These burning stars, p.1
These Burning Stars, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Bethany Jacobs
Excerpt from Book Two of the Kindom Trilogy copyright © 2023 by Bethany Jacobs
Excerpt from The Blighted Stars copyright © 2023 by Megan E. O’Keefe
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover scene by Thom Tenery
Cover images by Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Charts by Tim Paul
Author photograph by Mary Ganster
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Orbit
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
orbitbooks.net
First Edition: October 2023
Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit
Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or email HachetteSpeakers@hbgusa.com.
Orbit books may be purchased in bulk for business, educational, or promotional use. For information, please contact your local bookseller or the Hachette Book Group Special Markets Department at special.markets@hbgusa.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jacobs, Bethany (Novelist), author.
Title: These burning stars / Bethany Jacobs.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2023. | Series: The Kindom trilogy ; book one
Identifiers: LCCN 2023009884 | ISBN 9780316463324 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780316463423 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Space operas (Fiction) | Science fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3610.A356417 T47 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20230331
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023009884
ISBNs: 9780316463324 (trade paperback), 9780316463423 (ebook)
E3-20230805-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Cast of Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgments
Discover More
Extras Meet the Author
A Preview of Book Two of the Kindom Trilogy
A Preview of The Blighted Stars
Praise for These Burning Stars
For Kelly, my first reader,
and for Mary, who held the hope
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Hands of the Kindom
Esek Nightfoot, a cleric
Chono, a cleric
Aver Paiye, the First Cleric
Seti Moonback, the First Cloak
Vas Sivas Medisogo, a cloaksaan
Ilius Redquill, a secretary
Rekiav, a novitiate
Khen Caskhen Paan, a cleric, murdered
Yorus Inye, a cloaksaan
The Nightfoot Family
Alisiana Nightfoot, the Nightfoot matriarch
Caskori Nightfoot, Alisiana’s uncle
The Ironway Family
Jun Ironway, a caster
Liis Konye, a former cloaksaan, and Jun’s lover
Ricari Ironway, a revolutionary, and Jun’s Great Gra
Hosek Ironway, Jun’s grandmi
Bene Ironway, Jun’s cousin
Also
Lucos Alanye, a genocider
Masar Hawks, a pirate
Saxis Foxer, a pirate captain
Phinea Runback, an archivist
Nikkelo sen Rieve, a collector
and Six
CHAPTER ONE
1643
YEAR OF THE LETTING
Kinschool of Principes
Loez Continent
The Planet Ma’kess
Her ship alighted on the tarmac with engines snarling, hot air billowing out from beneath the thrusters. The hatch opened with a hiss and she disembarked to the stench of the jump gate that had so recently spit her into Ma’kess’s orbit—a smell like piss and ozone.
Underfoot, blast burns scorched the ground, signatures from ships that had been coming and going for three hundred years. The township of Principes would have no cause for so much activity, if it weren’t for the kinschool that loomed ahead.
She was hungry. A little annoyed. There was a marble of nausea lodged in the base of her throat, a leftover effect of being flung from one star system to another in the space of two minutes. This part of Ma’kess was cold and wet, and she disliked the monotonous sable plains flowing away from the tarmac. She disliked the filmy dampness in the air. If the kinschool master had brought her here for nothing, she would make him regret it.
The school itself was all stone and mortar and austerity. Somber-looking effigies stared down at her from the parapet of the second-story roof: the Six Gods, assembled like jurors. She looked over her shoulder at her trio of novitiates, huddled close to one another, watchful. Birds of prey in common brown. By contrast, she was quite resplendent in her red-gold coat, the ends swishing around her ankles as she started toward the open gates. She was a cleric of the Kindom, a holy woman, a member of the Righteous Hand. In this school were many students who longed to be clerics and saw her as the pinnacle of their own aspirations. But she doubted any had the potential to match her.
Already the kinschool master had appeared. They met in the small courtyard under the awning of the entryway, his excitement and eagerness instantly apparent. He bowed over his hands a degree lower than necessary, a simpering flattery. In these star systems, power resided in the Hands of the Kindom, and it resided in the First Families. She was both.
“Thank you for the honor of your presence, Burning One.”
She made a quick blessing over him, rote, and they walked together into the school. The novitiates trailed behind, silent as the statues that guarded the walls of the receiving hall. It had all looked bigger when she graduated seven years ago.
