From Veronica Roth, the legendary author of the Divergent series, Seek the Traitor’s Son is a dazzling, epic tale of war, fate and devastating love.

The daughter of a bounty hunter.
The knight sworn to protect her.
And the prophecy that destroys their lives . . .

Elegy Ahn did not ask for destiny to find her. She’s a soldier defending her small country against a powerful enemy: the Talusar, who worship a Fever that brings death to everyone it touches . . . except those who it resurrects, forever changed. Rava Vidar is a Talusar general with a reputation for cruelty and triumph. And when Elegy and Rava first meet, it’s to hear a prophecy that could apply to either of them.

The prophecy declares that either one of them could carry their people to victory. But at the center of both of their fates is a man. A man who, Elegy is told, will bring her death. A man she’ll fall in love with. With two nations at stake, she and Rava are destined to collide. And when they do, only one will be left standing. Elegy intends to make sure it’s her.

An extraordinary epic begins.

Seek the Traitor’s Son is due for release on 14th May from PanMacmillan – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org

Chapter 2

Elegy sits with the Sword in the antechamber, on a bench that makes her back ache. Salt prickles on her palms. At the Sword’s request, Shir stands just outside. The shadow of his boots interrupts the line of light under the door.

When Elegy was a child, a blast from a nearby furnace blew a hole in one of the buildings in the market. Chaos erupted in the street and she lost track of her father. So she crawled to the nearest market stall, climbed it, and stood on top of the awning to look for him in the crowd. He spotted her crouched there over a row of paper umbrellas.

She remembers that now, and she tries to find that feeling—to climb above this somehow for a better vantage point. Instead the words of the augur rattle in her head. This prophecy is a storm. Standing within reach of Rava Vidar, more legend than woman, more monster than Talusar. One of you will triumph, and the other will not.

“I never wanted children,” the Sword—her mother— says, and Elegy chokes a little.

“The fun never stops when you’re around, you know that?” she says. “I don’t say this to wound you.” The Sword rubs beneath her eye socket where the mask digs into her cheekbone. “I say it to explain. I was destined from birth to be the Sword; the Cedre founders believed that having the role of protector be inherited would serve us better than leaving the office of Sword vulnerable to eager campaigners. And I was suited for it, this guardianship of my people, but I wasn’t suited for every part of it.”

Elegy doesn’t want to hear this. She’s comfortable with what she is and who she is: her work with the search and rescue team, her rank as primary, her marriage, their little apartment in Losan that they barely spend any time in, and a specter of a mother she never has to deal with. She doesn’t want the Sword to come any closer to that life.

“I was told to produce at least two children. I chose Larke’s father as a clever bit of social maneuvering, and I chose your father because I believed he would be a capable teacher and protector, and so I had two daughters, just as I was told to.” The Sword clears her throat a little. “No one expected me to struggle with it, because despite all the progress we’ve made toward equality, people still view women as naturally maternal and I am a woman. Yet I did struggle with it. I did.”

The Sword’s mouth twists, and Elegy feels sympathy, despite herself. Cedre encourages its citizens to have children, if they can, but it’s not compulsory. She never thought about the fact that her mother didn’t have another option.

“But despite my various failures,” the Sword goes on, “both my daugh-ters have grown up capable. So it all turned out well, somehow. My point in telling you this is to explain that fate doesn’t require us to be well-suited to our roles . . . it simply requires us to fill them.”

Cedre is supposed to be a nation of choices. The choice of Quorum leaders. The choice to quarantine from Fever rather than surrender to it. The choice to speak whatever language you wish. “Fate” isn’t something Elegy has ever thought about . . . but now it’s a hand wrapped around her throat.

“I’m supposed to ask them questions,” Elegy says, and there’s a note of panic in her voice that she wishes she could get rid of. “And the questions I choose will affect the future of Cedre. How am I supposed to know which ones to ask?”

“That’s my point, I suppose,” the Sword says. “Simply ask the questions that occur to you. Trust that you will be what you’re required to be, in this role you didn’t choose.”

Elegy laughs again. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s the only wisdom I can offer you,” the Sword says, a little gruff. Elegy leans her head back against the stone. “Well . . . I guess I’ll take it.”

✦ ✦ ✦

When Nerina invites her back into the sanctuary, it’s empty. The augurs have disappeared into some rear chamber, and Rava Vidar is gone.

Elegy walks to the edge of the mirror and looks at her reflection in one of the larger facets. It’s strange that all her life, she thought that if some important role were to fall in her lap, it would come through her mother, not her father. But if the augur is to be believed, it’s her father’s bloodline that brought her here. Some fine, breakable thread connects her to Rava Vidar.

Keen’s eyes stare back at her, Keen’s downturned mouth.

She steps onto the mirror again, disrupting her reflection, and walks to its center. With the sky reflected back at her, it almost looks like she’s floating. She tips her head back to look at the window above.

The door opposite her opens for the augurs. She’s curious to see which ones will come in—which ones believe in her, and not Rava. The oldest is the first to enter; the youngest, with his bright cheeks, is last. There are three others: one with a shaved head, one who’s at least a head shorter than any of the others, and one with black hair down to her waist. They stand in a semicircle around the edge of the mirror, fanned out so she can’t look at them all at once.

