KNITE:

The idea came to me late; we were packed and ready to leave when it crossed my mind. One more reason Helena wasn’t fond of its arrival.

“Why?” she asked.

I checked the leather straps on Qaniin—the name I’d given my spirited horse. We’d come to an understanding, me and her, by which I mean she’d come to understand the futility of her resistance. I had worried this might weaken her spirit, but…

“Lira is yours,” Helena pleaded, a hand waylaying Qaniin’s efforts to take a bite from her side. “Why must I remain?”

“Because my plans say you must.”

“Because of the child?”

“No. But now that he’s healed, I’d rather not take him with us. That he has you to keep him from harm pleases me.”

“Yes, but Lira—”

“I suggest you cease your futile attempts to change my mind.”

Helena dropped her travel pack. “How long?”

I looked over at Sanas and Roche. He was amusing her with some ludicrous tale or other from his time as Pakur. She smiled at him like a mother might smile at her child when they recount wonders of the world she’d long since grown bored of.

“Sanas,” I called. “Roche. Mount up.”

Our departure went without incident. I think the true gods—whoever he, she, or they were—had chosen to leave them for our journey back. You might think we’d gone far and done much before we returned. If so, you’d be wrong. The barren shores of Haloryeray were still in sight when I got the call to return.

Lira’s bond screamed at me. I jerked in my saddle. Qaniin neighed a complaint, and I patted her an apology. She tried to reach back and bite my hand. I was growing more and more fond of the angry beast. Where other steeds panicked, she attacked. That was a worthy instinct.

I turned back towards the city. Roche fell silent mid-sentence. Sanas lost her placid smile. I passed between them and urged Qaniin into a gallop. They followed without a word.

The first incident occurred almost as soon as we met the invisible border of the city. We shouldn’t have galloped in. A trail of dust rose behind us, all too visible on the flat land west of Haloryarey. I shouldn't have kept my hood lowered. A man on a speeding horse was reason enough for a patrolling guard to swipe a sword at him without question or warning. I blocked her attack but otherwise ignored her. Sanas surrounded her in a tight circle of fire meant to suffocate her into unconsciousness. Roche threw out one of his deadly wires and ended the matter. The guard’s head slid off her shoulders and rolled out of the flaming trap.

The next was a patrol—if three guards could be called a patrol. Sanas and I barged past them before they could react. They stumbled back from the force of our charge. Roche rampaged. I stopped him from killing a young girl who’d not lived long enough to deserve death. She managed to call for reinforcements. Roche thanked me for bringing him more victims. I did not care to tell him my other favor did him a greater service.

I blocked all attempts to hinder me with brute force, trampling over or pushing aside anyone who stood in my path. Qaniin was good at that. Being tall and powerful and fearless makes you good at that. Being mean, which she was to a fault, helps.

Sanas kept the pursuers at bay with streams of fire. That didn’t last long. Horses don’t much like fire, and her stallion’s bucking and neighing ensured she knew. Roche didn’t have her limitations. He hooted and hollered as he decapitated or dismembered whatever guard made the mistake of falling within the considerable reach of his near-invisible weapons.

By the time we got back to Lira’s mansion, we’d pulled along a horde of angry Halorians along a trail of dead and dying. Roche turned to meet them at the gate, welcoming them with crazed laughter. Helena was there to compete. As was Sanas, though I think they had differing opinions on how they’d go about it.

Lira’s bond was faint—the closer to death the soul, the weaker its signature. There wasn’t much time left.

“Roche! Helena! No more killing!” I called. Without me there, they’d sully their soul, perhaps spoil themselves into becoming my enemies. “Incapacitate.”

With those words, I left them to it, cutting through the meandering pathway and into the mansion, an impromptu Painting softening my masculine features. All the guards ignored me in favor of attending to the commotion at the gate.

Up the stairs and down a few hallways brought me to the Fracture. The door was open. Lira lay face-first beside the torture chair. A dazed Danar stood over her, a Nuf blade in hand, the black metal a glut of hunger. One step brought me to his side. A single blow to his temple spilled him to the floor. I pried the knife from his grasp and turned to Lira.

The Nuf—a Golodanian creation meant to cut into the soul through the flesh—had only managed to score a touch. Thankfully, her loss to me had reinvigorated lessons she’d long forgotten; she’d weaved a turtle-like defense that left her soul in hibernation.

My eyes landed on Danar.

“Please,” Lira said. She sat up, and the bond blazed back to life as she left the protective shell of her defense. “Spare him.”

“Another who’s difficult to replace?”

“Impossible.”

My brow furrowed. “How so? You rule a city of slaves, do you not? I’m sure—”

That’s when I felt it. The thing she’d hidden from me even as I had rummaged through her soul and bound her to my service. It was a drop in the ocean of her consciousness, surrounded and covered by the murky waters of her corrosive nature.

Noticing my discovery, Lira averted her gaze. I stepped closer and lifted her face, disrupting the pesky resistance she was assembling. That’s how good she was. So good as to muster resistance despite how tightly she was bound.

