THE SONG RISING
For the silenced
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Pale Dreamer (novella)
The Bone Season
The Mime Order
On the Merits of Unnaturalness
The
Song Rising
Samantha Shannon
Contents
By the Same Author
Map of the Republics of Scion England and Scion Ireland
The Mime Order
Prelude
Part I: God in a Machine
1 Underqueen
2 Emergency
3 Judgement
4 Vance
5 Back in Time
6 Hourglass
7 The Great Descent
8 Counter Play
9 The Cost
Part II: Engine of Empire
10 Manchester
11 A Tale of Two Sisters
12 Fortress
13 The Ironmaster
14 No Safer Place
15 The Grand Smoke
16 The Vaults
17 Blood and Steel
18 Vigil
19 Offering
Interlude
Part III: Death and the Maiden
20 Tomb
21 Skins of Men
22 Ultimatum
23 A Priori
24 The Crossing
Author’s Note
Glossary
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Author
Also by Samantha Shannon
Silence is all we dread.
There’s Ransom in a Voice—
Emily Dickinson
Prelude
2 November, 2059
The lights scalded my borrowed eyes. I was still inside a different body, standing on the same floor, but everything had changed.
There was a smile on his lips. That old gleam in his eye, like I’d just brought him good news from the auction house. He wore a black waistcoat embroidered with interlinked gold anchors, and a scarlet cravat was tied at his throat. One silk-clad hand grasped an ebony cane.
‘I see you have mastered possession at a distance,’ he said. ‘You are full of surprises.’
The cane’s handle was porcelain, shaped like the head of a white horse.
‘I believe,’ Nashira said, her voice soft, ‘that you are already acquainted with my new Grand Overseer.’
I let out my first breath since laying eyes on him.
He had tried to stop me. The scheming worm had silenced me for weeks, kept me from telling the world about the existence of the Rephaim. Yet here he was, looking as easy with them as he was with his own shadow.
‘Oh, dear. Have you swallowed that pilfered tongue?’ Jaxon let out a deep laugh. ‘Yes, Paige, I am here, with the Rephaim! In the Archon, wearing the anchor! Are you aghast? Are you oh-so-scandalised? Is this all a terrible shock to your fragile sensibilities?’
‘Why?’ I whispered. ‘Why the hell are you here, Jaxon?’
‘Oh, as if I had a choice. With you as Underqueen, my beloved syndicate is doomed to self-destruction. Consequently, I have decided to return to my roots.’
‘Your roots?’
His smile widened.
‘You have chosen the wrong side. Join this one, darling,’ he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I can’t tell you how it hurts me to see you in the pocket of those despicable Rephaim who call themselves Ranthen. Unlike the Rag and Bone Man, I have always believed you could be saved from their indoctrination. From Arcturus’s . . . seduction. I thought you had more sense than to blindly obey the man who was once your master.’
I stared at him coolly. ‘You’re asking me to do that now.’
‘Touché.’ A fresh bruise stained his cheekbone. ‘To Terebellum Sheratan, you are a convenient pawn in an age-old game. Arcturus Mesarthim is nothing but her lure. Her bait. He took you under his wing in the penal colony on her orders, to entice you into the Ranthen’s net. And you, my darling – you fell for it . . . and everyone but you can see it.’
A chill warned me that something was wrong. Elsewhere in the citadel, someone had touched my body.
‘This is a fight you cannot win. Don’t mutilate the syndicate, O my lovely,’ Jaxon purred. ‘It was never meant as a weapon of war, and you were never meant to rule. Step back from the brink. All any of us in the Archon wants is to protect you – you, and the wonder of your gift. If we must pull off your wings to stop you casting yourself into the fire, so be it.’ His hand reached out. ‘Come to us, Paige. Come to me. All this can be avoided.’
He had shocked me. We both knew it. If he thought he could scare me, he would have to try harder.
Another shiver. I felt myself falling out of the stranger’s dreamscape, back into the æther’s embrace.
‘I’d rather burn,’ I said.
My brain was liquid, slithering out through my nose and down my front. I had to get out, get air into my lungs . . .
A hand took hold of my arm. Someone was talking to me, saying my name. I clawed off the oxygen mask, got the door open, and spilled out of the car in a jumble of limbs, gasping. The jolt peeled open the stitches in my side, wetting my shirt.
Jaxon Hall was many things, but I couldn’t believe he had gone to Scion. He had made his career out of living in their shadow, not their arms.
My wounds from the scrimmage flared, white-hot in my torso, deep and throbbing in my back. I pitched into the night, down the moss-slick steps to the Thames, and fell to my knees at the water’s edge, where I gripped my head between my hands and cursed my own stupidity. How, how could I have not foreseen this? There must have been some clue. Now he would be our most formidable enemy, a vital asset to the anchor.
I will find other allies, he had told me after the scrimmage. Be warned: you have not seen the last of me.
I should have killed him in the Rose Ring. The blade had been against his throat, but I’d been too weak to cut.
A very old ally, Nashira had said. One who returned to me . . . after twenty long years of estrangement . . .
A shout in the distance stopped time, or started it again. I hunched over the water, holding myself.
