Kingdom of Essence

PLEASE NOTE: THIS PREVIEW IS UNEDITED AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE BEFORE THE FINAL COPY OF THE BOOK IS PUBLISHED.

Chapter 1

Elitsa shoved the door closed with her fist, her eyes sweeping the windowless room as her mark spun around with a startled gasp. The man was dressed as a laborer, his travel-stained clothes rumpled and worn. His face was too lean, the bones of his face sharp beneath sunken eyes. Another essence farmer unable to meet the terms of his contract.

Reclamations had been satisfying once, even fun, but Elitsa’s exhilaration had waned long ago. Now it was simply a job, often tedious and thankless, but a means to an end. “Mr. Janso. I’m a Tower reclamation agent, and you’re in breach of contract. Give me the relic, and I’ll be on my way.” She looked him over for weapons. She didn’t expect to find any, but it was a habit that’d saved her more than once. Anyone could be dangerous, even a hungry, sweet-faced kid on the street. To survive here, you either grew wings or claws.

Desperation shone in Janso’s pale blue eyes, and he fumbled with a chain around his neck, pulling free a silvery medallion. Lightly tarnished, the relic was shaped into the round face of a barn owl.

Elitsa sighed, a hiss of air between her teeth, but he didn’t attack. Instead, Janso hesitated, eyes darting from the door behind her to her face. She’d seen that look before. He was questioning if she was what she claimed. She knew she didn’t look very threatening or authoritative. When she wanted the element of surprise, this often worked to her advantage, but right now, Elitsa had no desire to fight or chase him half-across the city. Please don’t underestimate me, she thought, tiredly.

Janso hadn’t been hard to find, though it’d taken two days before she’d caught up with him. Whatever essence he’d been extracting for the Tower, it’d sent him up into the mountains north of Rivna for months at a time. He was foolish to have come back, but perhaps he had a family. Someone who’d miss him if he never came home.

The man’s fingers tightened on the relic.

“Careful, Mr. Janso,” Elitsa warned, bracing her feet. “Attacking an agent is a bad idea.” Especially one who was tired and hungry and longed for a bath. She focused on the magesilver earrings in her ears, past the cool metal to the essences trapped inside. It was like following the limb of a tree, feeling where the trunk became root, growing down into the soil, an expanded awareness of something deep and ignored. Swirls of color bloomed in her mind, the elemental shapes of air, earth, and fire.

Janso licked his lips, his indecision plain, as his eyes moved down her long coat. He was probably searching for relics, but he wouldn’t find them. Elitsa’s shoulder-length brown hair covered her ears, and as the magesilver pierced her skin, she didn’t have to touch them like he did. The farmer should have left the medallion inside his shirt against his skin; perhaps he’d never used it to fight. “How do I know you’re from the Tower?”

Elitsa gave him an irritated look, then reached for the scarf around her neck, shifting the patterned fabric so Janso could see the inside of her coat collar. Her agent pin was there, a silver hand holding a curl of flame. “See? I’m not a rogue, Mr. Janso.” Was it too much to wish just once they’d believe her?

“Please, I haven’t hurt anyone.” His voice became soft, imploring. “I’m just trying to provide for my family. You can understand that, can’t you?”

What she understood is that he hadn’t been clever enough to avoid getting caught. She couldn’t help him, and it was unfair for him to think she could. They were all just trying to survive. “Spare me your sob story. You broke the rules, and I’m here to collect. It’s as simple as that.”

The faint sweet scent of birch and wet moss touched Elitsa’s nose as Janso tightened his hand on the medallion. He was drawing on a tree’s essence, likely planning to enhance his strength to try and overpower her.

Elitsa raised her hand, warningly, and readied an essence of air. A blue swirl of light, like a transparent ribbon, fluttered in her mind’s eye. She could smell the breeze, remember the mountain she’d gathered it on and how it’d blown through her hair. “Careful. I don’t want to hurt you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Give me the relic.” She held his gaze, saw the flicker of desperate resolve. “Think of your family, Mr. Janso. You can’t provide for them if you’re injured or dead. You’re lucky I was assigned to you. I could have taken the relic when I entered this room, but I didn’t. I want you to be able to walk home to your family.”

