“I don’t know where he is,” Luke said.
“Where did you last see him then?”
“I haven’t seen him since Cherima.”
“Cherima?” Aisha tilted her head. “That’s an old town inside the triangle. What were you and Daniels doing there?”
“He was helping me. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Clearly,” she said, pressing her knife against Luke’s throat. She lowered her voice to a growl. “What I do know is that the place I call home has lost one of its champions, and I want to know why. What was he helping you with?”
“I got a letter while I was recovering. It’s in my…” He swallowed. It was gone along with his old set of clothes. Either Argent had the letter or he’d disposed of it. “I don’t have it. Ask Lieutenant Seras. She read it.”
“Seras was his closest confidant. Her word is no good.”
“What do you clipping have against Captain Daniels? He was helping me rescue my friend! You have no right to treat him like a deserter!”
Something Luke said must have finally gotten through to her. She withdrew her knife and gave him some space.
“What did the letter say?” She palmed water off her forehead and wiped it on her trousers. “Tell me what happened. Every detail.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I will hear you out,” she said, motioning with her knife toward the kitchen. “Let’s get on with it, though. I have a conference to attend with General Wolf and Mayor Ren this evening.”
Luke closed his eyes. The sound of Aisha’s footsteps and a door closing faded away into the background until he could only hear the beating of his heart. He needed someone on his side. Another person to trust. Could he take this risk?
What’s best here? She has to know.
No response. His heart sank.
I need your help. Please.
And then, a single word rang out.
Cyan.
Thank you, he thought, opening his eyes and weaving the color with all his heart. He infused his entire being with as much Cyan light as he could manage. He drew and drew upon that place beyond sight until shadows in the hallway began to retreat in its presence. Submerged in light, a strange sensation rippled through his body. The color of foundation. What was it meant for? Argent hadn’t told him.
“Aisha.”
One of the side doors cracked open and she came through, biting down on a cigarette and stamping a boot on. She looked over at him and opened the corner of her mouth to answer. Whatever she was about to say died on her lips. Her cigarette slipped and hit the floor.
When so much color was concentrated in one place, it became visible. Faint and translucent, but even without the Yellow sight, Luke could see himself glowing. And so could she.
“Let’s start with this,” he said.
He sat down beside her and told her everything. He told her about Dux and the ampule, the letter from his brother, the Ahraran pair and their dogged pursuit. Steeling his heart, Luke recounted his encounter with Levian Vega— the man from his nightmares— and the Elite’s supernaturally-skilled bodyguard, and how it all led to his unlikely rescue by a mysterious bandaged magician. It all sounded unbelievable laying it all out like that. In just a few weeks, he’d gone through more than what most people experience in a lifetime. She listened to the entire story with one elbow on the kitchen table and her fist pressed against her cheek, nodding or asking a question occasionally. She was most skeptical of Argent, but there was nothing he could do about that without the presence of the man himself. Even during the time Luke spent with him, he often felt like a mirage that could vanish any moment.
“It sounds like a fairy tale,” she said, smiling. “Starring one gloomy-looking little boy. But… I don’t think you’re lying.”
“Because I can glow?” Luke frowned. He did not look gloomy.
“Of course not.” Aisha pinched two fingers together. “Okay. Maybe a smidge. Really, I’ve been watching you closely and you don’t have the verbal tells or body language of a liar. Or you’ve been trained as well as I have. I’d find that harder to believe than the flying magician all dressed up like the old buried rulers of my native country.”
“You’re good at reading people?”
“Good?” She laughed until she snorted. “Oh yeah. You could say that. Could even say that I’m too good at reading people. But that’s my long story for another time. The point is, Luke, I trust you.”
He heaved a great sigh of relief and released the Cyan threads.
“At least there’s that. Now we just have to find Mammon Rigel.”
“It’s honestly a little surprising that a person as crafty as Levian Vega let something like that slip. Nothing at all like his reputation.”
“Well, we were all dead for certain. Argent swooping in to save the day notwithstanding. I don’t think he cared.”
“Perhaps. If it was purposefully mentioned on the off chance one of you escaped from that situation, what was the point? To waste time? I can’t imagine another beneficial angle.” She shook her head and sat up. “It makes me wonder what would have happened had you not gone berserk. Or the appearance of that Argent. What was Vega’s game?”
