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CROWN OF OBLIVION is out now from HarperTeen!
Here’s a short summary:
As the surrogate to Princess Renya, Astrid lives amongst royalty. Her life, however, is far from privileged. If Renya steps out of line, Astrid is the one who gets whipped. It’s a nightmare, but Astrid has no choice—she and her family are Outsiders, the lowest class of people, without magic or citizenship.
The only way out is to compete in the deadly Race of Oblivion. First, racers are dosed with the drug Oblivion which wipes their memories. Then they awake in the middle of nowhere with a slip of paper containing the race’s first clue. Whoever finds the clues first and crosses the finish line wins. That’s the only rule—racers have killed each other in pursuit of the next clue, and the punishing terrain kills even more of them. For Astrid, competing could mean death. But winning could mean freedom.
Start reading the prologue below:
CROWN OF OBLIVION
Prologue
Four years ago
Lightning flashes. For a moment, the nighttime world beyond this dormitory window is as bright as if it were noon. The green hedge that hems in the yard appears, and beyond it, the gray palace wall. Then just as quickly everything’s black again, and I count under my breath.
One . . .
Two . . .
Three . . .
Four . . .
Five . . . Thunder rolls across the roof.
Five. The storm is almost here.
Another flash, but this time, there’s something else out there. Between the hedge and the wall. A boy. I forget to count. It was just a glimpse, but I thought it could be my brother Jayden.
Then the thunder, so close my bones rattle, and then another flash, and the boy is gone. A tree branch scratches at the outside of the glass. Not him, not him, not him, I whisper to myself.
By the time the rain starts, I’m sure it wasn’t Jayden, or anyone else. Something, but not a boy. A deer maybe. It doesn’t matter. The rain is coming down so hard now I can’t see out, even with the lightning, and this game I’m playing with myself is done. The rain roars against the slate roof, loud enough to wake the other girls, so I hurry back to my cot and pull the covers halfway over my face before anyone can catch a glimpse of me in my nightgown.
But being quick is not enough. A few of the girls are already awake. Behind me, Lily whispers something to the girl in the cot beside her. I tell myself she’s talking about something else. But then Dina murmurs under her breath, “Did you see her scars?”
It’s nothing, I tell myself. Let it go. But all I want to do is sit up and scream at them to mind their own business. I don’t need their pity.
“Knock it off, you two.” It’s the voice of Mrs. Whittaker, and now it’s so much worse. I wish she hadn’t heard, but the storm is loud enough to wake most of the twenty girls in the room. I’m sure they’re all listening now. “If Astrid weren’t under that whip, don’t you realize one of you might be? It’s not just the princess she’s sparing, but every one of you.”
No one says a word after that.
Could she be right? I suppose if I weren’t the princess’s surrogate, one of these other girls would be, so maybe what she says is true. Maybe I’m not just suffering in Renya’s place, but in theirs, too. Though I don’t know if I want to think about that. I don’t want to resent all these girls in the same way I already resent Renya.
The siren interrupts my thoughts.
It’s so loud, it drowns out even the rain and wakes any of the girls who were still sleeping. Everyone sits up. Embeds flash in the dark like red fireflies. Whispers pass from cot to cot. Everyone is wondering who the siren is for, who’s been discovered missing. Lightning flashes again, and I remember the boy I thought I’d seen through the window. I pull the sheet off and sit up, and just at that moment a figure appears in the doorway with a light in her hands. The light points down, but even in the dark, the mix of authority and anxiety I feel flowing from her tells me it’s Renya. I wonder how much she heard.
She flips on the overhead light.
“Princess!” cries Mrs. Whittaker, and I can tell she’s wondering, too.
“I’m sorry to disturb you all, Mrs. Whittaker,” Renya says, though it’s clear from her tone she’s not sorry at all. “I need to speak with Astrid right away.” She sounds like a schoolteacher speaking to a roomful of children, but I know her too well. There’s a shiver when she says my name. There’s more than a little fear in her.
“Of course!” Mrs. Whittaker’s voice is the chirp of an anxious bird.
Renya is in a hurry. She grabs me by the arm and pulls me out through the door.
“Slow down,” I say. I don’t ask why she’s come to drag me from my bed in the middle of the night. I think of the siren and the boy outside in the rain, and I decide I don’t want to know. “You’re going to pull my arm off.”
But Princess Renya doesn’t slow, and it isn’t until we’re descending the back steps that she speaks to me at all. Here, tucked inside layers of the palace’s stone walls, the thunder’s just a muted murmur. The light Renya holds bounces off the smooth plaster walls of the narrow stairway, so that, wrapped in her white dressing gown, her auburn waves tossed across her shoulders, Renya’s silhouette suggests an angel or a ghost. I feel all too human beside her in my thin nightgown, my slipperless feet cold against the tiles. “It’s Jayden,” she whispers, and I know what she’s about to say, but I don’t want to hear it. I want to go back to my cot in the dormitory. “He wasn’t in his bed tonight. The siren is for Jayden.”
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