Saint Death's Daughter Read online

  Praise for SAINT DEATH’S DAUGHTER

  “A tumultuous, swaggering, cackling story, a gorgeous citrus orchard with bones for roots. Miscellaneous Stones’ journey into adulthood and power, sorting knowledge from wisdom and vengeance from justice, has an ocean’s breadth and depth, its storms and sparkles and salt. Soaring with love and absolutely fizzing with tenderness and joy—I have never read anything so utterly alive.”

  Amal El-Mohtar

  “To open a book by C. S. E. Cooney is to be seized by a

  narrative whirlwind. All around you are wonders, dangers, shattered mirrors, shooting stars; and the

  voice of the whirlwind, Cooney’s prose, is a vast,

  note-perfect song. There’s no voice like it.

  There’s none richer in fantasy today.”

  Robert V. S. Redick

  “Saint Death’s Daughter is a triumph of a book,

  gorgeous beyond measure, fizzing with Cooney’s love for language, her inventiveness in prose; it is also unbearably tender in how it addresses the idea of death and legacy, the love we can gather into a life before we

  curl to sleep in Death’s arms.”

  Cassandra Khaw

  “Cooney sets her budding young necromancer

  adrift in a dazzlingly dark, weird, engaging and

  strangely warm world alive with memorable characters, hidden secrets and sinister intrigues. This is a masterful work from a writer at the top of her game.”

  Howard Andrew Jones

  “C. S. E. Cooney’s prose once again delivers on the promise of the wild magic and music. Saint Death’s Daughter will leave you feeling she’s actually summoned a new world, and you might just stumble upon it around the next corner. Glorious.”

  Angela Slatter

  “It feels like overhearing a conversation between

  Terry Pratchett and Susanna Clarke. A total must

  if you dig footnotes or fantasy.”

  Patty Templeton

  “What happens if you are a necromancer born into a family of assassins—but you’re literally allergic to death itself? Saint Death’s Daughter is a whimsically gothy romp full of weird magic and intricate worldbuilding. Locked Tomb fans, you’ll want to read this yesterday.”

  Nicole Kornher-Stace

  “A luminous, chiming, bone-belled, ludicrous, austere, flamboyant, rhyming, reckless, affectionate novel; a giddy libation to a sly and shifting pantheon, a glittering ossuary-mosaic of incautious hope and over-generous loves, of gambling and falling and flying.”

  Kathleen Jennings

  “Cooney’s prose effervesces: each magnificent name, each glorious detail, each jig-and-reel phrase thrills like champagne bubbles on the tongue. Sumptuous, bawdy, and layered as a mille-feuille, this book is delicious, delectable, and impossible not to devour.”

  Lisa L. Hannett

  “Gorgeous, sexy, cruel and compassionate and funny. Such rich, delicious world-building and frankly lovable characters (even the baddies are compelling!). I relished every word.”

  Liz Duffy Adams

  “Saint Death’s Daughter is filled with lavish world building, lyrical prose, and characters to die for. C. S. E. Cooney is a faerie queen barely trying to pass in the mundane world. This book is as luminous and flamboyant as she is.”

  Tina Jens

  “A tantalizing hint at a fabulous backstory is followed by a mind-spinningly original bit of worldbuilding, and then that is in turn chased by an emotional arc so moving that I cried like a baby while reading at an airport gate, and nevermind all the people staring.”

  Caitlyn Paxson

  First published 2022 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-78618-632-4

  Copyright © C. S. E. Cooney

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  eBook production by Oxford eBooks Ltd.

  www.oxford-ebooks.com

  C. S. E. COONEY

  For Jeanine Marie Vaughn

  KEY TO DATES, GODS

  AND OTHER USEFUL TERMS

  Days of the Week

  Flameday, Brineday, Rainday, Rimeday, Luckday, Dustday, Hangday

  Months of the Year

  Winter: Vespers, Squalls, Barrens

  Spring: Wells, Broods, Sporings

  Summer: Flukes, Stews, Drubs

  Fall: Chases, Embers, Umbers

  The Twelve Gods of Quadiíb

  Kantu, Flying God of Thunder

  Ajdenia the Lizard Lady

  Aganath, Queen of the Sea

  Brotquen, Four-Faced Harvest Goddess

  Kywit the Captured God

  Amahirra Mirage-Shaper, Trickster God

  Engoloth, God of War and Time (and Pepper)

  Lan Satthi, the Notary God

  Wykkyrri Thousand-Beasts

  Sappacor, the Many-Gendered God of Fire

  Yssimyss of Mysteries

  Doédenna, God of Death

  The Gods of Liriat

  Sappacor (Old Sparks) and Doédenna (Saint Death)

  Rulers of Liriat

  The Blood Royal Brackenwilds

  Their Left Hands

  The Stoneses

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART 2

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  PART 3

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  PART 4

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  PART 5

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE

  Rainday 29th

  Month of Embers, 413 Founding Era

  121 days till Winter Solstice

  Amanita Muscaria Stones

  Care of Gyrlady Gelethai

  Caravan School
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  The Traveling Palaces of Higher Quadiíb

  Waystation VII

  Nita,

  They are both dead. Father, a month ago; Mother, last week.