I have decided to return to my roots.
‘No,’ I breathed. ‘No, not you. Not you . . .’
He had been standing so comfortably alongside the Sargas. Not like someone who had only laid eyes on them for the first time a few hours ago. And there were other things I had brushed off, that I hadn’t seen from behind the blindfold. He had always been wealthier than other mime-lords. Absinthe alone cost a fortune on the black market, and he drank it almost nightly. How had he leapt from pauper to prince? Surely not just from his writing; there was no money in pamphlets. Then there was the fact that he had spearheaded my rescue from the colony with no exit plan – senseless. It wasn’t in his nature to go blindly into anything. But if he had left the colony once before . . . if he had known there was a way out – or if the Sargas had allowed him to take me away . . .
An old ally. Twenty long years. Those were the only words I needed to work out who Jaxon Hall had once been, and who he was. I had no absolute proof, but I knew – I knew, in my heart – that my instinct was right.
He wasn’t just a traitor.
He was the traitor.
The man who had betrayed the Ranthen twenty years ago to buy his freedom from the Rephaim.
The man who was responsible for the scars on Warden’s back.
The man who had left his fellow prisoners to die in the colony.
And I had been his mollisher. His right hand.
The crunch of footsteps broke through the white noise in my ears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Warden sink into a crouch beside me.
I had to tell him.
I couldn’t carry this knowledge alone.
‘I know who betrayed you twenty years ago,’ I said. ‘I know who gave you the scars.’
Silence. I realised I was shivering.
‘It is not safe out here,’ Warden finally said. ‘We can discuss this at the music hall.’
The thoughts tangled like barbed wire in my head. I was everybody’s puppet, caught in a thousand strings.
Nick ran to the railings above us. ‘Vigiles,’ he shouted. ‘Warden, bring her up here!’
Warden stayed where he was. I was afraid he would lack the ability to read my expression – that I might have to say the name myself – but as the moments ticked past, I watched it dawn on him, just as it had on me. A fire rose in his eyes.
‘Jaxon.’
PART I
God in a Machine
1
Underqueen
War has often been called a game, with good reason. Both have combatants. Both have sides. Both carry the risk of losing.
There is just one difference.
Every game is a gamble. Certainty is the last thing you want when you begin. If you are guaranteed to win, there is no game at all.
In war, however, we crave certainty. No fool ever went to war without the cast-iron belief that they could win, that they would win; or at least, that the likelihood of losing was so small as to make the bloody price of every move worthwhile. You don’t go to war just for the thrill, but for the gain.
The question is whether any gain, any outcome, can justify the way you play.
27 November, 2059
In the heart of its financial district, London was burning. On Cheapside, Didion Waite, poet of the underworld and bitter rival of Jaxon Hall, was howling over the remains of a derelict church. Once a fixture of the capital, it was now a mass of charred and smoking rubble.
In his powdered wig and tailcoat, Didion was eye-catching even by Scion London standards, but everyone was too engrossed in the drama to take notice of one madman – everyone but those of us who had answered his call. We stood at the mouth of a lane, masked and shrouded, taking in what was left of St Mary-le-Bow. According to reports from local voyants, an explosion had obliterated its foundations around midnight. Now several of the nearest buildings were on fire, and graffiti had been sprayed across the street.
ALL HAIL THE WHITE BINDER
TRUE UNDERLORD OF LONDON
A sunset-orange flower had been painted beside it. Nasturtium. In the language of flowers, it meant conquest, or power.
‘Let’s get the poor man out of there,’ said Ognena Maria, one of my commanders. ‘Before Scion does.’
I didn’t volunteer to help. Didion had demanded that I come here in person, but I couldn’t risk speaking to him, not when he was in this state. He must expect me to compensate him for the damage from the Underqueen’s coffers, and I knew from experience that he would have no qualms about exposing me to the whole street if I refused. Better not to let him see me at all, for now.
‘I’ll go.’ Eliza checked that her hood was fastened. ‘We’ll take him to Grub Street.’
‘Be careful,’ I said.
She hurried towards Didion, who was now pounding the cobbles with his hands and screaming incoherently. Maria followed, motioning to her hirelings to come with her.
I stayed behind with Nick. We had taken to wearing the winter hoods that had come into fashion in recent weeks, which could be worn so they covered most of the face, but by now I was so recognisable that even that might not protect me.
After the scrimmage – when I had fought Jaxon Hall, my own mime-lord and mentor, for the right to rule the clairvoyants of London – Nick had quit his job with Scion and vanished from their view, only staying long enough to steal a few cases of medical supplies and take as much cash from his bank account as he could. Within days, his face had appeared on the screens alongside mine.
‘You think this was Jaxon?’ He nodded to the wreck of the church.
‘His loyalists.’ The heat of the fire baked my eyes dry. ‘Whoever’s leading them is starting to gather a following.’
‘It’s a tiny group of troublemakers. Not worth your time.’
His tone was reassuring, but this was the third assault on a syndicate landmark in as many days. The last time, they had raided the Old Spitalfields Market, scaring the traders and looting stalls. Those responsible considered Jaxon to be the rightful Underlord, despite his conspicuous absence. Even after I had told them the facts, they refused to believe that the White Binder, the glorious mime-lord of I-4, could be involved with Scion.
