We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from A. G. Slatter’s The Crimson Road—a captivating dark gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author’s All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, and The Briar Book of the Dead.
The Crimson Road publishes February 11, 2025 with Titan Books.
Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill.
Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she’s free—a rich young heiress with a world of possibilities in front of her. Then, to her horror, Violet learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet’s still-born brother was taken years ago after Hedrek sold him to a man bearing the mark of the mysterious Anchorhold.
Her father’s solicitor and the city’s bishop are insistent she fulfil her duty, but Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her—and it becomes clear: if she wants to enjoy a future free of the interference of either solicitors, bishops or assassins, she’s going to have to clean up the mess her father made.
On her journey, Violet seeks the help of Miren O’Malley in the hidden estate of Blackwater, whose family once produced the purest, strangest silver; Ellie Briar of Silverton, the Briar Witch who guards the gateway to the realm of the Leech Lords; and Asher Todd of Whitebarrow, who did terrible things and found The Three Who Went Beneath.
Ultimately, Violet must go alone. Into the Darklands. To the Anchorhold where it all began. Where it will all end. To do what must be done.
By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter’s sinister and compelling fantasy world, where blood is currency and magic is a weapon.
Buy the Book
The Crimson Road
A.G. Slatter has won a Shirley Jackson Award, a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, three Australian Shadows Awards and eight Aurealis Awards. Most recently, All the Murmuring Bones was shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards Book of the Year and the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award; The Path of Thorns won the 2022 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the 2022 Australian Shadows Award for Best Novel. She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006. Angela’s short stories have appeared in many Best Of anthologies, and her work has been translated into many languages. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.
Chapter One
The pillow feels solid, weighty, like it can do damage.
My own hands, clawed around it, are age-spotted and thin. I think This can’t be right, then the thought leaves my mind and I’m back to the task, grip so tight I can feel each thread in the cambric pillowcase, every delicate structure in the feather stuffing. Standing, looming, my thighs pressed against the mattress, my talons descending.
The pillow over my father’s face, obscuring his withered features, hollow-cheeks and eyes, the greying stubble, the lips canyoned by desiccation, the hair still surprisingly thick and mostly honey-coloured. Some days I forget he was only nineteen when he fathered me, hardly a man. Over forty now, but looking twenty years beyond that. And in this moment, this second, moving, moving more than he has these past weeks, surprisingly strong, the wriggles, the jerks, heels drumming the bed, nails tearing at me or trying to but unable to get past this fluffy, fluffy pillow. The noises, not quite loud enough for anyone to hear, not even Mrs Medway were she to traverse the corridor of the second floor of our house. I push down harder and harder, feel his struggles lessen, become shudders then tremors, the muffled protests, dying away until there’s no longer any indication of life.
A sense of relief shoots through me like fresh blood—and I wake with a start.
Still in the chair beside Father’s sickbed, the distance between us several yards, the same as when I went to sleep. No disarrayed bedsheets. No pillow in my hands, hands that are nothing like those in the dream; these are white and plump, unblemished by anything except some few small scars where I’ve been careless with weapons in training. Breathing fast, heartbeat staccato. My neck and back are stiff from dozing upright, the book I was reading lies on the floor—was its hitting the polished wood what woke me? Perhaps not. Perhaps there was no sound at all.
I glance to the bed again, the hangings removed from its four-posted glory some days ago when my father shouted that they smothered him. It’s bare but for the form lying in the middle of the mattress. Nothing out of place, no sign of a struggle.
But Hedrek Zennor no longer breathes.
* * *
My father’s death came as a surprise only in the time it took to occur.
He’d been ill in varying degree for years; indeed, I can barely remember a time when he wasn’t ailing. His survival was the thing to make folk remark; they didn’t know what burned inside of him. I did not help him along even though there were days I yearned to do so. Lady Death put her gentle hand on him in the end with no aid from me. That I dreamt his death, my own responsibility for it, was mere coincidence. Yet I can’t help but feel something’s lodged in my bones, some coldness carried by the violence of my hatred for him, that I would dream of bringing his end.
