Old Kingdom

Dark Secrets, Deep Love, and Dangerous Magic

Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him. She soon finds companions in Mogget, a cat whose aloof manner barely conceals its malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, now free in body but still trapped by painful memories.

As the three travel deep into the Old Kingdom, threats mount on all sides. And every step brings them closer to a battle that will pit them against the true forces of life and death—and bring Sabriel face-to-face with her own destiny.

“Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. Here is a world with the same solidity and four-dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity and intelligence.” —Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials trilogy

Who is Lirael? And what is her destiny?

Lirael has never felt like a true daughter of the Clayr. Abandoned by her mother, ignorant of her father’s identity, Lirael resembles no one else in her large extended family living in the Clayr’s Glacier. She doesn’t even have the Sight — the ability to see into the present and possible futures — that is the very birthright of the Clayr.

Nonetheless, it is Lirael in whose hands the fate of the Old Kingdom lies. She must undertake a desperate mission under the growing shadow of an ancient evil — one that opposes the Royal Family, blocks the Sight of the Clay; and threatens to break the very boundary between Life and Death itself.

With only her faithful companion, the Disreputable Dog, to help her, Lirael must find the courage to seek her own hidden destiny.

“What makes Lirael a delight is the magic that Nix brings to his story and to his characters.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

After centuries in captivity, the Destroyer is nearly free.

Beneath the earth, a malignant force lies waiting, greedy for freedom from its ancient prison. As the Old Kingdom falls once more into a realm of darkness and terror, the people look desperately to the Abhorsen, the scourge of the Dead, to save them. Yet Abhorsen Sabriel is lost, missing in Ancelstierre.

Only Lirael has any chance of stopping the Destroyer. With her companions Sameth, Mogget and the Disreputable Dog, she travels across the Old Kingdom in a race against time, battling Shadow Hands and dark necromancers to reach Ancelstierre before it is too late. But what hope can one young woman have against a terrible evil with the power to destroy life itself?

This eagerly awaited conclusion to Garth Nix’s extraordinary trilogy of Old Kingdom books is a complex and vividly imagined story, powerful, terrifying and compelling.

“Terror, courage, bitterness, love, desperation, and sacrifice all swirl together in an apocalyptic climax that pits both Life and Death together against the destruction of everything."  —Kirkus*

Clariel is the daughter of one of the most notable families in the Old Kingdom, with blood relations to the Abhorsen and, most important, to the King. She dreams of living a simple life but discovers this is hard to achieve when a dangerous Free Magic creature is loose in the city, her parents want to marry her off to a killer, and there is a plot brewing against the old and withdrawn King Orrikan. When Clariel is drawn into the efforts to find and capture the creature, she finds hidden sorcery within herself, yet it is magic that carries great dangers. Can she rise above the temptation of power, escape the unwanted marriage, and save the King?

Goldenhand takes place six months after the events of Abhorsen and follows the novella Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case, which is featured in Across the Wall.

Lirael lost one of her hands in the binding of Orannis, but now she has a new hand, one of gilded steel and Charter Magic.

On a dangerous journey, Lirael returns to her childhood home, the Clayr’s Glacier, where she was once a Second Assistant Librarian. There, a young woman from the distant North brings her a message from her long-dead mother, Arielle.

It is a warning about the Witch with No Face. But who is the Witch, and what is she planning? Lirael must use her new powers to save the Old Kingdom from this great danger—and it must be forestalled not only in the living world but also in the cold, remorseless river of Death.

Nicholas Sayre has just fought off the Destroyer and is eager to return to the Old Kingdom. The only thing standing in his way is a party organized by his powerful uncle. But when he arrives at the party he finds a house full of guests who don’t believe in magic or necromancy and a strange creature locked up in a display case.

After a disastrous twist of events involving the guest of honor, the creature in the case drinks Nicholas’s Charter-infused blood—and breaks free. Will Nicholas be able to stop the new Free Magic creature?

Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.