We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from brand new epic romantasy A Fire in the Sky by Sophie Jordan—available now from Avon. Note from the publisher: Slight spoiler hints ahead!
Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is still perilous… especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it’s her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. Her only friend is Stig, Captain of the Guard… though sometimes she thinks he wants more than friendship.
When Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, descends on her home, Tamsyn’s world becomes even more dangerous. To save the pampered princesses from a fate worse than death, she is commanded to don a veil and marry the brutal warrior. She agrees to the deception even though it means leaving Stig, and the only life she’s ever known, behind.
The wedding night begins with unexpected passion—and ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride…but can he accept the dark secrets she harbors—secrets buried so deep even she doesn’t know they exist? For Tamsyn is more than a royal whipping girl, more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough to burn the entire kingdom to the bone.
Magic is not dead… it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.
Fell
Tamsyn had been gone for a while. Too Long. I didn’t like her being out of my sight. I told myself it was about being in control, about safety, about knowing where everyone was at all times: my warriors and now… Tamsyn. She was no warrior. Obviously, she should be monitored for her own protection.
Of course, it was more than that. More than I was willing to admit to myself. The feeling was different and unfamiliar, like the fit of a new sword, the grip strange in my hand.
When I returned from watering the horses, Mari pointed in the direction Tamsyn had gone, and I set off, following her meandering tracks, easy enough to find in ground still moist from the recent rain. I shook my head as they went deeper and deeper into the dense forest. She should not have strayed this far. My frustration with her was tempered by my own sense of responsibility for not keeping a more vigilant eye on her.
I crouched low, assessing, touching the freshly broken ground as another set of tracks joined hers. They belonged to a man. Blood rushed to my head. I unsheathed my sword as I stood and wildly glanced around. Heart pounding, I increased my pace, jogging lightly on booted feet, stealthily, circling and following tracks that suddenly became wild and abundant on the forest floor. Were they… running?
I resisted the urge to call out for her. I didn’t know who else was out here with her, but I didn’t need to alert them that I was on their trail.
That goal fled at her first scream.
Squawking birds bolted from their branches.
I started in one direction, my ears straining, detecting distant cries. The sounds of struggle. Thuds. Grunts. Flesh striking flesh.
Bitter saliva coated my tongue, flooding my mouth. I paused, swinging around, sword poised, roaring her name.
She did not respond. Instead, there was a man’s bellow, followed by an eruption of light from the trees to my right. An explosion. I lunged that way, smelling smoke as my sword cut through moss and foliage until I pulled up at the sight of a charred and smoldering body motionless on the ground.
I gagged at the overwhelming stench of scorched flesh. I was accustomed to the trappings of battle in all its forms. I knew the odor, but it did not make it any less offensive. I surged forward, examining the body. My chest deflated with a breath of relief. Not her. Not Tamsyn. The words reverberated through me in a comforting mantra.
I peered intently at the smoking corpse. The bulk of the damage was to the face and upper body. Hair and skin were gone, revealing only widespread patches of white and blackened tissue, but it was a man. My gaze trailed down the rest of the body.
His legs and boots were still identifiable. Recognizable. I knew those boots. My gaze went to his sword beside him. I knew the sword as well.
Arkin.
My chest sank. What was he doing out here? Dead? Had he followed her? What happened to him? And where was Tamsyn? Had the bandits followed us and decided to claim her anyway? Or was this the work of something else?
I circled sharply, muscles taut and ready to spring as I searched for her, for an attacker who had done this…
My heart seized in my chest when I spotted scraps of Tamsyn’s clothing littering the ground. The familiar fabric of her riding skirt. The blue shredded bits of her cloak.
“Tamsyn!” I roared, acrid panic eating its way up my throat.
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A branch creaked and groaned. Leaves rustled, several falling, raining over me.
My gaze shot up, searching the tree, colliding with a pair of eyes. I went cold beneath their searing regard. Dark vertical pupils flickered and shifted, snakelike, following my movements warily as I withdrew my bow and pulled an arrow from my quiver.
The beast moved, and the branch splintered under its weight. It emerged from the tree, the color of flame, and dropped, all twenty feet of it catching itself on the air, its great shuddering wings unfurling with a snap around its lithe form, creating a gust of current that lifted the hair off my shoulders.
Dragon.
The word filled my mind. Exploded into harsh reality as I stared up at the terrible beauty of it.
My focus sharpened on its talon-like fingers, at the shreds of Tamsyn’s cloak tangled there, and my stomach rebelled. Bile rose in my throat, and it was all I could do to stop from being sick.
Its face shimmered like firelight as it watched me with an intensity I took for hunger. I braced myself for a torrent of flame. The firestorm did not come.
Shaking with rage, I nocked my arrow and aimed, ready to let loose on this monster, this merciless killer. It had incinerated Arkin and taken Tamsyn, leaving only remnants of her clothing.
Those golden eyes blinked once, and then it vanished, soaring off into the sky.
My arrow fired after the creature, missing—not that it would have done much good. My arrow was simply an arrow. Long had been the day since we’d needed scale-tipped arrows.
It was gone.
Chest heaving, legs braced apart, I watched it, a bright point in the sky, until it faded from sight.
Fury and shock and a whole host of emotions seethed over my crawling skin.
The dragon was back. Or rather, it had never left.
First my parents. Then Arkin. And now Tamsyn.
My wife.
It felt as though a limb had been severed from my body. The distress I felt over that… over losing her, was knee buckling. Astonishing in its fierceness. I’d only just found the girl, only begun to contemplate that she might be someone I wanted to keep… that she might not be the princess I set out to obtain for myself, but she was more, better than anything I had imagined… the hand in the dark that I could reach for.
Staring where the dragon had once filled the sky, I vowed vengeance.
I would find it. Hunt it to the ends of the earth. Nowhere would it be at peace. Nowhere would it be safe from me.
I would kill it dead.
Excerpted from A Fire in the Sky, copyright © 2024 by Sophie Jordan.
