Seskone finds the signal pyre alight—that cairn of skulls they had brief the mission upon—and orders his men into Crystalline.

They thread through the kingdom’s northern tunnels like fervent ghosts, running to stalwart guards and slitting throats. No door is safe under Quoreflux’s immense bulk, and he tears into fragile defenders with only a flick of his arm. Seskone’s closest men wield crossbows and garrotes, and their cover is blown, but it matters little because Toben’s men have drawn the entirety of Crystalline’s armies away.

Seskone remembers the routes he took as a ruler of Crystalline, the locations of the fallout shelters, and, even better, the armories. He pilfers them, donning his men in armor that is not too thick to burden them but not too light to ward off an attack.

His band of barely a dozen flickers through Crystalline’s palace, appearing in one place one moment and vanishing the next. Guard captains rally entire squads at the snap of a twig or the clatter of a fallen vase, but by the time the palace’s elite forces can respond, Seskone is already in the throne room.

His footsteps are the only sound as he paces before the six hooded figures arrayed there.

“Dearest Hodshells,” he says, “killers of the council I appointed, and bringers of corruption to Crystalline. What say you now, as you sit upon thrones tainted by your treachery? Will you justify your sins, or will you meet the justice you desperately deserve?”

They remain silent as Quoreflux and the rest of Seskone’s assassin cadre fan out through the room, securing the doors. They train weapons, their crossbows and chain guns upon the Hodshells, and wait as Seskone inspects them.

“You’ve turned this kingdom into a mockery,” Seskone continues. “You’ve demolished everything I’ve worked for. Each support holding Crystalline is flimsy. Your whole structure wanes, and your armies fall.”

Just as Seskone says it, visible through the throne’s room opening that sees to the mountains where Baraway’s autumn residence lays, another signal fire lights. This one’s flame burns a bright green. It describes the unlikely case that Toben’s men won.

Seskone, distracted, turns back to the Hodshell council of six. Still, they watch him.

Tensions tighten to match a fiddle’s string. Seskone wishes he had the instrument to draw a long, sorrowful note for the Hodshell’s swan song.

“Idiot,” says one of the robed Hodshells.

It infuriates Seskone that he can’t discern which one spoke.

“Headstrong and impatient,” says another Seskone still cannot locate.

“Overcommitment,” utters a third.

“Presumptions,” adds a fourth.

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The other two—whoever they are—remain silent.

The words and insults thrown his way are unimportant, but the voices are. Seskone reflects on them. He had heard them a long time ago when he was the ruler of this place and not a vagrant at all.

The Hodshells reach their hands to their robes and open their hoods.

Seskone’s eyes shoot wide, and his mouth hangs open.

He stares into the faces of six ruling council members he once knew. They are no different than before—they are immaculate, their age fully preserved. Their eyes gleam with triumph and victory.

“I thought…” Seskone pauses to contain himself and his world. “I thought the Hodshells got to you.” He looks to his soldiers. “Lower your weapons!”

They do, just before the ruling council speaks.

“You are so easily eluded,” says the military officer, a woman Seskone had leaned on through the thickest and thinnest seasons. “Outside these walls you see nothing.”

“You assume you know everything about this palace, but you do not even know who rules it,” says another officer. Seskone knows that one, too.

He knows them all, and he knows they shouldn’t be here.

“What have you done to this place?” Seskone asks.

“We have refined it,” says a third officer. “We have turned it into a utopia and it was all thanks to casting you aside, Vagrant King.”

Seskone can’t move. He can’t even think. His friends and his trusted ruling council never had fate in him. Why?

“Why not just tell me?” The Vagrant King asks.

“We thought we didn’t have to,” says a fourth officer. “You were gone, after all. You should have stayed outside.”

At the last mention, the five council members stand and throw up their robes, revealing an array of single-handed crossbows and dynamite charges. At the same time, palace guards rush in through the throne room’s openings, raising their blades to Seskone’s men.

The ruling council wastes no time. One throws a charge that explodes in the face of one of Seskone’s soldiers. Another ducks behind his chair and unleashes a bolt that clips the man next to Seskone right in the eye.

“An ambush!” screams Quoreflux. “Away!”

He pulls Seskone over his shoulder and runs towards the clearing beyond the throne room’s opening, plowing through a legion of palace security.

Sharp blades cut into Seskone’s legs and he thrashes and screams, though he dare not tell the potsoul to release him. A golem’s command to bring harm to their master will never be followed.

But the potsoul slows to a walk and then stands still.

Seskone jumps from his grip, inspects his friend, and sees a massive arrow lodged in Quore’s back. The arrow’s tip is lined with a heated coal. Seskone watches the cracks form across the potsoul’s body, etching themselves into his clay skin like deep valleys. They multiply, adding up more until Quore is nothing more than dry rivers, and a shriveled husk.

“Va-gr-ant,” the potsoul utters.

But it’s no use.

A whooshing sound next to Seskone’s head and another arrow pierces Quoreflux, shattering him.

Seskone falls to the ground. He angrily beats the palace yard, even as the guards surround him like he’s some bull ready to charge. But he dare not move nor do anything to upset his captors. Not anymore.

He has failed his friends, his people, and himself.

But from this failure, he hopes, he has learned.