The Crimson Road

by A.G. Slatter

Genres: Fantasy; Dark Fantasy; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; General Fiction; Gothic

Synopsis

A captivating dark gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author's All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns and The Briar Book of the Dead. A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises, perfect for readers of Alix E. Harrow, Hannah Whitten and Alexis Henderson.

Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill. 

Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she’s free – then she learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet’s still-born brother was taken years ago. Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her – and it becomes clear: she’s going to have to clean up the mess her father made.

By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter's sinister and compelling fantasy world in a tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises.

Release date: February 11, 2025

Publisher: Titan Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

CHAPTER 1

 

The pillow feels solid, weighty, like it can do damage.

My own hands, clawed around it, are age-spotted and thin. I think, This can’t be right, then the thought leaves my mind and I’m back to the task, grip so tight I can feel each thread in the cambric pillowcase, every delicate structure in the feather stuffing. Standing, looming, my thighs pressed against the mattress, my talons descending.

The pillow over my father’s face, obscuring his withered features, hollow cheeks and eyes, the greying stubble, the lips canyoned by desiccation, the hair still surprisingly thick and mostly honey-coloured. Some days I forget he was only nineteen when he sired me, hardly a man. Over forty now, but looking twenty years beyond that. And in this moment, this second, moving, moving more than he has these past weeks, surprisingly strong, the wriggles, the jerks, heels drumming the bed, nails tearing at me or trying to but unable to get past this fluffy, fluffy pillow. The noises, not quite loud enough for anyone to hear, not even Mrs Medway were she to traverse the corridor of the second floor of our house. I push down harder and harder, feel his struggles lessen, become shudders then tremors, the muffled protests, dying away until there’s no longer any indication of life.

A sense of relief shoots through me like fresh blood – and I wake with a start.

Still in the chair beside Father’s sickbed, the distance between us several yards, the same as when I went to sleep. No disarrayed bedsheets. No pillow in my hands, hands that are nothing like those in the dream; these are white and plump, unblemished by anything except some few small scars where I’ve been careless with weapons in training. Breathing fast, heartbeat staccato. My neck and back are stiff from dozing upright, the book I was reading lies on the floor – was its hitting the polished wood what woke me? Perhaps not. Perhaps there was no sound at all.

I glance to the bed again, the hangings removed from its four-posted glory some days ago when my father shouted that they smothered him. It’s bare but for the form lying in the middle of the mattress. Nothing out of place, no sign of a struggle.

But Hedrek Zennor no longer breathes.

*   *   *

My father’s death came as a surprise only in the time it took to occur.

He’d been ill in varying degrees for years; indeed, I can barely remember a time when he wasn’t ailing. His survival was the thing to make folk remark; they didn’t know what burned inside of him. I did not help him along even though there were days I yearned to do so. Lady Death put her gentle hand on him with no aid from me. That I dreamed his death, my own responsibility for it, was mere coincidence. Yet I can’t help but feel something’s lodged in my bones, some coldness carried by the violence of my hatred for him, that I would dream of bringing his end.

Or perhaps it’s merely the chill of the day, unseasonal for this part of spring. Or perhaps it’s the heavy rain sweeping across the cemetery lawn down the slope that leads to the cliff, water cascading over the edge and into the misery-wracked sea. Most of the other mourners (quite the number but generally stickybeaks and look-sees) have given up, leaving immediately after the service in St Sinwin’s cathedral. Only a small band of diehards remain: those of us with no choice and those who think they’ll benefit from staying.

Despite the enormity of the Zennor fortune, my father has been laid to rest in a slim grey mausoleum where my mother has waited all these years. A simple final place. The cathedral is a magnificent thing, the entire wall behind the altar made of stained glass (a glory, a true wonder) but its uniqueness doesn’t really allow for anyone to be buried in its walls lest the vibrations cause fractures. And the crypt beneath the flagstone floor is reserved for ecclesiastics. We’ve not been a rich family long enough to justify anything larger, although I’m sure Father would have had one built, had there been more years left to him; Hedrek Zennor, despite his illnesses, didn’t think death would come for him quite yet. He had other matters on his mind. And I? I lack the inclination to raise a greater memorial than currently exists.

