The Kraken King Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF THE IRON SEAS

  Riveted

  “Meljean Brook delivers a stellar love story that is slow-burning but utterly romantic and satisfying. . . . Readers who are searching for that perfect steampunk romance will be thrilled. . . . Fascinating worlds, a misunderstood villain, and of course, a passionate love story.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Riveted is another fantastic addition to Meljean Brook’s delightful romantic steampunk series. I recommend this to any reader who enjoys strong, unique protagonists, witty dialog, delish romances, and engaging adventure.”

  —Smexy Books

  “As a romance, Riveted is refreshing and well written, touching on complicated themes with sensitivity and realism. As a steampunk world, this story is five stars across the board. I can’t get enough of exploring the Iron Seas; every glimpse of this alternate history leaves me fascinated and hungry for more.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  “Riveted is a wonderfully creative book with a surprisingly sweet romance at its heart. Whether you like steampunk, romance, or both, don’t miss out on reading David and Annika’s story!”

  —Joyfully Reviewed

  “In between the fantastic elements and fabulous action, Brook also weaves in themes of the dangers of prejudice and judgment. And when it comes to heroes, there’s no one more thoughtful or noble than David! A rip-roaring and wonderful addition to Brook’s amazing Iron Seas series.”

  —RT Book Reviews (2012 RT Book of the Year Award Winner)

  Heart of Steel

  “Rising star Brook has created two completely mesmerizing characters whose journeys in this gritty and treacherous world make for heart-stopping fun!”

  —RT Book Reviews (top pick)

  “Heart of Steel is an exciting and stimulating read. Fast-paced, with plenty of humor and gripping action that grabs you at page one. While you don’t lose any of the swashbuckling high seas, er, sky adventures nor Ms. Brook’s superb world building, whose depth and heart makes this series, Heart of Steel isn’t as emotionally dark as the first in the series—The Iron Duke. Which is perfect because these characters would never have survived that sort of story line. It’s not often you can find a couple who complement each other as well as these two do. Yasmeen and Archimedes are a fantastic couple whose chemistry and dynamics are off the charts. Their steamy sexual games last well towards the end and provide us with plenty of entertainment.”

  —Smexy Books

  “Yasmeen and Archimedes were a fantastic hero and heroine and a solid couple. I haven’t read many steampunk novels, but if the writing is half as good as it is in this series in other books in the genre, I really need to check out more.”

  —Paranormal Haven

  “The world that Ms. Brook has created with this series is incredibly fascinating, with a wonderfully intricate alternate history that adds such depth to the story. Archimedes is one of my absolute favorite heroes, and he and Yasmeen were truly perfect for each other. Recommended for fans of incredible steampunk, of adventuresome heroes with a truly romantic nature, and of kick-ass heroines who keep their awesomeness long after their hearts are engaged.”

  —The Romanceaholic

  “A straight-up adventure. Daring escapes, explosions, zombies, treasure hunting, and one man’s quest to fall in love with the woman with a heart of steel . . . Heart of Steel has characters worthy of adoration, a gripping adventure, and a romance to cheer for.”

  —Vampire Book Club

  The Iron Duke

  “I loved it! As far as I’m concerned, with The Iron Duke, Meljean Brook has brilliantly defined the new genre of steampunk romance. From now on, everyone will compare other writers in the genre to her.”

  —Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author

  Titles by Meljean Brook

  The Guardian Series

  DEMON ANGEL

  DEMON MOON

  DEMON NIGHT

  DEMON BOUND

  DEMON FORGED

  DEMON BLOOD

  DEMON MARKED

  GUARDIAN DEMON

  Novels of the Iron Seas

  THE IRON DUKE

  HEART OF STEEL

  RIVETED

  MINA WENTWORTH AND THE INVISIBLE CITY

  (A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)

  TETHERED

  (A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)

  HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

  (A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)

  Anthologies

  HOT SPELL

  (with Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Shiloh Walker)

  WILD THING

  (with Maggie Shayne, Marjorie M. Liu, and Alyssa Day)

  FIRST BLOOD

  (with Susan Sizemore, Erin McCarthy, and Chris Marie Green)

  MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS

  (with Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, and Ilona Andrews)

  BURNING UP

  (with Angela Knight, Nalini Singh, and Virginia Kantra)

  ANGELS OF DARKNESS

  (with Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Sharon Shinn)

  ENTHRALLED

  (with Lora Leigh, Alyssa Day, and Lucy Monroe)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2014 by Meljean Brook.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

  An application for cataloguing has been submitted to the Library of Congress.

  eBook ISBN 978-1-101-62665-8

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brook, Meljean.

