Of Dawn and Darkness

CHAPTER TEN

The man in the steel blindfold could come and go as he wished, but Jerri was still a prisoner. That grated on her even worse than his attitude. More than once, she was prepared to leave, but he always said something to trick her into staying.

“Even the basest Elderspawn can wait in the darkness for a week. A servant of the Great Ones must be able to tolerate the dark.”

“I can come and go because I am only a humble messenger. If I were fit to be the guardian of this room, I too would stay.”

Each time he returned, she considered killing him. And each time, he managed to say exactly what would get her to stay. Even though she knew it was impossible, she started to wonder if he was Reading her mind.

That, and the Emperor’s quarters had a full bathroom complete with a toilet and functional plumbing. Otherwise she would have burned her way to freedom days ago.

Now, on what she determined was her sixth day in the Emperor’s Elder-sealed room, her self-proclaimed guide appeared again. He stepped out of the shadows as though he’d been there all along, gold teeth gleaming in the middle of his smile. “Good news, Mrs. Marten.”

The name hit her hard, harder than she would have expected. She’d spent most of her married life on The Testament —and years prior to that, too—where everyone called her by her first name. On shore, no one knew them. Hearing it now, from a fellow member of the Sleepless in the belly of an Elder construct, felt…entirely wrong.

But he had likely said it just to see her squirm, and she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. She threw her braid behind one shoulder and straightened her spine. “What is it?”

“They’re finally coming in.”

He had spent the last six days deftly dodging any question about what they were waiting for. Now…was this it? They’d waited for the Imperial Guard to stop poking at the Elder seal and finally wheel in the big guns?

But what did she care if the Imperial Guard made it in here?

“Are we going to wait here for them?” Jerri asked, finally. She hated to ask him, but she felt entirely out of her depth here. Whatever the cabal had this man doing, she didn’t understand it.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but her guide was a little harder to see than he had been a moment before. Even his brightly colored robes had dimmed to little more than shadow, and she could only pinpoint him clearly because of the reflections of gold in his jewelry. It was more than a little unnerving, which made her feel more at home. Dealing with Elders was supposed to be unsettling.

“Here’s what I would like you to do, Jyrine,” the man said, gently taking her by the shoulders. She didn’t resist, allowing him to move her a few feet to the right. The soft organic light hanging from the ceiling hadn’t gotten any dimmer, but he was still bathed in shadows, even inches from her face. As he moved, she sensed the movement of a vast bulk behind him, though she saw nothing more than a normal human silhouette. As though he were something massive cramming itself into the shape of a man.

He finally released her when she was standing with her back to the Optasia, facing the door. “Stand in this spot as long as you can, using the full extent of your power to defend yourself. That’s all. When at last you feel like you cannot continue or you are about to lose your life, you can simply…stand aside.”

Gold flickered in the darkness as he smiled.

The Elder seal around them trembled, and a beat of thunder shook the floor. The Guards had begun their attack. Her heart pounded and her breath quickened from a mix of fear, anticipation, and the sheer thrill of adventure. Her earring began to sparkle, gathering green light.

“Who are you?” she asked, not for the first time. He’d dodged her questions before, but now…now, she hoped, he would give her a real response.

“I am…a business partner of your husband’s. I’m the one who arranged for your jailbreak and ensuing expedition through the void. I assigned you here, Jyrine Tessella Marten, and I sowed the seed of this moment long before you were born.”

Jerri fell to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floorboards. “Kelarac, Great One,” she whispered. Only in her most daring daydreams had she imagined that she would someday come face-to-face with one of the Great Ones. This was even better than she’d hoped; Kelarac was actively helping her. He had guided her wisdom closer to his own, so that she could continue serving the world.

“Do you wish to learn from me?” Kelarac asked, and his voice came from all around her.

“More than anything.”

“I know the secrets of time, of the worlds, of the future and of human Intent. With a fraction of my knowledge, you could guide the Empire into a new golden age. Each man an Emperor, each woman an Empress.”

