“What’s gnawing you?” T asked, twirling a in his hand. He threw it at a crate and ducked, grabbing his head as the blunt hook bounced right back at him. “Ouch.”

  “Retard,” Jay noted as a bruise grew on T’s forehead.

  “Gd to hear you finally admitted your fw. Don’t worry, I am sure even a Normie find a job,” T said, coiling the around his forearm. “How about scraping shit from toilet seats?”

  “And put you out of business? Never.” Jay grinned. “By the way, I heard that the Sunbdes released a neack.”

  “No shit?!” T cried, fag Jay. “What’s its name and element?”

  “Troll King. Green.” Jay took himself by the and looked up. “While you were sulking, I asked one of the noble pups about it, and they showed it to me. Legit cards, no printed shit. Its stro card is called Mind Goblin.”

  “Mind Goblin?” T repeated. “What…”

  “Mind goblin these nuts?” Jay asked ily.

  “Asshole!” T roared, swinging his , and the hing boy ducked u. “Screw you! I walked right into that one!”

  “See, I was right about the retard part!”

  “Double screw you!”

  The wolves brought them into the mobile fortress, leaving them in the care of a white-furred sage. The woman had introduced them to other kids, but after T heard of several boys talking about their parents, he began to sulk, and Jay secretly escorted him away to cheer him up. T had used that weird power of his to summon a e who was currently occupying a toilet, while the boys sneaked into a hangar on the lowest level and lied to the teis about getting permission.

  Jay wasn’t sure if they were believed, but a friendly meic gave them a tour of the area, during which they pocketed this and a hook.

  This kingdom of maery was awesome! Assembly lines snaked from one hall to another, carrying damaged suits of armor, while meical arms floated around them, dang akin to sand sheabbed, and sparks flew, and a seam repced a gash in a pte. Occasionally they brought modules with them, as the tei expined, and installed them after extrag damaged parts from the suits.

  And the sounds! He had half expected it to be noisy in here, but the crag and grinding of the outside never reached here, and glowing geors emitted a pleasant, almost reassuring hum, and the pounding of automated pistons filled his heart with awe at the knowledge of how much stuff was manufactured here. Engineers, retainers as they called themselves, even showed and ter let them assemble a simple batch of automatic pistols using one of the soles.

  When T had asked why they didn’t do it themselves, the shift supervisor, a dark-skinned woman in e overalls who had four fingers repced with multipurpose augmentations, had sat the boys down ahem assemble a gun by themselves. They had followed the instrus to the letter and finished in five minutes, winning a bottle of soda and chocote. While the two ate, the woman had shown them how much faster the assembly was.

  Jay loved this pd immediately pleaded for permission to stay here and do serious things instead of pying, and the supervisor sent one of her own to ask their teacher, who robably freaked out after T’s e had disappeared. Meanwhile, the workers took the boys to the break room and closed the door.

  “Are you going to ahe question, or shall I whip you?” T sent the spinning.

  “o show me them dominatrix moves. I was thinking of Halina,” Jay admitted and dropped onto the couch, throwing protective goggles at T before he could blind himself with his damn toy. After a sed of thought, he put the goggles on as well.

  “Lovebirds,” T teased. “Bet you think of sitting under a tree and holding her hand, chatting about…”

  “Envy is bad, T,” Jay ughed, picturing the se. “Keep up the heroics, and I’m sure you’ll find a girl, too.”

  “I am not doing heroics.” T frowned, and the stopped; its end dropped to the ground. “Heroes aplish stuff. They save people and don’t let others die. Even if they lose, they’re not useless like me.” He pursed his lips.

  “Don’t sell yourself short; you saved our ba out there.” Jay tried to cheer him up, but T started to pout again. “Why the , anyway?”

  “Ra blinked and hurled the hook at the wall. He smiled, catg it safely as it bounced back. “Ks me caught all the time.”

  “Then use a pistol.” Jay shrugged.

  “No one is giving me o kicked a table, and the boys rushed to save their soda from spilling. “Listen, I thought it through.”

  “Just like you did with the soda,” Jay pined, wiping the table . It felt wrong to mess up the pce when everyone had weled them so warmly. He reached out and grabbed the , pulling T closer to him. “See? What if this happens?”

  “Won’t be a problem!” T assured him. “When I split, my other self carries everything that I had on myself. So if everyories t me closer, my es will cerate the bastard’s netil he lets me go. It’s a perfect on!”

  “Which gave you a bruise.” Jay checked the reddish skin on his friend’s head. “Use a grenade. Imagine a e popping up; it rushes to the bad guy, and boom! No more bad guy!”

  “And where will I get a grenade? I tried to nick…”

  “Wait, you tried what now?”

