Trickster's Choice (Daughter of the Lioness Book 1)
“Few authors can slay so effectively with a single sentence—I mean fist-in-the-air, shouting-at-my-book slay—as Tamora Pierce. All these years later, I still draw strength from her words.”
—MARIE LU, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Tamora Pierce’s books shaped me not only as a young writer but also as a young woman. Her complex, unforgettable heroines and vibrant, intricate worlds blazed a trail for young adult fantasy—and I get to write what I love today because of the path she forged throughout her career. She is a pillar, an icon, and an inspiration. Cracking open one of her marvelous novels always feels like coming home.”
—SARAH J. MAAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“It’s impossible to overstate Tamora Pierce’s impact on children’s literature. Her tough, wise, and wonderful heroines have inspired generations of readers. Her encouragement of up-and-coming authors is unparalleled. Thank you, Tammy, for Alanna and Beka and more, for your generosity of spirit, for your incredible legacy.”
—RAE CARSON, New York Times bestselling author
“Tamora Pierce’s writing is like water from the swiftest, most refreshingly clear, invigorating, and revitalizing river. I return to her books time and time again.”
—GARTH NIX, New York Times bestselling author
“Tamora Pierce’s novels gave me a different way of seeing the world. They were like nothing I’d encountered before. Alanna stormed her way into my thirteen-year-old heart and told me that I could write gorgeous, complicated novels about vibrantly real people in fantastic situations, and, to be honest, she’s never left.”
—AlAYA DAWN JOHNSON, award-winning author of Love Is the Drug
“Tamora Pierce is the queen of YA fantasy, and we are all happy subjects in her court.”
—JESSICA CLUESS, author of A Shadow Bright and Burning
PRAISE FOR
TRICKSTER’S CHOICE
“Aly arrives fully formed, a snarky, talented uber-heroine.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A marvelous cast of characters, human, mage, and animal; a tangled web of political and racial tensions; and the promise of other Aly stories to come will engage Pierce’s legions of fans and win over even more.”
—Booklist
“The climax is worth the wait and ably sets up a framework for future adventures of this very likable new heroine.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This fantasy has plenty to hold readers’ attention….Aly is a strong, intelligent, and resilient feminist.”
—SLJ
“A smart, sassy heroine whose struggle to escape her parents’ expectations and find her own niche will resonate with teens.”
—VOYA
TORTALL BOOKS
BY TAMORA PIERCE
THE NUMAIR CHRONICLES
Tempests and Slaughter
TRICKSTER’S DUET
Trickster’s Choice
Trickster’s Queen
PROTECTOR OF THE SMALL QUARTET
First Test
Page
Squire
Lady Knight
BEKA COOPER TRILOGY
Terrier
Bloodhound
Mastiff
THE IMMORTALS QUARTET
Wild Magic
Wolf-Speaker
Emperor Mage
The Realms of the Gods
THE SONG OF THE LIONESS QUARTET
Alanna: The First Adventure
In the Hand of the Goddess
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
Lioness Rampant
Tortall: A Spy’s Guide
Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2003 by Tamora Pierce
Cover art copyright © 2017 by Velvet Spectrum
Excerpt from Tempests and Slaughter copyright © 2017 by Tamora Pierce
Excerpt from The Trickster's Queen copyright © 2004 by Tamora Pierce.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ember, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 2003.
Ember and the E colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Visit us on the Web!
GetUnderlined.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
RHTeachersLibrarians.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:
Pierce, Tamora.
Trickster’s choice / Tamora Pierce
p. cm.
Summary: Alianne must call forth her mother’s courage and her father’s wit in order to survive on the Copper Isles in a royal court rife with political intrigue and murderous conspiracy.
ISBN 978-0-375-81466-2 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-91466-9 (lib. bdg.) —
ISBN 978-0-375-89043-7 (ebook)
[1. Fantasy.] I. Title. II. Series: Pierce, Tamora.
PZ7.P61464Tp 2003 [Fic]—dc21 2003005202
2017 Ember Edition
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
Ebook ISBN 9780375828799
v3.0_r6
CONTENTS
Cover
Tortall Books by Tamora Pierce
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Epigraph
Prologue
1. Parents
2. Trickster
3. The Raka
4. The Road
5. Settling In
6. Of Goats and Crows
7. Conversations
8. A Spy’s Work
9. Learning the Ground
10. Assassins
11. Migrations
12. The Mage of Pohon
13. Ladies of the Raka
14. Pivot
15. Winged Messenger
16. Betrayal
Cast of Characters
Glossary
Excerpt from Trickster’s Queen
Excerpt from Tempest and Slaughter
About the Author
To Phyllis Westberg,
for knowing the best time to fire me and
for giving me the best rewrite advice
I’ve ever gotten:
read aloud
In a time of fear, the One Who I Promised will come to the raka, bearing glory in her train and justice in her hand. She will restore the god to his proper temple and his children to her right hand. She will be twice royal, wise and beloved, a living emblem of truth to her people. She will be attended by a wise one, the cunning one, the strong one, the warrior, and the crows. She will give a home to all, and the kudarung will fly in her honor.