  The kraken king / Meljean Brook. — Berkley trade paperback edition.

  pages ; cm. — (Iron Seas ; 4)

  ISBN 978-0-425-25605-3 (softcover)

  1. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 2. Steampunk fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.R64274K73 2014

  813'.6—dc23

  2014028598

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix serial eBook edition / April–June 2014

  Berkley trade paperback edition / November 2014

  Cover design by Jason Gill.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise for the novels of The Iron Seas

  Titles by Meljean Brook

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part I

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Part II

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Part III

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter
XI

  Chapter XII

  Part IV

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Part V

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Part VI

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Part VII

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Part VIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Part I

  THE KRAKEN KING AND THE SCRIBBLING SPINSTER

  Fladstrand, Upper Peninsula, Denmark

  April 21

  My dear impulsive brother,

  If this letter is in your hands instead of on my desk where I left it, you must have flown to Fladstrand without first collecting your correspondence in Port Fallow—where the note I sent to you would have saved you a trip. Don’t be alarmed by my absence. The guards you recommended to me have seen to my safety commendably. Since they have come into my employ, I have not been kidnapped even once.

  I have had an unexpected visit from an old friend, instead—you will remember Helene Krause, though she is now Mrs. Basile Auger. She has invited me to accompany her to Australia, and I have accepted that invitation. It will be the perfect opportunity to research the location of the next Lady Lynx adventure.

  Do not stop reading this letter, Archimedes! Your instinct will be to drop it and rush up to your skyrunner, where you and your captain will make hasty plans to follow me. I forbid you from undertaking such a stupid effort. Helene’s husband serves as an ambassador in the French diplomatic corps, and we will be traveling aboard a naval airship to his station in the Red City. No pirate would dare attack our escort, and we will not fly too near the smugglers’ havens. I have also assumed an alias to conceal my identity. Rest assured that I have taken proper precautions.

  Yours,

  Zenobia

  P.S. I warn you again, Archimedes, do not even think of pursuit! I don’t need you and Captain Corsair to chase after me, shooting everyone who crosses your path.

  I shall write to you frequently—if you have any brains in your head, you will recognize my assumed name. Remember to collect your post, and you’ll see that I am getting on perfectly well. If ever I am forced to narrate the tale of my upcoming journey, the title will surely be The Scribbling Spinster and the Uneventful Voyage.

  I

  Three days after his brother walked into the brushlands south of town and didn’t return, Ariq went in search of him.

  He left in his mountain walker just before dawn. Meeng yawned in the gunner’s seat and was asleep again before they passed through the town gates, where a dying kraken’s monstrous tentacles still slithered and coiled in the white sand. Within minutes, the sandy shoreline gave way to dense red earth. Wagtail birds in eucalyptus trees chittered their warnings over the hiss of the walker’s hydraulics. The segmented legs carried them over low shrubs, the steel joints methodically rising and falling through the crackling brush.

  Meeng snored until midmorning, but Ariq followed his brother’s trail without the tracker’s help. The skies had been pouring the night Takamasa learned that his beloved had married another, and he’d set out the next morning over thick mud. The sun had returned the following day, baking his footprints into an unmistakable path.

  But the same heat that had set Taka’s early prints like stone had hardened the ground as he’d walked. By midday, Ariq couldn’t detect a trace of his brother’s trail. He relied on Meeng, who was guided by the faintest disturbance of dust here and a broken twig there.

  Ariq didn’t need to see each print to recognize where the trail was leading, though—south around the head of the bay, then veering back toward the ocean. His brother had gone to the cliffs.

  The rocky rise to the sheer edge lay ahead of them, the red earth studded with flat boulders and scrub. A straight course would have sent Taka to the beach far below.

  Ariq steered the walker onto the same path. High overhead, the sun glared down accusingly. He shouldn’t have waited so long. But Takamasa had gone on these treks before. Meeng had accompanied him into the unforgiving landscape the first times, but in the past years Taka had ventured off alone. He’d always returned within a few days or weeks, thin and dirty but alive.

