“Prepare for a snow-frosted, blood-drenched fairy tale where the monsters steal your heart and love ends up being the nightmare.” - Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Touched Queen
WICKED SAINTS by EMILY A. DUNCAN
Publication date: April 2, 2019
Published by: St. Martin's Press/Wednesday Books
Genre: YA fantasy
A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself.
A prince in danger must decide who to trust.
A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings.
Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war.
In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy..
EXCERPT
-CHAPTER 4-
NADEZHDA LAPTEVA
Horz stole the stars and the heavens out from underneath Myesta’s control, and for that she has never forgiven him. For where can the moons rest if not the heavens?
—Codex of the Divine, 5:26
“It’s certainly not my fault you chose a child who sleeps so deeply. If she dies it will very much be your fault, not mine.”
Startled by bickering gods was not Nadya’s preferred method of being woken up. She rolled to her feet in the dark, moving automatically. It took her eyes a few sec- onds to catch up with the rest of her body.
Shut up!
It wasn’t wise to tell the gods to shut up, but it was too late now. A feeling of amused disdain flowed through her, but neither of the gods spoke again. She realized it was Horz, the god of the heavens and the stars, who had woken her. He had a tendency to be obnoxious but generally left Nadya alone, as a rule.
Usually only a single god communed with their chosen cleric. There once had been a cleric named Kseniya Mirokhina who was gifted with unnatural marksmanship by Devonya, the goddess of the hunt. And Veceslav had chosen a cleric of his own, long ago, but their name was lost to history, and he re- fused to talk about them. The recorded histories never spoke of clerics who could hear more than one god. That Nadya com- muned with the entire pantheon was a rarity the priests who trained her could not explain.
There was a chance older, more primordial gods existed, ones that had long since given up watch of the world and left it in the care of the others. But no one knew for sure. Of the twenty known gods, however, carvings and paintings depicted their human forms, though no one knew what they actually looked like. No cleric throughout history had ever looked upon the faces of the gods. No saint, nor priest.
Each had their own power and magic they could bestow upon Nadya, and while some were forthcoming, others were not. She had never spoken to the goddess of the moons, My- esta. She wasn’t even sure what manner of power the goddess would give, if she so chose.
And though she could commune with many gods, it was im- possible to forget just who had chosen her for this fate: Mar- zenya, the goddess of death and magic, who expected complete dedication.
Indistinct voices murmured in the dark. She and Anna had found a secluded place within a copse of thick pine trees to set up their tent, but it no longer felt safe. Nadya slid a voryen from underneath her bedroll and nudged Anna awake.
She moved to the mouth of the tent, grasping at her beads, a prayer already forming on her lips, smoky symbols trailing from her mouth. She could see the blurry impressions of fig- ures in the darkness, far off in the distance. It was hard to judge the number, two? Five? Ten? Her heart sped at the possibility that a company of Tranavians were already on her trail.
Anna drew up beside her. Nadya’s grip on her voryen tight- ened, but she kept still. If they hadn’t seen their tent yet, she could keep them from noticing it entirely.
But Anna’s hand clasped her forearm.
“Wait,” she whispered, her breath frosting out before her in the cold. She pointed to a dark spot just off to the side of the group.
Nadya pressed her thumb against Bozidarka’s bead and her eyesight sharpened until she could see as clearly as if it were day. It took effort to shove aside the immediate, paralyzing fear as her suspicions were confirmed and Tranavian uniforms be- came clear. It wasn’t a full company. In fact, they looked rather ragged. Perhaps they had split off and lost their way.
More interesting, though, was the boy with a crossbow si- lently aiming into the heart of the group.
“We can get away before they notice,” Anna said.
Nadya almost agreed, almost slipped her voryen back into its sheath, but just then, the boy fired and the trees erupted into chaos. Nadya wasn’t willing to use an innocent’s life as a distraction for her own cowardice. Not again.
Even as Anna protested, Nadya let a prayer form fully in her mind, hand clutching at Horz’s bead on her necklace and its constellation of stars. Symbols fell from her lips like glow- ing glimmers of smoke and every star in the sky winked out.
Well, that was more extreme than I intended, Nadya thought with a wince. I should’ve known better than to ask Horz for any- thing.
She could hear cursing as the world plunged into darkness.
Anna sighed in exasperation beside her.
“Just stay back,” she hissed as she moved confidently through the dark.
“Nadya . . .” Anna’s groan was soft.
