Nevernight

Chapter 15: Truth (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16: Walk (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17: Steel (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18: Scourge (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19: Masquerade (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20: Faces (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21: Words (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22: Power (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23: Switch (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24: Friction (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25: Skin (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26: Hundred (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27: Truedark (#litres_trial_promo)

Book 3: Black Runs Red (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28: Venom (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29: Severance (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30: Favors (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 31: Becoming (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 32: Blood (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 33: Steps (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 34: Pursuit (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 35: Karma (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 36: Sunsset (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Dicta Ultima (#litres_trial_promo)

Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Jay Kristoff (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Maps (#ulink_9c594895-f003-5b0e-be34-02b55e80b230)

CAVEAT EMPTOR (#ulink_d48bb65c-41ae-5165-84be-038f84332d97)

People often shit themselves when they die.

Their muscles slack and their souls flutter free and everything else just … slips out. For all their audience’s love of death, the playwrights seldom mention it. When our hero breathes his last in his heroine’s arms, they call no attention to the stain leaking across his tights, or how the stink makes her eyes water as she leans in for her farewell kiss.

I mention this by way of warning, O, my gentlefriends, that your narrator shares no such restraint. And if the unpleasant realities of bloodshed turn your insides to water, be advised now that the pages in your hands speak of a girl who was to murder as maestros are to music. Who did to happy ever afters what a sawblade does to skin.

She’s dead herself, now – words both the wicked and the just would give an eyeteeth smile to hear. A republic in ashes behind her. A city of bridges and bones laid at the bottom of the sea by her hand. And yet I’m sure she’d still find a way to kill me if she knew I put these words to paper. Open me up and leave me for the hungry Dark. But I think someone should at least try to separate her from the lies told about her. Through her. By her.

Someone who knew her true.

A girl some called Pale Daughter. Or Kingmaker. Or Crow. But most often, nothing at all. A killer of killers, whose tally of endings only the goddess and I truly know. And was she famous or infamous for it at the end? All this death? I confess I could never see the difference. But then, I’ve never seen things the way you have.

Never truly lived in the world you call your own.

Nor did she, really.

I think that’s why I loved her.

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_7c1cb490-9768-59d1-8316-fa11ded99525)

FIRSTS (#ulink_7c1cb490-9768-59d1-8316-fa11ded99525)

The boy was beautiful.

Caramel-smooth skin, honeydew-sweet smile. Black curls on the right side of unruly. Strong hands and hard muscle and his eyes, O, Daughters, his eyes. Five thousand fathoms deep. Pulling you in to laugh even as he drowned you.

His lips brushed hers, warm and curling soft. They’d stood entwined on the Bridge of Whispers, a purple blush pressing against the curves of the sky. His hands had roamed her back, current tingling on her skin. The feather-light brush of his tongue against hers set her shivering, heart racing, insides aching with want.

They’d drifted apart like dancers before the music stopped, vibration still thrumming along their strings. She’d opened her eyes, found him staring back in the smoky light. A canal murmured beneath them, its sluggish flow bleeding out into the ocean. Just as she wished to. Just as she must. Praying she wouldn’t drown.

Her last nevernight in this city. A part of her didn’t want to say goodbye. But before she left, she’d wanted to know. She owed herself that, at least.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

She’d looked up into his eyes, then.