She was right. Flocks Above, it hurt to admit that, but she was right. Luke had missed a chance to obtain valuable information because he couldn’t control his temper in the moment.
“I shouldn’t have lost it,” Luke said, putting his head in his hands. “We’d know more. What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t,” she said coolly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I wasn’t. Couldn’t have said it better if I tried. I… what?
He let his hands drop and looked at her, dumbfounded.
“Kid.” She stood and lightly pushed his shoulder, one hand on her hip. “You might be on the fast track to flying around and punching people with a fist like a brick wall and whatever other nonsense, but you’re still a person. People have feelings.” She poked his chest. “You have feelings. Don’t forget that, Luke Nixus. I would have taken a swing at that wingless loser too.”
The speech sent his heart soaring. He made the right decision coming here. What was done was done. Accept the mistake and move forward.
“You can learn from the past, as long as you don’t tie yourself down with it,” Aisha said, starting to pace around the table. The only sound in the room for a long moment was the heels of her boots clicking on the floor. She stroked her chin. “Perhaps there’s something we can both learn from the past. You really trust Daniels?”
“With my life.”
“Then it’s time to confront an uncomfortable question.” She stopped in place. “How these assassins from Cathartes have been tracking you. From Castitas to Filose, up through Ursa into the triangle. Those people have been on you like a cerastes.”
“Like a what?”
“Horned scribblesnakes from Ahrar with a nasty bite. Make an enemy of one and you won’t last the day.”
“Sounds about right.” He sighed, tilting back his chair.
“Don’t break my chair,” she said sharply.
He stopped tilting and sunk down, frowning at her. The face she made in return was way too satisfied. She nodded to herself and continued pacing.
“Castitas makes sense,” Luke said. “I made direct contact with the Daevan army and got away, so they sent assassins after me. It’s the other two that don’t add up. It was the same two people that followed me to Ursa. Maybe… they’re just really persistent?”
“I doubt they waited outside the city for you all that time. You lost your value the moment you crossed that gate and told us about Vassago Rixator. No, something changed. Something made you a target again.”
“Weren’t we all targets? They somehow found out about the mission and tried to take us all out?”
“If Daniels’s testimony is to be believed, there was only one Cathartes assassin that night, and he was only after you. The encounter wrapped itself up a little too conveniently for my taste, what with the man dead and Daniels as the only witness. After Vander and the majors conferred following the incident, that testimony was thrown out.”
“What incident?”
“A mass murder at the South Wall,” she said. “Lieutenant Arston and the men and women who were on shift with him at the time. It happened the very night you say you left Ulciscor with Daniels.
Arston. Luke did not know him well, but he did know him. Steel-gray hair and eyes like iron, he sent them off that night with a smile on his face. He was dead?
“That’s terrible,” Luke said. “I’m sorry. Why did they conclude it was Daniels though?”
“His untimely disappearance and the fact that the gate mechanism had been sabotaged. On top of that, some of their wounds indicate they didn’t put up a struggle, suggesting it was someone they could let their guard down around. It all seemed pretty cut and dry. At least until you came along. Now I don’t know what to think.”
“Who knew about the Filose mission?”
“Only those who were directly involved. The only other people who knew what we were about were the mayor and the other majors.”
“What about the others who helped? Like those men who loaded the crates of grain? Or those soldiers he confronted Dux with?”
“They had no idea what they were really assisting with. Simple men hired for some labor. And…” She stopped pacing again and rubbed her wrists. “And I don’t know. I don’t know who those people are.”
Luke had assumed they were soldiers Wolf snuck into Filose ahead of time. They were dressed like cargo workers, same as Dux’s soldiers. It was a strange sight, thinking back on it. He had a vague memory of an old woman named Yulania.
“Aren’t you close to General Wolf?”
“I am his confidant, yes. I’ve been offering Vander my counsel and handling tasks on his behalf that are difficult or impossible to perform in an official capacity. Practically since the day I left Ahrar. And I have no idea who those people are. It makes my skin crawl to see them hovering around him like servants from the noble days.”
“He hasn’t explained who they are?”
