Chaos King (eBook)

Kacen Callender (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
384 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
9780571383870 (ISBN)

Infos

When the world burns, Ash will rise. The explosive sequel to instant New York Times bestseller Infinity Alchemist. Ever since he rose up against his father and saved New Anglia from destruction, Ash has been struggling to adapt to his new life. He has nightmares every night, haunted by strange black orbs and his screaming dead mother. Ash is sure she's trying to warn him that the world is still in danger, and becomes determined to find a way to speak to her again - but communicating with the dead isn't easy, even for an alchemist as powerful as Ash. It doesn't help that violent anti-alchemist sentiment is spreading across New Anglia. When Ash is captured by a radical alchemist group, inspired by his father's legacy, he must decide if alchemist rights can be trusted in the hands of the Houses, along with his partners Callum and Ramsay - or if Ash must follow the path his father laid for him, and become the leader of an alchemist revolution. Can Ash keep his relationships together and stop the world from falling apart?

Born and raised in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, Kacen Callender is a bestselling and award-winning author of the middle-grade novels Hurricane Child and King and the Dragonflies, the young-adult novels This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story and Felix Ever After, and the adult novel Queen of the Conquered and its forthcoming sequel King of the Rising. They enjoy playing RPG video games in their free time. Kacen currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.

Textauszug

The city burned. Buildings cracked and crumbled. Bodies hung by their necks from the railway tracks, fires crackling beneath. Black smoke gushed into the sky until it blocked the sun. White dust rained, coating Ash’s skin and stinging his eyes as he ran. He couldn’t breathe, his throat clogged, and the bodies—people lay strewn in the street, mangled corpses stained red with eyes wide open, mouths parted in surprise. Ash slowed to a stop as he realized who the bodies belonged to. It was his father, again and again at his feet, knife sticking from his ribs—

Ash spun around. A black orb, as large as the moon itself, was crashing to the earth. Its gravitational pull tore apart the towers that still stood, wind whipping debris into its path. Ash heard an echo—heard his name—and when he blinked, his mother stood in front of him, eyes wide with panic as she screamed—

Ash shot up in bed. He wheezed, heart slamming against his chest and echoing in his ears. He was alone. A lazy breeze shifted the curtains of an open window that yellow sunlight poured through. A bird tweeted, and another replied. A nightmare. It’d only been another nightmare.

Ash wished he could let out a breath of relief. Instead, he put his face in his hands, gulping down air. The dreams had been so bad recently that he was afraid to fall asleep. Sometimes it was the destruction of Kensington, the embers of buildings and smoke pouring from flames. Sometimes it was his father, dead on the bridge.

Worst of all was his mother. Ash had rarely dreamed of her before. He’d hoped she would visit him in his sleep after she’d died so that he wouldn’t feel so damn alone—he’d heard that energies of the dead would sometimes do that, visit their loved ones with messages, but she’d never come. Now, she appeared almost every single night. Now, his mother would always shout his name.

“Ash?”

He looked up, startled. Callum hesitated on the threshold. Ash realized what he must’ve looked like in that moment: skin graying, eyes tight.

The other boy dipped his head to enter the room. His dark brown skin looked especially beautiful in the early morning light. Ash’s heart fell, just a little, as he saw that Callum was already dressed in his red button-down and black slacks.

“Are you all right?” Callum asked. He’d probably felt Ash’s panic from the other room. Callum paused, then seemed to think better of it. No, of course, Ash wasn’t all right.

Ash threw off the sheets, damp with sweat. His loose sleeping shirt and pants were wet and cold, too. “Just another nightmare.”

Callum padded across the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside Ash, the mattress sinking under his weight. He rested a hand on Ash’s thigh, thumb brushing his skin. Ash sighed as pale blue light pooled over him. Whether Callum extended energy purposefully or not, he’d always had a way of calming Ash.

“Have you given my offer any more thought?” the older boy asked quietly.

Ash chewed the inside of his cheek. He knew that Callum was only trying to help, this insistence that Ash see a healer. House Adelaide didn’t only heal physical ailments. They can help with emotional troubles, too. Ash wasn’t sure why it annoyed him, Callum’s determination to bring up the topic again and again.

“I’m fine,” Ash said, swinging his feet to the floor.

Callum took a breath and seemed about to argue, but then only sighed. “I have something for you.”

“A gift?”

