Peter Brett - The Core

Harper Voyager

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2017

Copyright © Peter V. Brett 2017

Cover illustration © Larry Rostant. Demon model by Millenium FX Ltd.

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017

Ward artwork designed by Lauren K. Cannon, copyright © Peter V. Brett

Peter V. Brett 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: 9780007425723

Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780007425747

Version: 2018-09-24

For Sirena Lilith, who is already changing my life in countless ways.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Prologue: Gaolers

Chapter 1: Both

Chapter 2: Olive

Chapter 3: Countess Paper

Chapter 4: Ragen and Elissa

Chapter 5: The Pack

Chapter 6: Everam Is a Lie

Chapter 7: The Eunuchs

Chapter 8: Monastery

Chapter 9: The Majah

Chapter 10: Family Matters

Chapter 11: Sorcerers

Chapter 12: Drained

Chapter 13: The Last Will and Testament of Arlen Bales

Chapter 14: Spankin’

Chapter 15: Sisters Return

Chapter 16: Beloved

Chapter 17: Forest Fortress

Chapter 18: Homestead

Chapter 19: Hunted

Chapter 20: The Escort

Chapter 21: Neocounty

Chapter 22: The Edge of Nie’s Abyss

Chapter 23: Sharum’s Lament

Chapter 24: First Steps

Chapter 25: The Mouth of the Abyss

Chapter 26: The Dark Below

Chapter 27: Bedfellows

Chapter 28: Araine’s Tale

Chapter 29: Wolves

Chapter 30: Everam’s Reservoir

Chapter 31: Harden’s Grove

Chapter 32: Blizzard and Quake

Chapter 33: Evil Gives Birth

Chapter 34: Spear of Ala

Chapter 35: Severed

Chapter 36: Smoke and Mist

Chapter 37: Jessa’s Girls

Chapter 38: Sharak Ka

Chapter 39: Whistler’s Mind

Chapter 40: Alamen Fae

Chapter 41: Light of the Mountains

Chapter 42: The Hive

Chapter 43: The Core

Chapter 44: Born in Darkness

Chapter 45: The Pact

Ward Grimoire

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

‘There will be swarm.’

Alagai Ka, the demon Consort, spoke with the lips of the human drone, the one they called Shanjat. The Consort lay bound within a circle of power, but he had shattered one of the locks and taken the drone before his captors could react.

His will crushed, Shanjat was little more than a puppet now, and the Consort took pleasure in the pain that caused his captors. He shifted the drone’s feet, getting a sense of the body. Not as useful as a mimic, but strong, armed with the primitive weapons of the surface stock and an emotional connection to his captors the Consort could exploit.

‘What in the Core is that supposed to mean?’ the Explorer demanded. The one the others called Arlen or Par’chin. He held influence over the others, but it was not true dominance.

The Consort accessed the drone’s language centre, growing in fluency with the primitive grunts that passed for communication among humans. ‘The queen is close to laying.’

The Explorer met the drone’s eyes and crossed his arms. The wards inked into his flesh throbbed with power. ‘Know that. What’s it got to do with a swarm?’

‘You have imprisoned me and killed my strongest brethren,’ the Consort said. ‘There are none left in the mind court with power enough to keep the young queens from draining their mother of magic and maturing.’

The Explorer shrugged. ‘Queens’ll kill each other, won’t they? Right there in the whelping room, with the strongest one taking over the hive. Better a hatchling queen than a fully matured one.’

The Consort kept the drone’s eyes fixed on the Explorer as he watched the auras of the others in the room with his own eyes.

Armed with the cloak and spear and crown of the Mind Killer, the Heir – the one called Jardir – was easily the most dangerous. Chained in a warding circle, the Consort had few options if the Heir decided to kill him, and the subjugation of Shanjat enraged the Heir beyond measure.

But the Heir’s aura betrayed him. Much as he wanted to kill the Consort, he needed him alive.

More interesting was the web of emotions connecting the Heir to the Explorer. Love and hate, rivalry and respect. Anger. Guilt. It was a heady mix, and the Consort took pleasure as he studied it. The Heir was impatient for information. There was much the Explorer had not told him, and irritation crackled along his aura at having to follow another’s lead.

Less predictable was the Hunter, the one called Renna. The fierce female was hot with stolen core magic, her flesh stained with wards of power. She was less skilled in the use of her power, apt to lash out unless kept in check. She was tamped down, weapon in hand, ready to spring at the first break in the stalemate.

The last was a female drone, Shanvah. Like the puppet, she had no great magic about her. If she had not killed a demon prince with her weapons, the Consort would have dismissed her as irrelevant.

But while Shanvah was the weakest of his captors, her aura was exquisite. The puppet was her sire. Her will was strong, keeping her surface aura still, but beneath, her spirit was wracked with pain. The Consort would savour the memory of it when he sliced open her skull and bit into the soft meat of her mind.

The Consort made the puppet laugh, keeping the humans’ attention on the drone instead of him. ‘The young queens won’t have a chance to fight. With none of my brethren strong enough to dominate the others, each will steal an egg and flee.’

The Explorer paused at that, understanding dawning. ‘Start nests all over Thesa.’

‘No doubt it has already begun.’ He made the puppet wave its spear, and predictably the eyes of the humans followed. ‘You doom your own kind, keeping me here.’

Delicately, the Consort shifted its chains, probing for a weakness. The wards etched into the metal burned, pulling at his magic, but the Consort kept a tight grip on his power. Already he had shattered one of the locks and freed a limb. If he could break another, the puppet might disable the circles enough for the Consort to escape.