“Every time I ask, he hand-waves the issue. They’re trustworthy, he says. Part of Mirastelle. He’ll give me a proper explanation once the initial chaos of the invasion passes. When I say it out loud like that…”
Mammon and his sycophants are already inside the city.
I’ve never seen Rigel’s face.
No one knows what he did for Munitio.
Luke felt sick.
“When did you say that conference was?”
Aisha’s answer was lost to a tremendous crashing sound. Three burly men entered his field of vision, two shoulder-to-shoulder and the tallest behind them, armed with heavy swords and garbed in the silvery armor of the Ulciscor Guard. As he met their eyes, the leftmost one barreled through the hallway toward him, sword out.
Green! Not his voice. Weave it!
Green threads wrapped around his limbs as he threw himself from the chair and bent to pick it up. He lifted the chair to meet that sword. Splinters of wood shot everywhere as the objects collided.
The armored man grunted, and they both turned to the side to find Aisha crouched, long knife wedged between two plates near the man’s gut. Blood sprayed the tiled floor as she plunged it deep and pulled out in one quick motion. The chair fell to pieces from his hands.
Incoming, the voice said. Don’t drop Magenta or you’ll pass out.
The second attacker was coming fast, broad axe raised high. Luke traced the path of the falling axe with his eyes, then released Green and began weaving Blue into his arm. He shaped it like a half-size vambrace that went all the way through his arm. Heart in his throat and having no idea if it would work, he held out the half-vambrace and gripped his upper arm with his free hand.
The axe slammed against his Blue-threaded forearm with a sound like the sharp crackling of frost. Pain shot through his arm but the axe’s steel head halted. The wide-eyed, stunned expression plastered across the man’s face was permanent. The armored assailant grunted like the first had and collapsed as Aisha deftly pulled away her bloody knife.
Luke brought his hands up to intercept the third man, but he could hear the receding clinking of armor and banging of heavy boots. Aisha squeezed herself past him and dashed down the hallway. He dismissed the Blue for Green and glanced at his arm. Quite a gash. Not as much blood as he expected. He coated the cut in Magenta and ran after her.
Aisha made a sound in her throat as he reached the front room. She angrily kicked her sliding door. It was completely caved in, broken pieces and debris scattered across the carpets.
“Gone. The biggest dog tucked his tail between his legs and ran.” Her face was, in a word, livid. “Someone’s paying for all this.”
“Sorry about your chair…”
She spun and stalked toward him. He winced.
“Wow,” Aisha whispered. “That is something."
He cracked an eye open. She was examining his wound. Gingerly, she raised it up for a closer look. The rush of air stung.
“Not that deep. Sit down. I’ve got a first aid kit. I’ll get it cleaned and bandaged. We’ve got a few minutes, then we’re leaving. I don’t want to meet their backup plan.”
Luke nodded. He brushed a fragment of the sliding door off a small sofa and took a seat. When Aisha came back, she was holding the first aid kit in one hand and her bloody knife in the other. Her belt was lined with a set of long, curved knifes. The twin green and black sheathes resembled horned scribblesnakes.
She sat beside him and opened the kit. She took a cloth, wiped her knife clean, and pulled up a leg of her trousers, slipping it into a hidden sheath wrapped against her calf. She set the kit on the floor and dug around. She came up with a cotton boll plucked between a pair of tweezers and a bottle of some kind of medicinal liquid. She uncapped the bottle and turned it over on the boll, then held out her tweezers.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
He made a noise in his throat and resisted when she set the bottle down and pulled at his arm.
“Seriously? Come on, Luke Nixus. You took that axe like a real tree. You’re afraid of a little antiseptic?”
He nodded.
“If you pull your arm back again,” she whispered, “I’m going to make you pay for what you did to my chair.”
Two minutes and one yelp later, Aisha finished wrapping the bandage around the crosswise cut on the back of Luke’s forearm. She patted him on the shoulder and smiled.
“Not so bad, right?”
“We just killed soldiers from the Ulciscor Guard.”
“Yep.”
“What now? Where can we go?”
“They didn’t want me at the conference. No bodyguards allowed for a meeting where the city’s top two are together in one room. I say that’s as good an invitation as any. Can you really jump the way you say?”
