot in my torso,
deep and throbbing in my back. I pitched into the night, down the
moss-slick steps to the Thames, and fell to my knees at the water’s
edge, where I gripped my head between my hands and cursed my
own stupidity. How, how could I have not foreseen this? There
must have been some clue. Now he would be our most formidable
enemy, a vital asset to the anchor.
I will find other allies, he had told me after the scrimmage.
Be warned: you have not seen the last of me.
I should have killed him in the Rose Ring. The blade had been
against his throat, but I’d been too weak to cut.
A very old ally, Nashira had said. One who returned to me . . .
after twenty long years of estrangement . . .
A shout in the distance stopped time, or started it again. I
hunched over the water, holding myself.
I have decided to return to my roots.
‘No,’ I breathed. ‘No, not you. Not you . . .’
He had been standing so comfortably alongside the Sargas. Not
like someone who had only laid eyes on them for the first time
a few hours ago. And there were other things I had brushed off,
that I hadn’t seen from behind the blindfold. He had always been
wealthier than other mime-lords. Absinthe alone cost a fortune on
the black market, and he drank it almost nightly. How had he leapt
from pauper to prince? Surely not just from his writing; there was
no money in pamphlets. Then there was the fact that he had spear-
headed my rescue from the colony with no exit plan – senseless. It
wasn’t in his nature to go blindly into anything. But if he had left
the colony once before . . . if he had known there was a way out –
or if the Sargas had allowed him to take me away . . .
An old ally. Twenty long years. Those were the only words I
needed to work out who Jaxon Hall had once been, and who he
was. I had no absolute proof, but I knew – I knew, in my heart,
that my instinct was right.
He wasn’t just a traitor. He was the traitor.
The man who had betrayed the Ranthen twenty years ago to buy
his freedom from the Rephaim.
The man who had left the scars on Warden’s back.
The man who was responsible for the deaths of every prisoner he
had left behind in the colony.
And I had been his mollisher. His right hand.
The sound of footsteps broke through the white noise in my
ears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Warden sink into a crouch
beside me.
I had to tell him. I couldn’t carry this knowledge alone.
‘I know who betrayed you twenty years ago,’ I said. ‘I know who
gave you the scars.’
Silence. I realised I was shivering.
‘It is not safe out here,’ Warden finally said. ‘We can discuss this
at the music hall.’
The thoughts tangled like barbed wire in my head. I was every-
body’s puppet, caught in a thousand strings.
Nick ran to the railings above us. ‘Vigiles,’ he shouted. ‘Warden,
bring her up here!’
Warden stayed where he was. I was afraid he would lack the
ability to read my expression – that I might have to say the name
myself – but as the moments ticked past, I watched it dawn on
him, just as it had on me. A fire entered his eyes.
‘Jaxon.’
**********
The hotly anticipated third book in the bestselling Bone Season series – a ground-breaking, dystopian fantasy of extraordinary imagination
Following a bloody battle against foes on every side, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over London's criminal population.
But, having turned her back on Jaxon Hall and with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.
Little does Paige know that her reign may be cut short by the introduction of Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for the clairvoyant community and the world as they know it…
Pre-Order:
Bloomsbury
Lily Proctor has come a long way from the weak, sickly girl she used to be. She has gained power as a witch and a leader, found her way home, chosen to face battle again, and (after losing her first love and being betrayed by her new love) she has learned more about loss and grief than she ever wanted to know.