She could picture it as he spoke, as though he were feeding her specific images. A man flexing his Intent to open a solid wall into a door; a woman climbing into a machine shaped like a winged Kameira, and soaring through the clouds; a little boy waving his hand and causing a thousand flowers to bloom in a field.

“The mysteries of this world are keys that can unlock any door,” the Great Elder’s voice went on. “And they will be yours…if you pay the price. And today, I take my price in obedience.”

She stood, green power swirling around her fingertips and lighting the room. She’d never been so ready to fight.

With Kelarac’s knowledge, she could shock the world. Prove to everyone, even Calder, that she’d been right. That she and her father were justified all along.

The Soul Collector laughed fondly, and the door tore open.

Jerri hurled fire.

At first, standing in the courtyard, Calder tried to take on a passive role in the defeat of the Elder wall. The mountain of flesh was not going down passively, lashing out at each of the Guards and Watchmen that dared approach. They were using their armor and weapons to clear the way for the Guild Heads—General Teach marched up with Tyrfang in one hand, keeping a healthy distance from the other humans so that the sheer aura of her weapon didn’t strike them dead.

Bliss skipped along next to her, apparently immune to Tyrfang’s power, the Spear of Tharlos leaning against one shoulder. When she and Teach struck together, it dwarfed anything Calder had seen before, exploding like an alchemist’s charge and sending stinking flesh blasting fifty feet into the air. Calder had to stagger back and hold a hand up over his eyes to block a faceful of Elder gore. They stood in a tunnel slashed in the flesh, black-edged with death and corruption.

But the wall was still growing. They weren’t getting closer to the heart.

Eventually, he knew, they would carve through. They were doing damage faster than the wall could heal, and they wouldn’t stop until they broke through to the center. But at this rate, it could take hours. And Bliss had emphasized speed above all else. No matter what they had to do, they had to reach the inside of the Elder wall as quickly as possible.

Calder lifted the sheathed saber he’d carried from his room. He had wanted to avoid drawing the weapon in front of Bliss, in case she could somehow sense that it came from Kelarac. Besides, he was wearing clothes fit for the Emperor himself. He didn’t want to ruin them with Elder blood on the first day.

But now, it seemed, he had no choice.

He pulled the sheath off with one hand, tossing it aside, and held the blade in the other. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll have ruined my clothes for no reason,” he said to no one in particular.

“I hear you have to pay for the second set,” Andel called from behind him. He hadn’t known the man was here.

Calder stepped up to the Elder wall for the first time since his dream last night. In the daylight it loomed even higher, more menacing, a sheer cliff of rotting meat. The stench rolling from the freshly carved cave was indescribable, and he couldn’t get too close to General Teach for fear that her sword would actually kill him where he stood.

But he did have one advantage.

Through the six-fingered mark on his right hand, he funneled his Intent and Read the simple Elderspawn wall. As he’d suspected, it was a simple creature, fashioned for the sole purpose of keeping them away from this room. It focused on him, preparing to lash out with its whips of muscle, and he moved his blade where the lashes would strike.

Raw Elder sinew met orange-and-black mottled steel. The orange of the Awakened blade flared, corrosive Intent surged in the weapon, and the tendril blackened.

A silent scream blasted out from the Elder wall, audible to Calder only through Kelarac’s mark. The wall recoiled—not visibly, but through its Intent—and tried to attack around the blade. Each time, Calder intercepted the strike an instant before the whip actually landed.

He found himself grinning. Fighting like this made him feel like a sword-master from legend, unbeatable and unstoppable, advancing against any number of opponents. His sword was always in the right place even before it was needed, and he fought on sheer instinct. Too bad it only worked on Elderspawn.

When he reached the cave that Bliss and Teach had opened, he dared not proceed any farther. If Teach happened to accidentally move the Intent of her Vessel backwards, he’d fall over dead.

Just as his father had, at the end of that same weapon.

Instead, experimentally, he drove his Awakened sword into the side of the tunnel. The simple Elder being let out another scream of Intent, and a massive chunk of the wall just melted. Odious black goo rolled like a tide over his shoes, and he knew he’d have to burn this pair too.

