Roan Egrethore considered himself incorruptible. A large part of that was ignorance, with a healthy dose of disrespect for authority--mainly his father, since he had no other authority figure danging anything over his head.

The idea of being incorruptible meant, to him, that his instincts were never wrong. That kind of self-confidence, of course, was very easy to manipulate. The corruption within him didn’t manifest as a need for gold or a desire for women, nor even an affinity for the sweet mind-killing agents he sometimes peddled and often sampled; indeed, his time with Chandra had been making him less and less satisfied over the last few months, and his snuffing powders were less and less appealing. The last few times he’d visited the girl’s space beneath the factory, he’d found he had no lust at all, and had started to see her flesh as being actively repulsive. So he’d found excuses to abuse her instead, lightly, since she was too well hidden to have the conditioning redone, and he didn’t really want her gone, not yet.

Seeing his father, sister, slave, and precious metal all in one room caused a start in him that he could not fathom. Out of everything, what offended him most was his father’s hand, so he drew his sword and lunged at it.

The guards began moving all too slowly, unsure of how to deal with a threat from one of their masters. Amon was too shocked to even consider moving, except perhaps to take a step back. Jani, to her credit, was more than ready for Roan to do something stupid, and would have drawn steel but that the jackal girl was in her way. Her face registered confusion, then panic, in the space of ten running steps.

Amon’s hand fell to the ground, still clutching a metal ingot.

Roan dived for it, picking up the bit of metal with relief. He knew that this metal was from the factory. To him, the whole room stank of the factory’s despair and his own malice. A prick in the back of his mind told him that he had done well, and he pried it out of his father’s severed hand, and clutched the ingot to his face as though it were a newborn infant, feeling the manic need leave him. He had needed to go back, he knew not how much. The metal reminded him of home--of rotting corpses, of despairing workers, of tears and sweat.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Roan didn’t notice or understand anything else right up to the point where two swords stabbed him in the back. He twisted, feeling the blood pour out, and looked at his sister with shock. Yes, she had responded quickly, as he should have known she would. She was always the competent one.

The other sword, however, he did not expect. It was a guard’s, but in Chandra’s hand, and the look in her eyes was familiar. She had just a spark of what she had lost, and the instincts had come back all too quickly.

The others didn’t know where Chandra came from or who she was. The realization made him cold, but also caused him to bark a laugh that he could scarcely afford, as one lung was quickly filling with blood.

Something else was odd, though. The prick in the back of his mind tingled with delight, then receded. The metal in his hands beckoned. His mind closed around it, and he fell into it.

Roan Egrethore’s body fell unceremoniously to the floor.

The things that came next came quickly. Amon was rushed out a back door. The ingots were collected and put in a sealed box. Roan’s body was disappeared, and the bloodstains cleaned. Servants and guards were silenced.

Chandra was quietly, efficiently moved out of the room and into a servant’s quarters in a dark and disused back hallway. The door behind her was locked and Kan took a position outside, saying nothing to anyone.

For some reason, it was hours before anyone came to ask Chandra about the guard’s missing sword, although it had last been seen in her hands. By then, she had found a safe place to hide it. Hiding things came naturally to her, or it had before she’d been caught.

Chandra d’Amanci had once been a very dangerous woman. Although her mind was still addled by torture, dark magic, and binding spells, there was within her a second heartbeat, a gentle thrum in her magic Sparks. That beat had long been weak and scattered, but now it had started to steady. It fully intended that she would be very dangerous again some day.

And not far away, a mage slipped a jewel back into his pocket, as though he had been no more than fidgeting with it.