It took more focus to send a third prayer to Bozetjeh. It was hard to catch Bozetjeh on a good day; the god of speed was notoriously slow to answer prayers. But she managed to snag his attention and received a spell allowing her to move as fast as the vicious Kalyazin wind.
Her initial count had been wrong; there were six Tranavians now scattering into the forest. The boy dropped his crossbow with a bewildered look up into the sky, startling when Nadya touched his shoulder.
There was no way he could see in this darkness, but she could. When he whirled, a curved sword in his hand, Nadya sidestepped. His swing went wide and she shoved him in the direction of a fleeing Tranavian, anticipating their collision.
“Find the rest,” Marzenya hissed. “Kill them all.” Complete and total dedication.
She caught up to one of the figures, stabbing her voryen into his skull just underneath his ear.
Not so difficult this time, she thought. But the knowledge was a distant thing.
Blood sprayed, splattering a second Tranavian, who cried out in alarm. Before the second man could figure out what had happened to his companion, she lashed out her heel, catching him squarely on the jaw and knocking him off his feet. She slit his throat.
Three more. They couldn’t have moved far. Nadya took up Bozidarka’s bead again. The goddess of vision revealed where the last Tranavians were located. The boy with the sword had managed to kill two in the dark. Nadya couldn’t actually see the last one, just felt him nearby, very much alive.
Something slammed into Nadya’s back and suddenly the chilling bite of a blade was pressed against her throat. The boy appeared in front of her, his crossbow back in his hands, thank- fully not pointed at Nadya. It was clear he could only barely see her. He wasn’t Kalyazi, but Akolan.
A fair number of Akolans had taken advantage of the war between their neighbors, hiring out their swords for profit on both sides. They were known for favoring Tranavia simply because of the warmer climate. It was rare to find a creature of the desert willingly stumbling through Kalyazin’s snow.
He spoke a fluid string of words she didn’t understand. His posture was languid, as if he hadn’t nearly been torn to pieces by blood mages. The blade against Nadya’s throat pressed harder. A colder voice responded to him, the foreign language scratched uncomfortably at her ears.
Nadya only knew the three primary languages of Kalyazin and passing Tranavian. If she wasn’t going to be able to com- municate with them . . .
The boy said something else and Nadya heard the girl sigh before she felt the blade slip away. “What’s a little Kalyazi as- sassin doing out in the middle of the mountains?” he asked, switching to perfect Kalyazi.
Nadya was very aware of the boy’s friend at her back. “I could ask the same of you.”
She shifted Bozidarka’s spell, sharpening her vision further. The boy had skin like molten bronze and long hair with gold chains threaded through his loose curls.
He grinned.
Praise for Wicked Saints:
**Indie Next Pick for the Spring 2019 Kids’ List**
BOOKRIOT, “20 YA Dark Fantasy Books For Your Winter TBR”
GOODREADS, “32 Big Books that YA Fans Can’t Wait for in 2019”
CULTRESS, “19 books we can’t wait to get our hands on in 2019”
THE NERD DAILY, “2019 Book Releases”
"This dark fantasy starts off with a bang... The upfront presence of the gods adds an intriguing twist to a brutal story. The ending is as powerful as the opening, and there are explosive elements waiting to detonate in the expected sequels." -
BOOKLIST
“If you love dark fantasy this book promises to be a brutal, enchanting gem, full of terrifying blood-magic.” –
BOOKRIOT, “20 Dark Fantasy Books For Your Winter TBR”
“Rarely does a dark, magical epic have so effective a character-grounded sense of humor.” -
BULLETIN OF THE CENTER OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS
"Will leave readers hungry for a sequel." -
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Prepare for a snow frosted, blood drenched fairy tale where the monsters steal your heart and love ends up being the nightmare. Utterly absorbing.” -
Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Gilded Wolves
"Full of blood and monsters and magic—this book destroyed me and I adored it. Emily is a wicked storyteller, she’s not afraid to hurt her characters or her readers. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a villain you will fall hard for this book." -
Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval
"This is the novel of dark theology and eldritch blood-magic that I’ve been waiting for all my life. It’s got a world at once brutal and beautiful, filled with characters who are wounded, lovable, and ferocious enough to break your heart. A shattering, utterly satisfying read." -
Rosamund Hodge, author of Cruel Beauty and Bright Smoke, Cold Fire
“Wicked Saints is a lush, brutal, compelling fantasy that is dark, deep, and bloody—absolutely riveting! With a boy who is both man and monster, mysterious saints with uncertain motives, and a girl filled with holy magic who is just beginning to understand the full reaches of her power, this gothic jewel of a story will sink its visceral iron claws into you, never letting go until you’ve turned the last page. And truthfully, not even then -the explosive ending will haunt you for days! ” -
Robin LaFevers, New York Times bestselling author of the His Fair Assassin trilogy
“Dark, bloody, and monstrously romantic. This is the villain love interest that we've all been waiting for.” -
Margaret Rogerson, New York Times bestselling author of An Enchantment of Ravens
"Seductively dark and enchanting, Wicked Saints is a trance you won’t want to wake from. Duncan has skillfully erected a world like no other, complete with provocative magic, sinister creatures, and a plot that keeps you guessing. This spellbinding YA fantasy will bewitch readers to the very last page." -
Adrienne Young, New York Times bestselling author of Sky in the Deep
EMILY A. DUNCAN works as a youth services librarian. She received a Master’s degree in library science from Kent State University, which mostly taught her how to find obscure Slavic folklore texts through interlibrary loan systems. When not reading or writing, she enjoys playing copious amounts of video games and dungeons and dragons. Wicked Saints is her first book. She lives in Ohio.