  While I was unable to change the fact of their deaths, I did my best to raise them up after. I followed Irradiant Stones’s comprehensive treatise On the Benefits of Revitalizing Your Revenants While Their Flesh Is (More or Less) Fresh, which is—as texts on death magic go—fairly straightforward. Such a complex resurrection rite, however, requires a high holy fire feast, and alas, autumn equinox had already come and gone by the time they brought Father’s body home. When Mother died, we were nowhere near a surge. My attempts failed.

  Mostly failed. Father did open his eyes eye down in Stones Ossuary and blink a few times, but he had no more sense than a baby bird. Mother was more emphatic in her response; she spat black blood at me and cursed. (I could not understand the words. They were probably gibberish. The prevailing theory is that the dead lose their memory quickly, and without a mature necromancer’s blood to spark it back, language is the first thing to go. My own blood, alas, will not attain full maturity for a few years yet.)

  Neither of our parents’ corpses stayed animate for more than a few minutes. Their remains turned to sludge soon after I performed the rite, and I did not have opportunity for further experimentation.

  Now for more staggering news.

  Just this morning, a woman named Sari Scratch arrived at Stones Manor—along with her three sons—and announced that she was calling in all our family’s debts. I, not being aware that we had any, was disinclined to believe her, and opined that she and her progeny were all swindling imposters who would find no ready victim in me.

  But, Nita, this Mistress Scratch merely smiled at me like I was a naughty yet adorably precocious child. She summoned from the depths of her coach an ordained notary priestess of Lan Satthi, whom she had chartered to verify our family’s contract.

  The contract was then explained to me in exhaustive detail by the notary priestess herself. When we came to its end, I saw what no forger could have hoped to accomplish: all of their names—signed in their blood. Such is the magic of Lan Satthi that I’d swear the ink was still wet, though the contract was dated four years ago. There was Father’s signature, taking up half the page, Mother’s so crabbed that I had to hold the sheet up next to my face, and Aunt Diggie’s so jingled that it danced into the margins—one could practically smell the gin! The sigil of the god bound the whole contract so fast, four horses pulling in the four cardinal directions could not rip it asunder. Very professional magic.

  That being settled, and me put in my place, Mistress Scratch introduced herself properly. She and her sons originally hail from Northernmost Skakmaht, but became full citizens of Liriat four years ago. I’d not met them before, because I never meet anyone, but I don’t think even you could have crossed paths with them, Nita, for they moved to Liriat Proper a few months after you left for school. They’ve close business ties to the Blood Royal Brackenwilds, which is (I’m sure) how they met Father.

  But allow me to sum up the nature of our debts while I still have it fresh in my mind. Between Aunt Diggie’s gambling, Mother’s special chemicals and weapons requests, Father’s operas and races, and—pardon me—the cost of your schooling abroad, along with a host of other necessities and indulgences that attend the honor of our family being close intimates with the Brackenwilds, we are so deeply mired in debt that they’ll be burning us for peat in another thousand years.

  So long as Mother had her usual commissions coming in, and Father continued his work at Castle Ynyssyll, and Aunt Diggie was still moonlighting as leg-breaker for those gambling dens she frequented, we were able to keep up with the interest and our accustomed lifestyle. But now that all contracted parties have perished, one after another and in such short order, Mistress Scratch says that our assets belong to her firm. Even Goody Graves must stay with Stones Manor when it changes hands!

  Mistress Scratch ‘generously’ (her word) offered a deferment on the debt pending your return to Liriat Proper, since you are, after all, the heir and of legal age to make decisions. She also told me privately that I, too, may stay with Stones Manor, if I so chose. She then invited me to marry whichever of her sons happened to take my fancy!

  “Or all three of them,” she said, “and have yourself a passel of spouses, just like the Blackbird Bride.”

  As fascinating as I find the political magics of Bran Fiakhna and her Parliament of Rooks, I have no desire to emulate her. However, it did not seem quite diplomatic to reject Scratten, Cracchen, and Hatchet Scratch out of hand, so I told their mother that, given time—since I am only fifteen—it was not impossible I should come to regard any number of her offspring with affection.

  “It would be no bad thing,” said she, “for us Scratches to unite our name with you Stoneses. No bad thing—for either family! We know all about you Stoneses. A byword in Skakmaht!”