“I haven’t practiced it. And I can’t use the color of power right now.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” He looked away. “It just isn’t working.”
“Then I suppose we’ll just have to get there the old-fashioned way. I’ll wave down a carriage.” She stood up and dug around in her pockets, pulling out a cigarette and a matchbox. “You want to see this through, right? We’re heading to the Council Building.”
“Just us?”
“I’ll grab us some friends on the way,” she said, lighting the match and jamming the cigarette between her molars. “Who knows, maybe she’ll try to kill us too. I don’t know about you, but I feel like rolling the dice today.”
“We have to stop Rigel.” Luke rose from the sofa and flexed his hand. No pain. Good. “Count me in. I’ll roll those dice with you.”
“I don’t want a knife in the back.” She flicked away the extinguished match and blew a line of smoke. “I want it right through my heart.”
Well, that was… extreme. What a scary lady.
But he trusted her.
———
Deen remembered the day he met Arston. Deen had risen to sergeant just a few months after joining the Guard, known throughout the Fourth Regiment as a passionate stickler for the rules. Some liked that, others not so much. It was with dread pasted on his face that the young new recruit first came to the South Wall. Already back then it was whispered a dead-end place, home of the hopeless. His posture was terrible, shoulders slumped, and he barely jumped when Deen first barked at him about it.
Over the years, they rose through the ranks together and changed each other for the better. Deen mellowed out— toward his fellow guardsmen, at least— and Arston took his duties with a little more pride. They’d become the backbone of the South Wall. There were others, of course. Seras, Velox, Timm. Too many to count. He’d eaten at Deen’s house so many times Lyla once said he was part of the family.
And now he was dead.
Deen slammed his palms onto his thighs.
“My family visits the Castitas orchard every summer,” Velox said to Cyrus. “Your village produces some quality stuff.”
“Thank you sir,” Cyrus said. He bowed his head.
The two of them were sitting on Velox’s bed, getting acquainted while Deen had asked for a few moments to process the news. Cyrus was done telling the captain about the journey to Cherima, and they’d moved on to small talk. Deen sat at Velox’s desk, eyes on the floor as he thought about what he’d been told.
Steel through the back. Arston never saw it coming. Watching for threats against the city, not knowing the threat was already inside. Not just once, either. The lieutenant’s wounds were numerous. They finished the deed by slashing his throat open. Deen knew who was behind the attack. Where the butcher’s allegiance lied. No question about it.
“Silhouette,” he growled. “You will pay.”
“You really think Mammon Rigel is in the city?” Velox asked, turning to address him. “Not gonna lie, you two. This story of yours sounds just like that. A story. You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody in Ulciscor who would actually believe you illegally crossed into the triangle and met Levian Vega. And the whole reason you went there in the first place was so a kid separated from his family since the war could reconnect with his long lost brother who just so happens to be Vega’s Ace.”
“Don’t forget the person who fell from the sky,” Deen said.
“If it was anybody but you, I’d recommend them to the mind doctors.” Velox pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I know you. I don’t care what Wolf and the majors think. You’re physically incapable of telling a convincing lie, and you’ve been a few feathers short of a pillow since the day you were born. I can’t imagine you stabbing someone in the back. So what choice do I have but to believe this nonsense?”
“You’ll help us then?” Deen asked.
“Absolutely not,” Velox said, shaking his head. “I have a nice life going and I’d like to keep it that way. The Seventh division here isn’t all that bad, you know. They invited me for cards tonight.”
“You’re gambling on the eve of war?” Deen asked, incredulous.
“What? Don’t give me that look. It’s not like we can play tomorrow. That being said, if you really are still a man of the Walls…” He grinned. “I suppose there’s no harm in letting a secret or two slip, is there?”
So he’d trade information. Could have just said that. Deen rubbed his eyes and— instead of reaching out and snapping his former co-captain’s neck— took a deep breath. Not the first time he’d taken that exact breath. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the last.
“Do you know where the major is?”
“You want to meet Vasran? I’m not so sure that’s wise, Daniels.”
Deen frowned. “Why not?”
“Jorgen Vasran is the brainchild behind this,” Velox said, walking over to the desk and waving the letter at him. “I watched him convince Cade. It all snowballed from there. You and I both know that stubborn crow won’t go back on a decision when he’s this certain. Not unless we get everybody back together to take a stand for you and Seras.”
