Read an exclusive excerpt from The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

The Raven is nearly here, and it is magnificent.

Next week, on April 15, author Antonia Hodgson is releasing The Raven Scholar, the first in her new fantasy series The Eternal Path. This has been one of our most anticipated books of 2025, and we've been counting down the days until it hits shelves. The Raven Scholar is a tale of political scheming, mystery, romance, and magic; I've had the chance to read it, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how readers react to its many twists and turns.

The story follows Neema Kraa, a scholar dedicated to the Raven deity in the fantasy empire of Orrun, who finds herself at the center of a murder mystery on the eve of the emperor's succession festival. Here's the official description from the publisher, Orbit:

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, the reign of Bersun the Brusque has come to an end. In the dizzying heat of midsummer, seven exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists compete to replace him. 

When one of them is murdered, it falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer and fight for the throne. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, we will win an empire. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.

Today, we're excited to reveal a brand new excerpt from The Raven Scholar. This fifth chapter is set eight years after the first four, and Neema Kraa's life has changed quite a lot in the interim. You can read chapters 1-3 on the Hachette website and chapter 4 at Paste, if you need to catch up!

In this chapter, Neema goes hunting for a lost chameleon...but finds something far more dangerous.

Five

The emperor’s chameleon was missing.

Pink-Pink had appeared at court one morning three years ago, under mysterious circumstances. There were no chameleons on the island, wild or caged. Yet there he was, basking on the back of the throne, nose in the air. “A good omen,” the emperor had declared. “A tiny dragon come to bless our court. Who will look after him for me?”

“I’m sure that—” Neema began.

“Perfect.” Bersun dropped the startled lizard into Neema’s hands. “Some company for you, High Scholar. Look after him well.”

“I was going to suggest the menagerie—”

“No,” the emperor said. And that was that.

Neema’s vertiginous rise from junior archivist to high minister had provoked consternation and dismay at court. No one expressed it that way, naturally. Consternation and dismay were not safe words to describe the emperor’s decisions. No—they were astonished. “She’s an astonishing woman, is she not, our High Scholar?” “She is indeed. Quite remarkable.”

Remarkable. That was another one.

Neema’s elevation had brought many changes, but one thing remained the same. She still had no friends. A combination of reasons, other than her general personality:

1. Time. Her official duties, and her private research for the emperor, kept her extremely busy.
2. Envy. Obviously.
3. Snobbery. She was still a Commoner of Scartown, and always would be.
4. Caution. One of the best ways to make friends at court was to share gossip and grievances. But Neema had been discovered by High Commander Vabras, which made them wary of confiding in her.
5. Judgement. Everyone knew that Neema had written the Order of Exile for [she who did not exist]. That act of erasure was the foundation of Neema’s success. Knowing this, and not being able to speak of it, only made it fester. Others may have been culpable—most of all that wretched boy Ruko. But Neema was right there in front of them, benefiting from the tragedy. Swanning about in her fine clothes, giving orders.

And of course, Neema could not speak about her feelings of guilt and remorse for what had happened. The Order of Exile was pinned to her heart too, and could not be removed. She could not be forgiven, she could not forgive herself—because what had happened had not happened. This was the great poison of Exile. There was no space for redemption, not for anyone.

So Neema did what she had always done: she threw herself into her work. Vabras and the emperor came to rely upon her even more, and people were astonished, and the wheel spun round and round. After eight years, Neema Kraa was at the very height of her power and unpopularity.

But she did have one companion. Green and yellow, nine inches long from nose to unfurled tail. Pink-Pink. Someone must have named him that, but no one would own up to it. The name had simply… permeated. As to its meaning, that was easily solved. Any time he passed by something pink he would instantly match it, merging into the background. Pink-Against-Pink. Evidently, it was his favourite colour.

Chameleons—ironically—do not like change. Pink-Pink took a long time to settle into Neema’s grand apartment, with its silk rugs and soft leather day beds, its views across the Imperial Library’s sweeping lawns. Its woeful lack of pink fabrics. Months of hissing, and snapping, and baleful stares followed. Neema persisted. She fed him, and talked to him, and eventually Pink-Pink relaxed into a daily routine: eat, sleep, swivel eyes, repeat. A natural courtier, in other words.