Bishop Walter looks like a wet, bald raptor, raindrops sluicing the few remaining hairs on his head down towards his collar. His purple silk robe, embroidered with gold and silver, studded with gems 

along the ermine collar, is soaked, a cat dropped in a well. Not a one of his attendants has an umbrella over him or themselves, either a dearth of planning or the belief that nothing should come between this last office and the Lord Above. Walter’s voice, which is a deep baritone and rather fine for sermons and psalms, quavers with the cold.

‘We commit the last remnants of Hedrek Zennor to this sacred earth. He will find himself in the Halls of the Lord and be welcomed by His mercy. Remember him in your prayers, and now you may all go in peace.’

Beside me Mrs Medway, more prepared than a legion of god-hounds, holds an umbrella above us both, a very large one, that keeps trying to catch the wind and fly away. My housekeeper is determined, though, and I’d not bet against her even in a contest with the elements. She’s got her other hand around my arm; I know it’s for comfort, but a voice in my head claims it’s for ballast, to hold her down. Around us are gathered, in no particular order of favour or otherwise, Junius Quant (banker), Titus Pendergast (solicitor), Talwyn Enys (the Harbour Mistress), Jack Seven-Gates (my childhood friend, once a source of comfort), six bedraggled god-hounds, and three other men whose names I cannot recall but are likely to present themselves at some inopportune moment as potential future husbands. Women are not fool enough to stand in the rain on a day such as this, and I’ve no doubt several will pay visits at my home in the weeks to come. A groundskeeper, grizzled and impatient, awaits our departure.

Mr Pendergast raises his feathery grey eyebrows in my direction and I nod wearily. Yes, yes, I know. He moves off, sharing an umbrella with Quant; Talwyn pats my shoulder as she passes and my knees almost buckle with the heft of her hand; Walter and his protégés follow suit to make their way back towards the sprawling white-painted rectory that sits alongside the cathedral. I watch them all go, then return my attention to the mausoleum as the groundskeeper closes the burnished copper doors. I don’t know what I’m expecting: an apology echoing out the narrowing gap, perhaps. From my father for his treatment of me, from my mother for leaving me with him.

Instead, there’s Jack’s voice, saying my name. ‘Violet. Violet. Are you—’

I nod, dragging my gaze away from the now-closed doors, the groundsman putting the key in my gloved palm, and notice how very well-dressed Jack is. He’s always loved clothes, but these seem even more elegant than usual, albeit standard grief-stricken black. ‘Yes, Jack. I’m well enough.’

He grips my hand, looks at me sadly. ‘I do have to go, Violet, Mother will—’

‘Of course. Thank you for coming.’ I sound so formal, try to fix that: ‘Come by later, Jack? Tomorrow?’

‘I’ll try,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry, Violet.’

I hope he’ll succeed; I’d welcome the chance to chat or even sit in companionable silence. He turns away, hat held down over his

auburn curls, charcoal umbrella flapping, and trudges to the lychgate of the churchyard, thence to the cobbled streets that will take him into town, back to his mansion, newly purchased to replace the one that burned down just gone two years ago.

‘Well now, my girl. It’s just us.’ Mrs Medway squeezes my arm, speaks gently.

‘Yes.’ Just us. All the other staff dismissed, with excellent bonuses and references, not because they’d done anything wrong but because they were my father’s choices. Mrs Medway said not to hurry about getting anyone because the beekie – the little hearth hobgoblin – would take care of things for the moment. All the cleaning done as long as he’s properly compensated with extra milk and bread left out each night and a glass of rum on holydays. I’ve never seen him (though gods know I would sneak down and try as a child until Mrs M caught me and told me if he’s seen he’ll depart and take all our luck with him – or worse, become destructive. My mother would tell me tales too, of how the only way to calm one down, perhaps keep him from leaving, was to give him whatever was in your pocket.). When there are new servants, he’ll go back to just doing the small things, like stacking the firewood, collecting the cream off the milk, churning the butter, but he’ll need to be told there are new folk coming, that there’s no harm in it, no criticism or complaint. That they’re here to help him.