You can find her on:
Wicked Saints by
Emily A. Duncan
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
Wicked Saints is a story that's steeped in religious and political conflict. It's considerably dark and gritty, as you would expect from a book that's hailed as a gothic fantasy. There are morally questionable characters like a monstrous boy with a hidden agenda, royalty who plot assassinations against each other, and a heroine whose Gods may not be Gods at all but something more sinister. The plot centers around a holy war that has been ongoing for a century between the Tranavians and Kalyazi. On the Kalyazin side, you have the people loyal to the old ways. The believe in and obey the Gods and their power is sourced from them. Tranavia has started using blood magic completely separate from the Gods and the people are considered heretics or atheists. The religious Kalyazi are fighting a losing battle and need a miracle to come back from the losses they've suffered.
The book drew me in from the first few pages in a tense battle scene. The High Prince of Tranavia storms the mountaintop monastery where a cleric named Nadya has been hiding. These clerics who harness the power of Gods are dwindling in numbers, because they've been hunted and killed. If Nadya were to be captured, it could turn the tide of war for good. Most can only communicate with one God, but inexplicably she has the ability to draw power from every single one. Chosen by the goddess of death, she has limitless powers that are unimaginably strong. The blood mages can't begin to compete with the gifts bestowed upon her and that makes her a target if what she can do were to be revealed to them.
You could be exactly what these countries need to stop their fighting,” he said. “Or you could rip them apart at the seams.”
Once Nadya escapes the prince and his men, her goal is to avoid detection and stay alive. Until suddenly her path crosses with a group of people she'd never expect to join forces with. And yet, she finds herself joining them in a common goal: to kill the king of Tranavia and end the godforsaken war. On her end, she has the added motivation to give the enemy land back to the Gods she reveres. Malachiasz, Parijahan, and Rashid all have their own personal reasons driving their part in the assassination plot. Some are more forthcoming than others, and Nadya can't help but keep her guard up. Even though she begins to feel a bond growing between them, she doesn't dismiss the possibility of betrayal. Especially after she discovers that Malchiasz is not all that he seems.
The romance that develops is subtle, gradual, and doesn't overwhelm the main conflicts. You could feel their attraction to each other steadily growing in the background, but it's always with an ominous feel. As if it's ill-advised and doomed to end in spectacularly tragic fashion. I know a lot of fantasy readers don't care for romance mixed in, but I think both sides will be satisfied in that regard because it had the perfect balance.
As I said, the book had a strong start for me personally, but then it slowed down considerably and I had problems staying invested in the story. I struggled with keeping all of the names straight and the pronunciation which didn't help matters. The writing itself was great for a debut author. It was an interesting magic system with blood mages, clerics, and some pretty grotesque and creepy Vultures who were by far the most sinister in the book. I just think that there was just a definite disconnect for me with the characters and it caused the pace to drag.
There were several unanswered questions in the end, such as the truth about Nadya's abilities and the Gods' true identities. However, as the first book in a trilogy you can expect the plot to be left unresolved for the time being. The story leaves off with a surprising revelation and twist, and there is plenty of room for the story to expand now that the background and world building has been established.
If you're looking for a new series to start that is filled with magic, monsters, and mayhem, stop right here.
“You came here to kill a king; I wonder if you won’t uncover something even more terrible.”
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