The Stolen Heir

SPOILER WARNING May contain plot details

The Stolen Heir
Information
Author	Holly Black
Publish Date	January 3, 2023
Publisher	Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Chronology
Preceded by	The Queen of Nothing
Followed by	The Prisoner's Throne

The Stolen Heir is the first book in The Stolen Heir duology by Holly Black.

Blurb

A runaway queen. A reluctant prince. And a quest that may destroy them both.

Description

Eight years have passed since the Battle of the Serpent. But in the icy north, Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth has reclaimed the Ice Needle Citadel. There, she is using an ancient relic to create monsters of stick and snow who will do her bidding and exact her revenge.

Suren, child queen of the Court of Teeth, and the one person with power over her mother, fled to the human world. There, she lives feral in the woods. Lonely, and still haunted by the merciless torments she endured in the Court of Teeth, she bides her time by releasing mortals from foolish bargains. She believes herself forgotten until the storm hag, Bogdana chases her through the night streets. Suren is saved by none other than Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame, to whom she was once promised in marriage and who she has resented for years.

Now seventeen, Oak is charming, beautiful, and manipulative. He’s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren’s help. But if she agrees, it will mean guarding her heart against the boy she once knew and a prince she cannot trust, as well as confronting all the horrors she thought she left behind.

Teasers

Teaser 1:

A passerby discovered a toddler sitting on the chilly concrete of an alley, playing with the wrapper of a cat-food container. By the time she was brought to the hospital, her limbs were blue with cold. She was a wizened little thing, too thin, made of sticks.

She knew only one word, her name. Wren.

As she grew, her skin retained a slight bluish cast, resembling skimmed milk. Her foster parents bundled her up in jackets and coats and mittens and gloves, but unlike her sister, she was never cold. Her lip color changed like a mood ring, staying bluish and purple even in summer, turning pink only when close to a fire. And she could play in the snow for hours, constructing elaborate tunnels and mock-fighting with icicles, coming inside only when called.

Although she appeared bony and anemic, she was strong. By the time she was eight, she could lift bags of groceries that her adoptive mother struggled with.

By the time she was nine, she was gone.

Teaser 2:

PROLOGUE

A passerby discovered a toddler sitting on the chilly concrete of an alley, playing with the wrapper of a cat-​food container. By the time she was brought to the hospital, her limbs were blue with cold. She was a wizened little thing, too thin, made of sticks.

She knew only one word, her name. Wren.

As she grew, her skin retained a slight bluish cast, resembling skimmed milk. Her foster parents bundled her up in jackets and coats and mittens and gloves, but unlike her sister, she was never cold. Her lip color changed like a mood ring, staying bluish and purple even in summer, turning pink only when close to a fire. And she could play in the snow for hours, constructing elaborate tunnels and mock-​fighting with icicles, coming inside only when called.

Although she appeared bony and anemic, she was strong. By the time she was eight, she could lift bags of groceries that her adoptive mother struggled with.

By the time she was nine, she was gone.

CHAPTER 1

As a child, Wren read lots of fairy tales. That’s why, when the monsters came, she knew it was because she had been wicked.

They snuck in through her window, pushing up the jamb and slashing the screen so silently that she slept on, curled around her favorite stuffed fox. She woke only when she felt claws touch her ankle.

Before she could get out the first scream, fingers covered her mouth. Before she could get out the first kick, her legs were pinned.

“I am going to let you go,” said a harsh voice with an unfamiliar accent. “But if you wake anyone in this house, you will most assuredly be sorry for it.”

That was like a fairy tale, too, which made Wren wary of breaking the rules. She stayed utterly quiet and still, even when they released her, although her heart beat so hard and fast that it seemed possible it would be loud enough to summon her mother.

A selfish part of her wished it would, wished that her mother would come and turn on a light and banish the monsters. That wouldn’t be breaking the rules, would it, if it was only the thundering of her heart that did the waking?

“Sit up,” commanded one of the monsters.

Obediently, Wren did. But her trembling fingers buried her stuffed fox in the blankets.

Looking at the three creatures flanking her bed made her shiver uncontrollably. Two were tall, elegant beings with skin the gray of stone. The first, a woman with a fall of pale hair caught in a crown of jagged obsidian, wearing a gown of some silvery material that wafted around her. She was beautiful, but the cruel set of her mouth warned Wren not to trust her. The man was matched to the woman as though they were pieces on a chessboard, wearing a black crown and clothes of the same silvery material.

