Sword Catcher

by Cassandra Clare

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two outcasts find themselves caught in a web of dangerous magic and dark secrets that could change the world forever in the start of a riveting epic fantasy series from the author of The Shadowhunter Chronicles.

“Everything I look for in fantasy.”—George R. R. Martin

A POPSUGAR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, the richest of nobles and the most debauched of criminals have one thing in common: the constant search for wealth, power, and the next hedonistic thrill.

Kel is an orphan, stolen from the life he knew to become the Sword Catcher—the body double of a royal heir, Prince Conor Aurelian. He and Conor are as close as brothers, but his destiny is to die for Conor. No other future is possible.

Lin Caster is a physician from a small community whose members still possess magical abilities. But despite her skills, she cannot heal her best friend without access to forbidden knowledge.

After a failed assassination attempt brings Lin and Kel together, they are drawn into the web of the mysterious Ragpicker King, the ruler of Castellane’s criminal underworld. But as long-kept secrets begin to unravel and forbidden attractions arise, they must ask themselves: Is knowledge worth the price of betrayal? And will their discoveries plunge their nation into war—and the world into chaos?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525619994
Publisher:	Random House Worlds
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Series:	Chronicles of Castellane , #1
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.30(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. She is also the co-author, with Holly Black, of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium. The Shadowhunter Chronicles have been adapted as both a major motion picture and a television series. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats.

Read an Excerpt

There was a slight commotion at the door. Kel looked up to a swirl of Castelguards outside, like an incursion of flames. In their midst was a boy, who passed through the door and closed it firmly behind him.

Bensimon straightened up; he did not seem surprised. “Prince Conor.”

Kel felt his stomach drop. Here was the boy he’d been imper­sonating. A boy who had clearly never been sick. He gathered, now, that it had all been a test—and that this was somehow the final part.

The Crown Prince was all in steel blue, just like Kel. He was not wearing a circlet, but Kel would have known him for a prince re­gardless. He was tall for his age, with his mother’s fine features, and there was a sort of leaping flame behind his eyes and laughing ex­pression on his face that made Kel want to smile at him, which was startling enough in itself. He knew the boy ought to be terrifying—he was royalty—and he was, and yet Kel wanted to smile at the Prince all the same.

Though he had no more years than Kel, Conor seemed worlds older as he crossed the room with a light step and said, “How was it, then? Being me?”

An unexpected ache bloomed like a flower behind Kel’s rib cage. I want to be like him, Kel thought. I want to walk through the world as if it will reshape itself around my dreams and desires. I want to seem as if I could touch the stars with light fingers and pull them down to be my playthings.

It was strange to want something you had never known you wanted.

Kel just nodded, as if to say that it was all fine. Conor tilted his head to the side, like a curious robin. “Leave us, Mayesh,” he said. “I would talk to Kel alone.”

Kel rather expected the Counselor to put up a fight. Instead, Mayesh Bensimon seemed to be hiding a smile. “As you wish,” he said, and swirled from the room in a cloud of gray cloak.

When he was gone, Kel rather missed him. Bensimon was the person he had known longest in the Palace. Prince Conor, though Kel had spent the night pretending to be him, was a stranger. 

“Do you like weapons?” Conor said. “I could give you a dagger, if you liked.”

“To do what with?” Kel asked, suspiciously.

Conor smiled crookedly. “I don’t know what you like, you see,” he said. “I’m trying to think how to convince you to stay.”

“Stay? Here? In the Palace?”

Conor sat down on the edge of the smaller bed. “My father fos­tered in the kingdom of Malgasi,” he said. “They have a tradition there. When a prince turns ten years old, he is given a sort of—bodyguard. Királar, they call him. Sword Catcher. He is meant to stand in for the prince, to—to protect him from danger. He learns to walk and talk like him, to dress like him. He is made to look like him.”

“Made to look like him?” Kel echoed.