I searched deep into her soul, following the blips she so wanted to hide. What I found was, to me, the epitome of the unexpected.

Love. Love for him. For Danar. For a man. For one she deemed part of a breed or class of people she thought better off—and of—as slaves. And even now, even under the weight of his treachery, she loved him still. Too much to take his life or let it be taken. Too much not to forgive. How? Whatever she held for her mother and daughter was mired in self-interest. She obsessed over Lorail as an ideal, as what she should strive for, then hated her for being unable to imitate her well enough. She doted on her daughter for being what she wanted her to be—strong in all the ways her mother wasn’t—and then hated her for being it. Her love for this man was unlike. Dirtied, but only on the surface, only as an act to hide it from prying eyes.

“Oh,” I said, genuinely surprised.

“Please.” That single word almost broke her. She struggled to her feet and took a deep breath, her eyes shut tight. “Any evil he has committed was my doing. I know you do not take the lives of innocents.”

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“I don’t,” I said, “but he’s no innocent.”

“Are those thrust before impossible options to blame for their choices?”

I laughed at her. “By that very same reasoning, you are innocent.”

“No, but I ought to be considered less guilty.” She nodded to Danar. “As should he.”

I shook my head. I’d thought her cleverer. Wiser. “You’ve spent too much time wallowing in self-pity, Lira. It’s convinced you your faults aren’t your own.”

She opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. After some consideration, she asked, “What will become of him?”

“That would depend on why.”

“Why?”

Screams and explosions continued to resound from the battle outside. I looked towards the door. “Go before it spirals out of control,” I instructed. “I’ll have a better grasp of your lover's fate once you return.”

Lira winced, realizing my intent. “A scrying?”

“Yes.”

“Must—”

“Yes.”

“May I—”

“No.”

“But I’m free to use—”

“I know.”

“So?”

“I Tunneled you without a scrap of Meaning. Dismiss your worries and go about the task I’ve set you. Now go!”

She bowed, stole a nerve-wracked look at Danar, and then hobbled from the room.

The slave-turned-assassin lay unconscious. He hadn't a lick of royal stock. His grey hair was dyed in places by the tawny shade of its youth. Thick lips and heavy brows lent him exotic good looks of a flavor more common with Kolokasians. His broad nose and pronounced cheekbones suggested a drop or two of Southerner blood. He was not too handsome, kind, intelligent, wise, or brave. Why? I asked myself. Why this man of all others?

I dove into him.

He was a Duros. That was the first thing I noticed. His core was dark yellow, tinged with amber, almost golden. A Reaper, then. Surgeon cores tended to be lighter, touched by grey, almost flaxen. He was unbonded. That was the second thing. There were scars from when a bond had been erected and more from when it had been removed. I could sense Lira’s hand in both.

Enough dawdling, I thought.

I grabbed onto his latest memories and played them in reverse.

The crack to his head was a mix of pain and bliss for him, a wash of relief. Next came the reason why. It made me glad I could no longer feel pain. The compulsion slithered into and around his body, the tension seizing his muscles and creaking his bones. But the bodily pain could not compare to the riot in his soul. I skipped past those long minutes he wallowed in that trench of suffering.

The cut was feeble. The war in his soul when he made it was not. On one side was his love for her, rich and ferocious. Again, I found myself surprised. I’m not often amazed—or so there was a time I’d thought that was the case. I supposed my tolerance for the unexpected had begun to decay in those peaceful years I’d spent hidden from conflict.

On the other was the matrix, cold and calculated. I latched onto it.

Danar’s soul groaned. The strain was building. He could not handle much more. I kept going, following the thread.

A smile formed on my lips when I reached its end. I had to appreciate its brilliance.

The matrix remained. Most surreptitious matrixes dissipate after activation. I studied for clues as to why this one hadn't.

My smile grew. I knew who was responsible. Brilliant was too weak a word.

I searched for the thread linked to the memory of when the matrix took root, looking to confirm my suspicion. A familiar face came into view. It was proof enough. Curiosity pushed me further, and I dove into the memory.

Sweat dripped from Danar’s brow. He knew he’d be sweating and was prepared for it. Duros Arts generated heat, and heat generated sweat. He rolled his shoulders. The back of his neck ached right where the bond had been. It always did after an intense training session. His complaints died at the thought of having decades more than anyone of his skill should have. He had Lira to thank for that.

Transel walked in. His servant. A man. He had to be a man. No woman would serve him, be they slave or not, had they known him as Lira’s chosen or not.

“Shall I begin, Master?” Transel asked.

“Yes.”

Transel approached, hunched forward like he bowed one too many times and came stuck. Danar liked that about him. He told himself he didn’t know why. He did; Transel was a reminder that Danar was not an actual slave.

Taking a bundle of thick linen from his servant, Danar rubbed himself dry. “Exactly as it was,” he instructed.

He’d had to use his quarters for his training. The rug his beloved had gifted him, too good to be soiled by sweat, was rolled up and stored out of the way whenever he had the mind to train. It was worth the effort. Every morsel of skill he gained meant more time alive. Besides, he would never dishonor the gifts she had given him.