—From the Kyprish Prophecy, written in the year 200 H.E.
from The Luarin Conquest:
New Rulers in the Copper Isles
by Michabur Durse of Queenscove,
published in 312 H.E.
In the bloody decades before the year 174 of the Human Era, the Kyprish Isles were locked in
strife. Rival branches of the royal house traded the throne on a number of occasions. In turn the crown had lost control over the warring houses of the raka, or native, nobility. Scholars said of those years that only the jungles prospered, for the trees and vines fed on the blood of the raka. During this time the Isles exported more slaves than imported them: victors sold their enemies into the Eastern and Southern Lands, only to enter slavery in their own turn when they lost the next battle.
Queen Imiary VI of the house of Haiming made repeated attempts to negotiate peace among the raka. Her efforts failed. She was overthrown after twelve years of rule. Her successor and murderer, Queen Dilsubai, also a Haiming, favored those nobles who supported her shaky claim to the throne, and imprisoned their rivals. The glorious days of the copper-skinned warrior queens of the Isles were over.
On the mainland, the pale-skinned easterners called luarin by the Kyprish people saw the disorder, and the wealth, of the Isles. Rittevon of Lenman, younger son of a lesser noble house in Maren, found opportunity in the Isles’ disorder. He raised funds and allies among the realms of Tusaine, Galla, Tortall, Maren, Sarain, and Tortall’s southern neighbor Barzun.* For an army he summoned younger sons, adventurers, and mercenaries, all bought by the promise of the Isles’ wealth. With them came battle mages trained in the arts of war at the university in Carthak. Rittevon and his chief ally, Ludas Jimajen, son of a Tyran merchant clan, placed their souls in pawn for the gold that bought the services of their battle mages. They bought all the raka nobles they could in advance, promising them status when Rittevon sat the throne.
The first assault came in stealth on April 5, 174 H.E. The invaders struck not the capital at Rajmuat, where rival Haiming cousins fought over the crown, but the stronghold of the noble house Malubesai, on the southern island that bears their name. This most powerful clan was taken completely by surprise. Their homes were left in ruins, their warriors in mass graves, and their descendants in chains, all at the hands of the luarin mages.
For the next seven years, luarin ships and armies ranged the islands from Malubesang to Lombyn, from Imahyn to Tongkang. Lesser raka nobles and various clans, seeing how the wind blew, offered their allegiance to the conquerors. These became the lesser nobility of the Isles, allowed to retain lands, freedom, and lives, but taxed into poverty after their strongholds were destroyed. For the greatest raka nobles and the royal house of Haiming, the luarin offered only slavery or death. On Midsummer’s Day 181 H.E., the first Rittevon king was crowned as ruler of the newly renamed Copper Isles.
The domination of the raka people continued. The luarin nobles—once tailor’s sons and blacksmiths, landless younger sons and mercenaries—took for their new houses and fiefdoms the names of the land and the old noble houses. More luarin arrived to settle and do business. Marriage among the raka was encouraged for the luarin lower classes, producing a multitude of part-raka servants and slaves. The luarin were there to stay.
Like most who lose such struggles, the raka declared that only war in the Divine Realms explained the failure of their patron god, Kyprioth, to defeat the luarin. The luarin priests taught, and the raka people believed, that Kyprioth’s divine brother and sister, the war god Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess, had overthrown him. It was these gods, the priests of both races said, who took the right to govern the islands, while they gave Kyprioth lordship only over the local seas, to keep him occupied under their eyes.
Soon after the last battle of the luarin conquest, an ancient priestess gave voice not to her own prayers, but to the banished god Kyprioth. His promise was passed from raka slave to raka freeman, from raka mothers or fathers to their part-luarin children. Kyprioth told his people that the efforts of the luarin kings to erase the Haiming line had failed. One branch of the old royalty yet survived. The Queen’s prophecy is his promise that, from that surviving branch, the One Who Is Promised would come. She would be the Queen with two crowns, chosen by the god to lead the Isles and those who love them to freedom once more.
* * *
* Barzun was conquered by Tortall in the year 378 H.E., giving Jasson III of Tortall control of the eastern coastline from Scanra to the southern delta of the River Drell.
1
PARENTS
March 27–April 21, 462 H.E.