Ash watched as Callum went to the dresser and pulled out a drawer. He returned with a pair of red cuff links. “I thought you could wear them tonight,” he said.

Callum pressed the pair into Ash’s open palm, cold against his skin. “Thank you,” Ash said, “but these are House Kendrick’s colors.”

“Wearing red could be a sign of your loyalty to me, too, not just my House.” The smile on his face seemed exhausted to Ash. “I’ve made a pot of oatmeal, if you’d like any. I’ll be leaving soon,” he added.

“Ramsay, too?”

“In a little while, I think.”

Ash rubbed a hand over his face, closing his fingers around the cuff links. “I’ll join you in a second. And Callum?” Ash held up his fist. “Really. Thank you.”

Callum gave Ash’s shoulder a quick squeeze.

Ash watched Callum’s retreat, then put the cuff links on the nightstand and stripped off the wet shirt he’d slept in and dropped it to add to the collection of clothes tangled across the floor. Callum had given up on scolding Ash and Ramsay about the mess. “We’re not living in redguard barracks,” Ramsay had said dismissively. “There’s no point in folding clothes that’ll only need to be worn again.” Ash, admittedly, was just lazy.

Ash tugged open the bottom drawer of a faded blue dresser—he’d offered to take the lowest, seeing that he was the smallest of the three—and pulled out his binder to wrap around his chest, tying up the sides. He pulled on a dry cotton shirt and pants, then slipped out into the hall. The Riverside cottage was small. The kitchen shared the same space as the sitting room, and the rustic furniture was just a tad too big for the space. Still, it was comfortable. Cozy. The walls had been painted a pale sage green, and the open windows let in the scent of freshly fallen rain. That with the breeze and golden sunlight … It all felt distinctly like home. The first few weeks after Ash, Ramsay, and Callum had moved in had been filled with soft sheets and laughter. It never ceased to amaze Ash how quickly things could change.

Ramsay leaned back in a chair at the table, pulling off her round spectacles. Purple circles rimmed her eyes. “There you are,” she said. “I thought you might’ve been trying to avoid Callum’s porridge. Not that I can blame you.”

Callum turned to the table with a mug of tea. He scratched out his chair and fell heavily into it. It was a wonder the chairs never collapsed under his weight. “I could always not cook breakfast for you, if you like.”

Ramsay gave the sheepish grin that Ash had started to learn was Callum’s weak spot. “Sorry. I shouldn’t tease so early in the morning.”

“It’s all right. I’m just feeling a bit touchy right now, I think.” Callum tapped the surface of the table. “This tea is for you, Ash.”

It was lavender, Ash’s favorite. He pulled out the third and last chair and sat, watching the steam swirl. Source, there’d been years when Ash dreamed of a moment like this: sharing morning tea with the people he loved and who loved him, free from the loneliness that’d consumed him for years after his mother had died. “Thank you.”

Callum put a hand on Ash’s, idly playing with his fingers. Ash wondered if Callum had told Ramsay about his state, a quick whispered conversation about him. “The oatmeal isn’t that bad, is it?” Callum asked.

“No, no,” Ramsay said. “I just hate porridge. The texture, the moistness …”

“Just when you think you know everything there is to know about a person,” Callum murmured. “It’s a breakfast I had every day at McKinley.”

“It makes sense, given the stress you’re under,” Ramsay said. “You feeling more sensitive, I mean.”

Callum leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed his palms over his face. “It can’t be helped.” That had become his go-to line, over the past few months. Quite a lot couldn’t be helped, it seemed. “This position—Creator, I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it’s been especially difficult as of late.”

Ash frowned. “Have there been more attacks?”

“A mob in Glassport attacked a twelve-year-old girl accused of tier-three alchemy,” Callum said mechanically, as if reading off a report. Tier three would’ve required a license for the performance of alchemy that was considered unnatural—not that having a license mattered much, those days. “She and her mother were both killed. Another throng of Lune followers strung up a man in Ironbound, too.”

“Source,” Ramsay said beneath her breath.

“Twenty-three total killings of anyone even thought to be practicing alchemy for this month alone.”

Ash’s temples pounded, headache growing. He gripped the mug in his hands.

Callum continued. “I’ve suggested more anti-mob patrols, more education about alchemy to show the public that it isn’t a threat, but it’s like Edric wants innocents to be murdered. He...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-13: 9780571383870 / 9780571383870