The Isles of the Gods

Looking for a sweeping summer read? Magic, romance, and slumbering gods clash in this riveting romantasy about a seafaring girl and a playboy prince who band together in a precarious journey. From the Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails off to adventure. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician''s marks on his arm commandeers her ship. He is Prince Leander of Alinor; and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods. Selly has no desire to escort a spoiled prince anywhere, and no time for his entitled demands or his good looks. But what starts as a leisure cruise will lead to acts of treason and sheer terror on the high seas, bringing two countries to the brink of war, two strangers closer than they ever thought possible and stirring two dangerous gods from centuries of slumber...

Auteur
Amie Kaufman is the New York Times bestselling co-author of the Illuminae Files and the Aurora Cycle, with Jay Kristoff, and the Starbound, Unearthed, and Other Side of the Sky series with Meagan Spooner. Raised in Australia and occasionally Ireland, Amie has degrees in history, literature, law and conflict resolution, and is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing. She lives in Melbourne with her husband, daughter and rescue dog, and an extremely large personal library.You can learn more about Amie at amiekaufman.com, on social, or via her podcast.

Échantillon de lecture
Part One

Glitter and Grit

SELLY

Royal Hill

Kirkpool, Alinor

The woman selling magicians’ supplies is wandering around her little market stall like she’s lost her map. It’s as if every item she encounters, from the stacks of fat green candles to the bins of bright glass beads and stones, is somehow a new discovery.

“You said half a dozen candles?” She pauses to look over her shoulder and needlessly tighten her apron strings. She’s dragging things out in the hope something extra will catch my eye, but although the grim, anxious buzz of the city has sunk into my bones, I am not going to lose my temper. I don’t have time.

“Yes, please.” I try to make my gritted teeth look like a smile, though I can tell from the woman’s expression it doesn’t work. But honestly, at this rate I should ask her name and how she likes her tea, because the two of us are going to grow old together.

If anything, she seems to slow down even more, lifting a newspaper and studying the crate beneath it. “Best in the city, these ones. Poured at the high temple, you know. Are they for you, young lady?”

My hands tighten into fists in my fingerless leather gloves, but I glance down anyway, automatically checking that they hide the green magician’s marks on the backs of my hands. “They’re for our first mate. Ship’s magician.” The words barely provoke their old, familiar ache. I’ve got other things on my mind today.

“Oh, indeed!” That catches the woman’s attention, and spirits save me, now she stops altogether to study me with interest. “I should have seen you were a saltblood—­look at those clothes. Where have you come from?”

Her gaze flickers back to the newspaper in her hand, and suddenly I see it: She’s not vague. She’s worried.

The questions have been the same at every stall I’ve been to so far today. There are strange shortages, and prices are shifting, and whispers are winding their way through the marketplace about new taxes and confiscations. About war.

When they see my sailor’s clothes—­the shirt, trousers, and boots setting me apart from the city girls in their tailored dresses—­everybody asks where we’ve come from and what it was like there.

“We’re just on a quick run down from Trallia,” I tell the woman, digging into my pocket for a few crowns. “I’m actually in kind of a hurry. I need to get to the harbormaster’s office before it closes, or my captain won’t be happy.”

Somewhere, Captain Rensa probably just lifted her head and sniffed the wind, smelling my lies from the deck of the Lizabetta, but the shopkeeper gives herself a shake, as if she’s waking up.

“And here I am chatting away at you. We’d better—­what do you young people say? Something to do with autos.” She finds a smile as she remembers, though now I can see the strain in it: “We’d better put our foot on the gas.”

A minute later my candles are wrapped up and I’m on my way.

I leave behind the rough flapping of the spirit flags and the crowded market stalls at the top of Royal Hill, letting my momentum hurry me along as I jog past the magnificent façade of the temple to Barrica, my spirits lifting as I gather speed.

The priests and priestesses are out front in their soldiers’ uniforms, brass gleaming as they call the faithful to the afternoon service, to prayers for peace. The stone steps of the temple aren’t crowded with worshippers, though, and a sign pinned up by the entrance announces the meeting space next door will be hosting a dance-­hall party tonight, with a live band. I didn’t realize attendance was down that badly.

I drop a copper for the goddess into the offering bowl as I hurry by—­we sailors always keep up our courtesies—­and push on without catching the nearest priest’s eye. No time today, my friend.

My captain gave me a long list of errands and not nearly enough time to complete them—­her way of keeping me away from the harbormaster’s office.

“You’ve been loitering there every day since we docked,” she snapped this morning. “Today you can do some work for a change.”

For a change, Rensa? That’s rich.

For a year I’ve run every goddess-­blessed errand my captain could dream up, working every inch of my own ship, from the bilges to the bowsprit. And finally it’s over. It has to be—­spirits save me if I have to spend one more moment under my tyrant of a captain. This has to be my last day.

Today at the harbormaster’s office I’m going to see the news I’ve been waiting for up in chalk. The alternative is unbearable.

I cut through a narrow alleyway where the buildings crowd close together, the upper levels leaning in over the street, flowers spilling from their window boxes. Someone’s playing a radio on the second floor, and I can hear the stern tones of a newscaster, but I can’t make out her words.

Turning onto Queen’s Boulevard, I pause as a brewer’s wagon rumbles downhill, then lean out to inspect the approach­ing traffic, which comes in a constant stream. The city of Kirkpool wraps around the seaward side of a series of hills, golden sandstone buildings folded into the valleys between them. From the water you can see Queen’s Boulevard running from the port at the base of Royal Hill all the way up to the palace at the top, straight as a mainmast rising from a deck.

Streets branch off it like spars, each home to clusters of shops and stalls—­tailors, bakers, merchants hawking spices from far away. People from all over the world live and trade in Kirk­pool, and the casual mix of cultures feels more like home than any other port.

A merchant’s carriage rolls by, and without hesitating I grab the back railings and swing myself up like a footman for the bumpy ride downhill. I catch a glimpse of the merchant’s eyes in the re…