Set in the bestselling world of The Chronicles of Elantra, THE EMPEROR'S WOLVES is a prequel spin-off based on a fan-favorite character, and broadens the beloved fantasy world with another action-packed tale of intrigue and magic.
As an
orphan scrounging in the lawless slums, young Severn Handred didn’t have the
luxury of believing in anything beyond his own survival. Now he’s crossed the
river and entered the heart of the empire: the city of Elantra. When Severn is
spotted tailing some lawmen of the Hawks—a not insignificant feat to go
otherwise undetected—the recruiter for the Imperial Wolves thinks he should
join their ranks. The Wolves are a small, select group that work within the
Halls of Law, reporting directly to the Eternal Emperor. Severn hopes to avoid
the law—he certainly had no intention of joining it.
In order
to become a wolf—even on probation—Severn must face the investigators most
dreaded throughout the Empire: The Tha’alani, readers of minds. No secret is
safe from their prying, no knowledge can remain buried. But Severn’s secret,
never shared before, is not enough to prevent the Wolves from adopting him as
one of their own. All men have secrets, after all. Severn’s first job will be
joining a hunt, but between the treacherous politics of the High Court, the
almost unnatural interest of one of the Lords, and those who wish long-held
secrets to remain buried forever, the trick will be surviving it.
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CHAPTER ONE
ELLUVIAN OF DANARRE DID NOT LIKE THRONE
rooms.
For much of his life, throne rooms and
audience chambers had been a grueling exercise in humiliation; humiliation was
always the outcome when one had no power. His presence in a throne room was
meant to emphasize that utter lack of power. He was called. He came. He
stood—or knelt—at the foot of the platform that led to the raised throne.
There he had remained, while the
disappointment of his lord made itself known.
There were significant differences between
this throne room, this audience chamber, and the throne room of his youth. An
act of war had given him a freedom he had never before possessed.
And the actor in that action occupied the
current throne as a force of nature, uneasily caged by masks of civility and
mundane governance. Elluvian had been announced; he had been given
permission—or an order—to approach the Imperial Presence. His steps across the
runner that covered worked stone were as loud as his breathing.
Before him sat the Eternal Emperor,
Dariandaros of the Ebon Flight. Neither name had been used by any of the
Emperor’s subjects for centuries. Elluvian, however, remembered. The only
freedom he had ever known had occurred because of war. At the end of the third
war, the Dragon Emperor had demanded oaths of allegiance from each and every
Barrani adult who had survived it and intended to live within the boundaries of
the Empire.
Elluvian had offered his willingly. He had
offered it without reservation. Had the Emperor demanded Elluvian swear a blood
oath, a binding oath, he would have done so without hesitation. The Emperor did
not demand his True Name. Anything else, he could live with. Nonbinding oaths
were just words.
He knelt.
“Rise,” the Emperor said. The undercurrents
of his voice filled the vaulted ceilings above with a distinctly draconic
rumble. Elluvian obeyed, meeting the Emperor’s gaze for the first time; the
Dragon’s eyes were orange, but the orange was tinged with gold.
No discussion between Emperor and subject
was private. The Imperial guard and the Imperial aides were omnipresent; an
Imperial secretary or three were positioned by the throne to take notes where
notes were necessary.
“Approach the throne.”
Elluvian was aware that of all the
Barrani—each forced to offer an oath of allegiance to the Emperor directly—only
a handful were allowed to approach the throne. It was not considered, by most
of his kin, an honor. Were any of those disapproving kin to be present, they
would have obeyed regardless. Just as Elluvian did.
The Imperial guards stepped back.
“You look peaked, old friend,” the Emperor
said, when the guards were standing as far from the Emperor as they were
willing to go.
“You did not summon me here to discuss my
health.”
“Ah, no. But I have been informed that I
lack certain social graces, and it seems incumbent on me to practice.”
Elluvian raised a brow. His eyes were blue;
Barrani blue denoted many things. At the moment, he was annoyed. Annoyed and
tired.
“Very well. The Halls of Law seem to be
having some minor difficulty.” When Elluvian failed to reply, the Emperor continued.
“In particular, and of interest to you, the difficulty involves the Wolves.” Of
course it did. The Halls of Law were divided into three distinct divisions: the
Hawks, the Swords, and the Wolves. The only division of relevance to Elluvian
was the Wolves.
Elluvian exhaled. “Again.”
“Indeed.” The Emperor’s eyes remained
orange; the orange, however, did not darken toward red, the color of Dragon
anger.
Elluvian bowed his head for one long
moment. His eyes, he knew, were now the blue of anger and frustration. In a
life considered, by the youthful Barrani and Dragon kin, long, failure was not
the worst thing to happen to him. But consistent failure remained
humiliating—and no Barrani wished their failures dissected by Dragons. He
struggled to contain emotion, to submerge it.
In this, too, he failed.
“I have never understood why you wish to
create this division of mortal Wolves.
We have power structures developed over a longer stretch of time, and we have
not descended to barbarism or savagery. Those who have power rule those who do
not.”
“That is what the animals do. Those with
power rule those with less. We are not animals.”
Elluvian’s mood was dark enough, the sting
of failure dragging it down in a spiral that had no good end. Humans, who
comprised the vast majority of mortals within the Empire, were one step up from
animals, with their unchanging, fixed eye colors, their ability to propagate,
their short, inconsequential lives.
“I do not understand the Empire you are
attempting to build. I have never understood it, and the centuries I have spent
observing it have not surrendered answers.” The admission of ignorance was
costly.
For a man who professed not to want to rule
by power, his form of communication was questionable. He commanded, and those
who had survived the wars and sworn personal loyalty to the Emperor—most
Barrani, given the sparsity of Dragons by that time—obeyed.
Elluvian had been summoned. The summons
was, in theory, an invitation, but Elluvian was not naive. The oath of service
had weight and meaning to both the Emperor who had demanded it and the man who
had offered that vow.
Mortals were not a threat to either the
Barrani or the Dragons, but many of the Imperial systems of governance—the
Emperor’s word—were most concerned with those very mortals. The Emperor had
created the Halls of Law, with Swords and Hawks to police the mortals who
vastly outnumbered those who rose above time and age. He had also created the
Wolves.
“No,” the Emperor replied.
Excerpted from The Emperor’s Wolves
by Michelle Sagara, Copyright © 2020 by Michelle Sagara Published by MIRA Books
About the Author
Michelle Sagara is an author,
bookseller, and lover of literature based in Toronto. She writes fantasy
novels and lives with her husband and her two children, and to her regret has
no dogs. Reading is one of her life-long passions, and she is sometimes paid
for her opinions about what she’s read by the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction. No matter how many bookshelves she buys, there is Never
Enough Shelf space. Ever.
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