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Queen of the Rose Throne – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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CHAPTER ONE

A hot wind blew across the Broken Plains, spreading the black pennants of my army across the sky while I listened to the lord protector beg me for whatever mercy dwelt in my still, silent heart.

‘Lords and ladies of the Kastelai. Masters of the Grey Palace. Protectors of the Irewater and the dark city of Maar.’ Lord Protector Bellen stood before the walls of Gowyn, an arc of whitewashed buildings caught between the Broken Plains’ sea of grass and the shifting saltwater of the Vitriol Sea. He was middle-aged, half drunk, and dressed in polished armour with a jewelled sword upon his hip. His voice was heavy and portentous, meant both for me and for the citizens of the city gathered on the wall behind him. But the lord protector’s soft skin was bleeding sweat that stank of alcohol and terror. The scent of drink was acrid and off-putting, but the smell of his fear mixed with the faint, fast thudding of his heart made my fangs lengthen.

Which is why I suggested you feed before this, Nyssa. Mother’s voice was cool in my head, a whisper of condescension that cut through my thoughts. She had told me that, in her usual smoothly overbearing way, and I’d ignored her. I’d glutted myself with blood in battle not so long ago and I wanted to get this meeting over and done with. And I hated how her suggestions echoed inside my skull like orders.

‘Silence.’

The mortal, who’d been midway through a recitation of his titles, stumbled to a stop, blinking. For a moment there was something in his brown eyes – a flash of wounded pride – but he blinked it away and went quiet. The line of nobles behind him frowned and shifted, but they stayed mute, trying to hide their fear beneath a brittle veneer of pompous etiquette. In my head, Mother sighed despite not having lungs. To my left, Rill stayed still and impassive atop her Nightmare, her hawkish face hard, her eyes sharp as they hunted for any threat, her hands holding a viciously curved horse bow at the ready. My bodyguard for long decades, born to her second life by the blood of my father and given from his hands to me for service, she knew exactly where my words had come from. She knew they weren’t meant for the mortal who stood blinking before us. On my right, Magdalena shifted slightly in her saddle, the daylight flashing across the perfect polish of her black-and-purple armour. A tiny motion that was almost a scream coming from her. Magdalena had a head of dark curls and a round face that a mortal might call pretty, if not for her eyes. Those green eyes had seen centuries roll past, years buoyed by an ocean of blood, and there was a depth to their dark centres. She was a Soulblight vampire, a disciple of Nagash, the Lord of Undeath, a true Kastelai of the Crimson Keep, and she was annoyed because she also knew to whom I spoke, damn me.

Well, to the amethyst underworlds with all of them, vampires and mortals alike. My will flicked out and Gone, the black Nightmare I rode, took two steps forward. Beside me the monstrous dire wolf I’d named Rend padded forward too, and the bright sunlight seemed reluctant to touch his dark form. The lord protector stepped back, staring at the red sparks that gleamed in Rend’s eye sockets, and I waited until his gaze finally rose to me. I still had my eyes, dark brown marked with the thick stripes of crimson that banded them when I fed – or when I was angry. The mortals had called me Princess Bloodeyes once because of that. They would do so no longer.

‘I am Nyssa Volari,’ I said, my voice honed by all those hours of practice Mother had insisted on, so that it was as hard and as sharp as my swords. ‘Queen of the Rose Throne. Ruler of the Broken Plains, from the foot of Mount Temero to the shores of the Vitriol Sea. Lord and protector of all the lands and cities contained therein, from the Grey Palace to Gowyn.’

Bellen shifted, and I could smell the thin hint of his own anger pressing through his drunken fear. Good. Maybe he’d draw that ridiculous jewelled sword of his. I’d have my teeth in his throat before he could figure out which end he was supposed to point at me.

You definitely should have fed.

‘Silence,’ I said again, but this time it was a whisper under my breath, inaudible to the lord protector of the city that had sheltered our enemy for decades. To him I gave nothing but a look of cold disdain, one that stripped away whatever protest had been building in him. In my chest my heart thumped once, stirring the blood in my veins, and my voice grew loud enough now to reach Gowyn’s walls and the ragged remnants of the mortal army standing before them. All that was left of the city’s forces after the battle we’d fought just days before, practically at the gates of the Grey Palace, my home.

The battle we had won.

‘I am Nyssa Volari, and by conquest and blood, I am your queen!’

I snapped out my magic, snagging it on the dull, ragged stump of a soul. Ranks of zombies stood behind me, hundreds of corpses in neat rows. Their bodies were still fresh, marked only with the wounds that had ended their first lives. The uniforms they wore were still bright with orange or azure, dulled only by stains of ash and blood. My power had snared the guttering spirit of the risen man just behind me. Unlike the other zombies, he was dressed in a loose grey cloak with a hood that covered his features. I tugged at what was left of the corpse’s mind, willing him to step forward, and he shifted… then stopped. I kept my face impassive, reaching for the frayed bits of soul still left in the body, trying to use them to jerk the dead man on, but they kept slipping through the grasp of my power. My heart beat again as my anger grew.

