The fate of a cursed nation depends on a princess who must outwit a mortal enemy and outlast the trials of a death-defying ritual in a thrilling adventure by USA Today bestselling author Sariah Wilson.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Sariah Wilson’s A Tribute of Fire, which releases on November 1st 2024.
Lia is the princess of Locris, a dying desert nation cursed centuries ago by an earth goddess—one still worshipped by the thriving and adversarial nation of Ilion. Every year, Ilion offers the goddess a two Locrian maidens forced to compete in a life-and-death race to reach her temple. In a millennium, no maiden has made it out of Ilion alive. This year, Lia is one of the hunted.
An education in battle gives her a fighting chance, but the challenges are greater than she Lia’s beloved but untrained sister Quynh has been put in the path of danger. The winding streets of Ilion itself have been transformed into a labyrinthine maze of countless choices and dead ends. And if the risks weren’t significant enough, Lia is reluctantly drawn to the commandingly attractive Jason, an Ilionian sailor she loathes to trust and desires like no man before.
The tribute game is on. It’s up to Lia to lift the goddess’s curse, restore Locris to its former glory, and change the fate of every young woman destined to follow in her path.
I took the corner too sharply and nearly tripped over my own feet, slamming hard into the stone wall. Pain bloomed in my shoulder. I grit my teeth together and kept running, breathing hard, sweat pouring down my back and making my tunic cling to me.
“That way!” I heard a soldier call out behind me, and it gave me a burst of energy, propelling me forward even faster.
An arrow whizzed by my head, so close that it nearly nicked my ear. I gasped and fought the urge to freeze in place.
Stupid girl, remember that a moving target is nearly impossible to hit! My mentor’s words echoed inside my head, reminding me that I needed to keep low to the ground and run as fast as I could.
There was an unfamiliar whirling sound one moment, and then in the next, my legs were suddenly swept out from under me. I tumbled to the ground, my armor clanking. I hit the earth so hard that my breath was knocked from me.
I was dazed for only a moment and then I looked down. They had thrown a bola around my ankles. I pushed the heavy helmet from my head and reached down to tug the rope loose from my legs.
The men’s voices were getting closer.
With a silent groan I got to my feet and ran. I went left through the maze, then right. I had lost track of the course and didn’t know where I was. Fear flooded my system, making it even harder to think, harder to focus on a way of getting out of this alive.
A spear whooshed past me, piercing the hem of my tunic before it slammed into the ground, wobbling in place. I ran by it and turned left again.
A few more turns and I would reach the temple. Sanctuary.
My breathing turned even more ragged as I dug deep, willing myself to fly the rest of the way. My limbs burned, my lungs protested, but I had to keep going.
Another arrow. This one went wide but I still felt the rush of hot air as it cut through the open space beside me.
“We almost have her!” a man’s voice called out in triumph, and the panicky adrenaline coursing through me said he was right. Too close. They were too close.
I heard the sounds of swords being drawn from scabbards as the soldiers behind me closed the distance between us.
I came to a crossroads. Right or left? I couldn’t remember.
With no time to think it through, I chose right.
And after two more turns, I realized that I had made a fatal mistake. That path came to a dead end. There was only a stone wall ahead of me. I banged my fists against it in frustration.
I was trapped.
A dozen soldiers crowded together behind me, their weapons pointed my way. I pulled out my dagger but knew that I wouldn’t be able to fight my way clear. Maybe if there had been only a few I might have had a chance.
“You are caught,” the man in front announced with delight.
“Not yet,” I hissed back.
He stepped forward with his own dagger drawn and I grabbed his wrist, turning it so that he dropped the weapon. I elbowed him hard in the face and pushed him into the man behind him.
Someone lunged at me on my right, and I sidestepped the swing of his staff and used his momentum to shove him off-balance.
Arms went around me, grabbing me hard about my waist and lifting me. To the soldier’s surprise, I went completely limp and fell to the ground. It was the worst possible defensive position to be in, but I’d had no choice. I grabbed the back of the attacker’s knee to propel him forward so that he tripped over me, and I kicked out at the two closest men, clearing a spot to leap to my feet.
I got back into a defensive crouch, holding my weapon out. My pursuers spread out in a line and my stomach sank. I knew it was over.
My only hope had been to fight them one at a time.
As I feared, they attacked all together and I had a dozen sets of hands on me, pulling me down. I struggled against them, pushing and kicking, but it was no use.
Demaratus was already yelling as he shoved his way through the crowd. “Stupid girl! What did I tell you? Never, ever allow yourself to be cornered. And you never let yourself get flanked that way!”
The regiment released me and I huffed out, “I know.” When my mentor was in this mood, which was essentially all the time, I was better served by being meek and agreeable. Arguing only made him worse.
Someone from my regiment offered me their hand to help me up and I accepted, brushing dust from my tunic.
Demaratus’s face finally came into sight and I breathed deeply to fortify myself. I was very tall for a woman, but he was a head taller than me. He was nearly as old as my father but moved like a much younger man. He radiated anger and frustration. Even the patch over his missing right eye seemed angry with me.
“You are not as strong as them,” he yelled. “Hide! Evade! Run! You don’t try to fight your way clear.” He gestured toward his soldiers, who had all been sworn to secrecy. “They have more training and they are stronger than you. You will not win in hand-to-hand combat. You must stay out of arm’s reach! Once they get their hands on you, it’s over.”
“I know,” I said again as my breathing returned to normal. I looked at my shoulder, which had already started to turn a darker color.
The bruises were getting harder and harder to explain.
Then Demaratus was directly in front of me, grabbing me by my breastplate the way he would any of his other soldiers and pulled me up to his face. His breath reeked of alcohol, as it normally did.
“No quarter will be given! You will not be taken alive. If they catch you, corner you, you will die!” He roared the words so loudly I wondered if everyone in the palace could hear him.
The former Daemonian general spent his time either not speaking at all or yelling at the top of his lungs. During our training, there had been no middle ground.
I didn’t even know if he knew my name. He only ever called me “stupid girl.”
“What happens if you get within reach of those Ilionian men?” he demanded.
“They will kill me.” I understood this better than everyone else here, as I was the one it would soon happen to.
I had been training with Demaratus for the last year in preparation for the selection that would take place in two days’ time. The Seven Sisters constellation had appeared in the sky a week ago, letting us know that the time had arrived.
And the main thing that I had learned in practicing hand-to-hand combat was that no matter how many techniques I learned, no matter how agile or nimble I might be, if more than one soldier could get their hands on me, I was finished. Demaratus was right—they were stronger than I was.
My only hope was to keep my distance. I wouldn’t be able to fight my way out. Getting cornered would mean certain death.
Excerpted from A Tribute of Fire, by Sariah Wilson. Montlake, 2024. Reprinted with permission.
