In the House of Five Dragons
41. A World of Glass
“Nighttime belongs to the wolves. Only the dawn will send them back to their dens.”
— Liam Io
Marus slept fitfully and woke early into a dark, cold morning. The night before had been spent uneasily as everyone in the archouse wondered what morning would bring. Disbandment? Riots? No one knew, though everyone guessed.
And they understood the cause of it all even less. What started the terrible fires? When Marus finally tired of guessing with the other knights and templars and went in search of his bed, smoke and flame plagued his dreams.
Now Marus sat up in his narrow bed, grunting in pain. Every inch of his body protested its abuse and his lungs felt scrubbed raw by coarse ash. There had been other things in his dreams, obscured by smoke, but still recognizable… a great black dragon fighting the strangely empty silence and a little stone bird calling to him.
It was going to be a long day.
Marus went to the washbasin and splashed his face. The water was as cold as fresh icemelt. Strange, he thought, when fire still smoldered in the heart of Dormaen. There were some hours yet until the city would rouse itself.
What then? Just contemplating the coming day was exhausting. Marus wanted to crawl back into bed, but there was too much to do. Even contained, the fires were dangerous. How many more people would lose their homes and fortunes to the flames today? Well, that was in the hands of General Castor and his Sun knights, Marus supposed.
Who would be tasked with investigating the fires’ source? No one seemed to be asking about that. Everyone simply assumed that the mistake was Rikard Mazrem’s. An innocent one, some claimed. Others remembered Rikard’s words in the Lyceum, that intentions mattered. What if the great hero was displeased with the world he found upon his return? If he always planned to burn it to cinders and raise an empire that better fit his vision?
It couldn’t have been Rikard. Intentions did matter. So did hearts and Marus had never met a man with a purer one than Rikard Mazrem. So what did happen? Pretty much everyone in Dormaen witnessed the broken pact and still no one knew for certain. What about the Alterra? Did they know more…?
Marus leaned in close to the mirror and thumbed open his cannula. Carefully, he drew the circle of blood just above his eyes.
Alterra, allies and brothers, can you see this? Can you hear me?
Marus wasn’t sure what he expected to see, but he was still disappointed. Nothing happened. No flashes of bright light or mysterious songs. Nothing. Marus sighed at his reflection. If there were answers to be found, surely they were meant for better men than Marus Gallard. Alterrans probably only answered to important men, like Rikard Mazrem and the court generals.
Marus turned away from the mirror. Men like him just followed orders.
He stopped and turned back. Had the blood on Marus’ forehead just… moved?
He leaned closer to the polished surface. It had to be a trick of the light. But no, the blood had moved! It had drawn together in a sort of lopsided cross shape. Not a star, but the three-toed print like a bird’s foot.
What was happening? The blood moved again, slithering across Marus’ skin like a tiny crimson snake. He stared, fascinated. It was forming words, backward and difficult to read in the mirror. The writing was wobbly and childish.
Show you.
“Show me? Show me what?” Marus asked. He felt a little silly talking to the empty air. “Who are you? Are you Alterran?”
The blood flowed back on itself, tangled in confusion. Marus suddenly felt even more ridiculous. If the other one was Alterran, it couldn’t hear him. He lacked Rikard Mazrem’s strange gifts to commune through the veil. Only blood shone through.
Marus searched his room until he found an unused waxboard and sat on the corner of his bed. The sheets still smelled of sweat and ash. Marus thought for a moment, then touched his cannula to the smooth surface and began to write.
Who are you?
A long pause, and then the blood beaded into red gems and rearranged themselves on the wax.
Stumble. Help?
Marus frowned, but not at the strange name written in blood on the waxboard. Anyone who spent any time in their studies at the VEIL archouses — though those were few enough these days — knew that all Alterrans were called such things. But this one was asking for help.
And he said that he wants to show me something, too, Marus remembered.
What do you need? he wrote. I will do what I can.
Stumble’s childish scrawl answered almost before Marus had finished. I know who made Terra burn.
A sudden chill ran up the knight’s spine.
Who?
Another lingering pause. Marus’ blood moved slowly across the waxboard as though uncertain.