As if reading her mind, the kinschool master said, “It seems a lifetime since you were my student.”
She chuckled, which he was welcome to take as friendly, or mocking. They walked down a hallway lined with portraiture of the most famous students and masters in the school’s history: Aver Paiye, Khen Sikhen Khen, Luto Moonback. All painted. No holograms. Indeed, outside the tech aptitude classrooms, casting technology was little-to-be-seen in this school. Not fifty miles away, her family’s factories produced the very sevite fuel that made jump travel and casting possible, yet here the masters lit their halls with torches and sent messages to each other via couriers. As if training the future Hands was too holy a mission to tolerate basic conveniences.
The master said, “I hope your return pleases you?”
She wondered what they’d done with her own watercolor portrait. She recalled looking very smug in it, which, to be fair, was not an uncommon condition for her.
“I was on Teros when I got your message. Anywhere is better than that garbage rock.”
The master smiled timidly. “Of course. Teros is an unpleasant planet. Ma’kess is the planet of your heart. And the most beautiful of all!” He sounded like a tourist pamphlet, extolling the virtues of the many planets that populated the Treble star systems. She grunted. He asked, “Was your trip pleasant?”
“Hardly any reentry disturbance. Didn’t even vomit during the jump.”
They both laughed, him a little nervously. They walked down a narrow flight of steps and turned onto the landing of a wider staircase of deep blue marble. She paused and went to the banister, gazing down at the room below.
Six children stood in a line, each as rigid as the staves they held at their sides. They couldn’t have been older than ten or
“Fourth-years,” she remarked, noticing the appliqués on their chests. They were slender and elfin looking, even the bigger ones. No giants in this cohort. A pity.
“I promise you, Sa, you won’t be disappointed.”
She started down the staircase, brisk and cheerful, ignoring the students. They had no names, no gendermarks—and no humanity as far as their teachers were concerned. They were called by numbers, given “it” for a pronoun. She herself was called Three, once. Just another object, honed for a purpose. Legally, Treble children had the right to gender themselves as soon as they discovered what fit. But these children would have to wait until they graduated. Only then could they take genders and names. Only then would they have their own identities.
At the foot of the staircase, she made a sound at her novitiates. They didn’t follow her farther, taking sentry on the last step. On the combat floor, she gloried in the familiar smells of wood and stone and sweat. Her hard-soled boots clacked pleasingly as she took a slow circle about the room, gazing up at the magnificent mural on the ceiling, of the Six Gods at war. A brilliant golden light fell upon them, emanating from the sunlike symbol of the Godfire—their parent god, their essence, and the core of the Treble’s faith.
She wandered around the room, brushing past the students as if they were scenery. The anticipation in the room ratcheted, the six students trying hard not to move. When she did finally look at them, it was with a quick twist of her neck, eyes locking on with predatory precision. All but one flinched, and she smiled. She brought her hand out from where it had been resting on the hilt of her bloodletter dagger, and saw several of them glance at the weapon. A weapon ordinarily reserved for cloaksaan.
This was just one of the things that must make her extraordinary to the students. Her family name being another. Her youth, of course. And she was very beautiful. Clerics deeply valued beauty, which pleased gods and people alike. Her beauty was like the Godfire itself, consuming and hypnotic and deadly.
Add to this the thing she represented: not just the Clerisy itself, in all its holy power, but the future the students might have. When they finished their schooling (if they finished their schooling), they would be one step closer to a position like hers. They would have power and prestige and choice—to adopt gendermarks, to take their family names again or create new ones. But so much lay between them and that future. Six more years of school and then five years as a novitiate. (Not everyone could do it in three, like her.) If all that went right, they’d receive an appointment to one of the three Hands of the Kindom. But only if they worked hard. Only if they survived.
Only if they were extraordinary.
“Tell me,” she said to them all. “What is the mission of the Kindom?”
They answered in chorus: “Peace, under the Kindom. Unity, in the Treble.”
“Good.” She looked each one over carefully, observed their proudly clasped staves. Though “staves” was a stretch. The long poles in their hands were made from a heavy-duty foam composite. Strong enough to bruise, even to break skin—but not bones. The schools, after all, were responsible for a precious commodity. This cheapened the drama of the upcoming performance, but she was determined to enjoy herself anyway.
“And what are the three pillars of the Kindom?” she asked.
“Righteousness! Cleverness! Brutality!”