Beside them was a huge, looming creature, spindly, with mushroom-pale skin and a head full of wild black hair. But what was most notable were her long, clawlike fingers.

“You’re our daughter,” one of the gray-​faced monsters said.

“You belong to us,” rasped the other. “We made you.”

She knew about birth parents, which her sister had, nice people who came to visit and looked like her, and who sometimes brought over grandparents or doughnuts or presents.

She had wished for birth parents of her own, but she had never thought that her wish could conjure a nightmare like this.

“Well,” said the woman in the crown. “Have you nothing to say? Are you too in awe of our majesty?”

The claw-​fingered creature gave an impolite little snort.

“That must be it,” said the man. “How grateful you will be to be taken away from all of this, changeling child. Get up. Make haste.”

“Where are we going?” Wren asked. Fear made her sink her fingers into her bedsheets, as though she could hang on to her life before this moment if she just gripped hard enough.

“To Faerie, where you will be a queen,” the woman said, a snarl in her voice where there ought to have been cajoling. “Have you never dreamed of someone coming to you and telling you that you were no mortal child, but one made of magic? Have you never dreamed about being taken from your pathetic little life to one of vast greatness?”

Wren couldn’t deny that she had. She nodded. Tears burned in the back of her throat. That’s what she had done wrong. That was the wickedness in her heart that had been discovered. “I’ll stop,” she whispered.

“What?” asked the man.

“If I promise never to make wishes like that again, can I stay?” she asked, voice shaking. “Please?”

The woman’s hand came against Wren’s cheek in a slap so hard that it sounded like a crack of thunder. Her cheek hurt, and though tears pricked her eyes, she was too shocked and angry for them to fall. No one had ever hit her before.

“You are Suren,” said the man. “And we are your makers. Your sire and dam. I am Lord Jarel and she, Lady Nore. This one accompanying us is Bogdana, the storm hag. Now that you know your true name, let me show you your true face.”

Lord Jarel reached out to her, making a ripping motion. And there, underneath, was her monster self, reflected in the mirror over her dresser—her skimmed milk skin giving way to pale blue flesh, the same color as buried veins. When she parted her lips, she saw shark-​sharp teeth. Only her eyes were the same mossy green, large and staring back at her in horror.

My name isn’t Suren, she wanted to say. And this is a trick. That’s not me. But even as she thought the words, she heard how similar Suren was to her own name. Suren. Ren. Wren. A child’s shortening.

Changeling child.

“Stand,” said the huge, looming creature with nails as long as knives. Bogdana. “You do not belong in this place.”

Wren listened to the noises of the house, the hum of the heater, the distant scrape of the nails of the family dog as it pawed at the floor restlessly in sleep, running through dreams. She tried to memorize every sound. Her gaze blurry with tears, she committed her room to memory, from the book titles on her shelves to the glassy eyes of her dolls.

She snuck one last pet of her fox’s synthetic fur and pressed him down, deeper under the covers. If he stayed there, he’d be safe. Shuddering, she slid out of the bed.

“Please,” she said again.

A cruel smile twisted up the corner of Lord Jarel’s face. “The mortals no longer want you.”

Wren shook her head, because that couldn’t be true. Her mother and father loved her. Her mother cut the crusts off her sandwiches and kissed her on the tip of her nose to make her giggle. Her father cuddled up with her to watch movies and then carried her to bed when she fell asleep on the couch. She knew they loved her. And yet the certainty with which Lord Jarel spoke plucked at her terror.

“If they admit that they wish for you to remain with them,” said Lady Nore, her voice soft for the first time, “then you may stay.”

Wren padded into the hall, her heart frantic, rushing into her parents’ room as if she’d had a nightmare. The noise of her shuffling feet and her ragged breaths woke them. Her father sat up and then startled, putting an arm up protectively over her mother, who looked at Wren and screamed.

“Don’t be scared,” she said, moving to the side of the bed and crushing the blankets in her small fists. “It’s me, Wren. They did something to me.”

“Get away, monster!” her father barked. He sounded frightening enough to send her scuttling back against the dresser. She’d never heard him shout like that, certainly never at her.

Tears tracked down her cheeks. “It’s me,” she said again, her voice breaking. “Your daughter. You love me.”