“A man with a servant?” A familiar voice said from the entrance. “What has become of Halor for it to fall so far from what our goddess envisioned?”

Danar kept his expression clear as he turned to her. So many years of acting the part of a slave had taught him the skills needed to survive in a place that considered him less than human. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Crowol pointed at his man, Transel. “You there. Be gone.”

The hunched slave gave no thought to his master, leaving without thought. It irked Danar. He did not let it show, understanding too well why the man had done what he’d done.

Crowol came to stand before him. “Is your presence in our mistress’ bed still getting a warm reception?”

Danar bit back his anger. The disrespect wasn’t his to punish.

Crowol stepped closer. “Does your tongue require so much rest beforehand for all the effort it suffers during? Is that why you choose not to answer me?”

Danar swallowed. It took all of him not to let his rage show. “What might I do for you, Crowol?”

“To start with, stop addressing me by name.” She took another step, bringing her close enough to kiss—not that he would ever think to debase himself so. “No other man in Halor would dare. That skillful tongue of yours doesn’t change what you are, does it? It can’t elevate you beyond your lowly existence, can it?”

Danar stepped back and gave her a quick bow. “I beg your pardon. If you so choose to tell me, I will address you in whatever manner you command.”

Crowol undid the distance he’d created, seemingly without moving. “Mistress shall do.”

“My mistress might take offense.”

“That is my worry.”

“And mine.”

Crowol’s arm blurred, her hand clasping the back of his neck. He had barely felt the touch when—

Danar woke in his bed. The rug was back where it was meant to be. The sweat he’d worked up had dried. He counted the memory a dream, assuming he’d worked himself into a nightmare. He hadn't. That he thought he had was an effect of why he hadn't.

Another thread. Another memory. Years had passed.

“Bring Crowol to me,” Lira said. “I’ll be waiting in the Fracture room.” It sounded like an order. It wasn’t. They both knew he could refuse. More importantly, they both knew she’d let him. But he would never deny her. His love for her didn’t burn as brightly as hers for him, but burn it did.

“Where do you expect she is?” he asked.

“The crypts,” Lira offered.

“I thought she hated the place.”

“She does.”

“Then why is she there?”

“You assume it is by choice.”

Danar was taken aback. Besides himself, Crowol was the closest thing to a friend Lira had. “Why?”

“We will see.”

His pace was brisk. For all the times he’d been in the crypts, the place unnerved him.

He opened the cage. Crowol lay a mess. The sight gladdened him. Excepting his beloved, any Halorian in pain gladdened him. He closed in on the dry heap of bones and skin. He could barely feel her weight when he picked her up, barely feel her touch when she put a finger to his nape. And as much and as often as he rallied his efforts, the matrix undid his will and overpowered him.

I left Danar’s memories and followed a thread to the matrix itself. Simple and elegant, the caster hadn’t bothered to hide the casting in some elaborate concealment but placed it in the one place they knew Lira would never look: the parts of Danar's soul she already occupied. Danar was meant to wound her. Lira was meant to survive, meant to find out she was outplayed. Elur, Lira’s sister, the trickster she was, wouldn’t have it any other way.

I carried the slave to the crypts below. I did so for two reasons: First, until the matrix was understood and erased, I could not afford to keep him outside a skeleton cage; second, Crowol’s fate remained unclear. Her escape might’ve spelled disaster.

I needn’t have worried. I met her on the stairs. Her soul barely appeared to my soulsight. She crawled on her hands and knees. I slung her over my other shoulder and threw her back into her cage. Danar went into the cell beside hers.

My guards were waiting for me in the garden. Lira alone was unwounded. None of them seemed to mind their injuries. Helena was her impassive self. Bruises bloomed on her skin, the deep purple they promised already settling about her knuckles. Sanas was more concerned with reprimanding Roche for his actions than the deep cut on her shoulder. Roche smiled his charming smile, his elation outshining the pain of his wounds or the guilt of disappointing Sanas.

“How is he?” Lira asked.

“Alive,” I said.

“Word of this will get out. It will sow dissent in my city. My sisters will not squander this opportunity to move against me.”

“My city,” I corrected. “And leave the worrying to me. Your task is to do your best to reaffirm your control over Haloryarey.” I looked over at Helena. “Hers is to keep you safe from your sisters’ machinations while you do so.”

Helena didn’t react. She knew not to question me in the presence of outsiders.

“What of Crowol?” Lira asked.

I looked to Roche. Menacing glee marked his understanding.

“Gods!” he said, vocalizing his delight. “This might be the best week of my life. Better than the Golden Battle.”

Sanas lay a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t,” I said. She turned to me, a flash of irritation wrinkling her brow.

I turned back to Roche. “Break her, but do not take her life.”

“Why?” he sulked.

“Lira, once he’s done, expunge all her memories of my guards and me, then send her to her master. Take away the where, who, why, and how her fragmented mind came to be. Let the not-knowing break her further. Let her master see what becomes of the spies she sends here.”

sends here.”