I don’t know the name. The Shatter reached into him and he bleeds for them now.
The Shatter? That was the other faction of Alterrans, the ones that Rikard had spent the last thirty years fighting. The Shatter wanted to dissolve Alterra into blank, primeval nothingness and sever all ties to the Terran world. Who would ally themselves with such a terribly destructive force?
Rikard saw him, but did not think much about him, Stumble wrote. When he made the fires, he was close to Rikard on the high place. He wore red armor and is oak-ice stiff with honor.
The… high place? Stumble must have meant the stage where Rikard and the other leaders of VEIL led their men in the cleansing ritual. Red armor? Marus read over Stumble’s words a second time. General Castor? It didn’t seem possible.
Are you certain? Marus wrote with a shaking finger.
Hae, Stumble confirmed. To take the Uprising, the Shatter wanted Rikard to fall. Who is he?
The knight stood and the board tumbled from his lap, clattering loudly on the floor. Castor had made a deal with the Shatter to sabotage the cleansing! Everyone knew that the Sun Court general had no love for Rikard Mazrem, but… but this?
“Traitor!” Marus shouted. He picked up the waxboard again. General Castor of the Sun Court.
Stop him, Stumble wrote. Please. He is empty. He makes the Shatter strong. They are killing Flickerdim!
Marus had no idea who Flickerdim was, but he had no intention of letting Castor harm anyone else, Terran or Alterran.
He snatched his sheathed gladius from a hook in the wall and belted it on around his waist. The weight was a welcome anchor against the hot, whirling feeling in his head.
I’ll stop him, he wrote to Stumble.
Now?
Hae.
I go with you, Stumble replied.
Marus wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he was glad for the company, invisible though it might be. He ran out of the archouse, heading for the stables. Marus would need a fast horse to reach Castor’s manor before the general left for the Sun Court.
Gaius stepped down from the chariot and juggled the small, heavy bundle into his other hand so that he could toss the kajjas’ reins to a sleepy-eyed boy. After a brief introduction, a pair of guards let Gaius inside and directed him to the room where his mother was staying. The consul’s house was nice, but a considerable step down for Laurael Mazrem. Gaius let himself in without knocking.
“Hello, Mother,” he said.
Laurael sat in a deeply cushioned chair beside a window overlooking the distant pewter shine of the Mazren River. She looked up at her son with elaborately kohl-lined eyes. Beneath her makeup, she looked tired and drawn. News of the fires must have upset her plans badly. Rikard wasn’t as popular as he was supposed to be at the time of his death.
“Good morning, Gaius. How did you know where to find me? I told no one the details,” she said. “It seemed safer that way.”
“You’ve spent your life on ambition, Mother,” Gaius answered. He closed and locked the door behind him. He didn’t want to be disturbed. “You have few actual friends, especially ones willing to protect you now that the rest of Dormaen is so furious with Father. Why did you leave at all?”
“I had no desire to place myself in the crossfire of my husband’s assassination. And now I have an alibi that removes me from suspicion. Is it done, then?”
“Hae, Mother. It’s done.” Gaius tossed the package onto the bed. It was slender, wrapped in a sheet of blank white parchment.
“I should have acted sooner,” said Laurael. Her gaze lingered on the locked door. “But the matter is not unmanageable. You will go before the Lyceum today and honor your father’s memory. Praise his accomplishments and swear to amend his mistakes. Don’t be the first to lay blame on the emperor. Let one of the other consuls do it.”
“No, Mother.”
She snapped her eyes up to Gaius. “No? You must. If you’re the first, you will seem too vengeful. Patience, my son.”
“No. I’m not going to accuse anyone,” he said. “I’m not doing it at all. Father’s not dead. Your assassin failed. And Rikard knows about you. He’s on his way to warn the emperor now, to tell him of your treachery.”
“What?” His mother rose to her feet, graceful even now. “How? How does he know?”
“I told him.”
Laurael’s mouth dropped open. “You…?”
“Hae, Mother. Rikard’s a good man. A little naïve, but what he’s trying to do is more important than your twisted ambitions.”
Laurael held out her arms to Gaius. “Everything I have done was for you, Gaius, to give you the life and station you deserve! Your father doesn’t even know you. He doesn’t love you as I do.”
