Once, there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power and connected by a single city: London…
Prepare for tangled schemes and perilous adventures with friends old and new as author V.E. Schwab begins a brand new fantasy series set in the dazzling world of Shades of Magic. The Fragile Threads of Power publishes September 26th with Tor Books. Read chapter two below, or head back to the beginning with the first chapter. Check back for more chapters leading up to the book’s release!
Once, there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power and connected by a single city: London. Until the magic grew too fast and forced the worlds to seal the doors between them in a desperate gamble to protect their own. The few magicians who could still open the doors grew more rare as time passed and now, only three Antari are known in recent memory—Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk, of White London.
But barely a glimpse of them have been seen in the last seven years—and a new Antari named Kosika has appeared in White London, taking the throne in Holland’s absence. The young queen is willing to feed her city with blood, including her own—but her growing religious fervor has the potential to drown it instead.
And back in Red London, King Rhy Maresh is threatened by a rising rebellion, one determined to correct the balance of power by razing the throne entirely.
These two royals from very different empires now face very similar struggles: how to keep their crowns—and their own heads.
Amidst this tapestry of old friends and new enemies, a girl with an unusual magical ability comes into possession of a device that could change the fate of all four worlds.
Her name is Tes, and she’s the only one who can bring them together—or unravel it all.
II
The merchant’s son sat in the Gilded Fish, pretending to read about pirates.
Pretending to read, because the light was too low, and even if it weren’t, he could hardly be expected to focus on the book in front of him—which he knew by heart—or the half-drunk pint of ale— which was too bitter and too thick—or anything but the waiting.
The truth was, the young man wasn’t sure who—or what—he was waiting for, only that he was supposed to sit and wait, and it would find him. It was an act of faith—not the first, and certainly not the last, that would be asked of him.
But the merchant’s son was ready.
A small satchel rested on the ground between his feet, hidden in the shadow of the table, and a black cap was pulled low on his brow. He’d chosen a table against the wall, and put his back to it. Every time the tavern door swung open, he looked up, careful not to be too obvious, to lift only his eyes and not his whole head, which he’d learned from a book.
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The merchant’s son was short on experience, but he had been raised on a steady diet of books. Not histories, or spell guides, though his tutors made him read those, too. No, his true educa- tion had come from novels. Epic tales of rakes and rogues, nobles and thieves, but most of all, of heroes.
His favorite was The Legends of Olik, a saga about a penniless orphan who grows up to be the world’s greatest magician/sailor/ spy. In the third book, he discovers he’s actually of ostra blood, and is welcomed into court, only to learn that the nobles are all rotten, worse than the scoundrels he faces at sea.
In the fourth book—which was the best one, in his opinion— the hero Olik meets Vera, a beautiful woman being held hostage on a pirate ship—or so he thinks, but then discovers she’s actually the captain, and the whole thing was a ruse to capture him and sell him to the highest bidder. He escapes, and after that, Vera becomes his greatest foe, but never quite his equal, because Olik is the hero.
The merchant’s son feasted on those stories, supped on the de- tails, gorged himself on the mystery, the magic, and the danger. He read them until the ink had faded and the spines cracked, and the paper was foxed at the edges from being thumbed, or from being shoved into pockets hastily when his father came around to the docks to check his work.
His father, who didn’t—couldn’t—understand.
His father, who thought he was making a terrible mistake.
The tavern door swung open, and the merchant’s son tensed as a pair of men ambled in. But they didn’t look around, didn’t notice him, or the black cap he was told to wear. Still, he watched them cross the room to a table on the other side, watched them flag the barkeep, watched them settle in. He’d only been in Lon- don a few weeks, and everything still felt new, from the accents— which were sharper than he’d grown up with—to the gestures, to the clothes and the current fashion of wearing them in layers, so that each outfit could be peeled apart to reveal another, depend- ing on the weather, or the company.
The merchant’s son searched their faces. He was a wind ma- gician by birth but those were common. He had a second, more valuable skill: a keen eye for details, and with it, a knack for spotting lies. His father appreciated the talent because it came in handy when asking sailors about their inventory, how a crate was lost, why a purchase had fallen through, or vanished en route.
He didn’t know why or how he could so quickly parse a person’s features. The flickering tension between the eyes, the quick clench of teeth, the dozen tiny tugs and twitches that made up their expression. It was its own language. One that the merchant’s son had always been able to read.
He turned his attention back to the book on the table, tried to focus on the words he’d consumed a hundred times, but his mind slipped uselessly across the page.
His knee bounced beneath the table.
