The Black Khan
Book two of Ausma Zehanat Khan’s powerful, unforgettable new series, The Khorasan Archives.Sides must be chosen.Truths must be told.Freedoms will be fought for.To battle the cruel and controlling patriarchal force named the Talisman, members of a resistance group, the Companions of Hira, risked their lives to procure the Bloodprint – a sacred text that holds the power to overthrow this terrifying regime. Though they harnessed the magic known as the Claim, their plans now lie in ashes and their number scattered – with the two women at the centre of the plot – Arian and Sinnia – left facing the most harrowing tortures.Yet hope flickers in the darkness.The Bloodprint survived, secreted to Ashfall, seat of the Black Khan. But the Khan’s court is built upon shifting layers of intrigue and lethal conspiracy, with enemies whose motives are steeped in the shadows. Can the Khan guard the Bloodprint when treachery lurks in the wings and the Talisman gather at his door?The Companions of Hira must reunite, break through Talisman lines, and infiltrate Ashfall to join their ally, The Black Khan. But can his word be trusted?
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HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2018
Copyright © Ausma Zehanat Khan 2018
Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com
Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Maps created by Ashley P. Halsey, inspired by Alesha Shaikh
Ausma Zehanat Khan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008171629
Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008171643
Version: 2018-09-17
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Acknowledgments
Cast of Characters
Glossary of the Khorasan Archives
About the Author
Also by Ausma Zehanat Khan
About the Publisher
IN THE DESERTED COURTYARD OF THE CLAY MINAR, THE BODIES OF BASMACHI fighters were gathered in a pile beneath a stunted tree in the shelter of a square stone base. White ribbons streamed down from the tree’s slender limbs, tied to its branches and twigs. The ribbons were bare of script: the people of Black Aura could not write. The ribbons were meant as a reminder of their sacred traditions; they were desperate, desolate prayers. The bodies piled beneath the tree formed the Authoritan’s answer to those prayers.
No wind stirred the ribbons or the dying branches. Sunlight blunted the edges of Arian’s vision, and she found her way around the tree more by instinct than anything else. She knew she was about to be taken inside the house of worship, just as she knew the Authoritan expected a demonstration of her power, a compulsion she had resisted with all the force and determination she was capable of as a Companion of Hira.
There were only three people in the courtyard: Arian, the Authoritan, and his consort, Lania, Arian’s older sister. Each night since she’d been captured in Black Aura attempting to retrieve the Bloodprint, Lania and the Authoritan had brought Arian to this place. They showed her the stunted tree and the bodies moldering beneath it, then coerced her into entering the blue-domed house of worship to test her abilities with the Claim.
Situated on the eastern side of the square, the dome was the pinnacle of a massive structure. Four arcades met at its doubled entrance, each lined with portals decorated with mosaics and glazed bronze brick. At the entrance to the main portal, a sand-colored octahedron with open arches could be reached by a set of stairs. Here great recitations of the Claim had once been addressed to the people of Black Aura, the Bloodless sharing the teachings of the Bloodprint, an ancient and powerful manuscript long believed to be lost. The manuscript that was the oldest, most venerable record of the Claim—the powerful, mysterious magic seeded throughout the history of all the lands of Khorasan, but lost to a people now condemned to a final Age of Ignorance.
