Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Melissa Caruso

Excerpt from Torn copyright © 2018 by Rowenna Miller

Excerpt from The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn copyright © 2018 by Tyler Whitesides

Author photograph by Erin Re Anderson

Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

Cover illustrations by Crystal Ben, Arcangel

Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Map by Tim Paul

Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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Simultaneously published in Great Britain and in the U.S. by Orbit in 2018.

First Edition: April 2018

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Caruso, Melissa, author.

Title: The defiant heir / Melissa Caruso.

Description: First Edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2018. | Series: Swords and fire ; 2

Identifiers: LCCN 2017058858| ISBN 9780316466905 (paperback) | ISBN 9781549167430 (audio book downloadable) | ISBN 9780316466899 (ebook open)

Subjects: LCSH: Magic—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Epic. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | GSAFD: Adventure fiction. | Fantasy fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3603.A7927 D44 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058858

ISBNs: 978-0-316-46690-5 (paperback), 978-0-316-46689-9 (ebook)

E3-20180210-JV-NF