“Talismans, charms. Posy-drops to change the color of his eyes.” He sighed. “I am not making it sound very pleasant, but I told my­self I would be honest with you. There is no point not being. You would find out, eventually.”

“You want me,” Kel said, slowly, “to be your Sword Catcher?”

Conor nodded. “My father could order you, but I do not want someone reluctant. I want someone who wants to do it. And not someone torn from their family, either. That is why—you are from an orphanage?”

Kel nodded. He was too stunned to speak.

Conor relaxed minutely. “That is good. Jolivet did not lie to me, at least.” He looked at Kel. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Kel said, “that it sounds dangerous, and probably dif­ficult. I think if you are looking for someone who wants to do it, that may also be difficult.”

Conor exhaled painfully. “As you say.”

He looked deflated, which brought home the peculiarity of the situation. Kel had not known what to expect of a meeting with the Crown Prince of Castellane, but he had certainly not expected him to be depressed. “Well, you could try to convince me,” he said. “Tell me, what about it would be good?”

Conor looked up, his eyes brightening. “Really?” He sat up straight. “Well, you would live in the Palace. You would have what­ever you wanted, most of the time. Within reason, but any clothes or books or—well, really anything. If you saw it in a shop window, I would get it for you. Unless it was a jade elephant or something else enormous.”

“That does seem impractical,” Kel said gravely, fighting a grin.

“We would learn together,” said Conor. “Jolivet isn’t the most agreeable fellow, but he’s the best sword-trainer out there. You would become an expert fighter. And my tutors are teaching me everything there is to know; they would teach you, too. You would speak a dozen languages, know the history of all Dannemore, the patterns of the stars, all the Great Equations.”

Despite himself, something kindled inside Kel. It was small and bright, a distant signal fire. It startled him. He had not expected to feel truly tempted.

“You would never be hungry,” Conor said softly. “And you would never be lonely. You would sleep here, beside me, and we would always be together. And your life would be extraordinary.”

Kel leaned back against the table. Extraordinary. He knew the word—from lessons, mostly.

Conor leaned forward in excitement. “You would meet royalty from all over, people descended from famous heroes. You would watch the greatest dancers dance, hear the best musicians. You would see things hardly anyone ever sees. You would travel the whole world.”

Kel thought of the White Rock near the Orfelinat; that had been the ship he sailed with Cas across imaginary oceans. He thought of the marbles they used to weight down their map in the endless game of where-do-you-want-to-go. They had both always known they would never see those distant lands.

“See the world,” he said. “With—you?”

Conor nodded eagerly. “Most of the time you won’t be pretend­ing to be me. You’ll be given another identity. The name of a noble. And when I become King, you stop being the Sword Catcher. After that, you will become like Jolivet, the leader of Castellane’s finest soldiers. The Arrow Squadron. And one day, you can retire in honor and wealth.”

Honor sounded boring; wealth less so.

“But perhaps you had something else you wished to do? Like becoming a merchant, or a guildmaster?” said Conor, uncertainly. He looked tired. Kel had not thought rich boys ever looked weary like that. “I won’t keep you here against your will. I told my father that.”

I told my father. That he meant the King was strange enough, but even stranger, Kel saw that Conor’s hands, laced together as they were, were shaking. He really did need him, Kel thought in shock. He had never been needed before. Cas was his friend, but Cas didn’t need him, and neither did Sister Bonafilia or the others. Parents needed their children, but he had never had parents. He had not known what it meant to be needed by someone else: that it made you want to protect them. To his own surprise, he wanted to protect this boy, the Prince of Castellane. Wanted to stand between him and a forest of bristling fléchettes. Wanted to stare down and de­molish any enemy that wished Conor Aurelian harm.

It was the first thing he had wanted to do since he had come through the Palace gates. Well, besides eat.