Or perhaps it’s merely the chill of the day, unseasonal for this part of spring. Or perhaps it’s the heavy rain sweeping across the cemetery lawn down the slope that leads to the cliff, water cascading over the edge and into the misery-grey sea. Most of the other mourners (quite the number but generally stickybeaks and look-sees) have given up, leaving immediately after the service in St Sinwin’s cathedral. Only a small band of diehards remain: those of us with no choice and those who think they’ll benefit from staying.
Despite the enormity of the Zennor fortune, my father’s been laid to rest in a slim grey mausoleum where my mother’s waited all these years. A simple final place. The cathedral is a magnificent thing, the entire wall behind the altar made of stained glass (a glory, a true wonder) but its uniqueness doesn’t really allow for anyone to be buried in its walls lest the vibrations cause fractures. And the crypt beneath the flagstone floor is reserved for ecclesiastics. Any road, we’ve not been a rich family long enough to justify anything larger, although I’m sure father would have had one built, had there been more years left to him; Hedrek Zennor, despite his illnesses, didn’t think death would come for him quite yet. He had other matters on his mind. I lack the inclination to raise a greater memorial than currently exists.
Bishop Walter looks like a wet, bald raptor, raindrops sluicing the few remaining hairs on his head down towards his collar. His purple silk robe, embroidered with gold and silver, studded with gems along the ermine collar is soaked, a cat dropped in a well. Not a one of his attendants has an umbrella over him or themselves, either a dearth of planning or the belief that nothing should come between this last office and the Lord Above. Walter’s voice, which is a deep baritone and rather fine for sermons and psalms, quavers with the cold.
‘We commit the last remnants of Hedrek Zennor to this sacred earth. He will find himself in the Halls of the Lord and be welcomed by His mercy. Remember him in your prayers, and now you may all go in peace.’
Beside me Mrs Medway, more prepared than a legion of god-hounds, holds an umbrella above us both, a very large one, that keeps trying to catch the wind and fly away. My housekeeper is determined, though, and I’d not bet against her even in a contest with the elements. She’s got her other hand around my arm; I know it’s for comfort, but a voice in my head claims it’s for ballast, to hold her down. Around us are gathered, in no particular order of favour or otherwise, Junius Quant (banker), Titus Pendergast (solicitor), Talwyn Enys (the Harbour Mistress), Jack Seven-Gates (my childhood friend, my father’s latest and last business partner), six bedraggled god-hounds, and three other men whose names I cannot recall but are likely to present themselves at some inopportune moment as future husbands. Women are not fool enough to stand in the rain on a day such as this, and I’ve no doubt several will pay visits at my home in the weeks to come.
Mr Pendergast raises his feathery grey eyebrows in my direction and I nod wearily. Yes, yes, I know. He moves off, sharing an umbrella with Quant; Talwyn pats my shoulder as she passes and my knees almost buckle with the heft of her hand; Walter and his proteges follow suit to make their way back towards the sprawling white-painted rectory that sits alongside the cathedral. I watch them all go, then return my attention to the mausoleum as the groundskeeper closes the burnished copper doors. I don’t know what I’m expecting; an apology echoing out the narrowing gap, perhaps. From my father for his treatment of me, from my mother for leaving me with him.
Instead, there’s Jack’s voice, saying my name. ‘Violet. Violet. Are you—’
I nod, dragging my gaze away from the now-closed doors, the groundsman putting the key in my gloved palm, and notice how very well-dressed Jack is. He’s always loved clothes, but these seem even more elegant than usual even if standard grief-stricken black. ‘Yes, Jack. I’m well enough.’
He grips my hand, looks at me sadly. ‘I do have to go, Violet, Mother will—’
‘Of course. Thank you for coming.’ I sound so formal, try to fix that: ‘Come by later, Jack? Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll try,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry, Violet.’
I hope he’ll succeed; I’d welcome the chance to chat or even sit in companionable silence. He turns away, his charcoal umbrella flapping, and trudges to the lychgate of the churchyard, thence to the cobbled streets that will take him into town, back to his mansion, newly purchased to replace the one that burned down six months ago.
‘Well now, my girl. It’s just us.’ Mrs Medway squeezes my arm, speaks gently.
