The wait is over. Feast your eyes upon the cover for and an exclusive excerpt from Robin LaFevers’ Igniting Darkness, the second and final book in the Courting Darkness duology!

If you’ve been eagerly anticipating Igniting Darkness and waiting on the edge of your seat to learn what happens to Genevieve and Sybella (especially when it comes time for the two of them to meet), never fear. This excerpt gives a glimpse into the long-awaited first meeting between the two assassin nuns and… well… it’s more than a little charged.

And the cover? Well, it’s truly what pulls this whole thing together. It perfectly compliments the Courting Darkness cover while also making a splash all its own.

Igniting Darkness may not hit bookshelves until next summer, but hopefully this cover reveal and excerpt will help tide you over until then!

Here’s the striking new cover for Robin LaFevers’ ‘Igniting Darkness’!

If the bright and beautiful new Igniting Darkness cover (created by Billelis) is any indication of how fantastic the second novel in the Courting Darkness duology will be, YA fantasy fans everywhere will be more than pleased.

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what author Robin LaFevers has to say about the gorgeous Igniting Darkness cover.

“I am wildly in love with this cover for Igniting Darkness. When the design team started brainstorming cover ideas, the minute this one came up, it felt like The One. And wow, did they deliver on the concept!

It is not only gorgeous, thematically on point, and eye-catching, as all good covers should be—but so dynamic. Especially when paired with the cover for the first book in the duology, Courting Darkness. The visuals perfectly encapsulate the nature of the two main characters’ journeys, which is learning to embrace the incandescent nature of feminine rage and use it to build the lives they want—in 15th century France, no less!

Unfortunately, I think many women can relate to the desire to burn it all—whether ‘it’ refers to societal or cultural limitations, the patriarchy, the status quo, or whatever else they feel is holding them back.”

Can’t get enough? Check out this exclusive excerpt!

GENEVIEVE

January 1490, Plessis-Les-Tours, France

Whether one is raised at a convent that serves Death or in a tavern room filled with whores, there is one lesson that always applies: There is no room for mistakes. The wrong amount of poison, the incorrect angle of the knife, poor aim, or a false gesture when pretending to be someone else—can result in disaster, if not death.

It is the same in the upstairs room of the tavern where I spent my earliest years. How many of my aunts would have had other lives, but for one mistake. Some, like my mother, chose their path. But for others it was too many years of poor croppage or crossing the tanner’s guild, which was always looking for excuses to remove its female members. Being alone at the wrong moment, catching the eye of the wrong man—could all send one’s life skidding down the slope of destiny into a midden heap.

Which is precisely where I have landed.

I run my fingers along the silky edges of the crow feather. The good news is the convent did not abandon me. The bad news, they might, once they learn what I have done.

And what will the king do with this knowledge of the convent I so foolishly handed him? Will his anger pass like a sudden summer shower or will it fester and grow?

Far off in the distance, a cock crows. Morning comes, but no answers with it. I cannot even decide if I should warn the convent. I have spent the night trying to convince myself that after five years of their silence, I owe them nothing. But the sick, shaking that has kept me awake all night tells me my heart believes something else.

Which do I listen to?

Once before I did not listen to my heart. Come with us, Maraud had said. We can help you.

Maraud. Even though he did not know what this was about, he offered his help. His friendship. And so much more. Instead, I have ensured he will loathe me as much as the king. The convent as well. My name will now be a curse upon their lips and reviled for generations. Truly, the wreckage I have left in my wake is breathtaking.

Thinking about it is like rubbing my heart against broken glass. I must find a way to fix this—to unsay those words to the king. Or at the very least, convince him they are of far less importance than he thinks they are. However, I do not even know if he will call for me again. Mayhap he will have me thrown into the dungeon.

But in my deepest heart, I am not even certain this can be fixed. Have I broken a piece of crockery that can be glued back together or have I shattered a crystal goblet that is irreplaceable? Almost as if in answer, the fine hairs at the nape of my neck lift in warning. I realize I am not alone.

I do not open my eyes, but shift my hand toward the knife I keep under my pillow.

“Good morning.” It is woman’s voice, low and melodious. Surely someone sent by the convent to punish me would not use such a cheerful greeting.

I turn my head, searching the shadows for the source of the voice.

It laughs, a note of earthiness among the lilting sounds. “You do not need your knife for me, little sister. Did you not see the feather I left you?”

I sit up, keeping the knife hidden in the folds of my gown.