Janso stared at her, eyes wide, then his shoulders slumped, the smell of trees fading. “They told me I’d earn enough to support my family, but I can barely pay my contract. The essences they want? The ones they’ll actually pay for? They’re near impossible to find. I can’t afford to harvest, but I can’t afford to stop.”

Elitsa took a careful step forward, keeping her eyes on his. “This year has been hard for everyone. Your survival is up to you and what you choose to do next.” That’s all life really was. Choices. Whether to give up or claw your way to the surface.

Janso clutched the medallion as though it held his salvation. “I need the relic to harvest, to feed my family. I know I shouldn’t have sold to the Smoke Eyes, but they pay more per essence. It was the only way to pay my fees to the guild, to eat. Please, Miss. Tell them I won’t do it again. I promise!”

Elitsa’s stomach murmured as if in shared commiseration. There was a cost to harvesting essence. Despite a relic’s assistance, each extraction drew on your body’s energy. Eating could replenish what you lost, but if you could barely afford food, how long you could work was limited, even dangerous. She thought longingly of the garlic rye bread in her room, a gift from Pipene. “I’m sorry, Mr. Janso, but the terms of your contract are up to the Tower. I can’t speak on your behalf.” She took another slow step forward, expecting him to move back, but Janso just stared at her.

“The Smoke Eyes approached me; I didn’t seek them out. I was going to say no, but I—”

“Mr. Janso. The relic.” Her irritation had slipped into her voice. Why did they always think they could convince her to let them go?

“Nevena, my daughter, she’s sic—”

Elitsa’s hand caught Janso in the center of his chest, driving the air from his lungs. He let go of the medallion as he staggered back, and she ripped it from his neck in a fast, violent motion. Shock and pain twisted Janso’s face, and then he fell onto the bed behind him. The faint hope lighting his eyes flickered out, replaced by fear.

Breathing hard, Elitsa stared down at him, a confusing storm of fury and horror tightening her throat. The way he was looking at her twisted her stomach. He was a person, a human being, and she was treating him like a simple transaction. A mark in a ledger. When had she become so callous? So focused on herself that she could ignore the plea in his eyes?

Elitsa looked at the owl-faced medallion in her hand, recalling a story her mother, Branka, had told her as a child. Long ago, when Mother Moon and Father Sun walked Cerana, a man had desired to become a god. He’d stolen the essence from one of Mother’s owls to ascend and, using its claw, rose into the heavens on gray-spotted wings. Instead of welcoming him as he’d expected, Mother Moon cast the man back down, cursing him to live as the creature he’d killed, a messenger of death.

Now, seeing herself through Janso’s eyes, the story felt personal. Is this who I want to be? A mindless messenger of loss and ruin? Elitsa had fought for her place in the guild’s organization, not because she believed in them, but because she’d thought they were her best chance to find her mother’s killer. But instead of justice, she’d only succeeded in protecting the mages’ wealth and influence. How many lives had Elitsa helped destroy by being an obedient hound for the Tower?

The guilt and disappointment she should feel didn’t come, and that was somehow worse than any self-reproach. She’d allowed herself to stop caring. If she continued on this path, what would she become? The need to do something good took stubborn root inside her chest, thorns of urgency digging deep. Elitsa rubbed a finger over the owl’s eyes, thinking. The guild didn’t know what essences, if any, Janso currently had. Sometimes Elitsa returned relics with a few still trapped inside, but sometimes she kept them for herself, storing the harvested essence in jars beneath the floorboards of her room. A small act of practical and selfish rebellion with minimal risk. She could help Janso if she wanted, ensure his daughter didn’t go to bed hungry.

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS PREVIEW OF

Kingdom of Essence

ON SALE OCTOBER 25, 2021