Nothing complicates life like Death.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney, out from Solaris on April 12.
Lanie Stones, the daughter of the Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner of Liriat, has never led a normal life. Born with a gift for necromancy and a literal allergy to violence, she was raised in isolation in the family’s crumbling mansion by her oldest friend, the ancient revenant Goody Graves.
When her parents are murdered, it falls on Lanie and her cheerfully psychotic sister Nita to settle their extensive debts or lose their ancestral home—and Goody with it. Appeals to Liriat’s ruler to protect them fall on indifferent ears… until she, too, is murdered, throwing the nation’s future into doubt.
Hunted by Liriat’s enemies, hounded by her family’s creditors and terrorised by the ghost of her great-grandfather, Lanie will need more than luck to get through the next few months—but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.
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Nita,
They are both dead. Father, a month ago; Mother, last week.
While I was unable to change the fact of their deaths, I did my best to raise them up after. I followed Irradiant Stones’s comprehensive treatise On the Benefits of Revitalizing Your Revenants While Their Flesh Is (More or Less) Fresh, which is—as texts on death magic go—fairly straightforward. Such a complex resurrection rite, however, requires a high holy fire feast, and alas, autumn equinox had already come and gone by the time they brought Father’s body home. When Mother died, we were nowhere near a surge. My attempts failed.
Mostly failed. Father did open his eyes eye down in Stones Ossuary and blink a few times, but he had no more sense than a baby bird. Mother was more emphatic in her response; she spat black blood at me and cursed. (I could not understand the words. They were probably gibberish. The prevailing theory is that the dead lose their memory quickly, and without a mature necromancer’s blood to spark it back, language is the first thing to go. My own blood, alas, will not attain full maturity for a few years yet.)
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Saint Death’s Daughter
Neither of our parents’ corpses stayed animate for more than a few minutes. Their remains turned to sludge soon after I performed the rite, and I did not have opportunity for further experimentation.
Now for more staggering news.
Just this morning, a woman named Sari Scratch arrived at Stones Manor—along with her three sons—and announced that she was calling in all our family’s debts. I, not being aware that we had any, was disinclined to believe her, and opined that she and her progeny were all swindling imposters who would find no ready victim in me.
But, Nita, this Mistress Scratch merely smiled at me like I was a naughty yet adorably precocious child. She summoned from the depths of her coach an ordained notary priestess of Lan Satthi, whom she had chartered to verify our family’s contract.
The contract was then explained to me in exhaustive detail by the notary priestess herself. When we came to its end, I saw what no forger could have hoped to accomplish: all of their names—signed in their blood. Such is the magic of Lan Satthi that I’d swear the ink was still wet, though the contract was dated four years ago. There was Father’s signature, taking up half the page, Mother’s so crabbed that I had to hold the sheet up next to my face, and Aunt Diggie’s so jingled that it danced into the margins—one could practically smell the gin! The sigil of the god bound the whole contract so fast, four horses pulling in the four cardinal directions could not rip it asunder. Very professional magic.
That being settled, and me put in my place, Mistress Scratch introduced herself properly. She and her sons originally hail from Northernmost Skakmaht, but became full citizens of Liriat four years ago. I’d not met them before, because I never meet anyone, but I don’t think even you could have crossed paths with them, Nita, for they moved to Liriat Proper a few months after you left for school. They’ve close business ties to the Blood Royal Brackenwilds, which is (I’m sure) how they met Father.
But allow me to sum up the nature of our debts while I still have it fresh in my mind. Between Aunt Diggie’s gambling, Mother’s special chemicals and weapons requests, Father’s operas and races, and—pardon me—the cost of your schooling abroad, along with a host of other necessities and indulgences that attend the honor of our family being close intimates with the Brackenwilds, we are so deeply mired in debt that they’ll be burning us for peat in another thousand years.
So long as Mother had her usual commissions coming in, and Father continued his work at Castle Ynyssyll, and Aunt Diggie was still moonlighting as leg-breaker for those gambling dens she frequented, we were able to keep up with the interest and our accustomed lifestyle. But now that all contracted parties have perished, one after another and in such short order, Mistress Scratch says that our assets belong to her firm. Even Goody Graves must stay with Stones Manor when it changes hands!
Mistress Scratch ‘generously’ (her word) offered a deferment on the debt pending your return to Liriat Proper, since you are, after all, the heir and of legal age to make decisions. She also told me privately that I, too, may stay with Stones Manor, if I so chose. She then invited me to marry whichever of her sons happened to take my fancy!
“Or all three of them,” she said, “and have yourself a passel of spouses, just like the Blackbird Bride.”
As fascinating as I find the political magics of Bran Fiakhna and her Parliament of Rooks, I have no desire to emulate her. However, it did not seem quite diplomatic to reject Scratten, Cracchen, and Hatchet Scratch out of hand, so I told their mother that, given time—since I am only fifteen—it was not impossible I should come to regard any number of her offspring with affection.
“It would be no bad thing,” said she, “for us Scratches to unite our name with you Stoneses. No bad thing—for either family! We know all about you Stoneses. A byword in Skakmaht!”
I’ll just bet ‘we Stoneses’ are a byword in the north, Nita—but it’s not a word that anyone, even a Skaki, would say in polite company. Did Mistress Scratch think me ignorant of our history there? Perhaps. Perhaps she also imagined me easily buttered up by flattery, for immediately after her proposal of marriage, she began to make all manner of inquiries into our habits and traditions.
I told her quite firmly that the nature of my allergy was such that I could not disclose any details to her, and that she would do much better to consult with you upon your return. That is, if you plan on returning.
Nita, I understand that your expedition to Quadiíb is of paramount importance. Mother, Father, Aunt Diggie—even Blood Royal Erralierra Brackenwild!—could not have been more vehement on that point when you left four years ago. I would not have dared contact you had I not found myself in the direst of straits. I hope this situation constitutes what you would consider to be an emergency.
The fact of the matter is, if you do not come home, we shall be cast out of our house and lands.
Your obedient sister,
Miscellaneous Immiscible Stones
Stones Manor, Liriat
Excerpted from Saint Death’s Daughter, copyright © 2022 by C.S.E. Cooney.
