The Essence Read online

  * * *

  Thank you for downloading this eBook.

  Sign up for the S&S Teen Newsletter —

  Find out about free book giveaways, exclusive content, and amazing sweepstakes! Plus get updates on your favorite books, authors, and more when you join the Simon & Schuster Teen mailing list.

  CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com/teen

  * * *

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  PART I

  Prologue

  Chapter I

  Brooklynn

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Niko

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  PART II

  Brooklynn

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Brooklynn

  Chapter X

  Brooklynn

  Chapter XI

  Brooklynn

  Chapter XII

  The AssassIn

  Chapter XIII

  Max

  Chapter XIV

  PART III

  Brooklynn

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Brooklynn

  Aron

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Brooklynn

  Chapter XIX

  Brooklynn

  Chapter XX

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  To my Granny, who taught me that no woman needs to be what’s expected of her. I miss you.

  acknowledgments

  It makes sense to start with the person who gave me my first big break, so I have to thank my agent, Laura Rennert. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You are amazing! And to Taryn Fagerness as well, for being such a brilliant negotiator on foreign soil . . . thank you for taking The Pledge to so many countries I’ve never been.

  Closer to home, I’m so fortunate to have such an incredible team at Simon & Schuster, starting with my amazing editor, Ruta Rimas, who, given the chance, would probably have edited this sentence to make it better. Thank you not only for your expert advice, but for being such a great supporter of my books! I’d also like to thank Anna McKean and Chrissy Noh for all their publicity and marketing mojo, and Justin Chanda for allowing me to be a part of the S&S family.

  For my incredible covers, I have to thank Ugla Hauksdóttir, whose photography is amazing, and who, fortunately, posted some of her images online for my cover designer to find. To the gorgeous Anna þóra Alfredsdóttir who makes “Charlie” look not only stunning but fierce on this cover. And to the brilliant Michael McCartney, I can’t thank you enough for finding Ugla’s images in the first place, and then turning them into the most amazing covers!

  I’m also incredibly grateful to Carrie Ryan and Margaret Stohl for their support of The Pledge. It means a lot to have the respect of your peers, but it means even more when you can count those people among your friends.

  To the Debs, who’ve continued to be there through the ups and the downs of publication. To Erin Gross for all the work you do on both The Pledge and the Body Finder novels’ fan sites . . . you rock! To Shelli Johannes Wells for letting me lean on you—and call you almost daily—to vent, brainstorm, and critique my (sketchy) first drafts. To Tammy Everton for helping me with names, even when I need them to be . . . unusual. And to Madeline and Molly, just because I thought it would be fun to put your names in my book.

  To all of my friends and neighbors who’ve come out to support me again and again and again . . . I feel blessed to have you all in my life!

  Lastly, I couldn’t do any of this without my amazing family. Thank you for being flexible, supportive, loving, and patient. A writer’s life can be crazy and unpredictable, and without you, I couldn’t do any of it.

  PART I

  prologue

  He approached respectfully, cautiously. Warily.

  She’d always been capricious, his queen. But of late, she was nothing less than unpredictable.

  He knew why, of course: the new queen of Ludania.

  He waited twenty paces from the throne, as was customary. She would speak first. Until then, his lips remained tightly sealed.

  When at last he heard her voice—like the chords of a song, lovely and melodious—he knew her mood. Tolerant. Magnanimous.

  Yet he couldn’t suppress the trepidation that always quivered in his belly during these brief encounters.

  “Come closer,” she coaxed, and he found himself drawn toward her in the same way that some animals were drawn toward their brightly colored predators. “I can barely see you all the way back there. And I want so badly to see your face.”

  He stepped closer, counting his paces in his head so as not to overstep that invisible barrier between respect and indiscretion, all the while allowing himself to fall prey to her seductive tone. “Yes, Your Majesty.” When he reached her, he had to quell the urge to bow, a habit he’d only recently developed. One that had been browbeaten into him in his new post.

  Here, though, it wasn’t an action that would be tolerated.

  Forcing himself to remain upright, he waited for her to explain why she’d summoned him.

  “I hear she’s managed to take the throne fairly effortlessly.”

  It wasn’t a question, and his mind grappled for the appropriate response, knowing full well he had best not answer incorrectly. “Not so effortlessly, Your Majesty. She still struggles with decorum and with balancing the new freedoms of her subjects. Not all are pleased by the changes she’s making.”

  She considered his words and he could practically feel her mood easing. A knot unraveled within his own chest.

  “I hear she has many who stand by her side, including Sabara’s own grandsons.”

  His lips ticked up. He answered without hesitation, “They are male, Your Majesty. What does it matter if they support her reign?”

  She smiled back at him, and he felt a surge of promise at having known the right response so quickly. He wasn’t stupid; he had only to trust his instincts.

  “I hear,” the queen continued in her lilting voice, “that she is beautiful.”