“Top brass would court-martial the lot of you.” He shook his head. “Maybe even kill you all. That’s a bad idea. They’ve already got my family on house arrest. Tells you where their minds are.”
“Lyla?” Velox asked, shocked. He must not have known that. “And your aunt and uncle? They’ve got guards posted?”
He nodded. “Saw them with my own eyes.”
“Flocks. They really aren’t taking any chances with this. Scattered us with reassignments, tossed Seras in prison, your family…”
What could be done? They fell silent.
“What about General Wolf?” Cyrus said. “Could you see him?”
Deen and Velox turned to face him.
“Sorry,” Cyrus said, eyes lowered. “Stupid thought.”
“Not at all,” Deen said. “It’s smart, actually.”
Velox cocked his head. “I wouldn’t go that far. Insane, maybe.”
“It’s reckless, but it just might be our only chance to get this information across in time.” He pounded his palm with the side of a fist and looked at Velox. “Give it directly to the guy in charge. Where is he?”
The spindly captain glanced at a clock on the wall and made a sound in his throat. “You’re not gonna like it.”
“Give me the bad news.”
“Right about now, he’s on his way to the Council Building. He might already be inside by the time you get over there. The general is holding a conference with Ren at six o’clock.”
Deen’s eyes flicked to the clock. Just after three. He grimaced. They’d burned so much daylight skulking around the city. Worse, if Mammon Rigel knew about that conference; Ulciscor’s two leaders in one place…
“We’re low on time. Wolf it is,” he declared, standing. “Velox, are you gonna give me your automobile’s key or do I have to shake you until it falls out of your—”
Everyone’s attention was drawn to the door at the sound of a knock.
“Expecting anyone today?” Deen asked quietly.
“Nope.” Two more knocks.
“Must be for us,” he said, grim.
Deen motioned for Cyrus to stand and come over. Velox grabbed a spear nestled in a leather shoulder strap and threw it on. They gathered around the door. Nobody said a word on the other side. Instead, the keyhole began to jostle.
“Hey. Remember when Sergeant Milton found us in the pantry?”
“Didn’t I say I wasn’t going to…” Velox muttered, voice trailing off as the keyhole twisted. “Fine. You win.”
Deen put his back to Velox. The captain took hold of one of his arms and pressed it against his back in a restraining motion.
The door opened, revealing a man dressed in the Guard’s silver and black buttoned all the way to the neck, key in hand. He was short with dark close-cropped hair and a thick mustache. A sword sheath hung from his belt. Deen recognized the man, though they’d never interacted before. The Southwest Wall’s First Captain, Berke.
“Oh, good. I see you have it in hand, Captain Velox,” Berke said.
“Do you have to do that so tightly?” Deen said, grunting.
“Quiet,” Velox said. “Murderer.”
“Guess our captain isn’t the man you thought he was,” Berke said.
“You’re going to answer for what you did to Arston.” Velox twisted his arm harder, and he let out a genuine cry of pain. “The moment he heard you at the door, sir, this coward made to flee.”
“I see,” Berke said, running a finger through his mustache. “And this boy? You are Cyrus Alder, I presume?”
Cyrus said nothing.
“Answer him,” Velox said.
“Yes sir,” Cyrus said softly.
“We got a tip,” Berke said. “Deen Daniels here was impersonating you at the assignment office to gain information on your new post, captain. Regrettably, he succeeded. The woman who provided the information realized her folly shortly thereafter.”
“That clipping clerk,” Deen muttered. He cried out again as Velox jerked on his arm hard.
“You don’t speak to anyone but the interrogators,” Velox warned, pushing him forward. Berke made space, backing out into the hallway. “Let’s move. Come on, Cyrus.”
“Is he an accomplice?”
“No,” Velox said. “He’s just a young man who was caught up in all of this. Deen has been using him for his own ends.”
As he was shoved outside, he took notice of four soldiers standing a ways off, blocking the path further inward. Likely, they thought Deen was here to kill Velox and perhaps others. Only two soldiers prevented access to the way they’d entered from.