One oddity to his schedule: every morning he would climb down from the filigree headboard of Neema’s raised sleep platform, and walk determinedly over her face. Was he staking his territory? Absorbing her body heat? Saying good morning? Who could say. Still—it was a useful wake-up call, upon which Neema had come to rely.

But today of all days Pink-Pink had abandoned the ritual. Neema had woken an hour later than usual, groggy from Dr. Yetbalm’s Sleep Remedy. She had taken a double dose the night before, hoping for oblivion. An escape from the portentous dreams she’d been having these past few months.

Now she was running late on Festival Eve. The most important day of her life. The emperor—as he must—was preparing to hand over power after twenty-four years on the throne. The seven contenders had arrived from their respective monasteries, accompanied by their contingents. Tonight they would be welcomed in an extravagant opening ceremony, which the emperor had asked Neema to organise. It was her last and most prestigious assignment, and it would set the tone for the rest of the Festival. Any mistake—no matter how small—would be marked as inauspicious, and she would be held responsible. Every detail must be perfect.

Hurrying down from her sleep platform, she washed and dressed quickly. There was no time to fix her hair, so she wrapped it in a black chiffon headscarf, the lightest thing she could find. It was going to be another sultry day. There had been weeks of this weather—dense, oppressive heat with no rain to offer relief.

Heading into the sunken living area, she found her useless assistant lounging in her favourite chair, his feet up on the table. Janric Tursul, of the Venerant Tursuls. Or, as she had privately named him, Generic Arsehole, of the Venerant Arseholes. His beige skin looked dull and puffy from another night out partying on the Grand Canal. He had eaten her breakfast except for two cucumber slices, now resting delicately over his eyelids.

“Have you seen Pink-Pink?”

He removed the cucumber slices. “Not actually my job?”

“Did you feed him last night?”

“Sure, I guess?”

Neema gritted her teeth. Janric had been the worst in a long line of lazy, entitled assistants. At the end of his first week, he had lodged a formal complaint about having to work for someone “who didn’t understand the way of things.” This was Venerant code for “a Commoner.” Today was his last day, thank the Eight. He was joining the official Raven contingent, supporting Gaida Rack in her bid for the throne.

He stared up at the clockwork ceiling fan, hands behind his head. “Do you actually need me for anything?”

The fan whirred and clacked. “No. I don’t actually need you for anything, Janric.” You fundamentally pointless being. “You can go.”

Neema’s quarters were designed to remain cool, even at the height of summer. Stepping outside, she walked into a wall of heat. She stopped for a moment, adjusting to the change. Tomorrow, the contenders would have to compete in this furnace, in a series of fights and Trials. Whereas I will be over there in the library, she thought, smugly. Far from the heat, and the crowds. She still had a few days left to make use of the imperial archives, and with the Festival underway, she would have them almost to herself. At last, after months of delay, she could focus on her latest monograph: Ketuan Prison Ballads of the Seventh Century. The world, she knew, held its breath for publication.

In her private courtyard, an elderly Oxwoman in a broad-brimmed hat was watering the late summer flowers; dahlias and verbena, the last of the roses. Neema asked if she had seen Pink-Pink. She had not, but promised to check all the pink flowers carefully. “You’re not training today?” the Oxwoman asked.

Neema shifted on her hip. “No, not today,” she muttered. She had been using the courtyard as a practice ground for years. Initially she had kept to the series of stretches and strengthening exercises she’d been taught as a novice at the Raven monastery, designed to help her survive a lifetime of desk work. Over time she’d added some martial applications: a rolling drill of steps, kicks, punches and strikes that Cain had shown her back in Scartown. She found they benefited her mood as much as her body. She hadn’t realised anyone had noticed her training. Like most of life’s observers, the thought of being studied in turn made her intensely uncomfortable.

“Have you tried the north service path?” the woman suggested. She hesitated, then added, “By the bins.”

Neema understood the hesitation. It meant the cockroaches were back, just in time for the Festival. An irresistible snack for Pink-Pink, and thus a good place to look—but the servants would be in trouble if anyone found out. “Thanks,” she said, conveying with a careful nod that she wouldn’t say anything.

“I hope you find him, High Scholar,” the Oxwoman said, returning to her work. “I know you’re fond of him.”

The bins smelled of bleach and old memories.

