Court of Wanderers: Silver Under Nightfall #2 (Volume 2) - Hardcover

Buch 2 von 2: Reaper

Chupeco, Rin

 
9781982195748: Court of Wanderers: Silver Under Nightfall #2 (Volume 2)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1982195746 ISBN 13: 9781982195748
Verlag: S&S/Saga Press, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Remy Pendergast and his royal vampire companions return to face an enemy that is terrifyingly close to home in Rin Chupeco’s queer, bloody Gothic epic fantasy series for fans of Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree and the adult animated series Castlevania.

Remy Pendergast, vampire hunter, and his unexpected companions, royal vampires Lord Zidan Malekh and Lady Xiaodan Song, are on the road through the kingdom of Aluria again after a hard-won first battle against the formidable Night Empress, who threatens to undo a fragile peace between humans and vampires. Xiaodan, severely injured, has lost her powers to vanquish the enemy’s new superbreed of vampire, but if the trio can make it to Fata Morgana, the seat of Malehk’s court—dubbed “the Court of Wanderers”—there is hope of nursing her and bringing them back.

En-route to the Third Court, Remy crosses paths with his father, the arrogant, oftentimes cruel Lord of Valenbonne. He also begins to suffer strange dreams of the Night Empress, whom he has long suspected to be Ligaya Pendergast, his own mother. As his family history unfolds during these episodes, which are too realistic to be coincidence, he realizes that she is no ordinary vampire—and that he may end up having to choose between the respective legacies of his parents.

Posing as Malek and Xiaodan’s human familiar, Remy contends with Aluria’s intimidating vampire courts and a series of gruesome murders with their help—and more, as the three navigate their relationship. But those feelings and even their extraordinary collective strength will be put to the test as each of them unleashes new powers in combat at what may be prove to be the ultimate cost.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rin Chupeco is a nonbinary Chinese Filipino writer born and raised in the Philippines. They are the author of Silver Under Nightfall and several speculative young adult series, including The Bone Witch, The Girl from the Well, The Never-Tilting World, and Wicked as You Wish. Formerly a graphic designer and technical writer, they now write fiction full time and live with their partner and two children in Manila. They can be found on Instagram at @RinChupeco.

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Chapter 1: Regret 1 REGRET
Remy complained, of course. Of the bad roads and of the storms that came upon them without warning, the winds stronger than they were accustomed to, even within rain-drenched Aluria. Of the way the carriage jerked them about at intervals, the way the vampire horses yanked their coach along at a dizzying pace, eschewing comfort for speed. Variations of Malekh, slow the fuck down, you’re jolting Xiaodan out of her bloody seat frequently left his mouth, his language growing more colorful and more desperate as the days went by.

Malekh said nothing, and the more he said shit-all, the more Remy whined to make up for the silence. The vampire lord never rose to his bait. On the rare occasions he remained inside the carriage with them, he merely folded his arms across his chest, leaned back with his eyes closed, and pretended Remy wasn’t there. For the better part of the journey, he stayed on the driver’s perch outside where his helhests, undeterred by the rain and the fog, raced on down the path.

It had been four days since they’d first set out from Elouve, and Remy still didn’t know where the hell they were; Peanut and Cookie could run from one end of Aluria to the other in a week if their masters wanted them to. On at least three occasions now, Malekh had halted the carriage inside some forest, uttered a terse stay here to him, and was off to Light-knows-where for a couple of hours. No badgering could convince him to tell Remy where he’d been, once he returned.

Malekh hadn’t stopped at any villages or towns to rest, choosing to keep vigil outside the carriage at night while Remy managed a few hours’ sleep within. And despite all his whining about seeing to her comfort, Xiaodan slept through it all anyway, never once waking to join in Remy’s grievances.

Her head was currently in his lap. The rest of her was stretched out on his right, short enough that the soles of her feet were settled comfortably against the side of the carriage door. Her eyelids fluttered every now and then, and he hoped that she was dreaming of something better than where they were. Her heartbeats sounded loud to his ears, irregular as always.

She’d fallen asleep almost as soon as they’d left Elouve, and nothing could rouse her. Malekh checked on her frequently, his nonchalance over her condition Remy’s only assurance.