“Never thought a captain would turn out to be a Daevan spy,” Berke said, looking down his nose at Deen. He reached out and cupped Deen’s chin. He resisted the urge to spit at the man and gritted his teeth. The First Captain turned away, nodding to himself. “But I suppose it makes sense. He was from the South Wall, after all.”
He didn’t even have to give Velox a signal to extricate from each other. Velox freed his arm and stepped up beside him as Deen spun Berke around by the shoulder, then they decked the man in unison.
“You owe me,” Velox said and drew his spear. The group of four guards began to stalk toward them. They hesitated when Velox lowered the tip of his spear to the unconscious body of their captain.
“If we make it through this, I’ll play as many clipping rounds of cards as you want for a week.” Deen said, pointing at the set of two guards with his own spear. “This way! Stay close, you two!”
“Right,” Cyrus said.
“But you’re terrible at cards. It’s no fun!”
“I’ll buy your damn drinks, too!”
Velox exhaled loudly. “The things I do for you, Daniels!”
The three of them bolted down the hallway, boots pounding on the hard floor. Distantly he could hear the larger group of guards in pursuit. The two guards ahead raised their weapons defensively.
“It’s the traitor!” one of the guards bellowed from behind.
“The captain who killed his own lieutenant!” another shouted.
Deen didn’t hesitate. As he came in close, he pulled the spear back using his front hand, shifting it sideways to deflect an incoming sword slash and diverted another by slamming the haft into the second guard’s wrist. Holding it like that, he pressed against the collarbone of the man he’d deflected and put his body weight behind it, knocking him over. His sword clattered off the ground. Through that opening, the three of them hurried past.
Calls to halt chased them as they crossed the gate into a clearing that would lead back into the streets of the city proper. The gate’s entrance was completely unguarded, the clearing devoid of any people. That was strange. What had happened to the chatty pair from earlier? Were they the ones following them?
“Daniels,” Velox said.
“What—”
His heart skipped a beat. Men and women in black and silver were approaching in droves. They poured into view from every street connected to the clearing, thirty or forty in all, not counting the six hot on their heels. They began to form a semicircle around the trio, tightening like a noose with each marched step forward. Among those standing at the front was a spectacled woman clad in silvery armor, her golden mantle swaying in the wind as she sipped from a colorless gourd. Major Cade wore earrings this day, small metallic designs of some bird or Flock hanging from each ear by chain. He’d never seen her wear jewelry before, although he wasn’t sure why he noticed it right then. Velox shouted something, but he didn’t register the words in his head. It felt like time had slowed down. Blood was rushing loudly in his ears. Blood… and something else.
He realized it before everyone else and glimpsed a strange shadow that passed over the semicircle of guards. Blood and wind roared as a figure in a black cloak flapping wildly touched down in the clearing, crouched on one knee. The figure stood and flung both arms wide, fingers grasping as if to take hold of the very air itself.
Had Deen led them to death or salvation? He didn’t stop to wonder. He grabbed Velox and Cyrus— they had stopped moving, along with every other person standing in that clearing— and pulled them in the direction of one of the city streets, away from the Guard’s noose.
The cloaked figure spun around and the wind cracked like a whip, bodies in the encircling formation scattered backward like bowling pins. For the second time, that bandaged stranger met Deen’s eyes. The sight transfixed him as he ran, and he nodded to those eyes. In that frozen moment, he understood he’d been saved.
The figure turned back to the soldiers of the Guard, arms crossed and feet planted firmly. Any of the guards who’d regained their footing and dared approach— Cade included— faced down the cloaked stranger with proper Ulciscor tenacity. In turn, the figure raised an open-palmed hand high, fingers splayed, and pushed as if shoving something of great weight. Again the soldiers were toppled or sent flying.
In the blink of an eye Cade drew the blade hanging from her waist and dug it point-first into the dirt, teeth clenched against the onslaught of air. Flocks, she was as intimidating as ever. The sight of Major Alexis Cade taking on an insurmountable task like that would have been impressive, awe-inspiring even, if he wasn’t painfully aware of the fact that she’d probably been the one to mobilize this entire group just to execute him without a trial.
“Daniels!” Velox screamed. “In front!”