She had not visited this part of the palace in years. Too painful. This was the path that had run beneath her balcony, when she was a Junior Archivist. The same hut, the same bins. Same cockroaches, probably. They were resilient. She moved one of the bins and they scattered wildly, like thieves.

No sign of Pink-Pink. Frustrated, Neema leaned against the service hut and tapped the back of her head against the wood. Today. Why did he have to disappear today? The heat had drawn out the tung oil used to protect the wood. It had a sharp, nutty scent, somehow pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.

Don’t look, she told herself, and looked.

Someone had repainted her old balcony, but it was peeling again. A couple of cracked terracotta pots filled with dead plants. A solitary chair folded away and propped against the wall.

She thought of Cain with his nose pressed against the glass. Did you ever think about me? She would see him again tonight, at the opening ceremony. The first time since that fateful day. She wasn’t the only one who had experienced an elevation in the last eight years. Cain Ballari was the official Fox contender for the throne. He and Ruko Valit were close favourites to win. Neema couldn’t decide which option was worse.

No matter. Straight after the coronation she would set off for Ketu—two thousand miles away from the imperial court. The Bear monastery was in urgent need of a new abbot following the death of Brother Lanrik.

Bersun was the natural choice. He had never wanted the crown—had only fought for it on Lanrik’s insistence. Now the Old Bear was going home, and he had invited Neema to join him. She was going to help him write his official memoirs. (“Stupid business,” he’d grumbled, as he did about most court traditions.)

Neema was nervous about her new home. Anat-garra was a bleak mountain fortress, and they would arrive in deep winter. But there would be no place for her here, once Bersun gave up the throne.

If he did give up the throne.

She dismissed the thought, annoyed with herself. She gave no credence to the darker rumours swirling around the island—that the emperor was reluctant to hand over power after ruling Orrun for his full term of twenty-four years. Neema had spent long hours with Bersun in private, discussing her Ketuan research. A couple of glasses of whisky by the fire, and he would confess to her as if she were a temple servant. He was homesick, even now. He loathed the island, and could not wait to escape.

No. The emperor was not the problem, she was sure of that. Bersun would leave as soon as the coronation was complete. It was his successor people should be worrying about.

She was about to move on when the balcony door to her old room slid open. An irrational fear gripped her, that it might be Cain. Pressing herself against the service hut, she tried to blend into the shadows. As High Scholar, she always wore black or purple to honour the Raven. Today she was dressed in a black, pleated crepe outfit that swung about her tall, honed body. Her badge of office—a raven formed from black diamonds, with outstretched wings—glinted softly on her chest. She took it off, afraid it would give her away, and slipped it in her pocket.

A second later, Princess Yasila stepped out on to the balcony.

It can’t be.

And yet it was. Princess Yasila, dressed in gossamer-thin layers of floating sea-green silk and lace, her long black hair captured in a diamond and silver net.

After that day, that terrible day eight years ago, the emperor had reinstated Yasila’s fortune and her title.

She had taken the opportunity to renounce the Valit name—no doubt to distance herself further from her estranged son. Henceforth she would go by her old family name: Majan. Gathering up her surviving daughter Nisthala, she had sailed off to her ancestral home on the south-east coast, near Three Ports. A place to grieve and heal in private.

Then Nisthala fell ill. Tragedy heaped on tragedy.

The emperor had been swift to offer his help. The palace was home to the best healers in the empire. Nisthala would receive the care she needed. And while she recovered, they were welcome to take over the imperial suite, the finest apartment on the island, at his majesty’s expense.

Guilt, people whispered.

Reparation, others suggested. A chance to save a child, instead of… Well. The law prevented them from saying more.

Yasila returned to the island with her daughter. The years passed. Nisthala’s health remained fragile. Hidden away in the shuttered apartment, she had not been seen since her arrival. Locked in her room, it was rumoured. Some even wondered if she was still alive.

Yasila was almost as reclusive. Rarely did she descend from the imperial suite, and when she did, she drifted over the island like a lost spirit, wrapped in the shroud of her grief. She was not allowed to wear mourning grey to mark her loss. As far as the law was concerned, she had lost nothing. So she clothed herself in sea-green and silver, the colours of the Dragon. The Guardian of Death. She used her body as a protest, a silent wail of pain. The places she visited leaned towards the symbolic. The temple. The imperial tombs. The western docks, where those who were Exiled began their journey. She’d laid flowers there once, it was said, and been reprimanded for it by Vabras.

