Lauren DeStefano - Burning Kingdoms

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2015

Copyright © Lauren DeStefano 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

Cover photographs © Mark Owen/Trevillion Images (falling girl); Shutterstock.com(ferris wheel, landscape).

Lauren DeStefano asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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.

Source ISBN: 9780007541232

Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007541249

Version: 2014-12-29

For

Mina

Baptista.

Here’s to

the next

twenty-seven

birthdays.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Carl Sagan

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Harper Voyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2015 Copyright © Lauren DeStefano 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Mark Owen/Trevillion Images (falling girl); Shutterstock.com (ferris wheel, landscape). Lauren DeStefano asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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. Source ISBN: 9780007541232 Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007541249 Version: 2014-12-29

Dedication Dedication For Mina Baptista. Here’s to the next twenty-seven birthdays.

Epigraph Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Carl Sagan

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

About the Author

Also by Lauren Destefano

About the Publisher

When the world was formed, the people soon followed. It has been a balancing act of life and death from that day on. It is not the place of any man to question it.

— The Text of All Things , Chapter 1

Snow. That’s the word the people of the ground have for this wonder.

“Goddamn snow,” our driver mumbles for the second time, as mechanical arms sweep the dusting from the window.

It’s like a stab to the heart hearing a god referred to so unkindly. I wonder which god he means. I’d think the god of the ground would be less forgiving than the one in the sky. Vengeful. It would make sense, the god of the ground having interned us to the sky for being too selfish.

But I don’t ask. I haven’t spoken a word since I told Pen that it would be all right.

All the whiteness is blinding, and despite the blustery cold, the inside of this vehicle is so hot that beads of sweat are forming at the back of my neck. There’s a metallic taste to this air.

I have a thought that my parents will be worried, before I remember that they’re gone. Not at home. They’re colors in the tributary now, a place that can’t be seen by the living.

I squeeze Basil’s hand. And on the other side of me, Princess Celeste has her hands to the glass as she stares through the window. A city has begun to materialize through the snow. It’s all boxy shadows at first, and then ribbons of color shoot through the sky, squares of light wink from the buildings.

My brother is in one of the surrounding vehicles. When we left the metal bird that brought us down from Internment, the men in heavy black coats split us up as they saw fit. They pushed us into the seats. They said they’d take us somewhere warm and safe. They don’t seem to realize that we were banished from this place, hundreds of years ago.

The driver raises his eyes to us in the mirror. “It was swell luck that you came down before the blizzard.”

I don’t know what that means. “Blizzard” is a new word, and it bounces on my tongue, begging to be said.

Basil is looking up into the sky as though to chart a way back home, but the whiteness that falls from the clouds is his only answer. Now would be an apt time for him to regret following me here—regret our betrothal. Maybe the decision makers were wrong to bond us to each other for the rest of our lives; we’ve always cared for each other, but he’s logical while I’m a dreamer. He’s patient while I’m careless. And now he’ll never see his parents or his little brother again because of me.

I want to say his name so that he’ll look at me, but I’m afraid of what speaking might do to this odd balance between the driver and the three of us.

Our driver’s coat appears to be some kind of uniform. He’s a patrolman perhaps—or whatever they have on the ground. Maybe they don’t keep order down here at all.

Princess Celeste elbows me. And now that she has my attention, she nods to her window. Outside, a large machine is set some distance from the buildings. It’s like a giant metal bug, its legs suspended in the air. Each leg is painted a different color, and at the tips are what appear to be clouds.

I can’t tell if the princess is attempting to smile. Her eyes still have their sparkle, but she is, for once, subdued.

Our vehicle rolls to a stop. I look out the window on Basil’s side and I see the other vehicles stopping alongside us. I want to run out and join my brother and Alice, and Pen, who was fighting tears the last time I saw her.

But I don’t move. Basil puts his other hand on my arm as though to protect me.

The driver steps out into the snow, and the cold air cuts right through my skin before he closes the door again.