It was the cruellest of mercies.

Thawn felt the bolt that struck Esther as though it were his own gut, his own blood. It was curdled pain, a landscape of lumps and aches that passed through him. It tugged on the flexing of his joints, the sinews of his mind. A lonely pain. For here he now stood alone. The world had left him to carry the burdens of those it took away.

He waited until the way was clear, then swept to Esther’s side. She was already gone. He unclipped her helmet and saw through her eyes as surely as he did through the glass of his visor. She was vacant.

Thawn never put stock in the old gods, but he would now if only so he could ask them why. What singular, unglimpsed purpose had they chosen him for. What was it that had made Esther and Asher unworthy?

He had imagined life as unbroken strands, interwoven threads that fed irrepressibly onward, carried by the corridors of time. As he moved onward, so in each moment the next always felt so assured. As if that next moment were as certain as the weather, or Masster Handall’s diatribes. These mundane things that came like the tide and the seasons, unfailingly. He was prepared for death, of course. But in Esther he saw how those strands could and snap under the sudden strain of an instant. A terrible, forsaken instant.

He followed that unglimpsed purpose, shepherding Esther’s body into the contours of a nearby bush. Dignity in death was foreign to the pilgrims of Winter.

From the black cladding of Dark Section, Thawn knew he wasn’t meant to see this. That mercy was sentiment; any good soldier would have executed him there and then. And yet, it didn’t compel him to run the way back, over the scorched fields and gardens and reeds.

It pulled him onward as if his presence was demanded. It didn’t feel like treason, even if it was. Jaho had said it was arrogant to expect any more than figments of truth in war. But Thawn had lost enough to earn more than that.

He followed the shadow of his saviour along the perimeter wall, distant enough that his steps and shadows lie beyond awareness.

What value could there possibly be here for the Sign, he thought. This was the seat of the sitting Count of Ellaga, an honourable man, loyal to its cause. And yet here were the Sign’s most infamous taskforce infiltrating it under cover of a battle raging above. The paradox confounded him. The war was with the machines.

He caught a glancing shadow dart inside. Thawn scampered after it. The open window was unhinged from its clasping. Unhinged, not removed, or blasted. Thawn wondered if Dark Section were here on the Count’s orders, but that would be most unusual. He leant across and inspected the opening for any hint of intimidation or scuffle. Dark Section left no marks.

Thawn took a giant stride inside, and into a cool corridor of marble floors and silk draperies. Portraits of Counts and Countesses past met him with probing stares. He angled his knees and pressed forwards.

In his ignorance, he thought he might encounter staff here, blindly attending to His Count’s needs, but all were conspicuously absent. He rounded left then right waywardly, in two minds as to whether his revelation lie in the tallest tower or lowest dungeon.

Instinct said the latter. If the Count had dirty little secrets to hide, he’d keep it buried, not pedal it to the heavens in one of Castle Bakh’s many towers. Thawn had no intelligence to guide him. He moved on instinct only.

But there was no need.

Shouts and grunts boomed down one end of a T-junction, and Thawn mindlessly followed. He led heel to toe, pointed the muzzle of his weapon at the source of the ruckus. A girl yelled out and Thawn held his breath to the noise. He honed his awareness to isolate the streams of noise like he had been trained. Through it, the shout of a man, and layers of scrambled chatter from Dark troopers.

The path forked down and Thawn let gravity carry him. It widened into a staircase and Thawn saw long shadows writhe in the windowlight. On his last step, where the way flattened and he could see the stretch of corridor ahead, the shadows’ sources halted.

Thawn saw Dark Section. One had the Count Bakh set at his knees, a gun trained to his head. Another held a young woman back by her waist. She wrestled, grunted where she stood. Beads of sweat and redness consumed her. A third held an infant, no more than a day old, nestled in one arm, and the final leaned against the frame of a bed and Thawn saw that they were in an infirmary ward.

Thawn pointed his weapon. The end twitched between them all, without prejudice.

‘Halt yourself, pilgrim,’ the weariest of the troopers said. He unclipped his helmet and Thawn saw he recognised him by description; the High Leger Kieffer. ‘Lower the weapon.’

‘I would do no such thing,’ Thawn said. He looked at Bakh, arms raised to his head. ‘This is a coup!’

‘You are quite incorrect.’

‘Kill the beast!’

Thawn heard another voice. He glanced at a shadow lurking by the curtain of an infirmary bed. A weaselly man stood there in black robes. His eyebrows almost met at right angles, and Thawn saw his anger was well-practiced.

‘You heard!’ the weasel repeated. ‘Kill him!’

‘I don’t take orders from counsel, Wiser Brakkis,’ Kieffer said.

‘This is grossly unorthodox,’ the man known as Brakkis protested. ‘He’s a flagrant witness. A threat.’

