Lobb Disciples of Chaos

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80336-545-9
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 368 Seiten

The #1 Sunday Times bestselling Seven Faceless Saints duology concludes. Romance, revolution and mystery intertwine as a young rebel and palace guard hunt a murderer in this gripping YA set in a world inspired by Florence, Italy. Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Kerri Maniscalco. Damian Venturi isn't aware of it yet. But as small shifts start to crack the foundations of the Ombrazian power structure after the Rebellion's attack, cracks are beginning to show in Damian's own facade. Uncontrollable anger is bubbling to the surface and can't always be pushed down. Can he keep everyone safe, even from himself? Rossana Lacertosa should feel victorious. She accomplished everything she set out to do, and more. The Rebellion's attack set countless prisoners free and brought attention to the unfairness in the Palazzo's structure. And Damian is back by her side where he belongs. Yet the war with Brechaat rages on and government officials are hellbent on keeping the status quo. Then an Ombrazian general arrives from the front lines, and orders dozens of arrests, shipping Roz and Damian's friends up north. Determined to free those who matter most, Roz and Damian set their sights on Brechaat. But on their journey to hell on earth, Roz will need to face the fact that Damian is not just shifting further from the boy she used to know, but down a dark path into chaos. The complications of love, magic, faith, and war will keep readers eagerly turning the pages as they head towards the gripping conclusion in the Seven Faceless Saints duology.

M. K. Lobb is a fantasy writer with a love of all things dark- be it literature, humour, or general aesthetic. She grew up in small-town Ontario and studied political science at both the University of Western Ontario and the University of Ottawa. She now lives by the lake with her partner and their cats. When not reading or writing, she can be found at the gym or contemplating the harsh realities of existence.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lobb, M. K.

Leseproben

1

DAMIAN

As a child, Damian Venturi had always longed to be more story than boy.

He’d cut his teeth on tales of the saints and the disciples blessed with their magic. He’d dreamed of glory in the northern war, gripping weapons in hands that didn’t shake. He’d envisioned captaining ships across star-studded waters and standing at the edge of the world, shoulders squared in holy righteousness. He’d imagined falling in love.

He’d pictured it all with Strength at his side, certain that his father’s patron saint would one day bless him, too.

The thought made Damian’s lips twist as he knelt beside Battista Venturi’s gravestone. The glistening slab of marble was longer than his father had been tall, opulent and unnecessary. A grand bit of rock for a man who’d thought himself quite grand indeed.

No matter how many times he came here, Damian couldn’t shake the haze of bitterness. His frustration was an unforgiving thing. When his father had died, Damian had known despair. He’d watched crimson spread across the stark white of the Palazzo floor and felt the dull, inescapable thrum of that despair in his bones. It was as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice. Now, though, he was shedding layers of misery like ill-fitting clothes and replacing them with years’ worth of repressed anger.

He tented his fingers in the lush grass, nails scraping the dirt. The saints, if they were out there somewhere, weren’t in the business of liberation. Disciples died like any flesh-and-blood creature. Death made equals of them all.

Damian should know. He’d buried a bullet in a disciple himself. And perhaps that was the reason he kept coming here: to make himself suffer. To endure some sort of penance for the fact that he’d killed yet again, and this time had been the worst. Worse even than the swift deaths he’d carried out during his time on the northern front.

Because this time it had been so fucking easy.

“I bet you wish you’d seen that, don’t you?” Damian murmured to the gravestone, gaze sweeping the familiar epitaph: BATTISTA VENTURI—ESTEEMED GENERAL, HONORED BY STRENGTH. His father would be remembered not as a loving husband or doting father, but by his role and status. Given the man he’d become by the end, Damian supposed it was apt.

He brushed off his hands and pushed himself to stand, swallowing the acrid taste in the back of his throat. As he shifted, sunlight glanced off the flat stone. It felt like a mockery.

“I wondered if I’d find you here.”

Roz Lacertosa drew up beside him, mouth set in a hard line. She was as beautiful and unruffled as always: high-necked black shirt baring only a glimpse of her slender throat, long dark hair drawn into a tight ponytail. She stared at Battista’s grave, her expression of vague distaste unwavering. Damian couldn’t very well blame her.

“How long have you been out here?” Roz trailed her fingers up the small of Damian’s back. Her touch made him shudder, and he shrugged.

“Not long.”

It was a lie, and the weight of her cutting gaze told him she knew it. Her fingers found his chin, and she turned Damian’s face to hers in a grip that demanded no argument.

“He doesn’t deserve this . . . vigil. Besides, Enzo killed him—not you.”

Damian gently removed her hand from his face and pulled her into his chest, inhaling the scent of her skin. He pressed his lips against the side of her neck.

“Damian, please,” Roz said, gripping his bicep. The words, though, were tinged with humor. “Not in front of your father.”

