A gift from the gods, to see through the walls. The Queen’s goggles formed over the bridge of his beak and squeezed against his eye sockets. And suddenly, Eolh could see through the whole palace.
Bright yellow shapes marked the avians, most of them hiding behind doors or chairs or in closets, keeping out of the way as cyran soldiers ran past. The cyrans’ shapes were a cooler, light orange, all of them blurring together as they streamed out into the hallways, running toward the balconies. Running to see the uprising.
How does the tech know who is avian and who isn’t? At the moment, Eolh couldn’t care less. He was just thankful for the miracle.
This deep in the palace, there were no windows, but Eolh could still hear the screaming of the Fangs as they ripped through the skies. Each time they lased one of the cliff walls, it brought a fresh avalanche that rumbled the floors of the palace through the floors.
He hoped they were winning. But that wasn’t his concern. Not right now.
Eolh’s plan was to stay away from all of them—avian, cyran, anything else—until he could find Ryke and get her out of the palace. Then, he would come back and take out as many imperials as he could. Unfortunately, the palace was crawling with them.
One burst out of a side room, a well-dressed cyran that Eolh saw too late. He aimed his carbine at the cyran, who immediately dropped to his knees and begged for mercy. “Don’t shoot! I’m just a doctor!”
“The Queen,” Eolh said, still aiming. “Which way?”
“What Queen? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
A bad lie. Eolh’s fingers wrapped around the smooth trigger. “Which way?” he said slowly.
“Two floors down. I think that’s where they’re keeping her. Please, don’t hurt me.”
This job required wet work. Eolh knew that going in. But if this cyran was telling the truth, a doctor’s medical services might be needed once this was all over.
Eolh gestured with the tip of the carbine, ushering the well-dressed cyran out of his sight. The cyran scampered into another room and slammed the door shut.
The corvani watched him through the walls. Watched him run up to a storage cabinet and rifle through it before seizing the cold, blue outline of a handgun.
Eolh sighed. I knew it.
He kicked open the door and leveled the carbine at the cyran. The cyran spun around, his scaled fingers flashing as he spilled cartridges across the floor trying to shove one into the gun.
Eolh didn’t give him a chance.
He braced his legs and squeezed the trigger, expecting some sort of kick like the shove of a musket. Or maybe the bruising punch of those newer, repeating rifles.
The carbine only made a sound like electricity splitting the air in a single, quick burst. There was a blast of light from the tip of the carbine. Eolh’s vision went white, and he slammed his eyes shut, cawing in surprise.
The goggles dimmed. There was fire everywhere. Tables, chairs. A small cot in the corner. A whole shelf full of books was now black and filled with burning ash, and melted metal dripped down the walls and shelves. And there was a small pile of ash and cauterized blood where the cyran once stood.
“Gods,” Eolh said.
He looked down at the carbine.
The cold realization came to him, unbidden. That felt good.
The room was filling with smoke, and the fires were spreading.
That couldn’t be good for the palace.
But again. Not his problem.
Eolh moved down the hall and found the entrance to the stairs. He jumped behind a door and waited while a whole squadron of soldiers stomped up from the depths. They were weirdly quiet; Eolh could just make out the sounds of their breathing and coordinated boot steps as their officer barked sharp commands.
Then they were gone.
Two floors down, Eolh came to a grand foyer with huge stone pillars marching down the hall. If the Hanging Palace had a rib cage, this was it. High gaslights in bronze sconces encircled each pillar, illuminating a grand intersection.
If the cyran “doctor” hadn’t lied, then she would be down here somewhere.
There were two rooms, offices maybe, on either side of the hall. Through the walls, he could see dozens of orange silhouettes—cyrans standing guard or crowded around tables, their heads bowed together.
More boot steps further down the hall, squads of soldiers jogging and the distant shouts of orders, but none of them was coming this way. Yet.
At the end of the hall, there was one massive room with two huge double doors sealed shut . More cyrans standing around a huge table. Pointing at something. A map? Those must be the Magistrate’s commanders, he figured. A handful of guards were posted inside the room at each door.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
And there.
A parlor, attached to that massive war room. And he could just make out a bright yellow outline.
How many walls between him and her? Impossible to say.
She was pinned to something, her head bowed, her beak touching her chest. In this strange heat-sensing light, all her feathers were invisible, and he could see the wasting outlines of her muscles.
Too absorbed, Eolh forgot to keep his attention wide. A cyran officer with polished boots and a crisp gray uniform almost collided with him.
“What are you doing?” the officer said, his voice haughty with outrage. “What is this?”
Eolh threw out his mechanical hand and wrapped his fingers around the cyran’s throat. He looked away before he squeezed. The wet crunch of a spine, the spray of blood on the side of his beak.
I hate wet work.
The cyran gurgled, loud enough to draw attention.
Shit.
Around the offices, several cyrans raised their heads, nodding at their subordinates to go out into the hall and see what happened. Eolh dove behind a huge, stone pillar and watched as three soldiers gathered in the intersection, each one focused on the nearly headless body lying on the ground.
“Who did this?”
“Emperor’s fist! Look at his neck—”
“Over there!”
Eolh was too slow to hide, but he wasn’t going to waste this chance. He kicked off the ground, throwing his body into the air, and squeezed the trigger.
