Mageborn: An absolutely gripping fantasy novel (The Hollow King Book 1) Read online

  Mageborn

  An absolutely gripping fantasy novel

  Jessica Thorne

  Books by Jessica Thorne

  The Hollow King series

  Mageborn

  The Queen’s Wing series

  The Queen’s Wing

  The Stone’s Heart

  Available in Audio

  The Queen’s Wing series

  The Queen’s Wing (Available in the UK and US)

  The Stone’s Heart (Available in the UK and US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Hear More From Jessica

  Books by Jessica Thorne

  A Letter from Jessica

  The Queen’s Wing

  The Stone’s Heart

  Acknowledgements

  To my always-hero

  Prologue

  Ripples and waves of light danced on the roof of the cave, the churning maelstrom of the glowing pool beneath reflected on the centuries-old rock worn smooth by the passage of time and water. The boy with the sword stopped in the entrance, mouth agape at this wonder. The king watched, his chin resting on his fist. He might have been a statue, sitting on his broken throne in front of the pool, bathed in the shifting light. The polished obsidian rock from which the throne was carved mirrored that light like a living thing, and he was a shadow, a void, an empty space upon the seat. Outside, the roses adorning the approach had all burned days ago, incinerated by the magical wildfires which had consumed the valley beyond the cave. Only the thorns remained, black and brittle. The boy had cut his way through them.

  It came down to this. All his power, all his might, armies born of magic to command, godhood coursing through his veins – and a boy with a sword come to stop him.

  And the boy would stop him. He had to. He had to stop them all. It was the only hope left. The Hollow King had been praying for someone, anyone, who could do that. But this?

  He didn’t look like a hero. He definitely didn’t look like a would-be king.

  The Maegen – that source of magic, light and dark, that place where anything was possible – stole the intruder’s breath, making the king forget why he was here in hiding. He could kill the boy now, in this moment. No one would ever know. The boy probably wouldn’t know either.

  It would be quick. He could make it quick.

  But the Hollow King didn’t move. To do it was to forsake everything he was, everything he could be. To do it was to fall. He sat as still as stone.

  ‘Kill him,’ the Little Goddess whispered from behind his throne. Her voice was sweet and beguiling, but her words were terrible. He heard the echo of otherness in her, the Deep Dark, that from which he really fled. That which was infecting all the mageborn and driving them to acts too terrible to continue.

  ‘Kill him, or let us have him,’ the Deep Dark whispered from behind her.

  His unholy brethren rose like a tangle of briars, ready to consume him, to devour the world, to take the boy and tear him limb from limb.

  The Hollow King wasn’t fooled. He’d resisted them this long. Just a little longer. He had to. He held up his hand and forced them back into the shadows. It was harder every time.

  The strain must have shown on his face. The boy gazed at him with dark eyes, black like the polished obsidian on which the king sat. But not cold. There was compassion there. Warmth.

  ‘You’re him, aren’t you?’ he said. Not the voice of a warrior. The Hollow King had no knowledge of human lives, of human years or ages. They were new to him, living brief lives and vanishing. Like mayflies. But he recognised youth. And innocence.

  It burned in the back of his infinite mind. All the ways he could deal with this upstart, this irritant, this usurper…

  Ah… the Deep Dark was ever cunning. Whispers, voices that sounded like his own thoughts, murmurs that could seduce and beguile.

  ‘They told me you were a monster,’ the boy said.

  He didn’t have much of a survival instinct. How could he? Coming here of all places, with that sword…

  A broken laugh echoed around the chamber and the Maegen rippled, throwing up a rainbow of lights into the darkness. It took a moment for the Hollow King to recognise that laughter as his own.

  ‘I’ve been called worse. What do you want, boy?’

  A flicker of annoyance passed over his delicate features. ‘I’m fifteen.’

  Fifteen. Only fifteen years in this world and he thought he could defeat a god. Was that common for humans? That belief? That arrogance? Probably.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his tone. The Little Goddess edged forward, slinking past him and showing all her teeth, white and gleaming like wet bone. The circlet crowning her head glittered like a starry midnight amid her thick curls.

  The boy’s face paled. His grip on the weapon tightened. A ridiculously long sword. He could barely lift it.

  His sister, the Little Goddess, laughed. ‘This? This is what we hide from?’

  No. Not this. This was just the surgeon come to deal with the source of the infection. What they hid from was much worse. The Deep Dark had made it and it would consume them all. But she could not see that. Not when it consumed her as well.

  It wouldn’t be long. It would take him too. It was only a matter of time.

  ‘Run away, little boy,’ the goddess sang to him. ‘Run back to your mother’s skirts.’

