This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS. Copyright © 2010, 2017 by Megan Whalen Turner. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First published in hardcover in 2010 by Greenwillow Books; first paperback edition, 2011; second paperback edition, 2017.

www.epicreads.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Turner, Megan Whalen.

A conspiracy of kings / by Megan Whalen Turner.

p. cm.

“Greenwillow Books.”

Summary: Kidnapped and sold into slavery, Sophos, an unwilling prince, tries to save his country from being destroyed by rebellion and exploited by the conniving Mede empire.

EPub Edition © March 2017 ISBN 9780061986697

ISBN 978-0-06-264299-8 (paperback)

[1. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 2. Princes—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.T85565Co 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009023052

17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

For my editor, Virginia Duncan,

one of those guiding stars

whose influence is all the more

profound for being so often unseen

Epigraph

If a man who claims to see the future is a fool,

how much more so, the man who believes he can control it?

We think we steer the ship of fate,

but all of us are guided by unseen stars.

—Enoclitus

Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Envoy

Map

Credits

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

It was midday and the passageway quiet and cool. The stone walls kept out the heat while the openings near the high ceilings admitted some of the sun’s fierce light. Midday, and the houseboy was gone on an errand, probably stealing a nap somewhere, so I was alone at the door to my master’s apartments, holding my head in my hand and cursing myself for an idiot. I was not prone to stupidity, but I’d made a foolish mistake and was paying the price. My knees shook and I would have leaned against the wall for support, but it had recently been whitewashed and the blood would stain—I did not want to be reminded of this moment every time I passed until the stones were whitened again.

Sighing, I tried to think through the fire in my head and my shoulder. I wanted a place where I could withdraw until the pain had eased, but my usual retreat was an alcove off the main room of my master’s apartments—on the other side of the door in front of me. I was absolutely not going through that door until summoned. I’d invited disaster already that day by offering my master an evidently entirely inappropriate glass of remchik. The bottle of remchik was smashed, the glasses were smashed, and, judging by the pain in my shoulder and my side, the small statuette of Kamia Shesmegah formerly resting on his writing desk was smashed as well—from which I gathered that the emperor had not, in fact, offered my master the governorship of Hemsha.

I rubbed my head and checked my hand to see if it was still bleeding. It was, but not much.

In my defense, it had not been unreasonable on my part to assume that my master would become governor. He was still the nephew of the emperor and the brother of the emperor’s chosen heir, the prince Naheelid. The governorship of Hemsha, a minor coastal province with a single small harbor, was not outside his expectations. I am the first to admit that he has a habit of overreaching, and I had been very quietly relieved that he had set his sights so low.

After the debacle in Attolia, he’d taken us to rusticate on his family estate. We’d hidden there for more than a year while the laughter died down, my master fighting with his wife the entire time—she had been, unsurprisingly, unenthusiastic about his attempts to marry the Attolian queen. Finally, we had returned to the capital, where my master found that even his oldest friends had turned their backs on him. When he’d applied for the post of governor, I’d thought he was conceding defeat. I’d thought that if Hemsha was far away from the capital, at least it was equally far away from his wife. I would have sworn on my aching shoulder that there was no reason for him to be denied such a reasonable request. Which is why, when he returned with one of his cousins, I had been waiting for him with a tray of glasses and a newly opened bottle of remchik, ready for congratulations.

“I so hate presumption in a slave,” I’d heard his cousin say, as I crept out of the room.

I sighed again. I hated being beaten. Nothing could make me feel so stupid and so angry at myself, and on top of everything else, I’d have to deal with the smirks and pitying remarks of other slaves. It did my authority no good to be seen with my face covered in blood, but I really couldn’t go back into my master’s apartments.

“Kamet?”

I had already bowed and begged pardon before I realized that it was Laela beside me. She reached to touch my shoulder and I flinched.

“Dear Kamet,” she said. “Is it more than the face?”

I nodded. My shoulder wasn’t going to heal for some time, I could tell.

Laela had been one of my master’s dancing girls. When she fell out of favor, she’d asked if I could do anything for her—afraid of where she might be sold to next. I had persuaded my master that she should stay with the household as a matron over the other girls, and she was one of the few slaves I could trust to do me a favor. “Come to my room,” she suggested.

Shaking my head slowly, I said, “He will call me back.” He always did, sooner or later. I needed to be closer than her rooms, which were deep in the slaves’ dormitories.

“I’ll make sure the houseboys know where you are,” she said, and took me gently by the arm to lead me down the hall.

As matron, Laela had a narrow room much the same size as the alcove where I slept. With the curtain pulled across the doorway, it was almost dark inside. She watched me lie down, then went to fetch a bowl with cool water and a cup to dip in it. After I’d had a drink, she soaked a cloth in the bowl and laid it on my face, wiping away the blood. It made her bedding wet, and I mumbled an apology.

“It will dry,” she said. “Faster than your face will heal. Whatever did you do?”