“Enough, Mother!” Gaius said. “I’m not a child. I don’t need you to take care of me anymore.”
“Gaius…” Laurael implored.
He opened the door and didn’t look back at her.
“No,” Gaius told her. “It’s done. I’m done. I’m done with you and your scheming. You would drown the world in blood just to give it to me.”
“Of course I would! I’m your mother. I love you!”
“They will take you before the Lyceum,” Gaius said. “Everyone will know what you’ve done… what we tried to do. It will be humiliating. You never wanted that. In your own dark way, you actually wanted what was best for me and for our family. I left something for you on the bed.”
Gaius finally let himself look back at Laurael one last time.
“Goodbye, Mother.”
Before she could answer him, Gaius closed the door and left his mother alone.
The horses’ hooves beat out a rapid staccato through the deserted streets of the temple district, galloping through deep violet shadows that stretched out from the houses of the gods like mourning veils. A layer of ash covered everything and muffled the sound of hooves as Thainna guided the knights through ever-narrowing avenues, forcing them to slow. At the end of an empty, winding road, the crooked tower thrust up into the slowly lightening sky like a broken sword.
Rikard stopped them some distance off from the tower, between the empty husks of two ancient shrines. When his men had dismounted and thrown their reins over the cracked stone, Rikard gathered them in close and spoke in a low voice.
“Thainna’s only been inside once, but hers is the only information we have. Jaesun will probably be in the Crest’s throne room at the top of the tower, making his report. We will pass through three stairs, four halls and adjoining rooms, one mezzanine and then a doriclinium. Much of the tower is dark and the floor is uneven, so be cautious and watch your footing. We have no exact count of the House agents inside, but expect resistance.”
Karl looked nervous and out of place among the knights, but he didn’t ask to be released from this strange and dangerous pre-dawn duty. Thainna shared a long look with Rikard.
Do you think they saw us coming? she asked.
I don’t know. I sense a watchful violence from within, but that doesn’t tell me much. I can feel nothing more exact. Rikard squeezed Thainna’s hand briefly in his. If we are to put an end to this before the Crest can harm Thain, then we must go quickly.
Hae.
Rikard crept along the wall of the shrine and peered out into the road. He held up three fingers, shook his hand, and then three fingers again. Thainna, stay close to me.
At his low whistle, the knights all moved out of the narrow alley and into two lines. Together, they ran in a low crouch. Rikard stopped at the gaping door and motioned the first trio through. Their boots crunched on grit and ash as they charged in. Thainna could see nothing past their armored backs.
“Four inside. Move!” Rikard called.
He tore his sword free and stepped through the door. The knights had fanned out into a shallow arc inside the door, swords pointed outward, but there was no sign of the four men that Rikard had sensed. It was Thainna who saw the black-gloved hand emerge from behind one of the thick wall-hangings, tugging on a barely visible length of wire. But by the time she opened her mouth to shout a warning, it was far too late. With a metallic scrape, shutters grated down over the lanterns and plunged the room into sudden and complete darkness. The knights cried out and drew together as the darkness closed in on them.
Someone flung himself at Rikard. He fell back, pushing the other man to the ground gently in case it was one of his own. But no — Rikard felt thick cloth under his fingers and gloves with bladed fingertips questing for his vulnerable throat. Rikard put his knee into what seemed to be the inside of the man’s elbow and thrust his sword between his ribs.
Thainna gripped the hilt of her Nianese sword so tightly that her fingers ached, but she was blind. What if she hit one of the knights? What if she hit Rikard? She heard Karl grunt and then a coach of metal and something heavy hitting the floor.
Rikard kicked another unseen attacker back and thumbed open his cannula, spraying an arc of blood into the inky blackness.
Burn, he commanded, like he had back in the Star Court yard. Burn bright as a prayer!
His blood vanished into the dark, splashing into oblivion. But nothing happened. Rikard staggered and almost fell. What? Why wasn’t Flickerdim answering his call?
Flickerdim…? But the ancient Alterran was silent.
What’s wrong? Thainna asked, full of razor-sharp panic.
