Michelle Kenney - Storm of Ash

Book of Fire

City of Dust

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Michelle Kenney 2019

Michelle Kenney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © December 2019 ISBN: 9780008281458

Version: 2019-11-12

Table of Contents

Cover

Also by Michelle Kenney

Title Page Storm of Ash MICHELLE KENNEY

Copyright HQ An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019 Copyright © Michelle Kenney 2019 Michelle Kenney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. E-book Edition © December 2019 ISBN: 9780008281458 Version: 2019-11-12

Dedication Astra inclinant, sed non obligant: The stars incline us; they do not bind us

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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Glossary of Terms (in alphabetical order)

Acknowledgements

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Astra inclinant, sed non obligant:

The stars incline us; they do not bind us

A feral Outsider hunting a feral Insider. There was a rhythm to it. Except Hominum chimera was clever, always travelling north of our beat.

We knew from the outset that though there were many ways to track Lake, trapping her would be another matter entirely. Her powerful Nemean lion prints were clear enough; the North Mountain snow made them gleam like ice-dusted runes, while a brave last stand of arid trees, split and broken by her aggressive marking, pointed onwards like wretched ghouls. From time to time, we also came across a scattering of mountain goat tracks, enough to make me wonder whether her volatile chimera nature was morphing again.

But it was always the long black veins of scorching that offered the real evidence. Evidence that, no matter how buried her humanity, Lake still found comfort in being close to Arafel. Close to us.

I couldn’t voice the urgency I felt to find Lake, but August seemed to understand anyway. There was something deep within me, some primeval instinct that needed to face her and acknowledge our bond. That she was the key to finally understanding the Voynich was beyond doubt – she was Cassius’s alpha weapon of mythical proportions, yet Thomas had somehow bound us with an older connection too. Cassius called it an antidote, a complex protein that would provide some level of control over which of her mythical natures dominated, but I had a suspicion it bore another name, that this was the real legacy for which Grandpa had prepared me.

And I cared. More than I could put into words. Ever since Lake had taken a knife to Max’s throat in the tunnels beneath the City of Dust. Back then she looked just another hungry, scraggy child in a dirty headscarf and smoke-grey tunic – no different from the rest of the Prolet children we were trying to rescue. And yet, her veins pumped with a biology more complex than any other creature of Cassius’s bestiary. Which made her nature a complete mystery because Hominum chimera was also an ancient prophecy. Or curse. Depending on which way you looked at it.

The truth was Lake was entirely unique. And even though Cassius didn’t hold the final genetic coding for the hybrid creature, she was clearly a dangerously close match. According to legend, Hominum chimera was the mother of all mythological beasts, the one hybrid creature believed to be stronger, faster and more agile than her only existing counterpart. Nature. But while Aelia had always suspected the Voynich of hiding a last secret, it was only when August journeyed to Europa that we all learned of Lake’s real potential.

‘There’s an ancient myth that Hominum chimera is capable of triggering a sequence of natural disasters, culminating in the eternal fire of damnation.’

August’s words looped in my head. An eternal fire of damnation seemed so easy to dismiss as mythological rhetoric, and yet I knew better now. There was something in Lake’s serpentine eyes that reached back through the dust of years, to a time when myth and reality were separated by only the thinnest of veils.

Legacy or lunacy, Cassius’s ambition had never been clearer. It was all about power to redesign the natural world, and now that he had The Book of Arafel, Thomas’s secret research decoding the Voynich, it was nearly within reach.

Arafel was nearly within reach.

All that remained was the keyword to operate the cipher and, if he was looking to replicate Hominum chimera perfectly, a certain annotated, aged diagram. It was the same fragile page I’d rolled up and inserted into a certain treehouse dart tube for safekeeping, the last present Max made for me. To get it Cassius would have to slit the feral throat around which it was hung.