EW has the exclusive cover and an excerpt from the upcoming sequel
Ready to fall intoMuse of Nightmares?
The anticipated sequel to Laini Taylors fantasy epicStrange the Dreameris almost here.
Taylor spoke with EW about the inspiration for the sequel.
Credit: Ali Smith; Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Years ago, I conceived of a character who was the muse of nightmares, she said.
She also teased what fans ofStrange the Dreamercan expect.
If the ending ofStrange the Dreamershocked you, know that it shocked me too, Taylor told EW.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
I still remember the electric jolt it gave me when I realized that that was going to happen.
It felt like I hadnt really been awake, and suddenly I was.
And then, of course, I had to figure out …what next?
Where to go from there?
Read on below to preview the new book, and pre-order it ahead of its Oct. 2 releasehere.
Excerpt fromMuse of Nightmares, by Laini Taylor
CHAPTER 1.
Blue as icebergs, said Kora.
They saw those all the time.
They knew that Mesarthim meant Servants, though these were no common servants.
They were the soldier-wizards of the Empire.
They came and went through cuts in the sky.
They could heal and shapeshift and vanish.
They had war gifts and impossible strength and could tell you how youd die.
I dont know when Ill return, but you will certainly be women grown by then.
I would have chosen you.
Or perhaps they wore them, like jewels.
Kora and Nova: companions, allies.
They were indivisible, like the lines of a couplet that would lose their meaning out of context.
They stood side by side, braced together against the future.
And then the Mesarthim came back.
Nova was first to see.
She was on the beach, and shed just straightened up to swipe her hair out of her eyes.
Her fingers were cramped into claws around them, and she was gore all the way to her elbows.
She felt the sticking drag of half-dried blood as she drew her arm across her brow.
Then something glinted in the sky, and she glanced up to see what it was.
Kora, she said.
Her face, blood-streaked too, was blanched with numb endurance.
An uul carcass hulked between them, half-flayed.
The beach was strewn with dozens more carcasses, and more hunched figures like theirs.
Blood and blubber clotted the sand.
It was the Slaughter, the worst time of year on Rievafor the women and girls, anyway.
The men and boys relished it.
They didnt wield gaffs and knives, but spears.
Butchering was womens work, never mind that it took more muscle, and more stamina, than killing.
As soon as her sisters eyes fixed on it, the shock rocked through them both.
It was a skyship.
A skyship meant Mesarthim.
Escape from Rieva and ice and uuls and drudgery.
From Skoyes tyranny and their fathers apathy, and latelysharplyfrom the men.
Kora was seventeen, Nova sixteen.
Their father could marry them off any time he pleased.
They did most of the work, and looked after their troupe of little half-brothers besides.
Skoye couldnt keep them forever though.
And Kora and Nova were pretty enough, with their flax-fair hair and bright brown eyes.
It wouldnt be long.
And it wasnt just that theyd be split apart, or that theyd no will to be wives.
The worst thing of all was the loss of the lie.
This is not our life.
We dont belong here.
The Mesarthim will come back and choose us.
This is not our real life.However bad things got, they had that to keep them going.
They whispered at night of what gifts they would have.
They would be powerful like their mother, they weresure.
Well, losing their lie felt like losing the sunnot for a month, but forever.
So the sight of that skyship…it was like the return of the light.
Nova let out a whoop.
Kora laughedwith joy and deliverance and…accusation.
she demanded of the ship in the sky.
The reeling, brilliant sound of her laughter rang across the beach.Really?
You couldnt have come last week?
Awe stirred in the slaughter-numbed blankness as the ship soared nearer.
It even had a stinger.
Koras and Novas hearts were pounding.
They were giddy and shaking with thrill, nerves, reverence, hope, and vindication.
For four thousand nights she had explored the dreamscapes of Weep, witnessing horrors and creating them.
She was the Muse of Nightmares.
Her hundred moth sentinels had perched on every brow.
No man, woman, or child had been safe from her.
The poor broken thing.
For seventeen years this had been her.
These feet had paced the citadel floors in endless restless circuits.
These lips had smiled, and screamed moths at the sky, and sipped rain from chased silver cups.
All that it meant to be Sarai was anchored in the flesh and bones before her.
Or it had been.
An artifact of her ended life.
And they were going to burn it.
There would always be fresh horrors.
She knew that now.