He wrenched his eyes from that sight to come face to face with three soldiers already upon them— terribly close. He crashed the length of his spear off a blade’s edge and bent out of the way of an opponent’s spear thrust aimed precisely at his neck. The third held back, sword out and standing just out of range. He noted a fourth guard on their right closing the distance fast. The impending reality of becoming Guard-killers gripped his stomach tightly. There was no way out.
An ear-splitting crack of wind knocked over all three assailants. The bandaged stranger leapt an unnatural distance toward them, nearly cresting the head of a nearby guardswoman. The guard moved to strike the figure in flight, weapon sweeping high, but she only managed to miss and awkwardly tumble onto her side. Velox engaged the guard to their right and kicked him away, spear positioned defensively for a counterattack that never came. The figure leapt again and closed the gap, landing between Velox and the guard who suddenly lost his footing and tripped.
“This way,” the figure said in a strange, wind-warped voice. They pointed at the closest street, and the four of them ran together.
“Turn yourself in, Daniels!” Cade yelled. Deen stopped and turned around to regard her. Her braid and earrings shook furiously from the winds and she gripped her earthened sword in the same manner an elderly man might steady himself by cane. Her eyes were pleading. She held out one hand in gesture, distant though he was to take it. “Come, let us end this! Drop your spear and I will guarantee your life!”
Someone was pulling on his arm. Velox. Ahead, even more soldiers had spilled into the street they’d chosen. The Ulciscor Guard were a determined lot, whether the winds were with them or against them. But by the Twelve, he was one of them too. No matter what anyone said or how many of his comrades tried to stick a sword or spear through his neck. He was Captain clipping Daniels!
“I am innocent!” he bellowed. He saluted, pounding his chest. “And we will stop Mammon Rigel! This I swear!” He faced forward and raced after the others with Velox, letting the winds drown out whatever else she might have said.
———
Berke rubbed blood off his lip with an arm, grimacing at the smear on his cuff. His cheek felt swollen. Those two traitors had really pulled one over on him. He waved off the soldier offering him a handkerchief and climbed to his feet.
He dusted himself off. He was First Captain of the Southwest Wall. To have been caught off-guard in such a manner was… unbecoming. Those two had fled outside. That surprised him. He was certain if Daniels had truly returned as the clerk’s report suggested, he would have done so with no intent to leave. Fortunately, Major Cade foresaw such a possibility and left that butcher no recourse but to lie dead at her feet.
Ah, there she is now.
Berke waved Cade over, stepping inside Velox’s quarters. The major’s expression as she walked in was… how to describe it? Somber, perhaps. She must have placed a great deal of trust in that Daniels fellow over the years before he revealed his true allegiances. For a captain to betray the Guard so deeply was a terrible blow to morale, South Wall or not. Finally though, the soldiers could focus on tomorrow and the blood that must be paid to Terra Daeva.
She dismissed Berke’s guards with a gesture, accompanied only by two of her own. He saluted her and noticed a droplet of blood hit his knuckle. A nosebleed. Ironic, he supposed, after thinking about paying blood to the Daevans. He apologized and began digging through his uniform pockets for a handkerchief.
Should have taken the soldier’s, he thought with annoyance.
“It’s done, I take it?” Berke asked. “Major?”
She said nothing, closing the door. Where was that damn cloth? The blood was getting all over his sleeves. Oh, what a mess. Cade pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, catching his eye.
“Oh, thank you major, my apologies. I can’t seem to find my—”
He was cut off by the most intense, sudden pain he’d ever felt in his life radiating throughout his torso. A heart attack? No. His gaze fell and he stared with shock at the steel blade penetrating his chest. He stepped toward her, confused. So much pain. What was happening?
Cade shoved him away, and the wretched sound of steel slipping from flesh tore a scream from the bottom of his soul. As soon as he’d begun, she reached forward and grabbed him by the throat. He thrashed and writhed, but her iron grip never wavered.
The last things Berke ever saw was the dark smirk that slid across her face when he met her eyes, followed by the ceiling of Velox’s quarters. As he fell, he thought he caught a glimpse of the major wiping blood off her blade with that handkerchief. Whose blood was that? As everything around him began to blacken, Cade spoke. But not to him.
“You are guilty, Daniels. I will make sure of that.”
Him, she didn’t even acknowledge.