The room looked exactly as it always had. Pale beige walls. Queensize bed with brown dog fur dirtying their white duvet. A towel lying beside the hamper, as though someone had thrown and missed. The scent of the furnace, and the petroleum smell of some cream used to remove makeup. But it was the distorted-mirror nightmare version, in which all those things had become horrible.

Below them, the dog barked, sounding a desperate warning.

“What are you waiting for? Get that thing out of here,” her father growled, looking toward Lady Nore and Lord Jarel as though he was seeing something other than them, some human authority.

Wren’s sister came into the hall, rubbing her eyes, clearly awakened by the screaming. Surely Rebecca would help, Rebecca who made sure no one bullied her at school, who took her to the fair even though no one else’s little sister was allowed. But at the sight of Wren, Rebecca jumped onto the bed with a horrified yelp and wrapped her arms around her mother.

“Rebecca,” Wren whispered, but her sister only dug her face deeper into their mother’s nightgown.

“Mom,” Wren pleaded, tears choking her voice, but her mother wouldn’t look at her. Wren’s shoulders shook with sobs.

“This is our daughter,” her father said, holding Rebecca close, as though Wren had been trying to trick him. Rebecca, who’d been adopted, too. Who ought to have been exactly as much theirs as Wren.

Wren crawled to the bed, crying so hard that she could barely get any words out. Please let me stay. I’ ll be good. I am sorry, sorry, sorry for whatever I did, but you can’t let them take me. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy, I love you, please, Mommy.

Her father tried to push her back with his foot, pressing it against her neck. But she reached for him anyway, her voice rising to a shriek.

When her little fingers touched his calf, he kicked her in the shoulder, sending her to the floor. But she only crawled back, weeping and pleading, keening with misery.

“Enough,” rasped Bogdana. She yanked Wren against her, running one of her long nails over Wren’s cheek with something like gentleness. “Come, child. I will carry you.”

“No,” Wren said, her fingers winding themselves in the sheets. “No. No. No.”

“It is not meet for the humans to have touched you in violence, you who are ours,” said Lord Jarel.

“Ours to hurt,” Lady Nore agreed. “Ours to punish. Never theirs.”

“Shall they die for the offense?” Lord Jarel asked, and the room went quiet, except for the sound of Wren sobbing.

“Should we kill them, Suren?” he asked again, louder. “Let their pet dog in and enchant it so that it turns on them and bites out their throats?”

At that, Wren’s crying abated in astonishment and outrage. “No!” she shouted. She felt beyond the ability to control herself.

“Then hear this and cease weeping,” Lord Jarel told her. “You will come with us willingly, or I will slay everyone on that bed. First the child, then the others.”

Rebecca gave a little frightened sob. Wren’s human parents watched

her with fresh horror.

“I’ll go,” Wren said finally, a sob still in her voice, one she couldn’t stop. “Since no one loves me, I’ll go.”

The storm hag lifted her up, and they were away.

Wren was discovered in the flashing lights of a patrol car two years later, walking along the side of the highway. The soles of her shoes were as worn as if she’d danced through them, her clothing was stiff with sea salt, and scars marred the skin of her wrists and cheeks.

When the officer tried to ask her what had happened, she either wouldn’t or couldn’t answer. She snarled at anyone who came too close, hid beneath the cot in the room they brought her into, and refused to give a name or an address as to where her home had been to the lady they brought with them.

Their smiles hurt. Everything hurt.

When they turned their backs, she was gone.

Synopsis

(Beware of spoilers)

It’s been about 8 years since Queen of Nothing. Suren (now known as Wren) has left Faerie and the Court of Teeth, preferring to spend time in the mortal realm instead. She often spies on the human family she had been placed with, before the Lord and Lady of the Court of Teeth took her back, the family believing Wren to be a monster.

Wren is also being chased by a storm hag, Bogdana, and is saved by a now 17 year old Oak and his loyal knight Tiernan. They tell her that Lady Nore has stolen the bones from the first Queen of Elfhame and is now forming an army with the magic gained. Due to High Queen Jude making Lady Nore swear fealty to Wren at the end of the war, the only person who can command Lady Nore to give up the power is Wren. After realising it’s the only way she can go back to being free, she agrees to accompany Oak, Tiernan and Hyacinthe (a cursed ex-soldier of Madoc who is partly turned into a falcon) to the Court of Teeth.