The oldest augur clears her throat.

“I saw a vision.” She takes a piece of what appears to be chalk from the pocket of her robes, then bends down to draw a horizontal line on the stone floor in front of her.

“I saw a great lever, with the Cedrae on one side and the Talusar on the other,” she says. Beneath the horizontal line, right at its center, she draws a triangle.

“And beneath it, a fulcrum that determines which side rises and which side falls.”

The augur tucks the chalk back into her pocket. Elegy recognizes the drawing from her brief study of physics. It’s a seesaw, basically, and it balances on a single support. In this case, that support is a triangle the augur called a fulcrum.

“She who moves the fulcrum,” the oldest augur says, “controls the out-come.”

Before Elegy can process that statement, the youngest augur steps forward.

“When I saw the great lever, I received words,” he says. “I heard that the three points of the fulcrum are three voices in harmony.” He kneels before the drawing the oldest augur made, and touches a finger to each point of the fulcrum’s triangle as he speaks. Three voices in harmony. “She who moves the fulcrum controls the outcome.”

Elegy’s mind is blank. She doesn’t understand this image, this abstrac-tion. Moving a fulcrum that’s made up of three voices—it’s nonsense. It’s meaningless.

The augur with the shaved head steps forward. “I saw a vision of a sign that will precede the outcome. I saw a great storm quenching the thirst of the dusty streets of Losan, flooding its streets with water.”

“I saw,” the augur with the long hair says. Her voice is low and clear as a bell. “I saw a man.”

Questions rage in Elegy like the bubbles in a boiling pot, about to spill over. She forces herself to think of what the Sword said. Ask what occurs to her. Trust that it will be enough. She thinks of the youngest augur’s finger touching each point of the triangle. If the triangle is this fulcrum they’re talking about, she has to get them to be more specific about it.

“What do you mean when you say the fulcrum is ‘three voices in har-mony’?” she asks.

The youngest augur leans forward to smile, almost smugly, at the one with the shaved head.

“In this case,” he says, “I mean the fulcrum is a meeting of three specific people.”

Elegy nods. Her hands tremble as she goes over the words in her mind. The fulcrum is a meeting of three people—so all she has to do is assemble the right three people?

“These people,” she says. “How will I know who they are?”

“You already know them,” the smallest augur says, and the one with the shaved head makes a scoffing sound.

“She doesn’t know them all yet,” the augur says. “She is aware of them; there’s a difference.”

Elegy wants to spit curses. She wishes they were speaking her native language; Talusar is confusing enough without augurs debating its fine points. She forces herself to focus on what she’s heard. These people, the fulcrum. The meeting she needs to facilitate.

“How will I recognize them?” she asks. She feels like she’s repeating herself, but if she can just get them to be more specific—

“One will bear the Vidari name,” the oldest augur says.

“One knows the taste of Cenobium salt,” the youngest augur says. “And one,” the augur with the long hair says, “you will know by other means.”

One will bear the Vidari name. It turns her stomach, but at least it’s spe-cific. One knows the taste of Cenobium salt—well, that sounds like an augur.

But what about the third person?

“The third one,” Elegy says. “I’ll know them by what other means?”

“You have never said his name,” the oldest augur says.

“He will bring you death,” says the one with the shaved head.

And the black-haired one: “You will fall in love with him.”

Elegy’s first thought is of the shadow of Shir’s boots under the door to the Cenobium. His rough fingers curled around hers as she descended the steps to the salt flat.

She’s said Shir’s name so many times. Admonishing him for leaving suds on the dishes when he puts them on the drying rack. Calling for him when she gets home from the corner store. Whispering in his ear when they’re tangled together in bed. She can feel his name in her mouth right now, as familiar as her own. Elegy’s throat feels so tight she can barely breathe.

They aren’t talking about Shir.

“I’m already in love,” she says. “And how can I love someone who brings me death, anyway? What the hell does that mean—he’s going to kill me?”

“Kill you?” the youngest augur says. “Doubtful.”

And the oldest: “Though   perhaps the transformation forced by love is a kind of death.”

“That’s not an answer! I’m married. I’m happy. I’m . . .” She takes a slow, tremulous breath, and begins again: “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the last one we’ll give,” the oldest augur says. “The prophecy has settled. The paths are laid. It’s time for you to leave, Elegy Rosyk.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Elegy says. “You unload this   thing on me, and that’s it, those are the only questions I can ask?”

“Rava Vidar asked as many, we’re told,” the youngest augur says. “Different questions, with different answers, perhaps—but she left unworried.”

“Good for her,” Elegy says. “But I don’t worship you just because a virus stuffed your head with the future.”

The youngest augur’s cheeks get impossibly redder. The oldest augur only shrugs.

“Tumult and rupture,” she says, as if that’s an explanation.

Seek the Traitor’s Son is due for release on 14th May from PanMacmillan – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org

Image credit: Nelson Fitch

Veronica Roth is the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of To Clutch a Razor, When Among Crows, Arch-Conspirator, Poster Girl, Chosen Ones, the Divergent series, and the Carve the Mark duology.

Veronica lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Find out more on her website: veronicarothbooks.com

@Veronicaroth (Instagram)
@torbooksuk (Instagram)