Just look at this! Look at it! Music, fashion, read-a-longs, calligraphy, make-up looks? What a feast of madness and brilliance! I'll be RTing and sharing all of these as they go live, and then collecting each week's posts in a masterpost at the end of the both weeks so you don't miss anything.
I urge you to share and RT these as you read and enjoy them, not only to spread the word about the book, and the tour itself - but also to thank each of these dedicated book bloggers for supporting our fandom and giving UKYA a boost in general. I'm honestly humbled by this, guys. I don't often use the term 'awesomesauce' anymore, but this? This is awesomesauce.
Next up! For those of you like me who have poor eyesight or vision impairment, injuries or disabilities that make it hard to read chunky books, or limited space to store physical copies, here's some good news: the Kindle and Kobo versions of the book are now life for pre-orders. Hurrah! And at a discount from the physical copy's price, which is always nice.
Further to this, shortly after the Kindle version went live, both it and the physical book shot back up into the Amazon bestselling ranks again:
Not gonna lie, I DID do a little squeal (while on the train - I ducked down and pretended it wasn't me while people gave each other suspicious looks) when I saw this. As the release date gets closer and closer, pre-orders make a huge difference to whether the book will succeed in both the short and long-term, so thank you to everyone who's managed to scrape up the cash to do this. I know, I really do, that it's not always easy. I hope *so much* that you'll love the story, and Zhi, and Yulong, and Yang Jie, and Wu Jiang, and all the rest, and think it's worth it.
Now before I start blubbing on my keyboard, I'd better remind you about the event coming up to celebrate the book's release in London, in April: Queens of Fantasy with amazing authors Samantha Shannon, Tasha Suri and Zen Cho. I've motored my way through a stack of all of these guys books in the past month and St. Paul on a pogo stick! THEY ARE SO AMAZING. I might not let anyone else even get the chance to ask them any questions because there's so much I want to know. Will we meet Mehr again in the sequal, Tasha?? Samantha, what was the deal with the Unceasing Emperor's ex-girlfriend?? Zen, did you get the term magicienne from the term 'graduette' which used to be applied to female university graduates??
Ahem.
I've been told that the tickets are really going fast - I'm not just saying that - so if you're hoping to come you should probably look into booking your place sooner rather than later.
And now, in celebration of all this gloriousness, it's snippet time. Yes, really! New and exclusive and just for you, I've picked out one of my favourite bits from later in the book (with no spoilers) and it's under the cut. I hope you all enjoy it, my lovelies!
Let me know what you think in the comments. Read you later!
That
night, as we huddled down in various miserable poses along the damp gulley
wall, none of us as close to our campfires as we really wished to be, I was man
enough to admit to myself that I was grateful for the reassuring bulk of the
Young General, looming between me and the sinister shadows of the Stone Forest.
If any cold, desolate spirits were looking for the consolation of human warmth
in the dark, he’d be a more tempting target than I.
I
expected to stay awake late into that night, worrying and missing Yang Jie and
feeling sorry for myself, as usual. But riding on such treacherous terrain all
day long seemed to have left me more tired than was usual. I could feel my eyes
drooping even as I shifted onto my side, searching for a more comfortable
position on the shifting ground.
General
Wu’s horse, hobbled nearby, stomped his hoof – once, twice. Yulong, who stood
nose to nose with him, whickered softly as if in reassurance. The other horse
quieted.
When
I woke, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. With the mist blocking any
sight of stars – or the dawn, if it was coming – all I could see was that it
was still as dark as ink in the gulley. But I knew instantly what had woken me.
The wind had risen. It was whistling – no, singing, singing around the
tops of the stone spires. Playing over the unusual formations in the rock. The
resulting noise was like nothing I’d ever heard before, seeming both low and
high at once, almost like... like a chorus of voices. Human voices.
It
was beautiful. It was chilling. The humming notes blended together into a
peculiar, haunting music that made the Stone Forest itself vibrate. The more I
listened, the more the wind rose, the more cold I felt. All around me, small
campfires which had been burning merrily away in the darkness were beginning to
dim and sink down. The increasing wind should have whipped them up; instead it
seemed to suck the air away from them – and from me – as the darkness grew
deeper.
Nonsense, I told myself fiercely. It’s
just the wind, just these odd rocks. That’s all. Don’t let your imagination run
away with you.
But
the men were stirring restlessly in their sleep. One of General Wu’s bodyguards
thrashed in his bedroll, and as he turned over I saw his face in the light of
our dying fire. It was twisted, still-sleeping, into a rictus of horror or
despair. Nearby someone let out a wavering moan, nearly drowned by the eerie
moaning of the wind.
The
walls of the gulley were shaking now. I could hear... I could hear the voices
in the wind. I could hear them. They cried out for help, for release –
tormented by the most terrible grief and pain – and their music rumbled through
the ground and through my bones, louder and louder. The campfires were nearly
out now. I lay frozen, gripped by the most awful fear, the same fear that had
held me still on a night long ago when I heard assassins creep into my Father’s
house, the same fear which had paralysed me for that vital moment when I saw Lu
standing over General Wu with a blood on his hand. Only this time I couldn’t
break free. I couldn’t move.
One
voice rose above the others. A voice as familiar to me as my own. More
familiar. One Ihad listened to before I had even had a voice: my Mother.
She
was screaming.
Screaming...
for me.
The
edges of reality cracked. The cold and the dark were eating through me,
damaging me, like a hard frost turns soft fruit black. I could feel it
beginning already. This was going to drive me out of my mind, I realised dimly.
It would kill me. Every man in the gulley would be dead before morning.
Yang
Jie is in this gulley.
With
a kind of wrenching, ripping effort that made me cry out in pain – I broke
free.
I
was crouching in the tangle of my damp bedroll, staring into our substantial
campfire, which had died down a little, but was no means near to going out. The
other campfires flickered and danced, pockets of light in the darkness around
me. The other men laid still and peaceful in their places. There was no
singing. No wind. No ghosts.
On
the other side of the campfire, someone let out a choked gasp. Furs and
blankets flew back as they clawed their way out of their bed and onto their
knees, panting harshly. It was General Wu.
His
face, even bathed in their rosy glow, was set and white. I opened my mouth –
but the look in his eyes, half savage, half lost, stilled my tongue. It didn’t
matter. I didn’t need to ask what had woken him. I knew.
I
knew.
Instead,
after a moment, he was the one to speak. His voice was almost a growl. “Who?
Who did you hear?”
I
swallowed. “My Mother.”
He
closed his eyes. Nodded wearily. “Me too.”
Swiftly,
he turned away and laid down again, pulling one of the heavy, fur-lined blanket
up over his shoulder so that his profile was hidden.
Little
by little, my marrow aching like that of an old man, I shuffled back into my
own bedroll. The mist that had hung above the Stone Forest all day and all
night was beginning to break up, and stars were winking gently overhead. I laid
stiff and unmoving among my blankets for some time listening to the unrestful
quiet of the dark before I remembered something. Something I should have
remembered before.
Wu
Jiang’s Mother had been murdered when he was a little boy.
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