As I think about the empty house I feel something lift from me. The weight of my father and the life he put me through. The constant study and training, the tests physical and mental, the sense that no matter what I did it was never good enough. Hedrek Zennor’s gone, and I will have a life that I choose. I will refuse his plans, his wishes. And there’s not a thing he can do about it.

Pulling the fob watch from my pocket to check the time – almost six – I sweep the bone orchard with one last stare. Then I turn my back on the mausoleum, and drag Mrs Medway along until she matches my stride. She’ll be anxious to check on her birds in their dovecot, make sure they’re settled before night proper closes in.

The light is fading as we leave the churchyard – a late funeral for Hedrek – and at first I don’t see the figure at the gate. When I do, I think for a moment it’s Jack or one of the others, doubled back, but it becomes quickly obvious that it’s not. A man in a long, dirty cloak, face obscured by a scarf, but the knife in his hand very clear even in the dusk. He lunges at us – at me – and Mrs Medway knows what to do.

She steps away, gives me room to move. I bring my hand down and grab the man’s wrist, pulling it and the knife past me, tightening my grip and digging into the pressure points. The man curses and drops the blade. Twisting, I try to knee him in the groin, but he jerks aside and I make contact with his thigh, which is effective enough. He grunts and staggers, then limp-runs out the gate. He rights himself and gives me one last look, calculated despite

 the harm I’ve done him, then spins to bolt away. I scoop up the dagger from the ground and throw it. It hits the target just as he’s about to round a corner – there’s a thud and a bleat. My aim’s not as good as I’d like because it gets him high in the shoulder and he keeps going, disappears just as the sun drops. Perhaps he’ll crawl off and die somewhere. I’m disinclined to go after him.

‘Gods!’ shouts Mrs Medway. ‘Those thieves are bold. Can’t a body bury their family without being attacked? That Constable’s not earning his money – they’re getting worse.’

‘He didn’t fight like a footpad, Mrs M. Fought like a soldier.’

‘That sort return from wars and become thieves too. Not all are heroes.’ She gives me a once-over, nods approvingly. ‘Not a sweat broken, not a hair out of place. Your father would be proud, Miss Violet.’

Those aren’t words I’m longing to hear from anyone, and I know they’re untrue. Hedrek would somehow know that my knees are shaking beneath my plain ebony skirts, that the adrenaline’s leaving me as fast as it arrived, and I’d like to be already collapsed in front of the fire with a glass of winter-lemon whiskey or buttered port rather than negotiating a path home beneath the dancing flames of the streetlights.

‘That’s as may be, but I’ve had enough for one day. When we get home, send a message to Mr Pendergast and tell him I’ll not be attending at his practice this evening. He’ll see me first thing in the morning, whether he likes it or not.’

Mrs Medway knows better than to contradict me, and she’s got no love for my father’s friends; nor for my father, but I think she stayed all those years because of me. She contents herself with saying, ‘You showed him,’ and I’m not sure if she means Titus Pendergast or the would-be robber. There is a satisfaction, in spite of everything, at having prevailed. Still and all, I’m cautious as a cat while we make our way from the cemetery, pausing at the mouths of alleys and avoiding unlit cut-throughs.

CHAPTER 2

St Sinwin’s is a sloping sort of town; built on a hillside that feeds down to the harbour, the entire place has a vague air of sliding into the sea. Locations like the port-city of Breakwater are flatter, the surrounding hills gentler. But we cling here nevertheless, a determined mix of fisherfolk, sailors, merchants, sea captains and the occasional ‘retired’ pirate (once they were all gone, hunted to near-extinction, but some hardy types are taking back to the old ways), families rich and poor, the god-hounds, thieves and bankers, doctors and lawyers, craftsfolk. It’s pretty: buildings painted white and blue, the occasional pink, although those closer to the docks are faded, often in disrepair. Higher up, are the mansions of stone and imported exotic wood, a curve of them almost like a battlement in case of attack. Most of the cobbled streets wind back and forth to combat the worst effects of gravity – no one wants a goods cart or fine carriage careening off and collecting who-knows-how-many lives on its way.

