Free The Clockwork Crown by Beth Cato

Chamberlain of the Golden Age.
    The volume was one in a run of twenty, a printing of the logs of the palace lord chamberlain of both King Rathe and his son, King Kethan. Judging by the accumulation of dust puffs across the top, the topic was not of interest to Tamarans. She squinted at the narrow type as she skimmed, rubbing at her arm. At last, a hundred pages in, she found something.
    Knowing of the studious nature of our young prince, a hunter today delivered a most astonishing gift. He explored our territory of the Dallows and thereupon claims to have found the Lady’s Tree of medician lore. To King Rathe he offered a branch of the Tree the size of a man’s arm, by all appearances wholly alive; a leaf, that resembles most any normal foliage; and a seed the size of a shelled almond, bright green to the eye.
    As to why the man brought such bounty to court, he confessed that he had been cursed since leaving the Tree’s canopy. Threems nearly burned him alive, while wyrms thrashed deep furrows across the prairie. His horses, by all appearances healthy, dropped dead. When we informed the man that he had delivered a curse to the King, the hunter protested, saying the men of Caskentia’s court were known to be the wisest in the land. And surely, such holy artifacts would not harm someone blessed by God to rule our Fair Valley.
    Prince Kethan himself placed the pieces of the Lady’s living body within the royal vault. To my surprise, he seemed troubled by the gifts rather than intrigued. “In my reading of his History of World Trees, Garcia said that blooded trees only produce one seed in a lifetime. If this new seed should grow in Mercia, our entire city would be overgrown!”
    At this, we laughed, even as we were impressed, as always, by the erudition of the young heir and his eidetic knowledge of books. ’Tis my sincere hope that King Rathe be blessed with a long life, though the day when Prince Kethan claims the throne will surely be one of great celebration.
    The volume resumed a few days later:
    The words of the hunter and Prince Kethan returned to me last night as the earth rumbled. My first thought was of a mighty tree taking root and destroying the city, whereas ­people cried in the street that the Giant had awakened and we would all die of ash and fire. The sun soon rose and showed no ominous clouds from the ­mountain . . .
    The Giant, being a massive dormant volcano just to the southeast of Mercia. The Waste’s recent designs on Octavia had included using her to keep their infernals alive past the volcano’s wards against fire magi. They had intended to undo the dormancy and destroy Mercia.
    She flipped ahead but could find no other mentions of the vault or the artifacts. The slender book concluded soon after King Kethan’s ascent to the throne, with Queen Varya just announcing her pregnancy. The child who would be Princess Allendia, who grew up as a civilian named Viola Stout.
    This meant that the Tree had been sighted only some sixty or seventy years ago. According to lore, magic keeps it hidden. Magic still must hide it to some degree. Caskentia’s airships have flown over the entire Waste. A Tree taller than any building in Tamarania would have been seen otherwise. And the infernal Lanskay said the trek to the Tree was still perilous. That implies it is accessed by foot.
    As for the seed, Miss Percival had taught that it had the power to revive those who had been dead for a long while. Octavia had asked once if that meant there were ­people out there who were immortal as a result of the seed’s power. Miss Percival had said there was no way to know, and it was not something that should be known.
    â€œPardon, pardon,” said a woman as she pressed past. Her health rang as extraordinarily athletic—­unusual for a woman—­and that surprised Octavia enough to lift her head. She caught a glimpse of red hair cut in a short bob, a