Isn't it stunning? The image on the right is the US cover. Which do you prefer? I can't choose! You can read the prologue for the book below:
Prologue
On the second sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky.
Her skin was blue, her blood was red.
She
broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung,
impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s
arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from
her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost
shook loose, and then her hands relaxed, shedding fistfuls of freshly
picked torch ginger buds.
Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all.
They
would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd,
tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a
serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a
flock of moths had come, frantic, and tried to lift her away.
That was true. Only that.
They
hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled
mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the
strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her
blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust
came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun
on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the
people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and
the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might
have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some
pocket of the sky.
Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson.
Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and
surprised and dead.
She was also blue.
Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky.
Someone
screamed. The scream drew others. The others screamed, too, not because
a girl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and this meant
something in the city of Weep. Even after the sky stopped reeling, and
the earth settled, and the last fume spluttered from the blast site and
dispersed, the screams went on, feeding themselves from voice to voice, a
virus of the air.
The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and
perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip of the projecting finial, just
an inch above her own still chest. Gasping in shock, she tilted back her
invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up.
The screams went on and on.
And
across the city, atop a monolithic wedge of seamless, mirror-smooth
metal, a statue stirred, as though awakened by the tumult, and slowly
lifted its great horned head.
The book comes out this September, and it sounds awesome. Be sure to check out Laini on Twitter to keep updated.
Woo hoo a cover! It's not what I was hoping for personally, but it's still beautiful. :D I can't wait to read this one.
ReplyDeleteI like the US cover personally. I'm intrigued to look into this book. It's the first I'm hearing of it.
ReplyDelete