The inhabitants are a canny lot, figuring out the shortest, smoothest ways to get wherever they’re going – not lazy, no, but practical – and there’s a brigade of muscular lads and lasses who carry palanquins up and down for those with coin to spare. There are five main ‘spokes’ that lead from the city gates above, all the way down to the maritime heart of our town; wooden benches are set at convenient rest points for visitors and the elderly. Lots along these major arteries are highly sought after for businesses wanting visibility. Running between the spokes is a network of thoroughfares of varying width, popularity and usage; mostly residential. I suspect it was all meant to form a tidy grid system, but urban planning seldom survives encounters with people’s desires for bigger houses or smaller, combining structures to create warehouses, splitting others up for tenements, inserting gardens for contemplation and seduction, sinking wells and ornamental ponds.

Pendergast & Associates is roughly halfway up or halfway down, depending on your perspective, and has a clear view to the waters of the harbour, the ships moored there and all the busy little ants rushing hither and yon loading and unloading, clattering across the docks, swaying along gangways, swarming up rigging. It’s a well-respected establishment, three solicitors, one of whom is Mr Pendergast’s daughter, the other his son-in-law. The rooms are surprisingly light and airy, quite ruining the expectation that a legal office should be gloomy and dust-ridden. None of that means it’s a pleasure to visit, and I’ve spent many hours of my life here learning about contracts and crime as part of my very specific educational curriculum as defined by Father. When Father came into his fortune some thirteen years ago and found himself in need of legal guidance, none of the fancier firms would take his business. Walter (a mere deacon then) referred him to Titus, who tends to any finances the now-bishop doesn’t want known to the Church.

I’ve known Titus Pendergast, Esq., more than half my life and he and Walter were always kinder than my father, insistent but not cruel, or not excessively, so you’d think he might have had some inkling about my feelings, might have expected my reaction to his reading of the will. Yet Titus, who is now staring across his desk at me and saying, ‘But, Violet, you must,’ apparently did not.

‘But I shan’t. My father controlled me in life, he will not continue to do so in death.’ It’s all I can do not to grind my teeth.

‘You really must, Violet.’ He leans forward, elbows on the desktop, fingers clasping each other in a desperate steeple. ‘This was the mission he set for you, for which he ensured you were trained. There’s so much at stake. Your father was very determined.’

‘My father was very determined, certainly. He was also manic and obsessive, driven by demons and haunted by phantoms. We’re both aware, Titus, he was not well in his mind.’ I lean forward in the uncomfortable leather seat, tap on the blotter pad with a sharp pink nail. ‘There are Leech Lords, yes. But they are confined in the Darklands. They cannot get out. There is a border and it is held.’

He makes a gesture which says he concedes the point. ‘But he intended—’

‘Wasn’t it enough? What he did to me? Haven’t I suffered enough pain and anguish? Do you really think I am going to undertake a journey to the north, find the Anchorhold, find my brother – his corpse! – and then what?’

The sunlight from the window shines down on his silver fluff of hair and highlights the beads of sweat on his brow. I slump back into my chair. 

‘Violet, there is more than you—’

‘I wish to know nothing more! I repeat, Titus: my father controlled my life. He’s not going to continue to do so in death.’

‘Violet, it is critical. There’s too much at stake for you to be childish about—’

My voice thins to a stiletto blade: ‘It’s preposterous, what he wants. All his mad fancies trying to bind me from beyond the grave. And you should be ashamed to be helping!’

And he does hang his head.

‘Then I believe we are done, Mr Pendergast.’

‘But—’

I raise a finger.