He shifted in his chair, and flinched, the skin at the base of his spine still raw from the brand that bound him to his chosen path. If he focused, he could feel the lines of it, the splayed fingers like spokes running out from the palm. That hand was a symbol of progress, of change, of—
Treason.
That was the word the merchant had shouted as he’d followed his son through the house.
“You only call it that,” the younger man countered, “because you do not understand.”
“Oh, I understand,” snapped the merchant, face flushing red. “I understand that my son is a child. I understand that Rhy Maresh was a brave prince, and now he is a valiant king. Seven years he’s ruled, and in that time, he has avoided a war with Vesk, opened new trade channels, channels that help us, and—”
“—and none of that changes the fact that the empire’s magic is failing.”
The merchant threw up his hands. “That is nothing but a rumor.”
“It’s not,” said the son, adjusting the satchel on his shoulder. He had already packed, because a ship to London was leaving that day, and he would be on it. “A new Antari hasn’t emerged since Kell Maresh, a quarter century ago. Fewer magicians are showing an affinity for multiple elements, and more are being born with none at all. My friend’s niece—”
“Oh, your friend’s niece—” sniped the merchant, but his son persisted.
“She’s seven now, born a month after your king was crowned. She has no power. Another friend has a cousin, born within the year. Another, a son.”
The merchant only shook his head. “There have always been those without—”
“Not this many, or this close together. It is a warning. A reck- oning. Something is broken in the world. And it’s been broken for a while. There is a sickness spreading through Arnes. A rot at the heart of the empire. If we do not cut it out, we cannot heal. It is a small sacrifice to make for the greater good.”
“A small sacrifice? You want to kill the king!”
The merchant’s son flinched. “No, we’ll motivate the people, and build their voices loud enough, and if the king is so noble as he claims, then he will understand that if he truly wants what is best for his kingdom, he will step aside and—”
“If you believe this will end without blood, then you are a trai- tor and a fool.”
The merchant’s son turned to go, and for the first time, his father reached out and caught his arm. Held him there. “I should turn you in.”
Anger burned in his father’s eyes, and for a moment, the merchant’s son thought that he would resort to violence. Panic bloomed behind his ribs, but he held the older man’s gaze. “You must follow your heart,” he said. “Just as I follow mine.”
The father looked at his son as if he were a stranger. “Who put this idea into your head?”
“No one.”
But of course that wasn’t true.
After all, most ideas came from somewhere. Or someone.
This one had come from her.
She had hair so dark, it ate the light. That was the first thing the merchant’s son had noticed. Black as midnight, and skin the warm brown that came with life at sea. Eyes the same shade, and shot through with flecks of gold, though he wouldn’t be close enough to see them until later. He’d been on the docks counting inventory when she arrived, cut like a blade through the boredom of his day.
One moment he was holding a bolt of silver lace up to the sun, and the next, there she was, peering at him through the pattern, and soon they were turning through the bolts together, and then the cloth was forgotten and she was leading him up the ramp of her ship, and laughing, not a delicate wind-chime laugh like the girls his age put on, but something raw, and wild, and they climbed down into the warm, dark hold, and he was undoing the buttons of her shirt, and he must have seen it then, the brand, like a shadow on her ribs, as if a lover had grabbed her there, burned their hand into her skin, but it wasn’t until after, when they lay flushed and happy, that he brought his own palm and fingers to the mark and asked her what it was.
And in the darkened hold, she’d told him. About the movement that had started, how fast and strong it had grown. The Hand, she’d said, would take the weakness in the world and make it right.
“The Hand holds the weight that balances the scale,” she said, stroking his bare skin. “The Hand holds the blade that carves the path of change.”
He devoured her words, as if they belonged to a novel, but they didn’t. This was better. This was real. An adventure he could be a part of, a chance to be a hero.
He would have sailed away with her that night, but by the time he returned to the docks, the ship was gone. Not that it mattered, in the end. She hadn’t been Vera to his Olik but she was a catalyst, something to turn the hero toward his purpose.
“I know you do not understand,” he’d said to his father. “But the scales have fallen out of balance, and someone must set them right.”
The merchant was still gripping his son’s arm, searching his face for answers, even though he wasn’t ready to hear them.
“But why must it be you?”
Because, thought the merchant’s son.
Because he had lived twenty-two years, and had yet to do any- thing of consequence. Because he lay awake at night and longed for an adventure. Because he wanted a chance to matter, to make a difference in the world—and this was it.
But he knew he couldn’t say any of that, not to his father, so he simply met the merchant’s eye and said, “Because I can.”