‘Yes.’ Just us. All the other staff dismissed, with excellent bonuses and references, not because they’d done anything wrong but because they were my father’s choices. Mrs Medway said not to hurry about getting anyone because the beekie—the little hearth hobgoblin—would take care of things for the moment. All the cleaning done as long as he’s properly compensated with extra milk and bread left out each night and a glass of rum on holydays. I’ve never seen him (though gods know I would sneak down and try as a child until Mrs M caught me and told me if he’s seen he’ll leave and take all our luck with him—or worse, become destructive. My mother would tell me tales, too, of how the only way to calm one down, perhaps keep him from leaving, was to give him whatever was in your pocket). When there are new servants, he’ll go back to just doing the small things, like stacking the firewood, collecting the cream off the milk, churning the butter, but he’ll need to be told there are new folk coming, that there’s no harm in it, no criticism or complaint. That they’re here to help him.
As I think about the empty house I feel something lift from me. The weight of my father and the life he put me through. The constant study and training, the tests physical and mental, the sense that no matter what I did it was never good enough. Hedrek Zennor’s gone, and I will have a life that I choose. I will refuse his plans, his wishes. And there’s not a thing he can do about it.
Pulling my father’s fob watch from my pocket to check the time—almost six—I sweep the bone orchard with one last stare. Then I turn my back on the mausoleum and drag Mrs Medway along until she matches my stride. She’ll be anxious to check on her birds in their dovecot, make sure they’re settled before night proper closes in.
The light is fading as we leave the churchyard—a late funeral for Hedrek—and at first I don’t see the figure at the gate. When I do, I think it’s Jack or one of the others for a moment, doubled back, but it becomes quickly obvious that it’s not. A man in a long, dirty cloak, face obscured by a scarf, but the knife in his hand very clear even in the dusk. He lunges at us—at me—and Mrs Medway knows what to do.
She steps away, gives me room to move. I bring my hand down and grab the man’s wrist, pulling it and the knife past me, tightening my grip and digging into the pressure points. The man curses and drops the blade. Twisting, I try to knee him in the groin, but he jerks aside and I make contact with his thigh, which is effective enough. He grunts and staggers, then limp-runs out the gate. He rights himself and gives me one last look, calculated despite the harm I’ve done him, then spins to bolt away. I scoop up the dagger from the ground and throw it. It hits the target just as he’s about to round a corner, there’s a thud and a grunt. My aim’s not as good as I’d like because it gets him high in the shoulder and he keeps going, disappears just as the sun drops. Perhaps he’ll crawl off and die somewhere. I’m disinclined to go after him.
‘Gods!’ shouts Mrs Medway. ‘Those thieves are getting bold. Can’t a body bury their family without being attacked? That Constable’s not earning his money—they’re getting worse.’
‘He didn’t fight like a footpad, Mrs M. Fought like a soldier.’
‘That sort return from wars and become thieves too. Not all are heroes.’ She gives me a once-over, nods approvingly. ‘Not a sweat broken, not a hair out of place. Your father would be proud, Miss Violet.’
Those aren’t words I’m longing to hear from anyone, and I know they’re untrue. Hedrek would somehow know that my knees are shaking beneath my plain ebony skirts, that the adrenaline’s leaving me as fast as it arrived, and I’d like to be collapsed in front of the fire with a glass of winter-lemon whiskey rather than negotiating a path home beneath the dancing flames of the streetlights.
‘That’s as maybe, but I’ve had enough for one day. When we get home, send a message to Mr Pendergast and tell him I’ll not be attending at his practice this evening. He’ll see me first thing in the morning, whether he likes it or not.’
Mrs Medway knows better than to contradict me, and she’s got no love for my father’s friends; nor for my father, but I think she stayed all those years because of me. She contents herself with saying ‘You showed him,’ and I’m not sure if she means Titus Pendergast or the would-be robber. There is a satisfaction, in spite of everything, at having prevailed. Still and all, I’m cautious as a cat while we make our way from the cemetery, pausing at the mouths of alleys and avoiding unlit cut-throughs.
Excerpted from The Crimson Road, copyright © 2024 by A.G. Slatter