'You mean you fear your part in things might become exposed?’ The Leger laughed heartily. ‘I wouldn’t worry if it did. It’s the way of things these days. A man’s betrayals are a good judge of character I find. History will judge the good Count a traitor, and so, your betrayal, honourable.’

Brakkis did not look assured.

'You are quite safe.’ Kieffer turned to Thawn. ‘This one has initiative, vigour. Sometimes, to go beyond the parameters of a mission is a virtue. Sometimes,’ he repeated. ‘No. I’d sooner skim the bastard than kill him. He has spirit.’

‘He’s a witness, Sir,’ one of the other troopers said.

‘What part of ‘skimming’ confuses you, Hestha?’

‘Sorry, Sir.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Thawn said, his weapon still raised.

‘First boy, lower that weapon,’ Kieffer commanded calmly.

Thawn gripped his wrist, kept the weapon aloft. Then his mind detached from that moment, and he saw the absurdity of himself. What was he doing? The gun clacked the floor and Kieffer strained a look of gratitude.

‘Don’t indulge the mule, Leger. Be done with it,’ the weasel said. ‘Kill them all. Traitors, every one.’

‘Dear Wiser,’ the Count breathed then from his kneeling place. He spat blood at the floor and Thawn saw black and blue rings bulge round his eyes. His silken robes were torn by the shoulders. ‘What disservice did I ever do you?’

‘None at all, Sir. But you betrayed the Sign, by whose grace you bear those titles, sit in that chair. You failed Ellaga.’

‘I tried to save Ellaga, you small-minded clove. What a world is this, that its only value is in the pleasures of the elite. Long have I sat in that chair you speak of, bartering and ordering my people, only to put dreyfys in the pockets of the Cardacs… while a war rages! You know the shame that brings me? I am embarrassed. We are an industrious people, and yet we are consigned to picking leaves.’

‘We all have our purpose, Sir. You failed yours,’ Brakkis said blankly.

‘I dreamed in my grandson’s lifetime that this world might mean something to him. Unlike you, friend, this is my home. Forgive that I wanted to make it worthwhile.’

‘The betrayal was not personal.’

‘I don’t doubt it, Brakkis.’

‘You shut down production of the dreyfys today, tomorrow you’re an insurgent House. You left no option, My Lord. Dissidence must be stamped out.’

‘Clearly,’ Bakh lamented, ‘in their eyes, I was already an insurgent House.’

‘Clearly.’

Thawn heard a cascade of steps behind him.

‘Sir!’ a fourth of the Leger’s subordinates scurried down the stairs.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

‘What did you find?’ he said.

‘Correspondence with the peerage of Ellaga, Sir. The Count was conspiring to shut down the drug factories. He had their support.’

‘Any mention of what he planned to do in their stead?’

‘No, Sir.’

Bakh laughed wildly, spat at Brakkis. ‘What did you think, oh petty Wiser, when you found those papers? Did you think it your place to snoop? You’re a rat. Did you think I would use the factories to train a fighting force to topple Ji’Ho J’Hey? To free Ellaga from the thumb of the Cardacs?’ He chuckled. ‘You have too high an opinion of me, though, perhaps I should have done.’

Brakkis scowled and Thawn saw him chastened, as if he doubted his betrayal, if only for an instant.

'My father is a noble man. If he was toppling the Sign’s rule, he would have the good courtesy to tell them first,’ the girl jested coolly.

‘The factories were a gift to my daughter and grandson,’ Bakh said, ‘to make something of this world.’

The girl shaped to his side, watched by one of the Leger’s men. ‘Father,’ she said, her head touching his.

‘The underhandedness of your father’s actions stand all the same, Lady Islet,’ the Leger said.

‘And that warrants execution?’

‘Not execution,’ Brakkis cut in sharply. He moved from the shadows of the room and into the bask of a window behind him. Thawn saw that he regained the assuredness in his manner. ‘Suicide.’ He reached a hand to a pocket and produced a letter.

At once, the girl’s mouth fell aghast. She wrestled, restrained by her intruders. She saw a terrible future in that letter, but its meaning was lost on Thawn.

‘The Lady Morgan entrusted this to me but a short time ago. She intends to renounce the lands and titles you plan for her.’

‘Islet,’ Bakh whispered.

‘Perhaps under the stresses of war, your daughter’s letter was too much, a stress too many. Surrounded by the machines, and in the company of your closest advisor, you saw no way out, took your own life.’

‘No.’

‘There can be no insurgency. No schemes.’

‘There never was,’ said Bakh. He panted, exhausted by the weight of the moment. ‘The factories were a gift, a blank slate.’

‘No one can ever know we were here,’ said the Leger then and Bakh looked at him.