The merchant pulled him closer, cupped his son’s face in shak- ing hands. This close, he could see that his father’s eyes were glassy with tears. Something in him slipped and faltered, then. Doubt began creeping in.
But then his father spoke.
“Then you are a fool, and you will die.”
The son staggered, as if struck. He read the lines of the mer- chant’s face, and knew the man believed the words were true. Knew, then, too, that he’d never be able to convince his father oth- erwise.
The woman’s voice drifted back to him, then, up from the darkened hold.
Some people cannot see the need for change until it’s done.
His nerves hardened, and so did his resolve.
“You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “And I will show you.”
With that, the merchant’s son pulled free of his father’s hands, and walked out. This time, no one stopped him.
That had been a month ago.
A month, so little time, and yet, so much had changed. He had the brand, and now, he had the mission.
The door to the Gilded Fish swung open, and a man strolled in. His gaze swept over the tables before landing on the mer- chant’s son.
He broke into a smile, as if they were old friends, and even if the look had been leveled at someone else, the merchant’s son would have known it was a lie.
“There you are,” called the stranger as he strolled over to the table. He had the gait of a sailor, the bearing of a guard. “Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s all right,” said the merchant’s son, even as a nervous en- ergy rolled through him, half excitement and half fear. The other man carried no satchel, and weren’t there supposed to be two of them? But before he could say more, the stranger cut in.
“Come on, then,” he said cheerfully. “Boat’s already at the dock.”
He tucked the book in his back pocket and rose, dropped a coin on the table, and threw back the last of his ale, forgetting that the reason he’d left it to warm was because it was too bitter and too thick. It stuck now to the sides of his throat instead of going down. He tried not to cough. Failed. Forced a smile, one that the other man didn’t catch because he’d already turned toward the door.
As soon as they were outside, the other man’s good humor fell away. The smile bled from his face, leaving something stern and hollow in its wake.
It occurred to the merchant’s son, then, that he didn’t actually know the nature of their mission. He asked, assuming the other man would ignore him, or go out of his way to speak in code. He didn’t. “We’re going to liberate something from a ship.”
Liberate, he knew, was just another word for steal.
The merchant’s son had never stolen anything before, and the other man’s answer only bred more questions. What thing? Which ship? He opened his mouth to ask, but the words stuck like the ale in his throat as they passed a pair of royal guards. The merchant’s son tensed at the sight of them, even though he’d com- mitted no crime, not yet, unless you counted the mark smuggled under his clothes.
Which they would.
Treason, echoed his father’s voice, in time with his own heart.
But then the other man raised a hand to the soldiers, as if he knew them, and they nodded back, and the merchant’s son won- dered if they knew the truth, or if the rebellion was simply that good at hiding in plain sight.
The Gilded Fish sat less than a ship’s length from the start of the London docks, so it was a short trip, one that ended at a nar- row, nameless boat. Light enough to be sailed by a single wind magician, like himself, a fleet-bottomed skiff, the kind used for brief, fast trips, where speed was of more worth than comfort.
He followed the man up onto a short ramp onto the deck. As their boots sounded on the wood, his heart pounded just as loud. The moment felt vital, charged with power and portent.
The merchant’s son smiled, and put his hands on his hips.
If he were a character in a book, this was how his story would start. Perhaps, one day, he’d even write it.
Behind them, someone cleared their throat, and he turned to find a second man, a wiry figure who didn’t even bother to feign recognition.
“Well,” said the newest man, gaze scraping over the merchant’s son. The latter waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, he held out a hand, was about to introduce himself, but the word was still on his tongue when the first man shook his head. The second stepped forward, poked him in the chest, and said, “No names.”
The merchant’s son frowned. Olik always introduced himself. “What will we call each other?”
The other men shrugged, as if this weren’t a crucial detail.
“There are three of us,” said the one who’d collected him from the Gilded Fish.
“You can count that high, can’t you?” said the other dryly. “He’s the first. I’m the second. Guess that makes you the third.”
The merchant’s son frowned. But then, he reminded himself, numbers were often symbolic. In the stories he had read, things often came in threes, and when they did, the third was always the one that mattered. The same must be true of people.
And so, as the lines were soon thrown off, and the boat drifted in the crimson current, and turned, the royal palace looming in their wake, the merchant’s son—now the third man—smiled, be- cause he knew, from the crown of his head to the bottoms of his boots, that he was about to be the hero of this story.
And he couldn’t wait.
Excerpted from The Fragile Threads of Power, copyright © 2023 by V.E. Schwab.