  At that he faltered. He knew what she wanted to be told, but to lie was unforgivable. He conjured an image of Queen Charlaina in his mind—her pale blond hair and shimmering blue eyes and skin that glowed even when she didn’t realize it was so. He tried to find some fault he could relay to his queen—something that wouldn’t reveal his forgery. Instead he lowered his voice to a whisper, hoping she wouldn’t notice the apprehension hidden there. “Not half as beautiful as you, Your Majesty.”

  That, at least, was not untrue. His queen was nothing if not striking.

  And heartless, he realized, as she spoke her next words.

  “I want her dead.” There was no change in her inflection; it was that same conversational banter. As if she were simply searching for information, prying for news, as she would with any good spy.

  Yet even he knew this was no ordinary request.

  He cocked his head, unsure what the proper reaction was now. “Dead,” he stated flatly, careful not to question the command.

  Her lips bowed, ever so perfectly, making her look more like she was ordering dessert than an assassination. “Dead,” she said again. “You can handle that, can’t you?”

  He took another step forward, no longer concerned with decorum. “And how do you propose I do that, Your Majesty? How do I get her away from her guards and her family and the contingent of soldiers who follow her every move? Are you expecting a suicide mission from me?”

  “I thought you might ask that.�
� She raised her hand, a quick signal, and the door was opened. A young woman with tangled braids and dirt-covered clothing shoved her way inside. She was younger than the queen and himself, yet she carried herself with more confidence than both of them combined. She didn’t count her steps or wait for the queen to speak first.

  She grinned when she saw him standing there. “Didn’t expect to find you here.” He couldn’t help noting that she sounded even less like their queen than the last time he’d seen her.

  He bit his lip against the urge to tangle his hands around her braids and drag her up against him, yet he said nothing.

  “The summit is approaching,” the queen responded, ignoring the brazen girl who stood insouciantly before her. “It’s been many decades since an invitation’s been extended to a queen of Ludania.” Her lips pursed, as if she were holding back a secret. “This year’s going to be different, however. This year the Vendor queen is to be summoned. And this year, she’ll have to leave the safety of her palace fortress to travel north.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I expect the two of you to find a way to stop her from reaching her destination. Understood?”

  He didn’t dare hesitate, and he didn’t have any qualms about what he was being asked to do. It was an order, after all. “Of course, Your Majesty. Anything else?”

  The queen’s gaze narrowed when she answered. “Keep her safe,” she explained, casting a quick glance at the girl with smudges on her face. “She might not want the part, but she’s still my sister, and a princess of this realm.”

  The girl drew a razor-edged knife from her boot and flashed her teeth at the queen. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one who’ll need protecting.”

  i

  In the privacy of my dreams, I’m a warrior.

  I’m still me, of course, just a tougher version of me. More valiant and fearless.

  I’ve always loved those dreams, the ones in which I can wield a weapon without breaking a sweat, or cut a man’s throat without blinking an eyelash. In them, my body is honed and fine-tuned. My mind is as focused as any Canshai master of lore’s, and I, too, can move objects simply through my powers of concentration. My spirit is dogged.

  No one can stop me. I am invincible.

  I tried to summon those feelings now, as I lay facedown in the mud, blinking furiously against the grit blinding me, and spitting out mouthfuls of pond scum. Unsteadily, I wobbled as I rose to my feet, moving entirely too slowly, my legs trembling beneath me.

  I am fierce, I tried again to convince myself, but that unblinking resolve I so desperately craved had been seriously shaken.

  My weapon had disappeared somewhere in the slimy pit I had just pulled myself from, so it was only me . . . and my opponent. I needed to think quickly. I knew he wouldn’t wait long before striking again.

  Staggering to my full height, which unfortunately was not nearly as impressive as his, I struggled to find any weakness in his defenses. He was both massive and armed, and, as if reading my mind, he lifted his steel blade to his forehead in a mock salute, his lips twisting into a sneer.

  “Your Majesty.” His voice rumbled—a sound like thunder coming from deep inside his chest. “It seems you find yourself in a most precarious position.” His eyes narrowed as he closed the gap between us, and my heart stuttered. “Whatever shall you do?”

  He lunged then, thrusting his sword toward me, the sharpened edge glinting as it sliced through the air. Fortunately, I recognized its trajectory and was able to react in time, dodging left at the very moment the blade arced right.

  I felt the air ripple at my earlobe. Too near a miss.

  But even as relief uncoiled in my chest, I felt my foot slide in the slick mud. I lost my balance and careened backward, falling hard once more. My breath rushed out in a painful whoosh as my spine connected with a sharp stone beneath me. My mind was still scrambled, trying to beckon my inner soldier, trying to conjure that fierceness within . . . to overlook the pain.

  Warriors do not cry, I admonished myself silently. And then I dared a quick glance at his feet, which were still coming for me. He is a true soldier.

  I swung my leg. It caught him right behind the ankles, hooking them, and I dragged as hard as I could, trying to sweep his feet from beneath him. My fingers clawed at the soil beneath me as I struggled against his massive weight, but I refused to surrender.