“I saw a crow feather.” My words are as carefully measured as the worn coins from a beggar’s purse. “But crows are a most common of bird.”

The young woman—mayhap a year or two older than myself—sits in the room’s lone chair. Even though her face is cast in shadow, it is clear that she is impossibly beautiful—the contours of her face so elegantly constructed that it borders on being a weapon in its own right. While I cannot see if she is smiling, I sense her amusement, all the same. “Who else would leave you such a thing?”

I shrug one shoulder. “The French court is a complex and devious place, my lady. Messages can be intercepted and twisted to suit any number of intentions.”

“You are wise to be cautious. But have no fear, I am well and truly convent sent—and your sister, besides.”

My sister. The words shove me off balance as surely as a well-placed kick. This woman. Margot. All of us at the convent are sisters. And I have betrayed them.

The betrayed me first.

I shove my hair out of my face. “If that is the case, if you are well and truly my sister . . .” Weeks—nay, months—of anger swells up, as unstoppable as the tide. “Then I have to ask, what in the rutting hell took you so long?”

She blinks, the only hint this might not be the greeting she was expecting. “You only just arrived, what, three—four—days ago?”

She thinks I speak of mere days when I have lost years. When I have lost . . . so much. Heat rises in my gorge, making my words harsh. “I’m not talking about the last three days. I’ve been waiting for five years.”

A flash of vexation distorts her face, but her voice remains calm. “The convent has been in disarray these last few months. No one was aware you had been removed from the regent’s household.”

The words dangle like bait. I so want to believe them. But if I do, it means that I fell into some trap of Count Angouleme’s making. “Surely they knew of my change in residence else why was my patron receiving letters of instructions regarding me?”

The woman grimaces—that grimace giving me more hope than any words she has spoken. “There have been many changes at the convent. The details of your and Margot’s location were missing.”

Missing. “We were not a pair of boots or a prayer book. We were two young girls left with no means of communication, no direction, nor orders, nothing for nearly a third of our lives.”

Her earlier warmth cools somewhat. “We have been somewhat distracted by France’s invasion, the warring amongst the duchess’s betrothed, and the matter of securing both her and our country’s safety,” she says dryly. “Surely the nature of your assignment was explained to you?”

“That was no assignment, but abandonment. We gave up on you. Assumed you’d forgotten about us.”

“You could certainly be forgiven for thinking that.”

I don’t want compassion, I want answers. What I truly want is to slog back through time and unsay the words I spoke to the king. To undo the grievous mistake I’ve made. But since she cannot give me that, answers I shall have. “Had you forgotten about us?”

She studies me, weighing how much to say. For all of her sympathetic manner, I must not underestimate this woman.

“I only learned of your existence two months ago,” she says at last. “When I was assigned to accompany the duchess to France.”

While her words bear the weight of truth, I also sense there is more to it than that. “There are others at the convent besides yourself. Why not send someone sooner?”

Just as the convent taught us, she pivots, going on the offense. “Are you indulging in a fit of temper or has something happened to make timing of the essence?”

Because everything inside me wishes to avoid her question, I force myself to lean forward instead, not caring that it brings my dagger out into the open. She does not so much as spare my weapon a glance. “If you want to come back into my life after five years of nothing, you’ll have to start with some explanations. Something far more satisfactory than we were busy.”

About ‘Igniting Darkness’ (Courting Darkness Duology Book 2) by Robin LaFevers

When you count Death as a friend, who can stand as your enemy?

Sybella, novitiate of the convent of Saint Mortain and Death’s vengeance on earth, is still reeling from her God’s own passing, and along with him a guiding hand in her bloody work. But with her sisters on the run from their evil brother and under the watchful eye of her one true friend (and love) at court, the soldier known as Beast, Sybella stands alone as the Duchess of Brittany’s protector.

After months of seeking her out, Sybella has finally made contact with a fellow novitiate of the convent, Genevieve, a mole in the French court. But when Genevieve mistakenly draws the attention of the French king to the convent of Saint Mortain and its deadly arts, she may do her sisters (and herself) more harm than good. Sybella, having already drawn the ire of the French regent, may not be able to depend on her sister and ally as much as she hoped. Still, Death always finds a way, even if it’s not what one expects.

No one can be trusted and the wolves are always waiting in this thrilling conclusion to the Courting Darkness duology, set in the world of Robin’s beloved His Fair Assassins trilogy.

Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology Book 2) by Robin LaFevers will be available June 2, 2020, from Amazon, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The Book Depository, or Indiebound. Also, don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads “to read” list!