In the grand scheme of things, this was a minor nuisance; the majority of voyants did support me. But the message this attack sent was clear: I had not yet won all of my subjects’ hearts. That came with the territory, I supposed. My predecessor, Haymarket Hector, had been widely despised. Those who had obeyed him had done so out of fear, or because he paid them well.
Didion wailed as he was hoisted to his feet and led away by Maria and Eliza. He was drowned out by the siren of a Scion fire engine. It might be able to douse the neighbouring buildings, but anyone could see that the church was beyond saving – as was the Juditheon, the auction house beneath it. We retreated, leaving another part of our history to be swept away.
Once I might have mourned. I had whiled away many an hour at the Juditheon, shelling out extortionate amounts of Jaxon’s money for spirits Didion had no right to sell – but since the revelation of Jaxon’s true nature, all of my memories of life as his mollisher had gained a taint, a film of scum that smeared their surface. All I wanted was to scrape them all into a pit, close the earth on top of them, and build again on the new ground.
‘Nearest safe house is Cloak Lane,’ Nick said.
We slipped into another backstreet, away from the ring of heat around the church. I kept us clear of other people. Nick checked for security cameras. Since the scrimmage, we were no longer just unnatural criminals, but nascent revolutionaries, with ever-growing bounties on our heads. Even if we hadn’t yet made a move against Scion, they knew our objective.
I had to wonder how much longer we could survive in the capital. It was dangerous for us to be out this late at night, but when Didion had sent for me, I had wanted to come; to convince him that we were on the same side. He was, after all, Jaxon’s long-time adversary, which now made him a potential ally.
The Cloak Lane safe house was a studio apartment rented by an ex-nightwalker, who was keen to help the Mime Order in whatever way she could. Unlike most of our buildings, it had heating, a fridge, and a proper bed. The warmth was a relief after a long night on the streets. Over the last few weeks, the temperature had plummeted and snow had fallen almost every day, leaving London as thickly iced as a birthday cake. I had never experienced a winter so ruthless. My nose and cheeks were almost always a raw pink, and my eyes streamed every time I stepped outside.
When I refused it, Nick dropped on to the bed. He, at least, got a few hours’ rest. A hint of moonlight shone on his pale face, drawing out the crease that pinched his brow even in sleep. I lay on the couch in the dark, but I was too restless to close my eyes for long. The image of the burning church, a promise of devastation, was scorched on to my mind. A reminder that while Jaxon Hall was gone, he wasn’t yet forgotten.
In the morning, I took a buck cab to the Mill, an industrial ruin in Silvertown – one of several abandoned buildings we had recently occupied across the citadel. It was home to our largest cell.
Changing the structure of the syndicate, with the view to eventually turning it into an army capable of fighting Scion, had been far from easy. I had ended the traditional system of territory and dens, though I had tried to keep gang members together where possible. Syndicate voyants were now organised into cells. Each was based in one location, known only to cell members and the local mime-lord or mime-queen, who received orders through a high commander. Forcing my subjects to limit contact outside their cells hadn’t pleased them, but it was the only way
we were going to survive. It was also the only way to evade Jaxon, who had known the old syndicate inside-out.
Now anyone who was captured would only be able to betray the whereabouts of a certain number of people to the enemy. We were going to war with Scion, and in war, we took no risks.
When I arrived at the Mill, I climbed the stairs. Leon Wax, one of the few amaurotics who worked with the Mime Order, was at the end of the upper hall in his wheelchair, handing out packs of essentials, like soap and water bottles, to two newly arrived soothsayers. Leon was sixty and losing his hair, and his skin was a deep, rich brown.
‘Hello, Paige,’ he said.
‘Leon.’ I nodded to the newcomers, who were staring at me. ‘Welcome to the cell.’
Both of them looked slightly awestruck. They must have heard plenty of talk about me: the mollisher who had stabbed her mime-lord in the back, the dreamwalker with allies from the æther. I wondered faintly how I matched up to their expectations – all they would be seeing now was a woman with dark circles under her eyes. My hair was back to white-blonde, with a single streak of black at the front. The only evidence that I had been in the scrimmage were my fading bruises and the conspicuous welt on my jaw, where my skin had been split open by a cutlass. Proof that I could fight and win, written on my face.
One of the newcomers – a pale redhead – actually curtsyed. ‘Th-thank you, Underqueen. We’re honoured to be part of the Mime Order.’
‘You don’t need to curtsy.’
Leaving them in Leon’s capable hands, I made my way to the top floor. My deepest injuries still throbbed, but we had just enough medicine to keep the pain under control.
The surveillance centre was eleven floors up. When I entered, I found Tom the Rhymer and the Glym Lord – two of my high commanders – eating breakfast and poring over a map of the citadel, which showed the positions of newly installed Senshield scanners: our latest concern. Numa were spread among the paperwork and laptops on the table: shew stones, keys, a knife, and a fist-sized crystal ball.
‘Good morning to you, Underqueen,’ Glym said.