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EW can now exclusively reveal the novels beautiful cover and an excerpt below.
But first, check outThe Tigers Daughtersofficial summary, here.The Tigers Daughterhits shelves Oct. 3, 2017.
Now, their border walls begin to crumble, and villages fall to demons swarming out of the forests.
Excerpt fromThe Tigers Daughterby K. Arsenault Rivera
One
The Empress
Empress Yui wrestles with her broken zither.
Shed rather deal with the tiger again.
Anything short of going north, anything short of war.
But a snapped string?
Did she not say shed stop dueling?
What was she thinking, accepting Rayama-tuns challenge?
He is only a boy.
That story will haunt him for the rest of his life.
When was the last day she behaved the way an Empress should?
Sitting in her rooms, taking up her valuable space.
But O Itsuki, Imperial Poet, brother to the Emperor, heard music wherever he heard words.
Scholars say that the Hokkaran language itself was not really born until O Itsuki began to write in it.
What use did he have for his daughters haphazard playing?
But it was never the music that cheered her mother.
It was merely seeing Shizuka play.
The sight of her daughter doing something other than swinging a sword.
O Shizuru did little else with her time, given her position as Imperial Executioner.
Wherever she went, the Crows followed in her footsteps.
And who could blame her, with the things she had done?
Ahbut Shizuka hadnt understood, back then, why her mother was always so exhausted.
Why she bickered with the Emperor whenever she saw him.
She runs the string along the length of the zither, toward the other peg.
Thanks to her modest height, it takes a bit of doing.
Perhaps she will be a musician yet.
She will play the music Handa wrote forView from Rolling Hills, she thinks.
Funny how you’ve got the option to hate a poem until the day you relate to it.
Then it becomes your favorite.
She strikes the first notesand that is when the footfalls meet her ears.
Footfalls meet her ears, and her frown only grows deeper.
No visitors, she said.
No treating with courtiers, no inane trade meetings, no audiences with the public, nothing.
Just her and the zither for an hour.
Was that so difficult to understand?
She shakes her head.
Beneath her breath she mutters an apology to her father.
One of the newer pages scurries to the threshold.
Hes wearing black and silver robes emblazoned with Dao Doan Provinces seal.
Is this Jiro-tuls latest son?
He has so many, she cant keep track anymore.
Eventually shes going to have to make an effort to remember the servants names.
The new boy prostrates himself.
He offers her a package wrapped in dark cloth and tied together with twine.
Its so bulky the boys hands quiver just holding it.
Some idiot suitors latest gift.
Only one thing makes a person foolhardy enough to contradict the Empresss will, and that is infatuation.
Love has the decency to send up a note, not whatever this was.
You may speak, she says.
Your Imperial Majesty, he says, this package was, we think, addressed to you
You think?
She crooks a brow.
The boy rises to his knees.
She beckons him closer, and he scrambles forward, dropping the package in the process.
That sort of heavy thwack can come only from a book.
Hes close enough now that she can see the wisps of black hair clinging to his upper lip.
From a distance, it looked like hed taken a punch to the face.
Your Imperial Majesty, Most Serene Empress Phoenix
Your Imperial Majesty suffices in private conversation.
Your Imperial Majesty, he says, the handwriting is, if you will forgive my bluntness, atrocious.
When I received it, I had a great deal of difficulty deciphering it.
O Shizuka turns toward the zither as the boy speaks.
For not the first time in recent years, she considers trimming her nails.
As he speaks she runs her fingertips along the strings of her zither.
If she closes her eyes she can still hear View from Rolling Hills.
I sought out the aid of the elder servants, he says.
One of them pointed out that this is in the horse script.
O Shizuka stops mid-motion.
No one writes to her in Qorin.
No Hokkaran courtiers bother learning it.
Horselords are beneath them, and thus there is no reason to learn their tongue.
How did that drivel go?
Hokkaro is a mother to unruly young nations, ever watchful, ever present.
Shizuka always hated it.
Burqilas calligraphy is serviceable, if not perfect; the servants would have no trouble with anything she sent.
Which leaves only one Qorin who might write to her in the rough horse-tongue.
Its been eight years, she thinks, eight years since .
There are thirty-two different honorifics in Hokkaraneight sets of four.
Each set is used only in specific circumstances.
Using the wrong one is akin to walking up to someone and spitting into their mouth.
So why was it that, to this day, Shefali remained Oshiro-sun?
The boy should know better.
Sun is for outsiders, and Shefali was .
Give it to me, O Shizuka snaps.
He offers it to her again, and when she takes it, her hands brush against his.
That fleeting contact with the Empress is more than any other boy his age could dream of.
Naturally, he will tell all the others about it the moment he has a chance.
O Shizukas hands tremble as she reaches for the paper attached to the package.
For O Shizuka of Hokkaro, from Barsalyya Shefali Alshar.
Nothing could make her smile like this, not even hearing the Sisters secret song itself.
Doan-tun, she says, her voice little more than a whisper.
Cancel all my appointments for the next two days.
Your Imperial Majesty, the Merchant Prince of Sur-Shar arrives tomorrow!
Unless my uncle has finally done me the favor of dying, I am not to be bothered.
And she is alone.
Alone as she has been for eight years.
Alone with her crown, her zither, her paper, her ink, her Imperial bed.
She can smell her: horses and sweat, milk and leather.
And there, pressed between the first two pages
Two pine needles.
When her eyes first land on the Qorin characters in the book, O Shizukas heart begins to sing.
Blossoms Long Ago
Shizuka, my Shizuka.
My apologies for the awful calligraphy.
I have so many questions for you, and Im certain you have just as many for me.
Here in the East, I hear rumors of what youve been up to.