It was as he’d expected, remembering the fate of the Elderspawn on the Gray Island. Any lesser Elder that encountered this sword dissolved.

He would have to join the two Guild Heads, if they wanted to make it through the wall in any reasonable amount of time. Which left only the little inconvenience of figuring out how to fight next to Tyrfang without dying.

“Guild Heads!” Calder called. They were only a pace or two ahead of him, as their tunnel was incredibly shallow at this point, but they were both thoroughly engaged in digging through the Elder flesh. In fact, shovelfuls of carrion and rotting blood splattered him every time they moved. “Excuse me! General Teach!”

“Speak!” Teach ordered, without turning around.

More than the stench, more than the sickening sounds of blades in flesh, more than the reality of what they were doing, the Intent rolling off of her Vessel made him feel sick. “I believe I can speed us up, but I have to get closer.”

Teach gave no acknowledgement that she’d heard, hacking away at the wall, but Tyrfang’s Intent began to lessen. Her speed decreased in proportion, until the entire hall didn’t quite blacken and die with every swing of her sword.

On the other side of the General, Bliss just held her Spear jammed into the end of the tunnel, humming an aimless tune. The wall’s flesh actually fled from her blade, as if in fear.

Calder held his breath as he moved up, standing shoulder to armored shoulder. He immediately knew he’d been wrong; no matter how far Teach held herself back, the aura of the sword pressed against him like the edge of a blade. His vision blurred, and he could feel consciousness slipping.

He concentrated on his own sword, on the orange-spotted blade Kelarac had given him. Its power seemed to push around it, creating a little bubble where Teach’s influence was weakened. It helped, but not enough. He needed something else.

In a last, desperate attempt to distract his Intent, he focused his attention through Kelarac’s mark on his arm. The handprint grew warm and his Intent firmed, as though he’d braced himself against a solid foundation. That, finally, was enough. General Teach’s corrosive power scraped at him, trying to find a foothold, but through the mark Calder could hold it at bay.

It was a little alarming that the mark of Kelarac could support his Intent, suggesting that the Great Elder was backing him directly in some way, but he chose not to focus on that. One job at a time.

Now that Tyrfang’s nauseous power had lessened, Calder put his back into the work, swinging his own Awakened blade.

He was pleasantly surprised at how much his addition to the team actually helped. They soon fell into a rhythm: Teach slashed the wall, blackening the flesh for yards around. Then Calder impaled it with his glowing-ember blade, melting it to black sludge. Bliss finished by cleaning up, sweeping the dead matter away with the Spear of Tharlos.

They were through the Elder wall in minutes.

When they stumbled through a sudden hole and onto carpeted floor, it was all Calder could do to focus on catching his breath. He’d assumed there would be…more to it, somehow. They had gone from making slow progress to piercing through so quickly that he could hardly believe it.

He held his gore-caked blade over his head. “Victory!” he shouted, like an idiot. A few of the Guards outside took up a cheer.

“Not quite,” Bliss said. She squinted up the hallway, to a room that looked just like half a dozen others. “There’s someone waiting for us.”

Calder couldn’t sense anything other than Elders through Kelarac’s mark, but he took Bliss’ word for it.

Besides the sunlight spilling in from behind them, the hall was lit by dim organic bulbs hanging down from the ceiling. They cast a dirty, grayish light on their surroundings, like an Elder’s attempt to devour all color.

“Here,” General Teach said, striding up to a door and drawing her sword back, preparing to drive it completely into the room.

She didn’t even try the doorknob, Calder thought, before Teach blasted her way inside. The doors blew inward as though she’d charged in with a sledgehammer.

A ball of green fire met her on the other side.

Teach jerked down and to the right, spinning to put her back against the wall to the right of the doorframe. She held Tyrfang up in both hands. She must have started to lose her grip on its Intent, because dirty white paint began to peel away from her as she knelt there.

Ordinarily, Calder would have felt the corruption of that murderous blade, but at the moment…he realized he was holding his breath again.