Perhaps you had something else you wished to do? Like becoming a merchant, or a guildmaster? When Kel turned sixteen, the Orfelinat would eject him, penniless, into the world. It existed to help children—and only children. Untrained, largely untutored, on the streets of Castellane, there would be nothing for him. Even sailors were trained from a young age. He could scrape by as a lamplighter, or a ship’s boy if he was lucky, and would be poor as dirt. Or he could be a criminal—pick pockets or join the Crawlers, the highest he had ever dared to dream—and wind up dangling from the gal­lows of the Tully.

He took a deep breath. “Extraordinary, you say?”

And Conor began to smile.

Editorial Reviews

Expert worldbuilding, swordplay, and politics, a colorful cast of characters, and a story that kept me reading from the first page to the last.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin

“A gorgeously built world of decadence, betrayal, and grand adventure. From the decadent and drunken parties of the nobles, to the dens of crime lords in the Warren and Maze, to the Sault, where the devotees of a lost goddess are penned, the city of Castellane makes the perfect backdrop for a delightful cast of characters to befriend, betray, and romance one another. This is Cassandra Clare at her cleverest, twistiest and most heart-stopping—a triumph of a book.”—Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Night

“Clare plunges us into a thrilling world built with precision and brimming with enchantment. Her spellbinding cast of outlaws, healers, royals, and rogues will have you questioning your allegiances with every delicious turn of the plot. This is fantasy at its finest.”—Leigh Bardugo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hell Bent

“Sweeping yet intimate, rich with romance and intrigue, Sword Catcher is Cassandra Clare at her magical best. In pages packed with sumptuous descriptions, Clare gives us a kingdom’s worth of characters—including Kel the ‘sword catcher,’ trained to protect his prince at all costs, and Lin, a young physician of an outcast people—forced to navigate a web of tangled loyalties between the loved ones they cherish and the powers they serve. This book will break your heart and leave you wanting more!”—Helene Wecker, New York Times bestselling author of The Golem and the Jinni

“A sumptuous feast of a book, vivid and delicious and heady. Cassandra Clare’s trademark skills are on full display here: epic worlds, wrenching romances, heart-slamming plot twists, Dickensian characters. I can’t wait to visit Castellane again.”—Kelly Link, bestselling author of White Cat, Black Dog

“A charming return to the big fat fantasy novels of happy memory, with a modern character-driven narrative. Vivid and clever.”—Scott Lynch, bestselling author of the Gentleman Bastard sequence

From the Publisher

2023-07-13
YA giant Clare makes her adult debut with a whirlwind epic fantasy featuring secret plots, ancient magic, and hidden identities.

The nobility of Castellane know Kel only as Prince Conor’s aristocratic cousin and closest confidant, but a select few know the truth: Kel is an orphan plucked from obscurity because he bears a passing resemblance to Conor and proved able to handle being trained as Conor’s “Sword Catcher.” A Sword Catcher has all the typical duties of a bodyguard, but Kel’s responsibilities also include wearing a magical amulet that makes people think he’s Conor, allowing him to take the prince’s place at public events when the palace head of security deems it too risky for the prince himself. But when Conor becomes old enough to consider marriage, Kel learns that it will take more than hidden daggers to protect his charge. On the other side of Castellane society is Lin, a young woman who is a member of the Ashkar, a small community that's forbidden from living outside their walled community. The Ashkar are the only people who can still use magic, and even though using or even learning about most kinds of magic is banned, they are still feared and discriminated against by the rest of the world. Lin has worked hard to be allowed to study medicine even though she's a woman, but when her medical talents aren’t enough to help heal her best friend, she wonders if the answer lies in the study of forbidden magic. The tangle of political disputes and shadowy plots that leads to Kel and Lin crossing paths is not only thick enough to make the several hundred pages fly by, it will leave readers eager for a series full of twists and turns. Clare expertly balances the needs of a satisfying plot with dropping tantalizing hints of what’s to come in future installments. Her worldbuilding is instantly immersive, and the many characters are all detailed and memorable, so swapping between storylines flows easily for the reader.

A wonderfully enjoyable series opener.

Kirkus Reviews