Flickerdim isn’t answering me at all! Something’s terribly wrong.
Thainna felt along the curving wall and closed her eyes. There was nothing to see, anyway, and it helped her to concentrate, to remember. Where were the stairs? There were lamps hanging from the landing, she recalled. A sword clanged against the wall nearby.
No time, no time.
The steps were closer than she remembered and Thainna almost tripped over them, but recovered her balance and sprinted upward. She stumbled when the stairs leveled out and fell to her knees. Someone below screamed.
Rikard!
Find the light. Hurry!
Thainna crawled along the edge of the landing, feeling out the chains of lanterns she only barely remembered. It was agonizing work. With every cry, every crash, she imagined the knights lying dead below. After what seemed like hours, there was something harder and smoother than wood planks beneath her fingertips — the metal loops, bolted to the landing where the lamps were anchored into place. Thainna yanked on the chain and pulled hand over hand as fast as she could until she felt the lantern at the end. The metal was searing-hot and Thainna shrieked in pain, nearly dropping the lamp.
“Thainna!” Rikard shouted.
Burned. Just a burn. A moment longer…!
Thainna’s fingers throbbed and stung. Wincing, she felt along the bulbous lantern until she found the wire. Thainna tugged and the little tin door snapped open. The sudden flare of light was just blinding and then darkness. Thainna threw the lamp back over the edge. It clattered and then dropped to the end of its chain.
The illumination of the single lamp was as thin as starlight, but it was enough. One of the knights was already down, bled to death from a knife jammed under his arm, where his armor could not protect. Rikard caught his first sight of his own opponent, a wiry Suvestri in dark clothes, already bleeding from several deep cuts.
Robbed of their advantage, the Talons died quickly. The last bolted back toward the stairs, but Rikard caught him in a few long strides and yanked him from the steps. The Talon fell past Rikard, down to the tower floor, where two of the Star knights made short work of him.
Thainna hurried back down the stairs. If other House agents appeared from further up the tower, she didn’t want to be caught alone on the mezzanine. Rikard stopped her at the bottom of the stairs.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Just some burned fingers,” Thainna answered.
It hardly seemed fair to dwell on it when one of Rikard’s men lay dead. Another limped heavily. Thainna couldn’t see the wound under his armor, but Rikard caught his attention.
“Hold this level,” he ordered.
“Hae, sir.”
The knight’s jaw set unhappily. He didn’t like being held back, but he could clearly see the wisdom of Rikard’s decision. A man with a wounded leg would be of little use in scaling a tower. Rikard went to Karl. The side of the Lyncean’s face was covered in blood. Thainna gasped.
“Do you need to stay, too?” Rikard asked. Quietly, so no one else could hear.
“No, sir,” Karl stammered. He seemed to finally notice the blood and touched his fingers to his face. Disbelieving, as though it was a mask worn for the first time. “It’s his blood, not mine. I… One of them came at me with a knife and… No, sir. I’m fine.”
“Move in, then,” Rikard said. He raised his voice, making it just loud enough to carry to the knights. “We’re going up.”
There were other skirmishes, each as hard-won as the first. Karl and the three knights were able fighters, but in this time of peace, they had known little more than practice combats or short, one-sided tussles with soldiers and civilians. Only those Talons and Flames tested and hardened by the worst of Dormaen’s underworld were entrusted with positions in the Crest’s tower. The short, ugly battles claimed two more of Rikard’s knights. One tumbled backward with a crossbow bolt stuck in his throat before they even spotted his attacker. When they did, another Star knight rushed the Talon and they fell together over the tilted railing for the tower stair, still locked in deadly combat. Even Thainna, who did her best to stay well back from the fighting, sported bloody gashes that made her singed fingers seem unimportant.
“Even the rats must have heard us coming now,” panted the remaining knight as they reached the dragon-marked door of the Crest’s lavish doriclinium. He slapped Karl’s shoulder, who trudged wearily up the stairs beside him.
“As long as they’re the only things left to chase after us, I don’t care,” Karl wheezed.
“They’re not,” Rikard said. “Behind you!”