Green fire. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. That was a coincidence that strained all credibility; if he’d seen it in a play, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“What we call coincidence is but the work of plans unknown.” The philosopher Hestor’s words struck dangerously close to home. If anything was the result of an Elder’s plan, it would be Jerri’s presence here.

But his wife hadn’t died on that island after all.

Calder moved into the doorway and saw her, in the same red prison clothes she’d been wearing the last time. When he’d abandoned her to her fate. She’d launched a ball of flame even before he’d turned the corner, but he slapped it out of the air contemptuously with the flat of his sword.

That was something he would have never attempted, under other conditions; he didn’t understand the Intent in those green fireballs, nor did he fully understand the power in his own sword. Instead of canceling each other out, the effects could just as easily have fed on one another and burned him alive. Besides, Soulbound blasts of fire were invariably fast. It was a stupid, unnecessary risk to try swatting one in midair.

This time, he hardly noticed. Jerri stood before him, fire gathering unnoticed in her left hand, eyes as wide as he knew his must be.

“Calder, what are you…what are you doing with the Imperial Guard?”

That actually made him smile, though he wasn’t entirely sure he felt like smiling. “I thought you would have guessed. They’re with me. I’m the Emperor now.”

Jerri’s right hand, the one not wreathed in emerald fire, came up to her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears. “You see? He told you the truth!”

Calder’s feelings turned sour. Why had she brought that up? Now he was lost in the memory of slithering eyes on stalks, and the knowledge that he danced in the palm of an Elder’s hand.

Bliss popped out from behind Calder. “Technically, he’s the Imperial Steward. Sitting on the throne until someone, probably him, can be declared the true Emperor. For that, though, we’re going to need the throne.”

Everything seemed to happen at once.

Jerri focused her gaze on Bliss, anger burning through the lens of her unshed tears. Green fire glowed brighter.

The Head of the Blackwatch rolled out, extending the Spear of Tharlos to its full length. The spear of ancient yellowed bone radiated an Intent that swallowed the room, plucking at Calder with invisible fingers and urging him to change. He had to concentrate on Kelarac’s mark, filling his mind with the borrowed authority of the Soul Collector, to face even that much Elder Intent without losing himself.

Armor clanked as General Teach launched herself into the room. Tyrfang’s red-and-black blade rippled with dark power, and Calder found the breath snatched from his lungs. Utter despair rolled over him like a tide, as though he’d come face-to-face with his own executioner.

Whatever happened next, it happened so quickly that he saw it only in flashes.

Jerri released a flash of green fire and dove to the side, while the Spear of Tharlos struck straight at her. It would have missed the fire entirely, except it seemed to twist of its own accord, bending in violation of everything Calder knew about physical mass. It hit the fire straight on…just as Tyrfang’s black edge arrived.

Soon after, when Calder tried to piece the moment together, he couldn’t make it all fit. By rights, Teach should have been five steps farther away than Bliss. They should have been aiming at different points. The fireball should have passed both of them, and they all should have hit only air.

Instead, the power of Jerri’s Vessel met Tyrfang, the Executioner’s Blade and Bliss’ Spear of Tharlos at the same time.

Inches above the flesh-shrouded cage of steel bars that men called the Optasia.

The Intent burned away the Elder flesh surrounding the Emperor’s throne instantly; the heart-like muscle that had kept a grip on the metal dissolved into black powder. The force continued, tearing up floorboards and wall panels, rearranging and shattering furniture.

But the Optasia caught that blend of deadly Intent, accepted it, and sent it out to a thousand relays all around the world.

That was about as much as Calder’s Reader senses caught before they were overwhelmed, and he collapsed on the floor of the Emperor’s bedroom.

After the strange reaction of the Optasia, Bliss ran for the exit. She didn’t prefer to run—running wasn’t dignified—but sometimes the speed was worth it. Especially in cases of grave danger or medical injury.

There had been an injury here, she knew it. And very possibly some grave danger as well. Tharlos’ spear was contorting in the pocket of her coat, twisting and writhing in silent laughter.