‘We. Are. Done.’ I rise, rearrange my long black mourning skirts (embellished with jet beads), straighten the ladylike gloves, hang the beaded velvet reticule and silk fan at my wrist, adjust my ridiculously tiny silk hat, and give the solicitor a brief brittle smile. ‘Please arrange for the transfer of the house title, of all his properties and all funds from his bank accounts into my own. I have let all the staff go except for Mrs Medway’ – I want to choose my own household – ‘so please ensure that Father’s bequests to them are made as soon as possible. Do you wish to continue as my solicitor? If not, tell me now so I can make other arrangements.’ Perhaps one of those fancy ones that rejected Hedrek all those years ago. A bluff, really, I don’t want the trouble of it; thankfully, Titus nods. ‘And thank you for your consideration, Mr Pendergast. I do appreciate your efficiency and kindness in these matters.’

I’m at the door when he says, ‘It is a condition of your inheritance, Violet. If you do not travel north and fulfil your father’s instructions…’

My fingers convulse on the brass doorknob, seeming to swallow the shine of it, as if all of the hope I felt last night now rests in the belly of a wolf.

‘If you do not do this, Violet, everything will go to the Church.’

The moment feels endless, but I know it’s no more than a second before I say, ‘I’ll not be held hostage to a dead man’s demands.’

*   *   *

Out in the fresh air, I take a deep breath and lean against the stone wall. Titus’s last words, that I have three days to decide, ring in my ears. The barely legible lines from Hedrek’s journal (given to his solicitor for safekeeping a few days before his demise, I was told) appear across my vision, a palimpsest laid over the sight of the harbour and the blue, blue sky.

But the place that concerns you, Violet?

Here. It’s barely marked – just that tiny x – faded now, this is an old map stuck in these pages. This is the spot.

Anchor-hold.

The Anchorhold.

Where, it’s

whispered, it all began.

Where it will all end.

And the yellowed piece of paper, ancient and thin as onion skin, the contour lines on it the muted blue of deep veins.

You will go north, Violet.

You will find the place where your brother resides.

You will destroy the Anchorhold and whatever moves within it.

And you will save your brother.

Save Tiberius.

Neither journal nor map did I take, nor were they offered. Perhaps Titus knows me well enough after all – given a chance I’d have touched them to a candleflame, sent them into the ether. I have no need of money, I tell myself, then amend, I have no need of riches.

I don’t need the house or the real estate portfolio or the myriad business interests, nor all the gold and silver stacked in bank vaults. I don’t need servants to dress me or clean or cook, to open doors and do my washing, and tell visitors that I’m not at home. I don’t need the carriages or the horses. I do need some money to survive. To flee. To feed myself until I can get settled elsewhere. Quickly, I calculate how much is in my own accounts, how much jewellery I have that might be sold before the Church tries to claim it as well, arguing it was no gift from my father, merely a ‘loan’.

To my left, the harbour and all its ships. The Harbour Mistress would put me on one, no doubt, a decent one with a captain who could be trusted to deliver me across the sea, to some foreign land where I could proceed to get lost. To my right, the route up the hill to Zennor House where Mrs Medway waits; I don’t think I could live with myself if I left her in the lurch. And there’s Freddie too. Who’d look out for her? It’s not lost on me that I dreamed my father dead, but can’t bear to leave these two behind.

I turn and head upwards, the heels of my boots clacking on the cobbles, my skirts hissing behind me as if some Medusa follows. At home there will be a warm bath, a comfortable dressing gown and the scandalous joy of bare feet. Mrs Medway to bring me hot buttered port and biscuits even though it’s not yet lunchtime, and I can hide for the rest of the day, reading in front of the library fire with the fine mantlepiece carved from the bone of a whale and a mirror, once thought to be magic, above it. Forgetting the world and my losses, the burdens my father left me. Tomorrow, I will think of a way to get out of this ridiculous situation.

The slope of the hill is insistent but I’m strong – years of climbing up and down, and the training, always the training – my legs are sturdy. But I don’t pass up the opportunity to take an alleyway to my left, a gentler incline, then another alley and another. Past the bakeries and coffeehouses, taverns and grocers, past the modistes and gentlemen’s ateliers and jewellers, past the physiks and dentists and apothecaries, and all the houses in between, streetlamps hung zigzag to ensure a safe light when darkness falls. Far to the right I catch glimpses of the promontory where

the cathedral sits, where goodbyes were said to my father, hymns sung a little off-key for that’s the nature of a congregation.