There was only so much he could moan about when the scenery was beginning to blur together and his nitpicks about the roads’ conditions were the same day in and day out, so eventually Remy stopped griping and started talking about anything else that tickled his fancy. Like whether or not plants had feelings. Or if bugs waged little insect wars with one another like humans did. Or how many undead chickens it would take, theoretically speaking, to defeat a vampire. In his nearly a thousand years of existence, surely Malekh had the answers to these and other philosophical questions.

Remy was just goading Malekh, really. He thought about shutting up. Silence had a far better chance of improving matters between them.

He did not shut up.

Sometimes, when he ran out of hypotheticals with which to annoy the vampire lord, Remy talked about how his father, the Duke of Valenbonne, was overseeing Aluria’s defense in fresh new horrifying ways since assuming the position of lord high steward. How Queen Ophelia had permitted him to continue Dr. Yost’s experiments on the mutations despite her obvious reluctance. Edgar Pendergast had played his hand well. Sending his creatures against the First Court vampires and whatever other mutations that still haunted the lands was better than sending in her Reapers. The queen did not want to incur more losses from the latter when the former was designed to be expendable.

Malekh likely already knew this, given his and Xiaodan’s close friendship with Her Majesty, but Remy nattered on anyway. He was to serve as Valenbonne’s spy for when the eight courts eventually convened—classified information he was supposed to withhold, but Remy no longer gave a fuck. So he’d told Malekh about how his father had manipulated his way back into power and how he intended to create an army of creatures devoted to him alone, using Yost’s bloodrot to command their loyalty. How Lord Valenbonne’s manservant, Grimesworthy, had been his prototype, a colossus mutation masquerading as a human servant.

Malekh said nothing. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes and checked on Xiaodan and his undead horses and did everything else but respond to Remy, widening the distance between them that had begun when Remy killed Malekh’s brother Naji.

Remy was almost relieved when the ambush broke the tension. He spotted the approaching mob in between thunderclaps on the fifth night, when the rains were worse. A dozen at least, many wearing the red robes that declared them minions of the First Court. The rest wore plain, threadbare clothes stained in some mixture of mud and dried blood—victims from previous villages that had fallen to the horde, convinced to take up their former predators’ cause after turning. Lightning streaked the sky around them, keeping Remy from using his Breaker at will.

It didn’t matter. His daggers could cut through vampire flesh just as well as his scythes did, even if they weren’t as sharp as he’d liked—he’d had no time to whet them back in Elouve, and he’d bitched about that, too. He plunged one into the eye of an undead attempting to pull itself in through the window, and then another through its chest. The vampire gurgled once, then let go.

It didn’t matter to Malekh either, who tore through the other kindred with a ferocity that contradicted his usually precise, analytical style of fighting. He cut through the throng quickly; Remy could see nothing of his attacks in between the brief flashes of light, the explosions of blood erupting from their bodies in the aftermath the only indication that there had ever been a strike.

Remy had barely gotten his arse out of the carriage when he saw there were no vampires left. Malekh was thorough.

A faint creak told him that the vampire lord had returned to his position on the carriage, taking up the reins once more.

“Malekh,” Remy said.

The winds howled, but he knew Malekh could hear him.

“I can understand why you’re choosing to give me the shitty silent treatment, but I don’t believe this is a natural storm. It feels like the one at Chàngge Shui when Vasilik attacked.”

Still nothing.

Remy was losing his patience. “We should wait till it passes. There could be more out there worse than this lot, and Xiaodan isn’t in any shape to deal with further surprises.”

He heard the puzzled whinny of the helhests when their master made no move to urge them onward.

And then Malekh’s voice, quiet and gravelly and well missed, penetrated through the barrier between them. “Rocksplen is up ahead.”

HE’D TOLD the innkeeper that they would be needing two rooms for the night, only for Malekh to interrupt, saying that they required only one, the biggest the inn had if you please, and that he would be compensated handsomely for the trouble. The innkeeper’s eyebrows climbed as he took them all in; Malekh as noble and as regal as ever, cradling the sleeping Xiaodan in his arms, and...

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Verlag
S&S/Saga Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1982195746
ISBN 13 
9781982195748
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
448
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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