Excerpt from The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Yes." Livira scowled and let the ball drop. "Lots." The windlass had run out of rope so she began to wind the bucket back up. After a few turns the reassuring resistance told her that the bucket had filled. Every time she carried out the task a small part of her held its breath, thinking that one day there would be no resistance. One day the water would simply not be there. An even smaller part of her hissed its disappointment when the turn of the handle revealed that new weight. When the water was gone there would be a change. Not a good change. But a change nonetheless. And sometimes, in the dark of the night with the hollow sounds of the Dust all around and the bright stars cold in their heaven, sometimes what scared Livira more than the water running out was that the water would not run out and that this would be her life. Dust, and beans, and dry-wheat, and the wind, and the little huddle of huts like stones gathered in the vastness of the empty plain, until she ran out rather than the water, and she joined the dust, and the wind carried her away as if she had never even drawn breath.

"I like Acmar," Katrin said.

Livira made a face and put her back into the winding. All the girls liked Acmar, at least to look at. Livira had never been able to put into words quite why he made her angry. It was to do with the way he didn't value any of the things she valued most. And all that lack of interest did was make him spokesman for the settlement, because none of them cared about those things really, not even Katrin or Neera, who said they were her best friends.

"You can have him," Livira grunted, her arms growing tired, her hands sore. "I'm going to the city soon. And you can all live in the dust while I ... while I ..." She didn't really know what they did in the city. She thought perhaps her scrap had come from there, stolen from the city folk by the wind. All she'd ever seen of the city were its walls, as a low smudge in the distance. She'd had to walk half a day even for that view, climbing the ridges to the west, returning to the settlement parched and dusty late at night to a frantic Aunt Teela. People said that the city was full of marvels with new ones added every week. But none of them had ever been there or even seemed interested in trying.

"I'm going to the city," Livira repeated.

"They won't let you in, silly." Katrin put out her tongue. "Even the dust doesn't get past their gates without permission."

She was just quoting what came out through Kern's grey beard, but it made Livira angry because she feared it might be true. "What I think is-"

Livira's hot reply faded from her lips and she rested against the windlass handle staring out to the east. There it was again, distant and dancing in the heat haze. A figure. "What I think ... is that someone's coming!"

... and other doubters. The historian must ensure that all their work is plainly marked as such, for if it were presented as a work of fiction its readers would clamour that it lacked sense, the events too implausible, too random, and too cruel. Truth will set you free ... from certainty, comfort, and the beliefs upon which we rely for sanity ...

Chapter 2

Livira

People never came to the settlement. Livira hadn't ever seen a visitor, had never met a single person who hadn't grown among the four dozen souls who sheltered in the huddled shacks. It was the sort of place that you went from, not to. Kern went from it to the dust markets. The patched waistcoat he was so proud of allegedly came from the city, purchased at great cost from a dust-market stall. What he bartered on his trips might then go on to bigger markets or to the city itself, but Livira had always had to take the existence of these places and people on faith. Now-someone was coming!

Excerpted from The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence. Copyright © 2023 by Mark Lawrence. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.