In the Serpent's Wake

Remember, Worthy One:
The world knew nothing at first. Then it gave birth to plants, who noticed what sunlight tasted like, and worms, who reveled in the luxuriant touch of soil. Soon the world s bright birds were perceiving the color of sound, its playful quigutl discerned the shapes of smells, and myriad eyes of every kind discovered sight and saw differently.
Behind these senses were minds ­so many! The world was too vast to fit into just one mind; it needed millions of them to consider itself from every possible angle.
The difficulty with minds is that each perceives itself as a separate thing, alone. And so the minds spin stories to bridge the gaps between them, like a spider s web. There are a million stories, and yet they are all one.
But come, Mind of the World. Open your eyes.
We have teased apart one filament, which might be a beginning.
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Once upon a time (the world always starts with time), a dragon scholar climbed the stairs of an inn in the bustling port city of Mardou.
There were fifty-­six stairs. It only felt like twice as many as yesterday.
The dragon was in human form, a saarantras; they wouldn t have fit in the stairwell otherwise. They paused on each landing, leaning on a hooked cane. Dragons shouldn t feel irritated or bitter, but Scholar Spira was usually in enough pain to feel a bit of both.
Today their irritation was directed at Professor the dragon Ondir, who seemed determined to meddle endlessly with Spira s expedition. Their bitterness was for their knees, which gritted and stabbed with every step as if they were full of broken glass.
At the top of the stairs, muffled voices were audible behind the professor s door. Spira couldn t discern the words, but a sniff at the doorknob answered their most pertinent question. The person they d come to complain about ­the person Ondir had foisted onto Spira at the last minute, whose hundred barrels of pyria were even now being loaded onto the Sweet Jessia ­had arrived before them. This

RACHEL HARTMAN is the author of the acclaimed and New York Times bestselling YA fantasy novel Seraphina, which won the William C. Morris YA debut Award in 2013, and the New York Times bestselling sequel Shadow Scale and Tess of the Road. Rachel lives with her family in Vancouver, Canada. In her free time, she sings madrigals, walks her whippet in the rain, and is learning to fence. To learn more, please visit SeraphinaBooks.com or RachelHartmanBooks.com.

"Wonderful, instantly immersive and deeply affecting."  The New York Times

Hartman deftly reflects our own world s worries in this adventurous fantasy, but always with an eye toward hope and healing . This is a much-needed book. Booklist, starred review

Hartman s inclusive world grapples with questions of sovereignty and colonization, religion, and gender in ways that both reflect and comment on our own world . A compelling duology closer."  Kirkus Reviews