Thawn could not help but remain in his perfect stillness. He felt disconnected, barred from intervention, from intruding. ‘Brakkis, please,’ the Count said,

‘This was the only way, Toimyn. Ellaga needed a reset. Any notion of rebellion, of independence, must be quashed.’

‘You once told me a Wiser never sees in black and white, only hues of grey. There’s no malice, Brakkis, no underhandedness. It’s as I tell you now.’

‘We’re at war, dear Count. The Sign cannot afford themselves that risk. I had their full support when I first alerted them to your dealings with the Land Barons.’

‘The Sign allowed a miniscule Patent occupation, on Brakkis’ suggestion,’ the Leger said dimly.

‘What!’ Bakh cried. ‘But— but the dreyfys, they’ll experiment with it, they’ll—’

‘The Sign had already expended every avenue when it came to weaponising the dreyfyll tree against insurgents. The Patents will find no success. They were fed crumbs only. It was the most efficient way to seize control of the factories, to investigate their misuse.’

How ingenious, thought Thawn. Under the pretence, the Sign could infiltrate Castle Bakh and the factories unimpeded and search freely for evidence of espionage or insurgency, without stirring trouble. The machines would retreat at the first blink of battle and the loss of life was comparatively minor for the security the scheme brought, in the Sign’s eyes anyway.

Yet it enraged him. How blindly he had played his part in this gigantic charade. Esther and Asher lost their lives based on a lie, or at best a mistake. The Wiser failed to believe that people could be hopeful in something other than war. Even now he could not admit that mistake. Thawn thought that was a curse of age, where menace lie in every shadow, and every point and glint in his eyeline was a waiting knife.

‘I tell you this as a courtesy,’ the Leger added. ‘No doubt the Sign will instate another family to run the factories, a second ring house. Houses fall in and out of favour like fashion; it is nothing new.’ He seemed to say this to himself as much as anyone. Thawn imagined he had seen his share of noble squabbles.

At last, Thawn spoke. ‘What will you do?’ It was a demand more than a question. What ultimate fate had he suffered for? His first taste of war had been a smoke screen.

‘The Count must die,’ Leger said. And in a way that it seems by his own hand. Even to the last, the entire affair is an act, Thawn thought. But he wondered how well that truth would hold given the ease of the Sign’s victory this day. After all, Lords and Ladies have dealt with messy successions before. As the Leger says, it is nothing new. ‘And in a way no one else might come to question it.’

What if the Leger saw through the plan as Thawn did? He looked tired. The tone of his words ached.

No one there wanted to go through with it and yet, each was trapped in their part. The Wiser could not rescind on his betrayal now; it had come too far. Nor could the Leger say no. He was at the mercy of more powerful men. Then, Count and daughter were trapped between the nozzle of firearms, frozen in surrendered poses.

Thawn stood, near yet distant. Instinct forbade him from intervening. He could have taken the troopers if he wanted.

‘And the girl?’ he said, nodding at Islet.

‘Lost in the battle,’ the Leger said tiredly. ‘Found in the grounds, killed by a lone machine.’ He looked sideways at the infant nestled in his trooper’s arms. ‘Perhaps the boy alone survives.’

At last the will to act summoned him, and Thawn glimpsed his purpose. He held a hand to his waist, and the magnetised grip of his sidearm bound to his palm.

Dark Section’s hands flinched over their weapons. They retreated an inch. Five of them to one pilgrim. They could adjudge the odds as well as Thawn could. He had a fractional advantage. His armour could repel the Argan bolts.

But something stopped him. It was an instinct, wired into him he could scarce overcome. He should submit, he thought, to these masters. But the girl, and the infant.

‘Your weapon, pilgrim,’ Leger called.

‘Drop it!’ said another.

Thawn glanced the unsettledness in their poise. They knew he could take them as well as he did. They feared it. Dark Section were aliens to fear. They had never been at the mercy of an army, let alone one man. A man made stronger than any other.

The one with the infant set it on a bedside and held his tremoring weapon to it. Another moved closer to the girl. The blackness of its armour seemed to swallow her as she knelt, and something in Thawn broke.

He flashed his weapon aloft and took two paces forwards.

A bolt of blue light pinged off his shoulder and he rocked a fraction. Thawn threw his weight forwards. His fist fell through the air in slow motion. He sank into his senses. The world distilled around him.

Like a fly darting between swats, his brain ran at ten times the enemy’s. He ducked. He dodged. He ebbed between empty blows and Thawn wondered how men could be this slow. He traced the arcs of their arms as if they were the arcs of stars on the night sky, vague and meandering.

The one by the girl, Thawn swept behind it and yanked its arm. Crunch! and the soldier howled. He ducked one shot, then fired off on one in reply and a second trooper fell to the ground in sympathy.