  I’ll just bet ‘we Stoneses’ are a byword in the north, Nita—but it’s not a word that anyone, even a Skaki, would say in polite company. Did Mistress Scratch think me ignorant of our history there? Perhaps. Perhaps she also imagined me easily buttered up by flattery, for immediately after her proposal of marriage, she began to make all manner of inquiries into our habits and traditions.

  I told her quite firmly that the nature of my allergy was such that I could not disclose any details to her, and that she would do much better to consult with you upon your return. That is, if you plan on returning.

  Nita, I understand that your expedition to Quadiíb is of paramount importance. Mother, Father, Aunt Diggie—even Blood Royal Erralierra Brackenwild!—could not have been more vehement on that point when you left four years ago. I would not have dared contact you had I not found myself in the direst of straits. I hope this situation constitutes what you would consider to be an emergency.

  The fact of the matter is, if you do not come home, we shall be cast out of our house and lands.

  Your obedient sister,

  Miscellaneous Immiscible Stones

  Stones Manor, Liriat

  Part One

  DEATH AND THE STONESES

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Heart of a Stones

  Brineday 16th

  Month of Wells, 414 Founding Era

  3 days till Spring Equinox

  It was always the same nightmare. Lanie must have had it a hundred times. A thousand.

  Nita, stretched like a late afternoon shadow, tall and ever taller. Lanie, small for her age, made smaller by cowering.

  But what alarmed Lanie most was her sister’s air of tragic calm, so unlike the happy animal cruelty she usually exhibited. Grim and gigantic, Nita stooped down, snatching Hoppy Bunny from Lanie’s grasp and swinging it to and fro by its stitched-on ears, her glowing yellow eyes following the pendulum. She hummed a little, tunelessly.

  Then, both swinging and humming stopped.

  With her huge hands, Nita began to twist. Lanie cried, No! No! but didn’t actually make a sound. Nita twisted and twisted and twisted Hoppy Bunny’s plush head until—POP!—the threads capitulated. Plump sock torso rent in two. A fountain of fine sawdust spilling out.

  Next came Nita’s voice, enormous, righteous, with none of her typical sharp glee. For once, she did not speak as predator to prey, and there was a tremble in her undertones that Lanie struggled to understand.

  “Stoneses die young,” her big sister explained patiently. “We have to grow up fast if we’re to grow up at all.”

  Hoppy Bunny’s sundered halves plonked to the ground. Lanie stared but did not dare cry. At best, Nita would laugh; at worst, Lanie would end up just like Hoppy Bunny.

  Nita bent to pocket Hoppy Bunny’s head (like Aunt Diggie, she always collected trophies), but instead of standing up again, she knelt before Lanie to stare at her straight on. Lanie shut her eyes before she could be caught in the yellow glare.

  “I won’t be here anymore to toughe
n you up, Miscellaneous,” said Nita, and for the first time that Lanie could remember, her sister sounded afraid. “Put your toys away. Work hard. Write me often. Don’t forget me.”

  Last, a terrible cold kiss on Lanie’s brow.

  Lanie was eleven when Nita left for school. And though she would regularly have nightmares about that day for years to come, what she always remembered when she woke up was this:

  The real nightmare—Nita—was gone.

  “Well, Miscellaneous! I’m home!”

  Nita flung gloves, hat, and veil at Goody Graves the moment she sailed through the door. She swept Lanie into her arms. “Oh, I’m back! It’s good to be back!”

  Lanie peered out from her sister’s formidable embrace to see Goody, stiff and antique as an old iron coat tree, covered in Nita’s effects. At a massive eight-foot-something-or-other, Goody towered over Nita by a full head and shoulders, but seemed insubstantial as fog next to the living lightning strike that was Nita.

  “Why are you just standing there, Graves?” Nita demanded, releasing Lanie abruptly. “Put my things away!”

  Lanie stuffed her hands in the pockets of her canvas apron and stepped back, away from the coiled, crackling fury that lurked just under Nita’s surface. From beneath her lashes, she watched Goody stolidly deciding whether to interpret Nita’s command as ‘drop everything on the floor and kick it under the bench,’ or ‘stuff them down Nita’s throat until they disappeared.’ Time to intervene.

  Untucking a secret smile from the side of her mouth, Lanie flashed it at Goody before turning to distract her sister. “Welcome back, Amanita Muscaria. Stones Manor hasn’t been the same without you.”

  It wasn’t a lie—Lanie had no practical experience at lying—but it wasn’t the compliment Nita took it for.

  Nita grinned, and sank on to the vestibule bench to unbuckle her tall riding boots. “Been wretchedly lonely without me, Miscellaneous?”

  “I certainly spend a great deal of time alone.”

  Goody’s cold presence fell away from the vestibule as she stumped off to obey orders. Lanie knew she’d go to some trouble ‘putting’ Nita’s things ‘away’ somewhere—and how! The cow byre? The privy closet? Lanie would find out later. At least the immediate danger of conflict had been averted.