He snorted, pulling her away from the Palazzo’s sparse graveyard. His spirits were already lifting. The summer wind was warm, a trailing caress through his hair, and he could hear the crashing waves of the sea in the near distance.

“Your hands are dirty,” Roz observed, holding up their intertwined fingers. The revelation didn’t appear to bother her, but Damian cringed, attempting to disentangle himself.

“Sorry.”

She held fast. “What were you doing?”

He gave up, not wanting to let go of her regardless. “The chthonium Enzo had left on each of the victims’ bodies? I buried it beside my father. I didn’t want to have to look at it anymore.” Truly, he didn’t know why he’d kept it as long as he had. He would never forget the way it had been shoved into the empty eye sockets of those the disciple had murdered.

“You should have thrown it in the sea,” Roz said, squeezing his hand tighter. “But good—I’m glad. Some things are better buried and forgotten.”

Damian didn’t bother telling her he could never forget what Enzo had wrought in their city. He changed the subject. “How did your meeting with the rebels go?”

She seemed to consider the question as she walked at his side, boots tapping against the cobblestones of the wide path leading up to the Palazzo.

“As well as could be expected, I suppose.” She gave a haughty toss of her ponytail. “Some of them are still hesitant to trust me. They’ll be at the meeting, though.”

“You mean they’re hesitant to trust me.” Damian was, of course, referring to how Roz’s friends hadn’t been at all pleased to discover she’d been working alongside a security officer.

She blinked against the late afternoon sun, lashes casting long, delicate shadows on her cheeks. “They trust you enough to guarantee their safety at the meeting. Besides, they know you helped solve the murders, and that we’re friends.”

“I’m sorry,” Damian said, thrusting an arm out to stop her in her tracks. “Did you say we were friends?”

Roz’s blue eyes darkened in feral amusement. “We’ve always been friends, Venturi.”

“I think you know that’s not what I meant.”

She made a low hum in the back of her throat, glancing skyward as she feigned consideration. “So we’re not friends?”

“Rossana . . . ,” Damian growled. They’d reached the side of the Palazzo, and Roz shoved him over to the wall until his back was flush against the cool stone. He could have resisted, of course, but he didn’t.

“Do you want them to know I can’t stand to be away from you?” she murmured, hands exploring the planes of his chest. There was wickedness in the curve of her smile. “Do you want them to know I’m obsessed with the sound of your laugh and the feel of your skin?”

Damian meant to answer, but Roz claimed his mouth with hers. It might have been a chaste thing, had she not been in the process of slipping her fingers beneath the hem of his shirt. A single touch of her lips, and he was consumed by fire. He never tired of kissing Roz. The press of her body against his, the familiar sweet scent of her hair, the way their mouths fit together as if they’d been created solely for that singular contact . . . But she pulled away too soon, taking with her the gasp she’d drawn from somewhere in his chest.

Her eyes lifted to his again, and Damian knew they were battling the same unspoken thoughts. They had been for days, and yet something kept them from voicing the subject. It was easier that way. Easier for Damian to go about his work at the Palazzo, trying to force some semblance of order following the deaths of Battista and Chief Magistrate Forte. Easier for Roz to spend time with her mother in the apartment that used to be Piera’s and focus on what came next for the rebellion.

“Just say it,” Damian said hoarsely, arms dropping to his side. “I can tell you keep putting it off, so just say it, Roz.”

She scanned his face, her own expression hard. Not suspicious, but searching. “I thought it might upset you.”

“That you can see what’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Roz, please.” Damian dragged a hand down the side of his face, still warm from kissing her. He remembered her words from last week: I see you. Even the dark parts. “When I killed Enzo, I felt good about it. There’s something . . . bad inside me.”

She gave an obstinate lift of her chin. “You thought he’d just murdered me. I’d be pissed if you didn’t feel at least a little satisfaction.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Damian waited, wondering if she would say more. If she would admit she’d noticed the flashes of wild fury that sliced through him when he wasn’t expecting it. He’d felt it that night, and it had been happening more frequently in the days since. After nearly three years at the front, he was accustomed to flashbacks, but this was something else altogether. There were strange, terrifying moments during which he felt too big for his skin. As if he wanted to rip free of his own body the way Enzo had stepped out of the chief magistrate’s form, letting the illusion of flesh fall to bloody pieces around him. Nothing about the feeling was right. When a disciple of Chaos was stalking Ombrazia’s streets, Damian had thought he was losing his mind. Now that Enzo was dead, shouldn’t that fear have died with him?

But it hadn’t. If anything, it was worse than ever.

“We went through a lot,” Roz said, interlacing their fingers and using her thumb to stroke the back of his. Although the action was intended to comfort, the words were not. They were simply a statement of fact. Roz rarely tried to soothe—she spoke what she perceived to be the truth. “You’re spending...