She hummed approval. Righteousness for the Clerisy. Cleverness for the Secretaries. Brutality for the Cloaksaan. The three Hands. In other parts of the school, students were studying the righteous Godtexts of their history and faith, or they were perfecting the clever arts of economy and law. But these students, these little fourth-years, were here to be brutal.
She gave the kinschool master a curt nod. His eyes lit up and he turned to the students like a conductor to his orchestra. With theatrical aplomb, he clapped once.
It seemed impossible that the six students could look any smarter, but they managed it, brandishing their staves with stolid expressions. She searched for cracks in the facades, for shadows and tremors. She saw several. They were so young, and it was to be expected in front of someone like her. Only one of them was a perfect statue. Her eyes flicked over this one for a moment longer than the others.
The master barked, “One!”
Immediately, five of the children turned on the sixth, staves sweeping into offense like dancers taking position, and then—oh, what a dance it was! The first blow was like a clap against One’s shoulder; the second, a heavy thwack on its thigh. It fought back hard—it had to, swinging its stave in furious arcs and trying like hell not to be pushed too far off-balance. She watched its face, how the sweat broke out, how the eyes narrowed, and its upper teeth came down on its lip to keep from crying out when one of the children struck it again, hard, on the hip. That sound was particularly good, a crack that made it stumble and lose position. The five children gave no quarter, and then there was a fifth blow, and a sixth, and—
“Done!” boomed the master.
Instantly, all six children dropped back into line, staves at rest beside them. The first child was breathing heavily. Someone had got it in the mouth, and there was blood, but it didn’t cry.
The master waited a few seconds, pure showmanship, and said, “Two!”
The dance began again, five students turning against the other. This was an old game, with simple rules. Esek had played it many times herself, when she was Three. The attack went on until either offense or defense landed six blows. It was impressive if the attacked child scored a hit at all, and yet as she watched the progressing bouts, the second and fourth students both made their marks before losing the round. The children were merciless with one another, crowding their victim in, jabbing and kicking and swinging without reprieve. Her lip curled back in raw delight. These students were as vicious as desert foxes.
But by the time the fifth student lost its round, they were getting sloppy. They were bruised, bleeding, tired. Only the sixth remained to defend itself, and everything would be slower and less controlled now. No more soldierly discipline, no more pristine choreography. Just tired children brawling. Yet she was no less interested, because the sixth student was the one with no fissures in its mask of calm. Even more interestingly, this one had been the least aggressive in the preceding fights. It joined in, yes, but she wasn’t sure it ever landed a body blow. It was not timid so much as… restrained. Like a leashed dog.
When the master said, “Six,” something changed in the room.
She couldn’t miss the strange note in the master’s voice—of pleasure and expectation. The children, despite their obvious fatigue, snapped to attention like rabbits scenting a predator. They didn’t rush at Six as they had rushed at one another. No, suddenly, they moved into a half-circle formation, approaching this last target with an unmistakable caution. Their gazes sharpened and they gripped their staves tighter than before, as if expecting to be disarmed. The sweat and blood stood out on their faces, and one of them quickly wiped a streak away, as if this would be its only chance to clear its eyes.
And Six? The one who commanded this sudden tension, this careful advance? It stood a moment, taking them all in at once, stare like a razor’s edge. And then, it flew.
She could think of no other word for it. It was like a whirling storm, and its stave was a lightning strike. No defensive stance for this one—it went after the nearest student with a brutal spinning kick that knocked it on its ass, then it whipped its body to the left and cracked its stave against a different student’s shoulder, and finished with a jab to yet another’s carelessly exposed shin. All of this happened before the five attackers even had their wits about them, and for a moment she thought they would throw their weapons down, cower, and retreat before this superior fighter.
Instead, they charged.
It was like watching a wave that had gone out to sea suddenly surge upon the shore. They didn’t fight as individuals, but as one corralling force, spreading out and pressing in. They drove Six back and back and back—against the wall. For the first time, they struck it, hard, in the ribs, and a moment later they got it again, across the jaw. The sound sent a thrill down her spine, made her fingers clench in hungry eagerness for a stave of her own. She watched the sixth fighter’s jaw flush with blood and the promise of bruising, but it didn’t falter. It swept its stave in an arc, creating an opening. It struck one of them in the chest, then another in the side, and a third in the thigh—six blows altogether. The students staggered, their offense broken, their wave disintegrating on the sixth student’s immovable shore.