  Something tightened in the boy’s face. Something hard and bitter, determined. ‘My family are dead. The mageborn killed them all.’

  ‘The mageborn are beyond control now,’ the Hollow King sighed. He had heard such things before, too many times.

  ‘Not for you,’ the boy said. ‘I want… I’m here to offer…’

  The Hollow King pushed himself up from the broken throne. The Maegen called him. The Deep Dark called him. It whispered words of comfort, sweet enticements. It was running wild through his mageborn and soon it would take him too. It was inevitable. Why fight it any more?

  ‘There’s nothing you can offer.’

  ‘At least let him offer,’ the Little Goddess said greedily. There was mockery in her every word. ‘What is he offering? Himself, body, mind and soul? I haven’t had a slave in too long. But he wouldn’t be enough. He’d die too soon. Humans are so frail. His descendants, maybe? His world? Let’s hear him out.’

  The Hollow King stared into the churning depths of the pool. The shadows beneath the light swirled and uncoiled. Beckoning him. They were hungry too. He could hear their hunger in his sister, feel it in himself. Only a matter of time.

  He dropped to his knees. All it would take was to let himself fall. Give up. End it all.

  Except it would never end. He would feed the Deep Dark and it would devour everything else. The Little Goddess might welcome it but he didn’t. The mageb
orn were lost to him already. Everything he had worked for, wanted…

  ‘I’m here to offer you a way out,’ said the boy.

  There was no way out. This child of hope knew nothing. The Hollow King took off his crown. He cradled it in his hands, staring from it to the luminous waters of magic beneath.

  All it would take was for him to finally give up. Break the crown. Fall. Be consumed and lost. Do what they wanted at last.

  ‘Please,’ the boy cried. In a fit of despair, he dropped the ridiculous sword and threw himself forwards. The crown cracked before he made it.

  But his hands shot out, almost touching the Maegen, and he caught the pieces before they could vanish into it. He knelt beside the king, holding them back, holding him back.

  ‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Please listen to me. I want to offer you a deal. A pact. Please.’

  The Hollow King stared down into those endless dark eyes, so full of faith and hope. And for a moment he too believed. Maybe… maybe… there was a way.

  ‘Don’t!’ his sister cried out. ‘Please, my liege, don’t do this.’

  He was so tired. Tired of being a king, tired of the struggle, tired of trying to make it right. Besides, he knew better than to listen to her. She could make you think day was night if it served her purpose. And it never ended well.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the boy.

  ‘Larelwynn. Lucien Larelwynn.’

  His hands shook as he held the pieces of the broken crown. He was terrified. But he wasn’t running away. Larelwynn believed in something.

  If his belief had bid him to come here, face a monster, and save the crown – or what was left of it – perhaps the Hollow King could believe as well.

  Belief was power. But more than that. Belief could save them all.

  ‘And what is this pact?’

  Chapter One

  The body looked like nothing more than a tangled heap of flesh. That wasn’t the worst of it. The first thing that hit Grace as she entered the coffin-narrow house was the smell, that lingering sweet-sickly stench which meant she already knew what she was going to find by the time she stepped into the murky room. Nothing good.

  It was never anything good.

  ‘Daniel, check out the back and meet up with Ellyn. Kai, with me.’

  The big northerner fell into step with her, his eyes downcast. He was half her height again and twice her width, all broad shoulders and brawn. But he wasn’t here for his physical strength. Kai’s skill with magic was second to none. And that just made this harder for him. He looked tense, on edge, but he had been the whole way here. He knew what to expect, too.

  So by the time they made their way through the door and saw it, saw what had been left behind for them to find, the urge to throw up was largely under control.

  It still sickened her. She would have been worried if it didn’t. Really worried.

  Nothing moved inside the hovel they’d been led to. Not even the air. It was a morass of pain and misery, of destruction, that made her skin itch beneath the surface. It lingered there, in the air, in the shadows.

  When did I last smell something this bad, she wondered, but she knew the answer to that. The last time she’d been called to a scene like this.

  Kai’s face had turned ash grey, drained of colour, miserable. The collar around his neck was a stark line of black leather, softened with age. It marked him for what he was. Mageborn.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she murmured, the way she’d talk to a spooked stallion. She tried not to fiddle with the line of sigils on her belt. She didn’t want to activate them too soon. ‘What can you sense?’

  ‘Not much,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘He took his time. Enjoyed himself. There’s a stink all over this. Worse than the last.’

  An understatement.

  She assessed it. A poor home in the cheap end of the city, deep in Eastferry, poorest of the poor quarters. Lots of immigrants, lots of desperate people, lots of victims, everyone jumbled together. No one asked too many questions. No one dared. The killer knew this. Damn him.

  ‘I know.’