All of us who carry the blessed blood of the necromancer god are given gifts. Miracles of amethyst magic, of death and control. I had great strength in raising and controlling the dead – as long as those dead were beasts, like the Nightmare I rode, or Rend. But mortals, things with highly developed minds, those I found difficult. Trying to grasp the tiny pieces of soul that were left in their physical shells after death had stripped out their spirits was like trying to grab blood out of water. I tried again, fighting to keep my fangs hidden even as I wanted to snarl. And then the corpse was moving forward, smooth and purposeful, but not under my control.

I didn’t look to Magdalena. I knew she had caught the zombie and made it move. The other, older Kastelai was not nearly as good with animals as I was, but she was vastly better with intelligent creatures, and I could sense her magic as she effortlessly guided the corpse forward. The feeling of it made my heart stir once more.

She is your ally, and she is helping you.

As if I didn’t know that. As if I couldn’t be angry and keep it under control. I gritted my teeth, feeling the sting as my fangs bit into my lower lip. I wasn’t a fractious adolescent, no matter how I looked. I’d been born into my second life over a century ago, had fought and killed and survived for far longer than most mortals lived. I was mature, no matter how young I’d been when my father had made me.

I was!

Of course you are, Mother whispered. But you’d best get on with your revelation. You’re going to lose your rhythm.

I bit back what I wanted to say, and channelled my anger into my words.

‘A century ago, we took the Grey Palace in the name of those who had once ruled there. We took the Rose Throne, the throne of the Broken Plains, and expected to receive the fealty of all those who lived upon them, as it was our due.’ The old lie, invented by my father to convince these mortals we were the return of their long-dead rulers, and not something far more dangerous. The old lie, the useful lie, the one the mortals hadn’t really believed, but which had eased them just enough to let their fear of us win out. For a while.

‘But we were defied!’ I snapped, and Rend growled, feeling my rage. Bellen and the nobles arrayed behind him flinched, cowering from my rebuke and the dire wolf’s threat. ‘Thirty years ago, at the Battle of Ire Crossing, we faced a new enemy, a foreign enemy. A regiment of the Sun Seekers, from far-off Hammerhal Aqsha, come to claim this land for themselves.’ To save it from the forces of death, so they had said. Idiots.

‘And what did the people of Gowyn do?’ I continued. ‘They welcomed that enemy, sheltered them, gave them supplies and support and their own children to fill their ranks so that they could war with us for decades over the Broken Plains! Thirty years of rack and ruin, thirty years of defiance, all leading to one last great betrayal, when Gowyn welcomed the Spears of Heaven.’

I could still smell the lightning, feel the burn of it across my skin. I had healed quickly, my body reknitting itself with the life I took from the blood of my enemies. But the pain of the wounds I had suffered battling those fanatics still throbbed inside me, not yet quenched by blood. Not yet.

Bellen’s eyes were wide, staring up at me. The last of his anger was gone; there was only terror left to him. Sparks of sullen defiance remained still in some of the nobles, some of the stronger ones, but they were almost buried in the ash of their own growing fear as my words rolled over them.

‘You welcomed those fanatics here. Those slaves of Sigmar, the god of thieves and usurpers. You bowed to them, then pointed them at us – a silver blade thrust at the heart of your rulers. You pointed them at me.’ I couldn’t do it with my mind, so I had to gesture. I pointed my hand at the grey-cloaked figure now standing beside me, and when I did, Magdalena commanded it to move again. The zombie reached up with bloodless hands and undid the clasp that held the cloak, letting it fall to the ground. Beneath was a man dressed in armour of blue and silver and white, sullied now with the ugly brown of dried blood; a man whose light blue eyes once glowed with fanatical madness, before they were dulled by death. Celasian, who had been abbot-general of the Spears of Heaven, before he had come for me and my family.

Before I had slit his throat from ear to ear.

‘You sent this man to kill me.’ My shout was harsh with contempt. ‘This madman, wrapped in false purity. You aimed him at me – and you missed.’

There was quiet now on the Broken Plains, silence broken only by the snap of my banners and the low sounds of sobbing from the crowd gathered on Gowyn’s walls. Every mortal eye was on the bloodless husk of the man they had thought would kill me. The zombie raised its arms, a tattered banner clenched in each hand. In the left, the orange banner of the 39th Company of the Sun Seekers, and in the right, the blue-and-silver banner of the Spears of Heaven. The wind pulled at them, and they streamed away from Celasian’s corpse, their bright colours slashed by the dark shadows of the black banners that flew above them.