  And then I felt him give. I felt him buckling above me, and he, too, was falling.

  The moment he was on the ground, at the same level I was, I raised both my booted feet, my knees cocked and my thick heels aimed directly at his head. The blow could be deadly if delivered correctly. In the temple, just as I’d been taught.

  I hesitated, staring into my attacker’s hard brown eyes. He’d had no qualms about hitting, kicking, pushing, and nearly stabbing me. I knew because I bore the bruises to prove it.

  “What are you waiting for?” he jeered, his white teeth flashing, reminding me that he didn’t have mud in his mouth. “Finish it.”

  I wanted to. I wanted to be the girl from my dreams. Tough like Brooklynn, or determined like Xander. Willing to kill if necessary.

  But I wasn’t. And I couldn’t.

  Sighing, I dropped my feet as I turned to roll onto my stomach so I could push myself up from the ground.

  And then I froze as my numbed mind recalled the first rule of battle: Never turn your back on your opponent.

  Before I could reconcile my mistake, he was on top of me. I never even heard him. He was stealthy, like a tiger. And I was at the receiving end of his claws.

  The knife at my neck seemed to have materialized from nowhere, and there was a moment when my blood turned to ice as he dragged its blade along the base of my throat until its point converged with my hammering pulse.

  “That’s what happens if you break rule number one,” he growled against my ear, his breath like fire. Then he withdrew his blade, shoving me back to the ground. And again, I found myself eating dirt.

  “Dammit, Zafir,” I complained, getting to my already battered and bruised knees. “You knew I’d given up, there was no need to attack again.”

  Zafir held out his hand, both as a gesture of submission and as a genuine attempt to help me up. I took it, but only because my back was still throbbing where the rock had jabbed me. “There’s always need for attack. Remember that.”

  “I’ll never be a skilled combatant, will I?’

  “No,” he stated flatly, gripping my hand and yanking me to my feet as if I weighed less than nothing.

  I swayed slightly and glared at him, but kept my mouth shut. He was right, of course. I was inadequate.

  I waited while he waded up to his ankles in the shallow pond to retrieve my sword—his sword, actually—and wipe it clean. Bending over, I stifled a groan as I hefted the one he’d been using from the ground where it had fallen. It weighed at least five times what mine did and had intricate carvings, not just around the hilt but continuing along the length of its curved blade. To anyone else, the carvings would appear to be gibberish.

  To me, the girl who could understand all languages, they were poetic: Danii, a weapon forged of steel and blood.

  I grinned over the fact that Zafir’s sword bore its own name. And that whoever had crafted his steel had lovingly engraved a message declaring not only its name but also its origin. I’d asked him about it once—about the origin of the weapon and the language engraved into its blade. He’d told me only that he wasn’t born in Ludania, and that the weapon had been an ancestral gift.

  “We’d best get back before Sebastian tells your father what you’ve been up to.”

  “We,” I corrected, trading him weapons so that I didn’t have to drag his through the silt, and wishing, once more, that I were stronger. “What we’ve been up to, you mean.”

  Zafir glared down at me. “I wanted no part of this. I’m a reluctant participant.”

  “But a participant nonetheless,” I maintained, lifting a brow. “And maybe if you
were a better instructor . . .” I trailed off, trying not to let my disappointment come through in my voice.

  “It’s not my instruction that’s lacking.” His pointed gaze found me. “Your Majesty.” He added my title as if it were an afterthought, even though we both knew it wasn’t.

  “Whatever. I might as well be spending all my time in riding lessons considering how little my fighting’s improved. At least then the horse might do what I want her to.”

  “I believe those were my exact words. You need riding lessons, not fighting lessons. You’re a queen, not a soldier.” And then he added it again, this time his lip twitching ever so slightly. “Your Majesty.”

  We reached the stand of spark willows, beneath the largest of which we’d tethered our horses. During the day, the drooping branches’ tips, which nearly brushed the ground, were extinguished and the trees served as the perfect shelter for the enormous animals we’d ridden, shielding them from view. At night, however, the nibbed ends of each branch would burn bright in shades of blues or reds or white, depending on the blossoms. A million tiny buds of light would flicker and flash, casting this entire sector of the forest in an ethereal glow in which nothing—and no one—could hide.

  Something I understood all too well, I thought as I glanced down at my hands, where light flickered just beneath my skin.

  Zafir slipped through the curtain of wilting boughs and, after a moment, returned holding the reins of two magnificent mares. Magnificent, that was, to those who appreciated horses.

  Unlike me.

  It was unnatural for humans to be riding animals. Or at least that was what my aching body insisted, even before I readied to take the saddle once more.

  I wasn’t like Brooklynn. I seemed incapable of learning that natural rhythm required to master horseback riding, that same rhythm she possessed when sitting astride her stallion. The easy way her body moved and rocked, not just in sync with the horse, but almost as if she’d become an extension of it. Like part of a single fluid wave in which they seemed to become one.