Riot was escorted in chains through the streets of Helgans Rest. The remnants of defeated regiments and battalions were crammed into the city like rats in a barrel. Screaming children ran down the crooked streets past merchants, pedlars, washerwomen and armorers. All of them, part of the human detritus, pushed ahead of the advancing Covenant army.

The Wikkan brought Riot into a towering building with a domed roof. Inside, raised benches curled around the walls of a vast chamber, allowing those seated to look down on the proceedings. Currently, the chamber was deserted, save for a tall woman leaning against the large table that dominated the center of the space.

She wore her long black hair tied back, highlighting the sharp angles of her face that looked to be carved from cold marble. She had a high brow common to the people of the east, which gave her the appearance of looking down at everything she saw. Riot had heard of faces that launched a thousand ships, but this face looked like it had boarded and scuppered a dozen, sending their crew down to the bottom of the sea.

The two silent wikkan girls pushed Riot into the solitary chair that faced the table and passed the chains that bound him through a loop on the floor.

“Outside, no one enters,” Ritta Kerne instructed, and the wikkan girls left, pulling the large doors closed behind them.

“Natalia Quinn, meet Sergeant Riot,” Kerne said, taking a seat at the table.

“This is the man who activated the hedron?” The woman replied, disbelief clear in her voice, which dripped with the natural condescension of the well-bred.

“Don’t underestimate him; he’s a survivor, aren’t you Nathaniel? The last man, they call him. Ninety days in a siege, and he was the only one still breathing when they opened the gates. Of course he was younger then.”

His nostrils felt as if they were once again filled with the stench of the dead in the summer heat. There had been a desperation to keep going day after day, until he realized that there wasn’t just the enemy outside but also an enemy within.

“I thought this was supposed to be a trial?” Riot asked, looking around at the empty benches.

“We’re a little early, and I have a few questions about this.” Kerne reached into her pocket and drew out the small hedron, the weak sunlight flashing on the flat glass panels. “If you insist on being stubborn, I might not have a chance after your officers are done with you.” Kerne placed the hedron on the table with a click. “This was stolen from the arcanum of Volos, and a week ago I pried it from your hand. How did it come into your possession?”

Had it only been one week? It felt like a month or more. Riot tried to recall what had happened when he had activated the hedron, but his mind felt like it was filled with large empty spaces.

“This is a waste of time; either he’s lost his mind or he insults us,” Quinn said, arms crossed and glaring at him.

“Sergeant Riot hasn’t lost anything, well, apart from his name, though most are just mispronouncing it,” Kerne said.

Riot felt a creeping feeling on the back of his neck. They were soldiers’ instincts, and right now they were shouting at him to retreat.

“How do you know Gerrard Price?” Kerne asked.

Riot considered his options and found that there weren't many. The only thing anyone in the four corners of the continent agreed on was that you couldn’t trust witches, but you could bargain with them. After all, walking away from an unfair deal was better than not walking away at all. “What’s in it for me?” he asked.

The corners of Kerne's mouth turned up slightly. “If you tell us what you know, I will tell you what to do to save yourself from the noose.”

A fair trade, although he was sure he didn’t have anything more of interest thaty they hadn’t already wheedled out of Perk and the others. “I don’t know Price. He was hiding in a farmhouse when we got there.”

“How did you come into possession of the hedron?” Quinn pressed him.

“Price was an officer and too smart to run without money. I figured he’d hidden it somewhere, but when I looked, I found the hedron instead, and then the Faelen came.”

“Myam-tal, a high faelen. Unusual to see them using their power.”

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“He used it well enough; he brought down the whole damn building on our heads.”

“And you, in turn, activated the hedron. You must have known you would likely die.”

Riot recalled the searing heat that had run rampant just under his skin, and as if in response, the wound on his hand began to ache. “It didn’t matter; they would have killed us.”

“How did you survive?” Quinn asked, and though her voice was steady, there was an intensity to her gaze.

“I don’t know.” That memory was nothing more than a blinding flash of gray light, as if the hedron had scrubbed it from his mind. “I just opened it, and it almost burned my damn hand off.”

“Show me,” Quinn demanded.

Riot held out his bandaged hand, the chains on his wrist clinking faintly. Quinn reached forward and grasped his wrist, gently peeling off the dirty bandage. Her leather armor was scarred and battered, and the leather wrapped around the hilt of her sword was well worn. She carried herself like a noblewoman but she dressed like a mercenary.