‘You tried to kill me,’ I said, my voice devoid now of anger, of any emotion. ‘And because of that, by the law of the Kastelai, it is my right to claim the blood that flows in every one of you. According to the code of the Crimson Keep, I own your lives, and I could claim them with the army that stands behind me.’

An army made up of the corpses of the soldiers they had sent to kill us. Bellen fell to his knees, hands raised over his face, rather than see those raised dead. Than see me. Fear had burned through the liquid courage of his alcohol, and there was no chance the lord protector was going to be drawing his sword now. He’d stopped being a potential challenge and was just a mewling thing, a victim no Kastelai would honour with their fangs – though Rend was watching him with slavering jaws. I ignored Bellen and looked to the nobles gathered behind, most little better than their once-leader, but all still standing at least.

‘I could,’ I said, no longer shouting, my words meant for them alone. ‘But I don’t want to.’

They shifted at that. Still afraid, but now there was a sliver of hope in their eyes. Still on his knees, Bellen looked up at me.

‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Mercy. We didn’t–’

A snarl from Rend silenced him, made him duck behind his hands again.

‘This isn’t about mercy,’ I answered. ‘That is a quality the Kastelai do not value. But we do value strategy, and I believe that my kingdom will do better with you alive.’ I looked at the sheaves of parchment some of them clutched, the terms of surrender they had brought. ‘We also value hierarchy. Structure. Order. If Gowyn is to survive, it will be because I allow it. There will be no terms, no bargains. You will simply swear yourself to me and follow the orders you are given. Do so, and you live. Prosper. And perhaps, if you prove worthy, you will have a chance at a second, greater life. Defy me, as you defied me before, and you will serve as the abbot-general now serves. Understand?’

They nodded, some hesitantly, some quickly. Then they stopped, staring at me uncertainly, not sure what to do.

‘Do you understand?’ snapped Magdalena. That harsh voice matched her eyes, not her soft face, and the mortals all trembled, until one fell to her knees. She grabbed at the others, and they quickly followed, dropping their papers, bowing their heads. Magdalena spoke again then, each word hard as the shield she carried.

‘I swear, by my life and blood…’ She listened to them echo her, stammering, whispering, words stumbling over tongues thick with fear, and her curls shifted as she shook her head.

‘Speak loud. Speak clear. Make your people hear you,’ she said. ‘You speak for them, too. I swear, by my life and blood…’

They echoed her words again, and this time their voices rang out, even Bellen’s.

‘To serve the queen of the Broken Plains, to serve her immortal brethren, to serve the Rose Throne. In this life, and every life beyond the gates of death. In the name of the Undying King, by the power of Nagash, I swear myself, knowing that if I break this vow, death will only be the beginning of my suffering.’

When they were done, I looked again to the city – to my city, Gowyn, last refuge of my enemies, my family’s enemies – and raised my voice.

‘The vow has been spoken.’ I held out my hand, and Rill passed me an unlit torch, a piece of wood taken from a coffin, its tip wound with strips torn from ancient grave-cloths. It stank of oil and death, and when I touched it with my magic, flame blossomed from it, a vivid violet tongue of fire that wasn’t stirred by the wind. ‘This land is now one strength, one blood, united before the Rose Throne until the death of all things. So I say, Queen Nyssa Volari, and if any dare disagree, let them meet me now in challenge.’

There was silence – hesitant, fearful, but silence. It seemed none of the assembled mortals would call challenge today and go to Nagash with my name on their lips.

‘Then let the War of the Broken Plains be over. Let it fade and be forgotten, like ashes in the wind.’

I threw the torch down to the feet of the abbot-general’s corpse, and with a whoosh the violet flames exploded upward, wrapping around the zombie. The dead man stood silent and unmoving as his clothes burned, as his flesh blackened, as the banners became long trails of flickering fire. Oily clouds of smoke boiled up to the clear blue sky, carrying ashes and the stench of burning meat, while the dry grass that surrounded the corpse shrivelled to grey in a perfect circle of death. When the flames finally guttered out, leaving nothing but a pile of charred bones and heat-warped armour, I rode forward, Rend pacing beside me, my army at my back, to finally claim the last prize of this too-long war. But as I rode, my mother’s voice whispered again through my soul.

Wars never truly end. They never truly die.

‘True,’ I silently answered. ‘And neither does a Kastelai.’

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2025.
This eBook edition published in 2025 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Jodie Muir.

Queen of the Rose Throne © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2025. Queen of the Rose Throne, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80407-772-6

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

To Elizabeth – For all the Sundays and all the other days.

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