Amulet Rampant (Princes' Game 3)

In an effort to stop a war and hold the Thorn Throne, the Chatcaavan Emperor has embarked on the bloody subjugation of the rebels who are tearing the Empire apart to serve their ambitions. He has left the palace in the hands of the newly christened Queen Ransomed and encircled her with his allies.

One of them is a traitor.

All the lessons the Queen has learned---in personhood, in agency, in courage---may not be enough to equip her for the challenges before her. Nor is she the only one facing a revelation that could shatter worlds: Lisinthir Nase Galare, newly returned to the Alliance, has invited his cousin to their promised assignation, and discovered by accident a weapon that could turn the tide.

Book Three of the Princes' Game begins with a tryst and ends with a clarion call to battle. How many will answer the call? And will they see the end of the conflict unchanged?

The war is waiting.

Genre (setting): space opera (Pelted)
Tags: psychology, ensemble cast, tryst/romance, politics, dragons, elves (space)
Rating: R for violence, explicit sexual situations

AUDIO NOTE: 

The audiobook for this book is incomplete... sales of the first seven chapters will be used to purchase the rest of it, once the narrator is once again available.

 

Excerpt from the Prologue

She had asked, and he had made her a promise. Given all that had passed, she did not know why she was surprised that he kept it.

“My Queen has asked to see the sea,” the Emperor said, standing on the topmost step of her tower. Startled, she slid from the sill by the window, where she’d been watching the sunrise and fighting her melancholy. Her eyes must have given her away, for he added, quiet, “I looked outside for contrails, too.”

“I know he won’t be back,” she said. “But I feel it like a wound. That he isn’t here.”

“I think he will be back. But we must make it safe for him first.” He offered his hand. “Come. I have a little time before I must be back at the work. Let us see the shore.”

She slipped her hand over his palm, remembering another touch, so similar to have begun such a chain of events.

“What is it, that makes you look so pensive?” he asked as they started back down the steps.

“Remembering. It was how the Ambassador made a gift of his pattern to me, by offering the palm.”

“Mmm. Yes. We will discuss that later.”

She glanced at him. “My lord?”

“Later,” he said again. “Tonight.”

The trip to the shore took longer than she expected. From her tower window, it seemed a straight drop to the sea, and perhaps it was: for the winged. But she could not fly and he could not carry her, so he drove her—drove her!—in a sleek vehicle designed for more dangerous tasks than the ferrying of one crippled Chatcaavan female down the cliffs to the shore.

It was nothing like the sight of it from her distant window. There was only a thin strip of land between the rocks and the beating of the water; she could not step onto it without being slapped by the surf. And the tide was cold and clung to her feet after it receded, leaving a film and streamers of thin weedy vines. The smell of it was wild and intense, and inhaling on a gasp she realized this was the source of the foreign scent that drifted through her windows… except by the time it reached her tower, it was diffuse, like a memory. She bent, careful of her balance, and ran her hands over the silky froth that broke from the waves as they smashed against the stones around her. Looking over the surface of the ocean, she saw the horizon and all the mystery beneath it that she would never plumb. Unlike the sky, though, the depths were a mystery no Chatcaava would.

“Can we swim?” she asked, breathless with awe.

“With difficulty.” The Emperor remained on one of the mounded rocks, crouched with wings spread just enough to steady him. The wind ruffled his mane back from the crown of black horns framing his face, tugged at the wing vanes so that he had to shift them constantly, slight adjustments she found fascinating to watch. “We are not made for it, but it can be done. But not here.”

“Because it is not the homeworld’s sea?”

His tone was amused. “Because there are rocks under the water that are sharp as teeth, and the current is unrelenting. It would take a strong swimmer to avoid his death.” He canted his head. “Is it all you imagined, my Treasure?”

“No,” she said, straightening with dripping hands. “It is more than I imagined, because I did not have the experience to imagine it.”

“Ahhhh.”

Just that. But he did not move from the rock, nor rush her, nor even speak. That suited her. There was too much here for her to speak around it. All the world that she had been barred from, all the experiences she had never had the courage to desire… it hurt too much, to know what she had paid to become the female—to become the person—who could embrace them. And yet she would have done nothing differently, save, perhaps, to beg the Ambassador to remain. Even then—she turned from the shore at last and saw the Emperor awaiting her—even then, she might not have changed anything.

“Come, my Treasure,” he said. “I must be getting back.”

“Yes,” she said, and felt the shock of his wing curling around her back, over her useless pinions. Glancing up at him, she added, “Will you come to me later?”

“There is much to discuss,” he said.

Promise enough for her. She dipped her head and let him guide her back to the waiting vehicle, and the tower.