The hedron had burned his skin until it was blackened and cracked, and now it was swollen and weeping a sickly yellow-red puss. Riot caught the rank smell of it and fought to keep his stomach from heaving.

“You should have been killed, but you are not, and I would know why. What was it like?” Quinn asked.

Riot had seen wolves with the rage before, red-eyed and frothing, mad enough to attack a mountain bear. The hedron had felt like that—a rabid, senseless animal. But he didn’t trust this woman from the east any more than the Wikkan.

“After I opened it, I blacked out,” he lied.

Her light brown eyes bored into him, alive like burning sand. “You should not lie to me,” she said, then with a frustrated click of her tongue she dropped his hand and stepped back.

“What did Price do then?” Kerne asked.

“You must have spoken to the others,” Riot replied.

“And now I’m speaking to you.”

“He tried to go over to the Faelen; he told them that he had information that was valuable. He said he’d worked for you, Ritta Kerne of the Wikkan.” The details came back to him, like dust being blown away from words carved in stone. “He said something about Morbian. A tower, or something.”

Both women looked sharply to each other, and he felt a sinking feeling. The mention of the Sun Tower had been the signal for the High Faelen to order them to be killed. “None of the others heard him say that, only me,” he added quickly.

“You’ll have to leave now, Natalia; it’s too dangerous for them to remain in the city. Guide them to the foothills and come back here,” Kerne said.

“What about him?” Quinn asked, nodding to Riot.

“If I thought it would change anything, I would not have agreed to help you,” Kerne said.

“I thought I was helping you,” Quinn replied.

The wikkan withstood the fiery gaze of the eastern woman like a lump of dough in an oven. “If he yields anything of interest, I will inform you.”

Quinn was clenching her teeth so forcefully that the muscles of her jaw flexed. She cast one last contemptuous glance at Riot and swept out of the chamber and as the door briefly opened, angry raised voices could be heard on the other side.

“Send me back to my regiment,” Riot said as the door closed.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible; you will be court-martialed for the theft of the hedron, and when you are found guilty, you will be hanged.”

“But I’m not guilty; it was Price who stole it, you know that. He worked for you,” Riot said through gritted teeth.

Kerne smiled. “Correct. Price did work for me. He was one of the first Leybound, did you know that? The spell-craft he was given, is of exceptional quality, though utterly wasted on him; he hates the ley power far too much to use it.”

“Then tell Colonel Williams that I took the hedron from Price; I got it back.”

Kerne shook her head. "Unfortunately, Colonel Williams has recently lost the patronage of arcanist Riley, and it seems he blames you.”

“What did I do?”

“Don’t be modest, Nathaniel; you showed him adventure; you were quite the inspiration. Besides, it suits me better to have Price’s role left out of all of this. Politics, I’m afraid, but you should know that your sacrifice is for the good of the war effort.”

Years ago, Riot might have lunged at the Wikkan, but the metal ring set in the floor looked sturdy, and he was tired, and besides that, Ritta Kerne looked like she could wrestle a hog. Still, he strained against the chain, the metal biting into the flesh of his wrists. “You said you’d help me!”

Kerne clapped her hands together, her face split in a wide smile. “It is good to see there is still some fight left in you. I was afraid the hedron had scoured it all away. I’ll bet it feels like the inside of your skin has been rubbed with sand, doesn’t it? Now, I can tell you haven’t met many Wikkan, if you had, you would know to listen more carefully. I didn’t say I would help you; I said I would tell you how you can help yourself. What did you think of Price?” she asked.

“He’s a traitor,” Riot said. For him, any comparison ended there.

“He’s a broken soldier. You’re a lot alike in many ways, but where you move from battle to battle, he sees everything as a war. In some ways, he is at war with the world.”

“I don’t need a sermon; just tell me what I have to do to get out of here.”

"It's quite simple, really. After you are convicted, you need to ask to be Leybound.”

Riot couldn’t help but laugh, but the sound died in his throat when he saw Ritta Kerne’s stony expression. “So you’re giving me the chance to die, just in a different way?”

“A change is coming to this war, Nathaniel, and you’ll want to be here when it does. Let them in!” Kerne shouted the last words, and the doors banged open to admit his judgement.