On their journey they get attacked by the creations of Lady Nore. They pick up a Kelpie on the way who transforms into a human named Jack of the Lakes, and the five arrive at the Court of Moths. The Queen of the Curt of Moths has them looked after, and Hyacinthe thrown into a cell. After getting some fresh clothes, they are invited to a ball where they meet the Queen, who reveals Oak is also after Madoc, who has been captured by Lady Nore. She also tells them how to find the Thistlewitch whom they had been searching for. Wren is determined to go to Hyacinthe and hear more about what he has to say about Oak and the situation.

Jack of the Lakes arrives as she’s about to sneak to the prison and he agrees to distract he guards for her in exchange for something. Wren gives over a fox figure she took from when she played with Oak as a child. Jacks distracts the guards and Wren manages to break out Hyacinthe, as well as 2 other captives, a mortal girl name Gwen and a marrow from the Undersea. Wren also manages to break the curse on Hyacinthe, restoring his arm and him back to fully human. Hyacinthe swears himself to Wren in return for her curing him. She makes Hyacinthe take the marrow and Gwen to safety, and she manages to get back to the dance. Oak takes her for a dance when they are interrupted by the same guards whom Wren had convinced of her innocence but, Jacks sold her out, and gave the guards the fox as proof.

Wren is brought before the Queen of Moths for questioning.  Wren admits to what happened and the Queen wants her executed but Oak steps in and the queen makes him dual a champion. Oak wins, but the Queen still makes Wren answer a riddle to survive, which she does successfully. Oak forgives Jacks of the Lakes and he leaves the party. Oak leads them to the Thistlewitch, and he makes a deal with her for her to reveal what he wants to know, where Mellith’s Heart is. The three leave, with Oak informing them what they had come for was impossible to find. They decide to make their way north anyway, but one night get caught in an awful lightning storm. Wren is accosted by the storm hag, who says she just wants to talk. She makes Wren believe the thing they are taking north is actually her and reveals that she was not born, but made, from snow and magic. With this information, Wren decides to flee in the night, but is ultimately found and brought back to Oak and Tiernan.

The next day, Tiernan goes  ahead to the market, and Oak and Wren finally talk. Oak says the storm hag lied and he has a plan to create a decoy heart to trade. On good terms again, the two of them make their way to the market. There they acquire a boat and make their way further north. When they arrive, they hike through the snow and into the Forest of Stone. There they get captured by some trolls, who are cursed to turn to stone in the sunlight. The trolls try to drug them, but Oak, having been born with blusher mushroom in his veins, drinks it all leaving the other two awake.

They flee the trolls during the day light and make their way further towards the Citadel of the Court of Teeth. Oak and Wren go in disguised while Tiernan remains outside waiting to ransom for them with a fake version of the heart if they do not return. Oak and Wren break in but don’t find the bones anywhere, getting quickly captured and brought before Lady Nore. She ends up cutting out Wren’s tongue so there’s no chance Wren can command her, and holds Oak captive, after he tells her he has brought the heart… despite the fact that he hasn’t, and the folk can’t lie. Wren is ordered to the dungeons, but on the way down she notices the guard escorting her… is Hyacinth.

She’s put in a cell next to Madoc, with Hyacinth saying he’ll get her out. She passes out from pain and wakes up overhearing Oak and Madoc talking about her. She rouses and she listens to Madoc and Oak converse for a bit before food comes. She notices at the bottom the bowl is a key, but she hides it from Oak and Madoc. She waits for them to sleep and sneaks out, going to the throne room hopeful to find the bones but they aren’t there. She finds a fragment though and uses it to heal her tongue. She passes out again and when she wakes, she gets herself captured on purpose and uses her command on Lady Nore.

They go ahead with the planned trade for the heart, to try and take out the trolls Lady Nore has allied with. They meet Tiernan in the woods and when the trolls get suspicious, Oak delivers the case which has a poison dart imbedded in it. A fight breaks out, and during it Wren realises the truth. She has the heart inside her all along, and the storm witch Bogdana is sort of her mother. With her new power she unmakes Lady Nore, and then takes Oak captive, telling Tiernan and Madoc to return to Elfhame where they will no doubt inform Jude and Cardan about Oak being Wren’s prisoner.

Wren then returns to the Citadel with Hyacinth who remains loyal to his vowel, and Bogdana. She frees the remaining falcon soldiers with her power, who declare her as their queen. The final scene she visits Oak, and she refuses to talk to him still, despite him wanting to atone for his actions. She leaves as he yells out after her, and she’s unusually OK with him screaming her name.

Gallery

USA/UK cover