When she pushed open the bronze doors leading from the Emperor’s chambers, she remembered that she didn’t know what she was looking for. The courtyard was a scene from an Elderspawn slaughterhouse, with chunks of rotten grayish flesh lying everywhere. Wounded Imperial Guards limped here and there, gathering up the pieces and dumping them into buckets in case the creature pulled itself together again. She could have told them it wasn’t necessary, but she approved of their cleaning efforts. Hygiene was important.

At first, she saw nothing wrong, and her heart sank even further. If she couldn’t see the damage, that meant the Optasia’s network had carried it somewhere else in the world. She might never discover what the Elders had done until it was too late.

One Guard, a woman with a tail like a peacock, was staring up at the clouds. Her bucket fell from a limp hand, spilling Elderspawn gore onto the ground.

This was what a mystery novel might call a clue. Bliss followed the woman’s gaze up, expecting a six-winged Elder with a mouth like a shark’s.

Instead, the sky itself was distorted. A long, winding stripe of twisted wrongness, like a river of heat haze or a transparent worm. The air fuzzed and twisted, high overhead, and Bliss almost thought she could hear a distant crackle.

She’d seen corruption like this before. This would only be visible from a certain angle; even as high as it was, no one outside the palace would notice anything wrong. And it would get much worse, very soon.

The sky was going to break.

When Calder came to, he had a moment of panic. The world was frozen around him, too still and too quiet. Something was wrong.

He tried to roll off his bed and grab the pistol that he knew would be next to him, but his wounds screamed in protest. His head pounded so badly that his vision actually dimmed for a second, and he was forced to lean back against his pillow.

Reader’s burn, he realized, and as soon as he accepted the truth, reality came flooding back. There was nothing wrong—he was onshore. Aboard The Testament, the motion of the boat never stopped, and there was no such thing as silence.

He relaxed and let the pain fade away. Normally, if he’d rolled around like this, he would have woken Jerri immediately. She would be the one to reassure him, to make fun of him for worrying when everything was peaceful.

But she wasn’t here. She would be locked in some secure corner of the palace by now.

So something was wrong after all, just nothing new.

Thoughts of Jerri shook up his memory, reminding him of the afternoon, and he once again tried to sit up. Again, pain convinced him to stay where he was.

What had happened? The Optasia had reacted strangely to the attack…an attack that shouldn’t have landed in the first place. And why was Jerri there, in the Emperor’s chambers, sealed in by an Elder wall that had been there since before she left the Gray Island?

None of that made any sense, so there was only one possibility. An Elder was pulling strings, shaping events directly instead of letting them fall out as they naturally would. Why? He had no idea, and his head hurt too badly for further speculation.

Soft light from a distant quicklamp filtered in around the edges of his window, so it must have been the dead of night. He surrendered himself to the pain, hoping sleep would take him quickly.

Just before he shut his eyes again, the window creaked open, and a man hopped in. He wore his hair long, and in one hand, he carried a dagger in a reverse grip. Fresh blood dripped from the weapon’s tip.

Calder was so shocked that, for a moment, he refused to believe what he was seeing. Not that it was so unusual for someone to try and kill him—that was happening more and more, these days—but that the would-be assassin had come exactly when he woke up.

What were the odds? Seconds earlier or later, and he would have seen nothing. Heard nothing. This man would have cut him in half.

Calder gave up questioning his good fortune as his fight instincts kicked in. The killer turned to him, striding confidently over to the bed, flipping his knife in one hand. As he got closer, Calder realized he was humming a jaunty tune.

I have one shot, Calder thought. He didn’t have time to waste struggling out of bed or fighting against his pain; he had to reach his weapon, and he had to do it in one movement. That was his only chance of survival.

When he’d gathered enough strength, he clenched his jaw against the pain and rolled off the bed.

His assailant caught him and tossed him back. “Whoops, there you go. Up up up.”

The man didn’t seem at all surprised or thrown off by Calder’s escape attempt; in fact, he seemed not to care at all. He pressed lightly on Calder’s chest with one hand, but no matter how Calder struggled, he couldn’t raise his chest an inch. He tried to gather the breath for a scream, but the attacker pushed the air from his lungs. The attacker winked at him and raised the knife.