Is it true you returned to Shiseiki Province and slew a Demon General?
You must tell me the story.
And do not brush off the details, Shizuka.
I can almost hear your voice.
It really was nothing.
The day will come when we share stories over kumaq and rice wine.
I know it will.
But until then, paper and ink are all we have.
They are old friends of yours, and have kindly agreed to keep you company in my absence.
Do you remember the first time we met, Shizuka, or has that long faded from your memory?
It is my favorite story in all the world to tell.
Oh, you know it well.
But let me tell it all the same.
Let me have my comfort.
Without you, I am in the dark.
It has been so long, Shizuka, that I might mistake a candle for the sun.
Your existence alone was cause for celebration.
Your uncle, the Emperor, had let fourteen years go by without producing an heir.
And there was the matter of your parents, as well.
When you were born, both were nearing forty.
I cannot imagine the elation the Empire felt after holding its breath for so long.
Fourteen years without an heir, fourteen years spent tiptoeing on eggshells.
All it would take was one errant arrow to bring your entire dynasty to its knees.
So you saved them.
From the first moment of your life, Shizuka, you have been saving people.
I cannot say it would surprise me.
You do not do anything halfway.
But there was another thing about your birthsomething we shared.
One month later, on the first of Qurukai, I was born beneath the Eternal Sky.
I was not screaming, and I did not cry until my mother slapped me.
I can imagine you shaking your head.
Its trueQorin portents are never pleasant.
Two pine needles stuck together between my eyes.
There are no pine trees in that part of the steppes.
When my mother told yours about what had happened, our fates were decided.
The pine needles were an omenwe would always be friends, you and I, always together.
To celebrate our good fortune, your father wrote a poem on the subject.
Dont you find it amusing, Shizuka?
Everyone thinks that poem was about your parents, but it was about us the whole time.
When we were three, our mothers introduced us.
Shizuru and Alshara wrote to each other for months about it.
Burqila Alshara wasnt having that.
But the moment you laid eyes on me, something within you snapped.
And when I say rage, you must understand the sort of anger I am discussing.
Normal children get upset when they lose a toy or when their parents leave the room.
They weep, they beat their little fists against the ground, they scream.
But it was not so with you.
Your lips were drawn back like a cats, your teeth flashing in the light.
Your whole face was taut with fury.
Your scream was wordless and dark, sharp as a knife.
You moved so fast, they could not stop you.
A rush of red, yesthe color of your robes.
Flickering golden ornaments in your hair.
Dragons, or phoenixes, it matters not.
Snarling, you wrapped your hands around my throat.
Spittle dripped onto my forehead.
When you shook me, my head knocked against the floor.
I struggled, but I could not throw you off.
Whatever hate drove you made you ten times as vicious as any child has a right to be.
In desperation I tried rolling away from you.
On the third roll, we knocked into a brazier.
Burning oil spilled out and seared your shoulder.
Only that immense pain was enough to distract you.
O Shizuru apologized, or maybe O Itsuki.
I think it must have been both of them.
Before that day, before you tried to kill me, no one ever said no to you.
You did not come to stay with us that summer.
Soon, Shizuru scheduled your first appointment with your music tutor.
The problem, in her mind, was that you were too much like her.
And as for my mothers reaction?
That attitude extended to you, as well, though you had not earned it.
O Shizuru and Burqila Alshara spent eight days being tortured together, and years after that rescuing one another.
Your honored self included.
Sono, there was nothing your mother could do wrong.
But my mother did insist on one thingtaking a clipping of your hair, and braiding it into mine.
She gave your mother a clipping of my hair and instruction, for the same reason.
Old Qorin tradition, you seepart of your soul stays in your hair when the wind blows through it.
By braiding ours together, she hoped to end our bickering.
I cant say that she was right or wrongonly that as a child, I liked touching your hair.
Its so much thicker than mine, Shizuka, and so much glossier.
May you hear this in my voice, and not the careful accent of a gossiping courtier.
May you hear the story itself, and not the rumors the rest may have whispered to you.
When I was five, my mother took my brother and me back to the steppes.
We spent too long in the palace at Oshiro, she said; our minds sprouted roots.
She did not actually say that out loud, of coursemy brother spoke for her.
In those days, he was the one who read her signing.
Thus, he taught himself to sign.
Was my mother impressed?
This is a difficult question.
As commendable as it was that my brother went to such lengths, he was Not Qorin.
On our first night on the whistling Silver Steppes, I almost froze to death.
The temperature there drops faster thanwell, youve been there, Shizuka, you know.
Its customary for mothers to rub their children down with urine just to keep them warm.
No one sleeps alone; ten to fifteen of us all huddle together beneath our white felt gers.
Even then the nights are frozen.
On one such night, he spoke to me of our names.
Shefali, he said, when you are out here, you are not Oshiro-sun.
You know that, right?
I stared at him.
That is what five-year-olds do.
He mussed my hair as he spoke again.
Well, you know now, he said.
Our mothers the Kharsa, sort of.
That means shes like the Emperor, but for Qorin people.
No throne, I said.
She doesnt need one, said Kenshiro.
She has her mare and the respect of her people.
Your uncle was a ruler, and so was my mother.
They must be the same.
I did not know much about your family back then.
But I didnt much care about any of that.
It didnt affect me as much as you did, as much as the memory of you did.
Yes, she said pine needlesthe woman who lived for plains and open sky.
But still, I grew to think of you as .
Not the way I thought of Kenshiro.
He was my brother.
He taught me things, and spoke to me, and helped me hunt.
That we were always going to be together.
As Moon chases Sun, so would I chase you.
But during my first journey around the steppes, I learned how different our two nations were.
