Kaitlyn Patterson - The Diminished

In the Alskad Empire, nearly all are born with a twin, two halves to form one whole...yet some face the world alone.

The singleborn

A rare few are singleborn in each generation, and therefore given the right to rule by the gods and goddesses. Bo Trousillion is one of these few, born into the royal line and destined to rule. Though he has been chosen to succeed his great-aunt, Queen Runa, as the leader of the Alskad Empire, Bo has never felt equal to the grand future before him.

The diminished

When one twin dies, the other usually follows, unable to face the world without their other half. Those who survive are considered diminished, doomed to succumb to the violent grief that inevitably destroys everyone whose twin has died. Such is the fate of Vi Abernathy, whose twin sister died in infancy. Raised by the anchorites of the temple after her family cast her off, Vi has spent her whole life scheming for a way to escape and live out what’s left of her life in peace.

As their sixteenth birthdays approach, Bo and Vi face very different futures—one a life of luxury as the heir to the throne, the other years of backbreaking work as a temple servant. But a long-held secret and the fate of the empire are destined to bring them together in a way they never could have imagined.

KAITLYN SAGE PATTERSON grew up with her nose in a book outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When she’s not staring off into space and trying to untangle some particularly troublesome plot point, she can be found in the kitchen, cooking overly elaborate meals; at the barn, where she rides and trains dressage horses; or with her husband, spoiling their sweet rescue dogs. The Diminished is her first novel.

The Diminished

Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Kaitlyn Sage Patterson 2018

Kaitlyn Sage Patterson 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, 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.

Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9781474074643

Praise

“Two fierce young people battle a fiery landscape and vicious foes in a race for freedom. I was glued to my seat!”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Tamora Pierce

“Patterson’s debut novel has strong and imaginative world-building and complex characters. With a splash of swoony romance and a thrilling conclusion, readers will be clamoring for the sequel.”

—Zoraida Córdova, award-winning author of Labyrinth Lost and The Vicious Deep trilogy

“A fascinating and wholly original novel. Bo and Vi are fierce, complex characters, and I couldn’t devour their story fast enough!”

—Amy Tintera, New York Times bestselling author of Ruined

For everyone who’s ever felt diminished, and for Cody, for whom I’ve always been enough.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

PART TWO

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PART THREE

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE

“Those who lose their twins shall join them in death, that they are never without their other half. Some may cling to unnatural life, and those shall be called the diminished—for in their grief, they become less, and their violent breaking shall scourge this land.”

—from the Book of Dzallie, the Warrior

“Like the goddesses and gods, who are complete without a twin, a blessed few shall be singleborn. You shall know them as our chosen ones, for our divinity runs undiluted through their veins. Raise them up, and let the wisdom that is their birthright illuminate this world.”

—from the Book of Magritte, the Educator

CHAPTER ONE

VI

The first queen built the Alskad Empire from scorched earth and ash after the goddess Dzallie split the moon and rained fire from the sky. The god Hamil called the sea to wash away most of what was left of humanity, but the people who managed to survive gathered in the wild, unforgiving north, calling on Rayleane the Builder to help them shape an idyllic community that would be home and haven to the descendants of the cataclysm.

They failed.

I came up feared and hated for a thing I had no control over in a world divided. My childhood wasn’t the kind of unpleasant that most brats endure when their ma won’t let them spend all their pocket money on spun sugar or fried bread filled with jam. No. My days coming up in the temple ranged from lean and uncertain to hungry and brutal with shockingly little variation.

There were bright moments among the terrible ones, sure, and my best friend, Sawny, was there for most of them. But even the shiniest days as a dimmy ward of the temple were tarnished. It had to do, I think, with the endless reminders of how unwanted I really was. Even Sawny and Lily, whose ma’d given them up, enjoyed a little more kindness than any of the anchorites ever managed to show like me.

One night, a month before I turned sixteen, I waited in my room, boots in hand, for Sawny’s knock on my door. It had been about an hour since our hall’s anchorite called for lights out. She was a rich merchant’s daughter who’d recently committed to the religious life, and she slept sounder than a great gray bear. Though we’d be hard pressed to find an anchorite who cared that two brats nearly old enough to be booted out of the temple were sneaking out in the middle of the night, Sawny and I were still careful. Neither of us had the patience to endure even one more tongue lashing, halfhearted or not.

Keep them sleeping, Pru , I thought.

While I’d stopped praying to the gods and goddesses years ago, I kept up a sort of conversation with my dead twin, Prudence. Ridiculous as it sometimes felt, a part of me wanted to believe that she was looking out for me—that she was the reason I’d been able to keep myself from slipping into the violent grief of the other diminished for all these years. All Ma’d ever told me was her name and that she’d died a couple months after we were born. After that, it didn’t take long for my ma to dump me at the temple in Penby, unwilling to raise a dimmy. Ma and Pa visited from time to time, bringing my new sisters and brothers to see me when they were born, but we never got close. Getting close to a dimmy’s about as smart as cuddling up with an eel. Not even my ma was that dumb.