  Ariq had known this time was different, though. So different that he intended to use the faint excuse of a beached squid to bring his brother home. Now Ariq couldn’t bear to drive up the rise, or to look over the cliff and see what might lay on the shore below. He couldn’t bear it, though he’d faced warriors from the Golden Empire with a steady hand. With a calm heart, he’d stolen into the bowels of a Nipponese prison. He’d been outnumbered and outgunned more often than he liked to remember. Yet he couldn’t recall one danger that had filled his body with such dread as weighed on it now.

  “Why do you slow?” Meeng glanced away from the ground. “The trail is clear.”

  And the tracker assumed that Taka had simply walked along the cliffs rather than thrown himself over them. Meeng didn’t know of Ariq’s fears for his brother—even Taka didn’t know of them. Ariq had never spoken them aloud. A word of worry might be taken as a question of Taka’s courage and shatter his brother’s tortured spirit. So Ariq had held his tongue.

  But the news of his beloved might have broken Taka, anyway.

  He stopped the engine. “We’ll walk.”

  Frowning, Meeng studied the rise ahead. Their walker could have navigated through the boulders and brush. The machine had been designed to crawl over the treacherous mountains within the Golden Empire—and with a few modifications, the walker had proved just as suited to this flat, dry land.

  Ariq was suited to this place, too. If he hadn’t been, he’d have also made the necessary modifications.

  Taka had tried to adjust to their new life. Five years had passed since the Nipponese had discovered their mother was a spy and Taka had been imprisoned on suspicion of treason. Five years since Taka had lost everything except a half brother he hadn’t met until Ariq had freed him from his chains. But some days, it seemed as if Taka had never escaped. As if he opened his eyes, yet there was still only darkness and pain.

  Ariq had fought in the rebellion against the Golden Empire from almost his first step, yet he’d never seen a battle as continuous as Taka had waged.

  That battle might have been lost today.

  He followed Meeng up the rise. The ochre rubbed into the tracker’s black ropes of hair was almost the same shade as the dirt beneath his toughened bare feet. The earth was softer here, and Meeng walked alongside the faintest impression of Taka’s boots. Then Ariq’s boots trampled over them, his footprints so much bigger than his brother’s. Though his step was almost as quiet as Meeng’s, each one seemed to thud against the ground, heavier and heavier. Approaching the cliff’s edge, his head seemed weighed down, too. He couldn’t lift it. He didn’t want to look over.

  “Get down, you fools!”

  Ariq immediately dropped, his hand flying to his pistol before he recognized his brother’s voice behind that urgent warning. Crouching, he spotted Taka sprawled on a stone shelf overlooking the cliff, his body partially hidden by brush.

  Meeng glanced back at Ariq. Exasperation tightened the tracker’s cheeks before he slowly sank to his heels.

  Taka gestured them closer. Ariq crept to the edge, flattening himself beside his brother. A single inhalation later, he began breathing through his mouth. Taka had been walking for three days, two of them humid and hot, and he obviously hadn’t stopped to bathe in the ocean.

  But the ripe odor was sweet—the fragrance of life, not the sten
ch of death.

  So what were they hiding from? Ariq glanced into the sky. No airships, and a deeper blue than the sky he’d known as a boy. The ocean below was brighter, greener. In the distance, Fujimaru steamed toward the horizon, dark smoke threading from her stacks. When the Nipponese ironship had left Ariq’s town that morning, she’d been heading south. Now she was striking out to the west.

  But Taka wasn’t looking at the ironship. Ariq dropped his gaze to the narrow beach at the base of the cliff. Two men. Two small, sleek flyers, the balloons shining like silver beneath the sun.

  His heart slowed to a strong, heavy beat. His breath lengthened. His body calmed, preparing for battle.

  Marauders had plagued the coast since the previous winter, indiscriminately attacking incoming airships. No balloons remained at the port in Ariq’s town or the mining settlements farther north. Supplies only came in by boat and with higher prices attached. Ariq had originally suspected the source of the attacks were the dealers who’d seen the most profit when the air trade stopped. But the marauders hadn’t only struck merchant airships—they’d taken down passenger and smuggler ships, too.