What the Eight was she doing here?

Shielding her eyes from the sun, Yasila leaned over the balcony and peered down the service path. Then she turned sharply, as if she’d heard her name being called, and retreated inside. The balcony door slid shut. A moment later, the shutters folded neatly into place.

Her entrance and exit had lasted no more than fifteen seconds.

Neema felt a light fluttering in her stomach, a presentiment of… something. The scent of tung oil vanished, and the air around her turned thin and cool. Fresh, mountain air. She felt weightless, as if she could lift up into the sky.

She dug her nails into her palms and the sensation faded. She was solid again, rooted to the ground.

She gazed up at her old room, trying to recall who lived there these days. A name clicked into place. Marius Au, Office of Speculation. Hadn’t he left a couple of months ago? Yes, she was sure of it—he’d gone back home to Gridtown, some family emergency. Whoever Yasila was meeting up there, it wasn’t Marius.

Interesting.

“Neema!” Fenn Fedala strode down the path towards her, dressed in his usual battered overalls, roll-up dangling from his fingers.

Neema cursed softly, under her breath.

It was not that she had forgotten her appointment with the High Engineer. It was more that he had slid down her priority list for the day.

He did not look happy about it.

Fenn had been in a foul temper for weeks. For the last fifteen years—ever since the emperor had personally summoned him to court—he had stubbornly refused to live on the island. Every morning he took the boat from the capital, and every night he returned home to his wife, who ran civic projects in the poorer grids. Fenn’s private time in Armas was the source of his equilibrium. He needed to see his family, catch up with friends at his local grid café. Cook his own food, sleep in his own bed. Escape the demands of his role for a few hours. But with the Festival looming, the emperor had ordered him to stay on the island. Fenn hadn’t been home in over a month, he’d been working eighteen-hour days. Like his overalls, he was fraying at the edges.

“Where the fuck have you been? We were supposed to meet an hour ago.”

Neema peeled herself from the wall. “Pink-Pink is missing. He usually wakes me, but he didn’t this morning, so…”

Fenn covered his ears.

Neema stopped talking.

Fenn lowered his hands. “Is everything under control?”

“Yes.”

If Neema were an Oxwoman, that would have satisfied him. We pull the plough together and all that. But she was a Raven. She was not part of his team. “You’ve spoken to the musicians? Chef Ganstra? What about the banners for the Second Trial, are they—”

“Everything’s in hand,” Neema cut in, sharply. Now they were both irritated.

They frowned at each other.

Fenn took a long drag on his roll-up. Breathed the smoke out with a sigh. “Sorry. Caught me at a bad moment.” He looked away to the middle distance. “I saw him just now. He’s here. Motherfucking piece of shit.”

Neema squinted. This was the imperial court, she would need a clue.

“Ruko Valit.” Fenn spat the name from his mouth.

“Oh. Right.” She didn’t know what else to say. It was a strange situation, to know what Ruko had done—that unforgivable betrayal—and not be able to discuss it. It left an empty space where the words should go. “I just saw his mother.” She nudged her chin towards her old room. “She’s up there now.”

Fenn looked up at the balcony, the closed shutters, then back down at Neema.

Neema lifted her hands. I know. Weird. “Why do you think—”

“I don’t.”

“But—”

Fenn took her by the elbow and walked her away, boots crunching on gravel. When they were at a safe distance he said, “You didn’t see her. You didn’t see anything.”

“What’s she doing up there, Fenn?”

“I don’t care.” He dropped his roll-up on to the gravel, and ground it with his boot. “Nor should you. She’s a Valit. Valits are trouble.”

“She goes by Majan, these days.”

“For fuck’s sake, Neema.”

“Sorry.” Correcting facts was a compulsion, she couldn’t help herself. Another reason why her only friend at court was a chameleon.

“What did you see back there?” Fenn asked, testing her.

This was very hard for Neema. Eventually, she forced out the lie. “Nothing.”

Fenn snapped his fingers, and pointed at her. Correct. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and continued on his way.

The Raven Scholar releases April 15 from Orbit. It is available now for preorder.

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