And a shadow slit his throat with a bronze blade.

Calder had never realized it before, having never seen an assassination from quite this close, but slicing a man’s throat open took quite a bit of strength. The shadow ripped through his neck like a butcher slicing meat, and warm blood showered Calder’s face. And most of the rest of his body too, he supposed. Not that he was in any condition to complain.

He scraped the blood from his eyes, ignoring the pain from his injuries and the insistent hammer-blows of his headache, desperate to see.

When his eyes cleared, he was in for a surprise: the man was still on his feet. His throat was split almost to the spine, but he held it together with one hand. The other smashed back against the black-clad figure behind him.

The killer with the bronze blade flew backward with the force of a cannonball, smashing a crater-sized dent into the wall and falling limply to the floor. Frowning as though the whole mess irritated him, the man with the slit throat collapsed a moment later.

Leaving a blood-soaked Calder alone in his bedroom with two corpses.

“What just happened?” His voice came out in a croak, and of course no one answered him. Gingerly, favoring his newly stressed wounds, he reached out for his cutlass. Whoever had brought him here was also considerate enough to leave his weapon within reach, so he was able to tug the hilt out of its sheath without much trouble.

A second later, he poked at his attacker’s body with the tip of his sword. No movement. Surely he should be dead, given the amount of blood he’d lost, but Calder would have never expected him to continue standing with his head halfway severed. No point in taking chances.

Calder poked him again, harder this time, and almost shrieked as the other body groaned and lifted a hand to its head.

Not just one person who survived a blow that should have killed them, but two. He should take up gambling; clearly the laws of probability were meaningless around him.

The shadow pulled off the black cloth that had surrounded its head, revealing a mess of blond hair. Meia looked up at him, orange eyes flashing with reflected light. “Champions,” she said, with a grimace of distaste. “I’m sorry. I should have been more thorough.”

“I would have thought a slit throat was thorough enough.” A Champion. His body chilled as he realized how close he’d come to death. If Meia hadn’t been there…if it had been someone other than Meia, the Consultant who could fight Urzaia…

This was far too many coincidences for one day.

Meia hauled herself to her feet. “I’ve never met anyone that could survive that. But let’s be sure, shall we?” She crept over to the man’s body, pulling needles from her pouch.

A poisoned needle went into both thighs and both wrists before she sliced the tendons on the back of each ankle. Calder prided himself on a strong stomach, but he looked away. He’d seen enough for one night.

When she was done, she walked over to the door and opened it a crack, peering out. “The hallway is unguarded. That’s a pity. He killed eight Guards, two Watchmen, and one Magister that I’m aware of.”

Eleven people, killed just to reach a twelfth. This was all too much for Calder to take in at one time. He struggled out of bloody sheets, hobbling over to the wardrobe. He was practically naked in front of Meia, wearing only a pair of shorts, but he couldn’t possibly have cared any less.

“I was going to ask how he got in, but I guess that explains it.” His hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t open the wardrobe—fear, pain, exhaustion, and the rush of danger combined so that he was surprised his limbs didn’t shake themselves off completely.

Meia moved to the window, closed and bolted it, and then returned to the door. “It’s a good thing it was a Champion, in a way. They don’t concern themselves with stealth, they just kill a straight line to their target. As soon as I noticed him, I followed. I would never have seen a Gardener.”

And she wouldn’t have stopped one either, he was sure, but that did bring up an interesting question. “How did you notice him? Where were you?”

She spared him a glance, saw that he was frozen in front of the wardrobe, and reached over to pull the door open for him. “I grew up in the palace for years. I could stay here for the rest of my life, and no one would see me if I didn’t want them to.”

Which didn’t exactly answer his question, but it was likely the closest he would get. Calder removed the servant’s uniform, the one that had been waiting for him earlier, and quickly pulled it on. His skin was tacky with blood, so these clothes would be ruined, but he didn’t care. He felt too vulnerable without anything on.