Pirate’s Swoop, Tortall, on the coast of the Emerald Ocean
George Cooper, Baron of Pirate’s Swoop, second in command of his realm’s spies, put his documents aside and surveyed his only daughter as she paused by his study door. Alianne—known as Aly to her family and friends—posed there, arms raised in a Player’s dramatic flourish. It seemed that she had enjoyed her month’s stay with her Corus relatives.
“Dear Father, I rejoice to return from a sojourn in our gracious capital,” she proclaimed in an overly elegant voice. “I yearn to be clasped to your bosom again.”
For the most part she looked like his Aly. She wore a neat green wool gown, looser than fashion required because, like her da, she carried weapons on her person. A gold chain belt supported her knife and purse. Her hazel eyes contained more green than George’s own, and they were set wide under straight brown brows. Her nose was small and delicate, more like her mother’s than his. She’d put a touch of color on her mouth to accent its width and full lower lip. But her hair . . .
George blinked. For some reason, his child wore an old-fashioned wimple and veil. The plain white linen covered her neck and hair completely.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you plan to join the Players, then?” he asked mildly. “Take up dancing, or some such thing?”
Aly dropped her pretense and removed her veil, the embroidered cloth band that held it in place, and her wimple. Her hair, once revealed, was not its normal shade of reddish blond, but a deep, pure sapphire hue.
George looked at her. His mouth twitched.
“I know,” she said, shamefaced. “Forest green and blue go ill together.” She smoothed her gown.
George couldn’t help it. He roared with laughter. Aly struggled with herself, and lost, to grin in reply.
“What, Da?” she asked. “Apart from the colors, aren’t I in the very latest fashion?”
George wiped his eyes on his sleeve. After a few gasps he managed to say, “What have you done to yourself, girl?”
Aly touched the gleaming falls of her hair. “But Da,” she said, voice and lower lip quivering in mock hurt, “it’s all the style at the university!” She resumed her lofty manner. “I proclaim the shallowness of the world and of fashion. I scorn those who sway before each breeze of taste that dictates what is stylish in one’s dress, or face, or hair. I scoff at the hollowness of life.”
George still chuckled, shaking his head.
“Well, Da, that’s what the students say.” She plopped herself into a chair and stretched her legs out to show off her shoes, brown leather stamped with gold vines. “These look nice.”
“They’re lovely,” he told her with a smile. “Which ‘they’ is it that proclaim the hollowness of the world?”
Aly flapped a hand in dismissal. “University students. Da, it’s the silliest thing. One of the student mages brewed up a hair treatment. It’s supposed to make your hair shiny and easy to comb, except it has a wee side effect. And of course the students all decided that blue hair makes a grand statement.” She lifted up a sapphire lock and admired it.
“So I see.” George thought of his oldest son, one of those very university students. “Don’t tell me our Thom’s gone blue.”
Now it was Aly’s turn to raise a mocking eyebrow at her father. “Do you think he even notices blue-haired people are about? Since they started bringing in the magical devices from Scanra, he’s done nothing but take notes for the mages who study how they’re made. The only reaction I got from him was ‘Ma better not see you like that.’ I had to remind him Mother’s safely in the north, waiting for the snows to melt so she can chop up more Sca
nrans.” Aly had left a pair of saddlebags by the door. Now she fetched them and put them on a long table beside George’s desk. “The latest documents from Grandda. He says to tell you no, you can’t go north, you’re still needed to watch the coast. Raiding season will begin soon.”
“He read my mind,” George said crossly. “That cursed war’s going into its second year, your mother’s in the middle of it, or will be once the fighting warms up, and I stay here, buried under paper.” He indicated his heaped desktop with a wave of a big hand and glared at the saddlebags. “I’ve not seen her in a year, for pity’s sake.”
“Grandda says he’s got an assistant trained for you,” Aly replied. “She’ll be here in a month or so. He is right. It’s no good holding Scanra off in the north if Carthak or Tusaine or the Copper Isles try nipping up bits of the south.”
“Don’t teach your gran to make butter,” George advised her drily. “I learned that lesson before you were born.” He knew Aly was right; he even knew that what he did was necessary. He just missed his wife. They hadn’t been separated for such a long stretch in their twenty-three years of marriage. “And an assistant in a month does me no good now.”
Aly gave him her most charming smile. “Oh, but Da, now you’ve got me,” she said as she gathered a wad of documents. “Grandda wanted me to take the job as it was.”
“I thought he might,” George murmured, watching as she leafed through the papers she held.
“I told him the same thing I did you,” replied Aly, setting documents in stacks on the long table. “I love code breaking and knowing all the tittle-tattle, but I’d go half mad having to do it all the time. I asked him if I could spy instead. . . .”
“I said no,” George said flatly, hiding his alarm. The thought of his only daughter living in the maze of dangers that was ordinary spy work, with torture and death to endure if she were caught, made his hair stand on end.