The Book That Wouldn't Burn


 
 
 
 Books by Mark Lawrence
 The Broken Empire
 
 Prince of Thorns
 King of Thorns
 Emperor of Thorns
 
 Short Stories
 
 Road Brothers
 
 The Red Queen’s War
 
 Prince of Fools
 The Liar’s Key
 The Wheel of Osheim
 
 The Book of the Ancestor
 
 Red Sister
 Grey Sister
 Holy Sister
 
 Impossible Times
 
 One Word Kill
 Limited Wish
 Dispel Illusion
 
 The Book of the Ice
 
 The Girl and the Stars
 The Girl and the Mountain
 The Girl and the Moon
 
 The Library Trilogy
 
 The Book That Wouldn’t Burn
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ACE
 Published by Berkley
 An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
 penguinrandomhouse.com
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Bobalinga Ltd.
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Lawrence, Mark, 1966– author.
 Title: The book that wouldn’t burn / Mark Lawrence.
 Other titles: Book that would not burn
 Description: New York: Ace, [2023] | Series: The Library trilogy; book one
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022054527 (print) | LCCN 2022054528 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593437919 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593437933 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3612.A9484 B66 2023 (print) | LCC PS3612.A9484 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20221116
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022054527
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022054528
 Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2023
 Cover illustration © Tom Roberts
 Interior design adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan
 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.
 pid_prh_6.0_143455486_c0_r0
 
 
 
 To my readers for sharing the journey
 By book sixteen, I’m running out of targets . . . World peace next!
 
 
 PROLOGUE
 The first arrow hit a child. That was the opening line.
 
 
 
 . . . similarly impermanent. All books, no matter their binding, will fall to dust. The stories they carry may last longer. They might outlive the paper, the library, even the language in which they were first written. The greatest story can reach the stars . . .
 The First Book of Irad
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 1
 Livira
 They named Livira after a weed. You couldn’t grow much in the Dust but that never stopped hungry people trying. They said livira would grow in places where rocks wouldn’t. Which never made sense to Livira because rocks don’t grow. Unfortunately, not even goats could eat the stuff and any farmer who watered a crop would find themselves spending most of their time fighting it. Spill a single drop of water in the Dust and, soon enough, strands of livira would come coiling out of the cracked ground for a taste.
 Her parents had given her a different name but she hardly remembered it. People called her Livira because, like the weed, you couldn’t keep her down.
 “Come on then!” Livira picked herself up and wiped the blood from her nose. She raised her fists again. “Come on.”
 Acmar shook his head, looking embarrassed now that a ring of children had gathered. All of them were dusty but Livira was coated in the stuff, head to foot.
 “Come on!” she shouted. She felt woozy and her head rang as if it were the summoning bell and someone kept beating it.
 “You’re twice her size.” Benth broke into the circle and pushed Acmar aside.
 “She won’t stay down,” Acmar complained, rubbing his knuckles.
 “It’s a draw then.” Benth stepped between them, a broad-shouldered boy and handsome despite his broken nose. Seeing Livira’s scowl he grabbed her hand and raised it above her head. “Livira wins again.”
 The others cheered and laughed then broke and ran before the advance of a tall figure, dark against the sun’s white glare.
 “Livy!” Her aunt’s scolding voice. Fingers wrapped her wrist and she was being jerked away towards the black shadow of the family hut.
 Aunt Teela shoved a cracked leather bucket at her. “The beans need watering.”
 “Yessum!” Livira had always loved the well. She spat a bloody mess into the dust then grinned up at her aunt before hurrying off with the bucket. Her aunt shook her head. You could put Livira down but you couldn’t keep her there.
 Livira’s hurrying didn’t last long. She slowed as she passed Ella’s shack. The old woman collected wind-weed, or rather the kids chased and caught it for her, racing over the hardpan in pursuit of the tough, fibrous balls. The things were almost entirely empty space and Ella’s cunning fingers could coax the randomness of their criss-crossed strands into meaning that pleased the eye. Deft twists could render a horse or man suspended in a network of threads within the outer sphere that was itself just a lattice of thicker strands.
 Livira watched Ella work. “I wish I could do that.”
 Ella looked up from her task and held up her current piece on the palm of one wrinkled hand. “For you.”
 Livira picked it up, a small sphere of wind-weed just five or six inches across.
 Immediately Ella took up a replacement and began anew.
 Livira studied her unexpected prize. It looked half-finished, the mass of fibres compressed towards the middle seeming like just a clotting of many threads that wove nothing. But as she rotated the ball a shape emerged within it, still vague, like a man approaching through a dust storm, indistinct but definitely there.