This will be the third set of clothes I’ve destroyed since I arrived here. An idle thought, but almost enough to make him laugh.

“That explains how you were nearby, but you actually saw an intruder and saved my life. That’s not your job.” In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her job was the exact opposite.

She frowned at him. “Right now, my job is to keep the Optasia out of the hands of the Elders. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

“Trust me, I don’t want Elder tentacles on the throne any more than you do.”

Meia turned back to survey the hallway through the cracked door. “Then we’re on the same side.”

As Calder finished buttoning up his red-and-gold jacket, he considered Meia. Over the last month or so, since he’d found out that Consultant assassins were after his life, he’d thought of the Consultant’s Guild as heartless, bloodthirsty monsters who were only pretending to serve their clients.

Now, he was reminded of the Consultants as he’d always heard of them. The most loyal Guild in the Empire; the only one that had always, through the past two thousand years, had the Emperor’s complete trust. Everyone knew a Consultant would guide you and help you, and would remain utterly dedicated to your cause…for the duration of their contract.

More than one of the great classical philosophers had words of praise for the Consultants. If he could get one on his side, even if the rest of their Guild opposed him, that could be a huge advantage.

A distant door slammed open, and booted feet pounded down the hallway, toward Calder’s room. Meia eased the door shut, sliding away and over to the window. “Imperial Guards. They’ll take you somewhere safe.”

“Wait!” Calder called before she vanished. She froze, one foot on the open windowsill. “Why leave?”

She looked at him like he was asking why she sharpened her knives. “For the same reason I disappeared aboard your ship. Our Guilds are in conflict, and maybe soon open war. If they catch me here, they’ll try to take me into custody, and I’ll have to kill them.”

The boots were closer to his door now, and raised voices had begun to call his name. He motioned for her to stay where she was. “Stay there. Don’t leave.”

She gave him a doubtful look.

“Trust me. Please.”

He walked to the center of the room, casually putting himself between the door and Meia. If he wasn’t mistaken, they would jump to conclusions any second now.

Sure enough, a Guard with massive lion paws for feet kicked the door in a second later, brandishing a musket and bayonet in his hands. He looked past Calder and gave a shout, leveling his gun.

Calder showed his empty palms. “Lower your weapon, Guardsman.”

“Move out of the way, sir!” the man shouted, stepping forward as though to move Calder physically out of the way.

Calder walked into him voluntarily, so that the bayonet rested at the end of his chest. The Guard jerked the weapon away hastily. “This woman saved my life. He tried to kill me.” He jerked his thumb toward the Champion’s corpse.

More Guards poured into the room, and two immediately checked the body for vitals. “Slit throat,” one said.

“Champion,” the second responded.

“Good point.”

Together, they drew swords and hacked the limbs from the man’s body. Shivering, Calder turned away. “Excuse me, my friend and I would like to be taken somewhere else. I’m not feeling particularly safe in here, for some reason.”

The Guard’s gaze hardened when it moved over Calder’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, sir, we need to ask her some questions. Standing orders.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s a Consultant, sir. One of the enemy.”

“Ah, I can see your confusion.” He stepped back, presenting Meia with one arm outstretched. “She’s not a Consultant at all. She’s a Navigator. A member of my crew, in fact, my new…cook.”

Meia’s eyes were back to a human blue, and she stared at him as though she could focus hard enough to Read his Intent. Maybe she could; was she a Reader? He had no idea. But if she was a Reader and a trained assassin and a warrior with enough enhancements to fight toe-to-toe with Urzaia Woodsman, that just wouldn’t be fair.

The Guard looked uneasy. Calder took advantage, pressing him while he was uncomfortable. “Let’s go, Guardsman. Lead me and my cook to safety.” He held a hand to his temple against a throb of sudden pain. “And a medical alchemist, as soon as possible. I’d like to kill this pain yesterday, if that can be arranged.”

While the Guard was uncertain when faced with Meia, he knew exactly what to do with an injured ally. They practically carried him down the hall, sending for the palace alchemists, and Meia followed.