This time, the goggles were ready for the light. They dimmed right as it erupted from his weapon.
One lucky cyran was incinerated immediately. The two who weren’t had their scales melted by the light, their flesh blistering and sloughing away as they screamed and flailed. One of them made it to the stairs before falling to the ground in a writhing, gurgling mess.
Far too much noise.
More soldiers and officers came out into the halls, each one bathed in light.
The smell of charred cyran flesh filled the halls.
But in the large war room, the cyran leaders weren’t coming out. Instead, Eolh could see them taking up defensive positions, knocking over tables and ducking behind shelves. All of them were eerily silent.
They’ve been waiting for someone to come.
Not good.
Eolh stepped over the smoking body of a cyran, which had melted like candle wax against the floor. He was searching for another way into the room. A door, perhaps, where they weren’t waiting for him.
“You, out there!” a voice called to Eolh, high and imperious. “I know what you want. I know what you came for.”
A confident voice, from a cyran who was used to getting his way. It had to be the Magistrate.
“Your Queen is in a great deal of pain,” the voice said. Eolh thought he could hear the sneer in his voice, as if the Magistrate were enjoying this. “And you’re only going to make it worse. Come out and talk. Perhaps we can make a deal.”
Eolh crept around the columns, circling around the war room.
There was another door, a servant’s entrance, around the far corner. Maybe this had been a royal banquet hall once.
Maybe they left the door unlocked.
He touched the handle. Pulled it open slowly—ever so slowly. The wood creaked. A gunshot from inside blasted through the wood, exploding the handle. It clipped Eolh’s mechanical hand, and though he felt no pain, he pulled it back instinctively.
Two more gunshots tore through the thin wall, and Eolh just barely managed to duck out of the way.
The Magistrate silently motioned for his soldiers to run out the other door and circle around.
But Eolh could see every creeping footstep they made. Could see their pistols held out in front of them.
The last things they saw were a corvani with a carbine and a flash of light. No screams this time.
The Magistrate let out a curse.
Good, Eolh thought. He’s scared.
Then, the Magistrate’s orange silhouette ducked back into the other room.
Where she was.
The Magistrate’s silhouette merged with the Queen’s, a hot orange against her burning yellow. He yanked her head back, earning a ragged gasp from the Queen, muffled but still audible through the walls.
“Put down your weapon!” the Magistrate screamed. He had a knife to her throat. “I’ll kill her! There will be nothing left to save!”
He couldn’t kill the Magistrate and his remaining guards without risking the Queen’s life. One wrong flash of light and the Queen would be incinerated too.
That’s when Eolh made a mistake. He opened his beak to talk. “Let her go—”
The Magistrate threw out a hand.
The wall in front of Eolh cracked, and chunks of stone were ripped away, pulverizing several cyrans into gory mush.
Another thrust of the Magistrate’s hand and Eolh felt a thousand invisible iron bars wrap around his body, squeezing him in a bone-shattering grip. His body bulged unnaturally. Vessels popped in his eyes, and his vision started to go red. His ribs were cracking and starting to pierce his own lungs.
The carbine clattered to the floor.
“Got you,” the Magistrate said, walking through the ruins of the wall. Dust and stone still fell from the ceiling, and the floor above groaned dangerously. But the Magistrate did not seem to care. A vicious grin spread across his lips. “You really made me work for this, didn’t you?”
Then, as the dust cleared and the Magistrate’s eyes fixed on Eolh, his grin turned to disgust. “What in the eight hells? You’re just another bird. Where is he?”
“Who?” Eolh struggled to say, even though he knew damn well who the Magistrate meant.
The Magistrate’s scowl deepened. He flexed his fingers, and Eolh could feel his joints straining under all that invisible iron. He gasped for breath, but his lungs were crumpling.
A thought flashed across the Magistrate’s face. The cyran loosened his grip, maintaining just enough pressure to hold Eolh in place. As more imperial soldiers finally came running down the steps, he shouted, “In here, you fools. Tie him up. Now.”
They surrounded Eolh, scales and armor and muscle wrapping around his limbs, his throat. Ripping the goggles from his face. They threw him to the ground and wrapped ropes around his wrists so tight that Eolh’s fingers went numb. Two soldiers grabbed his arms, making them bend the wrong way. He had no breath to scream.
“Get the Queen, too,” the Magistrate said. “Bring them both outside.”
They dragged her out of the back room, her chains dragging against the floor. They had to carry her by the shoulders, for she could not stand on her own.
For a brief moment, when he laid his eyes on her, he felt only the bright breath of joy that she was, somehow, still alive.
“Eolh.” Her voice was a dry, ragged whisper. “You came.”
“This was a terrible way to die, wasn’t it?”
“They all are,” she said. And the weak, uncompromising smile she gave him almost made all of this worth it.
“Sickening,” the Magistrate said. He flicked the back of his hand through the air, casually, and an audible smack jerked the Queen against her chains. Like she was a living puppet and he held all the strings. The force of the blow was so strong it staggered even the soldiers who were holding her.
“Take them to the top of the tower. Tie them to stakes, out in the open, where they can see everything.”
He turned to the Queen, that sneer carving a gold line across his scaled face. “Are you ready, my Queen? I’ve been wanting to show you something.”