Some passers-by recognise me, call out or nod sympathetically, condolences sincerely given. Others simply push past, either not caring or unaware of who I am. How long before Hedrek is gone from memory? Mine and others? Will he last, seemingly carved into the very air I breathe, inescapable? Or gone like a feather on the breath of the gods? Will I be able to let the memories go or will they remain as a bright aching wound?

Both Titus and Bishop Walter have told me over the years that my father loved me, but he was unable to show it. That my mother’s death, the circumstances of it, had warped him out of true. And that was why I had to learn such strange things; not in a school where I might make friends other than Jack Seven-Gates, but with two old men whose offices were repurposed as classrooms. Law, mathematics and economics with Titus; religion and myth and magic with Walter. Not to mention learning to fight in a warehouse by the docks under the Harbour Mistress’s watchful eye and, all too briefly, history and deportment and grooming in my stepmother’s solar. And now… now…

Shaking my head, I try to concentrate on the stones at my feet, but I can’t stop Titus’s reading of my father’s words from resurfacing.

Go to the north. Go into the Darklands. Go to the Anchorhold. Destroy whatever resides there. Rescue your brother.

My brother who’s been dead for thirteen years.

*   *   *

‘They’ve already started.’ Mrs Medway’s tone is all I-told-you-so as she steps into the library.

Prematurely grey hair, smooth-skinned, sharp-eyed and sharper tongued, her mauve gown’s covered by a pristine white apron that I’ve never seen dirtied. She places the silver tray on the coffee table beside me; port and cheese biscuits just out of the oven.

‘Which “they” are we referring to?’ I didn’t share the details of my meeting with the solicitor; merely said that matters were ‘in train’. No need to bother her sooner than I must.

‘Your suitors. The flies flocking to a pile of fresh warm shite.’

‘Am I the shite?’ I ask, eyebrows flying upwards. ‘As long as I’m fresh and warm, I suppose.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She dips a hand into her apron pocket and produces a stack of cards, generally uniform in size and quality of stock, but in varied hues and degrees of embossing, with the occasional flash of gold foil from the very rich or the very ambitious. ‘Thirty this morning. Not that Seven-Gates lad, though.’ She gives me a sidewise glance, which I ignore. ‘And

you only a day from burying your father. Hardly decent.’

‘I see what you mean. Isn’t there a mourning period in which they should be leaving me alone?’ I take the cards from her, flick through them. Thirty. The prideful part of me thinks Not bad for someone who didn’t go to Mistress Tilwater’s Academy or Lady Crompton’s Finishing School, who didn’t grow up in high society. I suppose it doesn’t matter when there’s money to be had – when their parents realised just how much of a fortune Hedrek Zennor had left me. The cards: mostly men, some women, some of the finest families, some of the wealthiest, and those two groups don’t necessarily cross. This one has breeding but no money. This one plenty of money, but even less pedigree than I – make no mistake, I’m the daughter of a first-generation merchant, barely out of the dirt.

‘Yes. But it’s that they’re disguising their approaches as mourning visits to pay their respects that irks me.’ She begins dusting the shelves in irritation, displacement activity. Not conducive to my quiet time.

‘I could place a notice in The Courier? That I am not at home to uninvited guests for the next three months. Might help – the better-bred ones won’t want to be seen being so gauche.’

‘Doesn’t mean they won’t pounce on you in the streets,’ she grumbles. ‘Waste of money.’

‘Then it’s either remain indoors all that time or sneak out in disguise.’ And in truth, neither of those ideas are completely awful. If the intrusions get truly insistent I can always pen a brief missive on a sheet of Zennor Enterprises stationery, a polite way of saying KEEP OUT. ‘I’ll leave it for the moment.’

The Courier began as nothing more than a list of tide times and weather predictions, ships due to dock and those to depart. It still prints those things but with the addition of births, deaths and marriages, ...