The knight was laughing at Karl’s joke as a shadow rose up from some hidden passage behind them. The Talon wrapped his arm around the knight’s neck and drew his blade across the vulnerable flesh. Karl leapt forward with a shout and thrust with his gladius. Blood fountained from the Talon’s mouth and he tottered back, pulling himself off Karl’s blade and tumbling back down the steps into the darkness. The knight crumpled where he had stood and didn’t move.
A cold, heavy weight settled into Rikard’s stomach. He looked back at Thainna. Tears streaked her cheeks in silver by the pale light leaking in through the narrow tower windows. Rikard touched her mind gently.
How much further? Are we close?
Hae, Thainna thought with a small nod. Through here is the doriclinium. If Jaesun and the Crest aren’t in there, then they’ll be at the top. Just one more stair.
“Karl, we need to keep moving,” Rikard said. “Are you going to be alright?”
The Lyncean guard nodded heavily. He knelt and closed the dead knight’s eyes, then turned back to his lord.
“Hae, sir. I’m ready.”
Together, Rikard and Karl kicked open the door and stormed through. The naked slaves chained to their beds inside screamed and hid as best they could. Thainna waved her arms and called for silence. Most obeyed, though they continued to whine softly like beaten dogs. That wasn’t far from the truth, Rikard supposed. Only her fire kept Thainna from being like these young men and women, the defiant spirit that gave her the will to crawl, beaten and bloody, across Dormaen and back to Rikard.
It wasn’t defiance, she told him. It was you and Thain. I wasn’t ready to leave you.
Fire doesn’t burn without fuel, my love. You are stronger than you will ever know.
Rikard and Karl swept through the room, searching for hidden attackers and finding none. But nor was there any sign of Jaesun or the Crest. At the far door, Rikard stopped Karl.
“I don’t know what awaits us at the top,” he said. “I want you to get these people out of here. Be mindful. They’re peaceful enough now, but that may change. Get them to the bottom of the tower. Look for us there. If we’re not done within ten minutes, take everyone back to the Star Court.”
Karl nodded. “Ten minutes, Lord Mazrem.”
Rikard pulled Karl into a short, tight embrace. They clapped each other on the shoulder once and then parted. While Karl went to find a way to unlock or cut the slave’s chains, Rikard turned to Thainna.
Just you and me, the way we’ve begun so many things. Are you ready for this?
Hae.
Rikard and Thainna climbed the dark, steep final stairs to the top of the crooked tower.
At first, Marus cursed himself for forgetting to put on his armor, but before long, he was grateful for the small mercy. He had to move quietly and keep his sword from clanking against tables and walls. Silencing his creaking armor, as well, would have been impossible.
Marus pressed himself into a shadowed niche and waited for a sleepy-looking maid to pass. The basket heaped with freshly laundered towels swayed precariously in her arms. If the girl dropped them and had to stop, she would surely notice the knight hiding just a few feet away.
But the gods continued to smile on Marus. With a yawn, the maid rebalanced her burden and went on her way. Marus slid back out into the hallway and continued his search for General Castor.
He had tried the gate, but the Sun general used his own knights to guard his home, several of whom Marus recognized as men Rikard Mazrem had banished from VEIL. They turned Marus away without even asking his business. After pacing the street for several tense minutes, Marus found a quiet, unguarded section of fence and laboriously climbed over. He prided himself on being a lawful man and hoped that bringing General Castor to justice would outweigh his trespassing.
Inside Castor’s large house, it grew increasingly difficult to avoid detection. Empty halls and darkened rooms would only conceal Marus for so long. After another close call and several quick retreats, he found himself pressed against a wall outside the kitchen door. He could just make out the cook — a big man with a face as red as his oven fires — swinging a huge ladle like a club and smacked it smartly across a young page’s rear. The boy rubbed at his insulted backside and swore at the cook, who brandished his ladle again.
“Get moving! Lord Castor’s waiting,” he bellowed at the boy, who made an obscene gesture and took a covered platter from the nearby table.
The page hurried out of the kitchen. Marus jumped back and his sword scraped against the wall. The boy looked up, but was not immediately alarmed. He took in the knight’s blue uniform and frowned.