The girl slipped free and knelt at her father’s side. Two more shots and two more bodies hit the dull concrete. Thawn wavered his gun then at the Wiser, Brakkis, who trembled.

‘What would you do, pilgrim?’ it squealed. Even now, the weasel could not help but condescend. ‘I remain loyal to the Sign until the end. A greater virtue than can be said of you.’ He looked at the agents of Dark Section, then the cowering Count. ‘A legacy befitting us both. Our work— done, is it not?’

‘This was your doing.’

‘This was a great many’s doing. I suggested the scheme only. It took no less than thousands to see it to fruition.’

‘This was your doing,’ Thawn repeated.

‘You may believe that. And if that belief is the strength with which you hold your weapon, then fire it. But I acted with sincere intentions. I think the Count a traitor.’ He glanced at his master then and seemed to recollect a moment. ‘I thought. And if my honesty merits death, you are welcome to that view. History will be the truest judge.’

They spoke in such ponderous ways, did Wisers. Each utterance interrogated the listener’s view more than it expressed their own.

But this moment’s hesitation was Thawn’s undoing. His head lurched; a bolt blasted at the base of his neck, and he felt his visor splinter. It burst like a firework and suddenly the nozzle of the High Leger’s weapon was trained at the back of his head.

He didn’t need to turn. He knew it. But perhaps it made no difference. Perhaps Thawn could evade him before the old man could fire a shot.

‘Give in, boy,’ the Leger said. He took two great steps back. That distance was Thawn’s weakness. He had lost. ‘I’m old and slow but not that slow.’

Thawn tossed his weapon and stooped to his knee. Brakkis seemed to delight at this with a writhing smile. His hands clasped over his silken robe.

‘You overstepped,’ he said.

‘As did you.’ Thawn turned slowly, arms raised and looked at the Leger, old and tiring. ‘What of them?’ He nodded at the Count who still knelt and the girl, tending to her infant son. ‘Will they die?’

‘They cannot live,’ Leger Kieffer said.

‘The boy, and the girl also?’

‘Too much has befallen them.’

‘The boy will never know,’ said Thawn.

‘Sparing him condemns him to a world without a mother. He would be an orphan of war.’

‘Spare them both. A world far away from Ellaga.’ Thawn looked at the girl. ‘Her letter, her abdication, is an alibi for her survival.’

The Leger paused a moment, and Thawn could see him process how well it fit his narrative, the history the Sign had determined that was yet to pass. What problem was the girl’s survival, really? She could raise her son as someone other than Lady Ellaga.

The Leger stared out the low window where the sky was smitten in a haze of dust as trawlers came to salvage the fallen machines for parts. Then he looked at the girl who stood stoic and pale from her labour.

‘Perhaps, sometimes, the world can be kind,’ he said. A ghostly smile touched his lips. ‘Perhaps it can.’ He approached the girl who retreated a step. The Leger sighed and Thawn wondered if he was repaying some personal sin. ‘You are exiled from this place, dispossessed of all claims to your lands and titles.’

‘Leger—’ said Brakkis.

‘And this is absolute. You may never speak of this day, for as long as you may breathe. To do so invokes death. Do you understand?’

‘For as long as I may breathe,’ said the girl.

‘Swear it by your son.’

‘I swear it.’ She looked at her father and he smiled, and his smile fed her strength.

The Leger turned his back, then perched on a bunk and sharpened his blade by a whetstone he produced from his hip. ‘Take a moment. Say what you need to to the Count.’

But the Count had so little to say. How funny, thought Thawn, that words failed so often when needed most. All man and daughter could do was laugh and cry and smile. Everything that could have been said went unspoken. Perhaps they both knew already, and there was no need to speak. Jaho said this was the way with families.

The Count wore a brave look, a seamed smile. He nodded at Thawn.

At last, the girl stood and approached Thawn, guided him to the edge of the ward where they might be private. ‘I should thank you, pilgrim. I bear you no ill will, unlike many. In time, the Sign will regret ever allowing us to live. In time, they will suffer for this. By the old gods, I swear it,’ she said, cradling her child against her breast. She looked down at him, smiled fondly. ‘He will loathe them as his mother does, as his father and grandfather did. Never will we fight their wars, curry their favour, run their petty errands. Ever will we be outcasts. And that brings me great joy, pilgrim. Ever will they regret this day. But never shall they know it.’

Thawn had no doubt she spoke the truth. She said it unerringly, through an unblinking stare. All Thawn could think in that moment was that she would make a good pilgrim. Single-mindedness served their kind well.

He looked back at Kieffer. ‘And what of me?’

‘Your transgression is graver than any. You will come with me.’ He considered his colleagues. ‘No one may know any of us were here. The work is done. The threat is subdued, be it real or imagined.’ He looked at Brakkis then thought humorously. ‘It’s the imagined threats that are often the worst.’