  Four bodies so far, over four weeks, always in parts of the city where the most wretched lived. His prey were all women and all mageborn. Nothing dark or dangerous about them, attending their days of homage without fail, using their powers for the sake of all. Every one of them left like this. In the dark, alone, twisted and broken. Not dead. Not yet.

  That would have been a mercy.

  As Grace looked down on the mangled shape of the victim, she moved. Just for a moment.

  The whimper was unmistakable. Broken, barely human. Not any more.

  ‘Shit,’ Kai said. It wasn’t shock or surprise. It was despair.

  Grace felt her heart sink as she knelt down. They’d had to do this before, Kai once, her the other time. They hadn’t realised with the first one until it was too late.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered and reached out to hold what had once been a hand. Her skin recoiled at the taint of the magic coursing through the woman’s flesh. But with Kai there, blocking the worst of it, she knew she was safe. ‘I’m going to make it stop now.’

  A pulse of hope, a slight press on her fingers. Another smothered whimper. Please.

  Her knife was quick and practised. The little blood on it was black and congealed. He’d even mangled the blood in her veins.

  Kai muttered a prayer and nodded as Grace looked up. The pain on his face was evident, the pressure all around them making her teeth ache. As this was magic, illegal and uncontrolled, it took a lot to push it back.

  Did he feel it the same way she did? Did the magic in him amplify it as he tried to block it out? Was it a constant battle?

  And then she heard it, a movement upstairs. Her gaze shot up to the damp-mottled ceiling. The abandoned house wasn’t a large building, little more than a shack when you got down to it. This room downstairs and maybe two smaller ones up the steps that were closer to a glorified ladder.

  ‘Find the others,’ she told Kai in a voice soft as a lover’s sigh. ‘Secure the exits.’

  ‘But…’

  Grace didn’t wait to hear him protest. She knew what he would say, and he was right – she shouldn’t be going alone, especially not in this case. But the moment he said it, it would be real and she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t give him the chance.

  They’d hunted this one for weeks and he’d always been a step ahead. Always. And now he was here. He had to be here. His magic still twisted away inside his victim. He’d want to wait until she died, to feel the last connection die with her.

  If Grace hesitated, even just long enough to get the others, he’d give them the slip again.

  The knife had been a birthday present from her squad. Daniel, Ellyn and Kai knew her well. Ellyn liked jewellery, but if Grace wanted something shiny it needed to have a sharp edge to it. Anything Daniel owned tended to get lifted and sold by his brother and he didn’t have the heart to say anything. Just pretended it didn’t matter and carried on. And Kai… well, who knew what Kai wanted? A break, probably.

  Grace forced her muscles to uncoil, loosening limbs honed to fight for as long as she could remember. She deepened her breath and let her senses extend around her. She told herself it wasn’t magic. Not really. Just a knack she had, and not one she felt particularly inclined to share with her superiors. The team knew, or at least guessed, that she could do it. But it wasn’t magic. A remnant perhaps, a ghost of what she had once possibly been. It gave her an edge. That was all.

  And she needed it. Every time.

  Her free hand brushed against one of the sigils and she felt it hum into life. Other officers – mundane, quotidian officers without a drop of magic coursing through their veins – had to wait for a mageborn to be in range before they could fire up a sigil. Luckily for her, she had that one small advantage. It had kept her alive on more than one occasion.

  The shadowy figure lurched towards her the moment her head came level with the top of the
stairs and she bent back to evade him. She swung up, launching herself into the air. There was barely enough room but she twisted at the last moment and came down like a cat, facing him in the unfurnished attic room. The sigil unfurled from her hand and flew at him, perfectly aimed, heading right for his throat.

  And impossibly, moving so fast she barely saw, he dodged it. The sigil reformed, changing from a streak of light back into metal, and thudded into a beam behind him.

  He drew back his lips in a semblance of a smile. Or a snarl. ‘Well now, secrets of your own, eh?’

  Her quarry’s voice was thin and guttural, barbed with laughter even as it chilled her blood. He wasn’t tall, strong, or impressive, and he didn’t look like a monster, just a mediocre man with a horror inside him. No one would ever have picked him out of a line-up; a round face, glossy with a sheen of sweat, and vicious eyes which gazed at her too intently.

  She pulled a second sigil free. She just had to get it around his neck. She just had to keep him busy. A sigil acted almost like a Leech, although whereas that particular branch of the mageborn drained magic, a sigil would merely contain it, turning the body housing it into a prison. This was shaped like a triple spiral and its weight was perfect for throwing. At her touch it glowed, the power in her bringing it to life. ‘Give it up, Gore.’

  Call the monster what he was. Name him and know him. Let him know you recognise him. It was the best way. Craine had taught her that.