“If you’re looking for breakfast, you won’t find it here. You’re supposed to go to your archouse,” he said disapprovingly.
Marus put on his best apologetic face. It was difficult with his heart thudding away like a blacksmith’s hammer. “Sorry, no. I’m not looking for food. I have a message for General Castor. I’m afraid I’ve gotten rather lost. You’re on your way to see him, right?”
“Hae. But he’s just up. I doubt he wants to deal with business yet.”
“It’s very important.”
That much was true, at least. Marus didn’t like lying, so he kept as closely to the truth as he dared.
The page shrugged. “It’ll be on your head, sir.”
None of the servants paid the slightest mind to Marus as he followed the boy, each assuming he had some legitimate business in the house. They passed through a gallery lined in proud, carved marble faces and then into the hall that ran to General Castor’s rooms. A pair of Sun knights stood vigil outside the closed door, armed and armored. If things turned ugly, Marus didn’t want the page caught in the middle. He took the boy’s arm and yanked him back into the empty gallery.
“Sorry,” Marus said. “You know, I don’t think General Castor’s going to like what I need to tell him. Why don’t you give me his breakfast? Why don’t I take it in?”
The page looked torn between distrust and a youthful satisfaction at avoiding his chore. After a moment, he nodded.
“Don’t eat anything. If Lord Castor complains, I’ll make sure that Thestor knows it wasn’t my fault.”
“Hae, that’s fair,” said Marus gravely.
The page shoved the platter into Marus’ hands and ran off. Not back toward the kitchen, Marus suspected. As soon as the boy had gone, vanished through one of the gallery doors, Marus carefully set the general’s breakfast down on the polished floor and pushed it away.
Beams of early dawn light shone in through a series of small, round windows around the top of the room, warming from silver to gold. Marus crouched next to one of the pools of light and tapped the bloodcap against his chin, thinking. The two men at the door would wonder about a Moon knight in the general’s house. After a moment’s consideration, he thumbed open his cannula and began writing. It had been a few years since Marus last made a blood pact. Besides the one in Mazrem Square… Gods, had it really been only yesterday?
I really hope you’re here, Stumble, Marus thought. And that you read better than you write.
Carefully, he drew his pact out on the gallery floor and marked two targets. Marus checked over what he had written, and then paused again. What could he offer Stumble in trade that might serve the young Alterran? He was embroiled in a bitter war against an enemy Marus could barely understand, let alone fight. The knight drew a graceful spiral mark, the sign for a memory.
Young Marus standing at the mouth of a dark street. A man lay just yards away, discarded like an empty sack. That’s what he was, it seemed to the little boy. Knifed for his small purse and left to bleed out in a back alley. With his blood and money gone, there was only this mute monument left to mark the violence that had claimed his life.
Marus’ father pulled him away quickly. It wasn’t their concern, he told the boy. As soon as he was old enough, Marus would leave home and join VEIL. He always remembered that moment, the sour copper tang of blood on the air and his solemn oath to himself that he would never turn away again.
Almost before Marus finished the pact, the blood twisted in the gesture of acceptance.
Nine days keep. Go now, said the new glyphs.
Marus felt Stumble’s clumsy, youthful presence in his long-treasured memory, holding it in a child’s inquisitive, exploratory grasp. Resolve, certainty. Bravery, too. The twilit alley and the dead man faded like a dream, recognizable but half-remembered, like a story he had heard from someone else long, long ago.
Nine days? Well, if Castor kills me, I guess Stumble gets to keep that memory.
If either of them failed, what did that mean for the other? Even with the infusion of Marus’ resolute memories, would the young Alterran survive the war that raged even now across the Uprising? What happened if the Alterran died with Marus’ memory still clutched in his claws?
But if Marus couldn’t arrest Castor, if he never answered to Dormaen for the fires, there would be no undoing the damage he had done to VEIL and Carce’s trust in the knights. What then for the Alterra of the Uprising? Death, Marus supposed sadly.
There wasn’t time to dwell on their shared doom. Marus had sacrificed the memory. If he had a prayer of capturing Castor, it had to be now, before he went to the Sun Court, filled with thousands of men who would defend their general. Marus held his breath and crept back into the hallway.
What had Marus’ memory bought him? Nothing, as far as he could tell. The two red-armored knights stood on either side of the closed door. They leaned against the walls, waiting to escort Castor to their archouse. Marus simply had to trust that Stumble had kept his half of their bargain. Brothers in blood.
Marus picked up Castor’s breakfast again. Might as well have some reason to go inside. He held his breath and walked down the hall. It seemed to stretch on forever. Every creak of his boots, every clatter of his gladius in its sheath made his heart skip a beat, but the Sun knights made no move to stop him. When Marus reached the door, one of them nodded absently. The other stared blankly ahead.
They’re not curious about me at all. About anything…
Marus turned the handle on the door and stepped through. A handsome gray-haired woman sat in the canopied bed behind Castor. She gasped and pulled the sheets under her arms, though she still wore her sleeping sarong. General Castor looked up from buttoning his saela. He took in Marus’ uniform and the sword on his hip.
“You’re not here to deliver breakfast.” It was not a question.
Marus shook his head and set the covered platter down on a nearby table. “No, sir. I’m here about the fires.”
Castor looked at his wife. “Go take your tea in the triclinium, Aera. Take the guards with you.”
“Cadmus, what’s going on…?” she asked in a frightened voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just some business. Wait for me in the triclinium.”
She looked back and forth between the two men, then fled the bedroom. Marus tensed. What if she raised an alarm? All the more reason for him to move quickly. Castor reached slowly for his gladius, leaning against the wall. Marus’ hand flew to the hilt of his own blade.
“Don’t do that, sir,” he said quickly. “I’m here to arrest you for treason against VEIL and the empire. Please come peacefully to the Lyceum for trial.”
Castor’s eyes narrowed.
“Treason?” he repeated.
Marus tightened his grasp on his sword.
“I know what you did, the deal you made with the Shatter. You set those fires yesterday to break VEIL’s bond with Alterra,” he said. “One of them, one of ours, showed me the whole thing. You would throw our world and theirs to the wolves. And for what? A soft job in the emperor’s palace?”
Castor snatched up his sword and stared woodenly at Marus.
“Rikard Mazrem would have us swear our lives, our hearts and minds… our very souls away to those dream-eaters for his own glory. We owe them nothing!”
“We’re bound by our pacts, by the bonds and sacrifices we all volunteered for, general. We gave our word! To Dormaen, to the Alterra. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“How dare you!”
“What did you swear away to the Shatter, general? Your honor?”
Castor’s face went as white as marble. He tore his sword from its scabbard and leapt at Marus.
Thainna stopped Rikard at the top of the old tower. The narrow, slotted windows looked out over temple rooftops too distant to be more than a jumbled mosaic. The winding stairs below were lost in shadows. The entire world seemed far away, as distant and unreal as Alterra.
I don’t know what’s waiting for us in there, Thainna thought. She stood on the last step, above Rikard and almost eye-to-eye with the tall knight. Just… if something… I love you. Be careful, hae?
And you, my love. I couldn’t bear losing you now. You have brought a light to my life that I never dreamed. Now we must be swift, if we are to end this and free Thain.
They shared an urgent, lingering kiss that tasted of Thainna’s frightened tears. Finally, she stood back. Rikard climbed the final step and kicked open the throne room door. For a moment, he eclipsed Thainna’s entire view. His sword flashed red with blood in the light of the single lantern, and then fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. It clattered to the floor in a crash of steel.
Thainna ran through the door toward him.
Rikard! What’s wrong? I…
She stumbled to a stop beside Rikard, staring out at the great green Jade Throne. Jaesun lay at the foot of the dais, in a spreading pool of his own blood. Sitting on the throne was a tall, slender figure with shockingly red hair and eyes of the same bright green as the jade. He balanced a bloody dagger in long white fingers, tossing it and catching the lavishly jeweled handle with idle ease.
Thain looked up at his twin and smiled.
“I’m so glad you could join us, sister. You’re looking well. I’m sorry, you just missed Pata. Jaesun, too,” Thain said. He rose and spread his arms in a gesture of welcome. “And you must be the great Rikard Mazrem. Thainna delivered you right to me.”