  “But everyoches the ons hawkishly. They are worse than Miss Williams and her no-knife policy!” T nded on the chair and gulped down a gss of soda, then chewed on a sausage. “She thought I’d cut myself,” he pined. “ you believe that shit? She kept cheg my arms every m. Stupid. Why would I want to cut myself? I want to stab them!”

  “T,” Jay said softly, sitting nearby. He knew little of his friend’s past. T was stingy with details and guarded his past stubbornly, but his occasional whimpers during sleep had told enough. “I listen.”

  “Don’t ge the topic.” T pointed a fork at Jay and then tried to steal his sausage from the tray. The boys’ forks cshed, and T backed off, not using his full potential as a New Breed. “You. Halina. I thought we were friends. Did you seriously think I’d be jealous just because you found a girl?”

  “It’s not that, dummy!” Jay’s smile disappeared. “I asked aor to call Houstad, since her voy should have been there.” He ched his fingers.

  “Should have been?”

  “They made it,” Jay quickly reassured him. “Miss Williams was worried sick, but most of the group is there. Except Halina. She entered Houstad, but the pce is almost empty, and no one knows where she is…”

  “I’m in,” T said, scratg his nose. “What? She told the wolves of us. Who knows, if not for her we might’ve been skinned. I owe her that much. And besides…” He smiled mischievously, elbowing Jay. “Don’t want to see you cry that yirl…”

  “She is not my girl,” Jay said hastily.

  “…Gone missing. Okay, big brain, any ideas on how we are going to slip awaaa….?” A whoosh of the opened door interrupted him.

  An armored figure stomped inside, one of the white wolves assigo watch over their group, and the chief engineer followed the sage. Keen crimson eyes gnced over the boys.

  “How did you wind up here?” the wolf asked in a pleasant, warm baritone.

  “We got lost,” Jay lied instantly. “We turned left from the restroom and followed the same corridors as usual, but this time there was a stairwell and we had no idea, so we…”

  “The right way was to the right,” the wolf said without a hint of annoyahen blinked and crossed the room faster than Jay could breathe. The cape fpped behind the armor as cold fiouched T’s jaw, moving his head toward the light.

  “Kiddo didn’t have it when we left them here,” said the supervisor.

  “You left the children unattended.” The crimson eyes shifted, looking at the . “Did you try to them, you hoodlums?”

  “No!” Jay, T, and the woman yelled in unison.

  ****

  The thick adamantine door rippled; the image of the Twins holding up the sun on it glowed brightest yellow, and a seam appeared on the previously solid surface. It slid to the left and right, allowing First to ehe Hall of Remembrahe holiest p the entire Order. Cool air poured from within, enveloping the approag Grandmaster, and the rime cracked beh his feet.

  Automatons rushed to attend to him, reverently toug his skin to read the geic codes, and red light sed him from head to toe, searg for any abnormality. His identity firmed, the turrets desigo disie an intruder disappeared, and the a meism illumihe pce with the brightest light.

  Precious artifacts of the Order and the Sunbde rested here. Gems fashioned by the Twins’ own hands glittered around the crystal that held the body of his own daughter, Marina. Her lifeless paws rested over the gaping hole in her chest; the crystal and the cold forever held the brave knight-captain iasis that kept her body from rotting.

  First pced a paw on the crystal, silently asking for fiveness for the past grievahey often argued over her choosing a Wintersong woman for her partner, and he never really came to accept it. But he uood the nothingness of his resistan the day when a gravity beam had pierced the chest piece of his little baby and snatched her from him and the Wintersong dy. They had wept together, all grievances fotten and fiven, sending the person dearest to them here.

  Coffins, decorated urns with ashes, and simir crystals shimmered in the long and narrow hall, each tainiher his direct child or their immediate offspring. Here slept the inal Wintersong, Summerspring, Ironwill, and his other siblings, and just knowing it stirred his heart, troubled by their absence.

  “Your desdants are worthy,” First swore warmly. “If you had just seen the passion and dedication they exhibit in proteg the weak. But then again, you never doubted them.”

  He patted a long capsule in the middle of the hall. Its oct wasn’t dead, and ihe viewing s, another Ice Fang, bearing striking simirities to First, breathed faintly, kept in slumber by the cold and teology. His third son had grown weary of the world after outliving his children ao have a two-tury-long sleep, hoping to awaken to a kinder era. First strived t it about for his son’s sake, never bming his child for a choice many sidered selfish.

  “May you dream happy dreams, Cesare,” he whispered softly and looked up. “I beseech thee tive this rude intrusion of mine, King Father, Lady Mother.”

  At the far end of the hall, taut s suspended a sphere in the air. Soft, blue light from a gravity engine shone on it from below, aiding in holding its weight and its oct undisturbed by any collisions. Two arms, two silent guardians, were embedded in the Sunbde emblem. Enormous in size, the sheer elegance of their fur, the smoothness of their curves, the perfe of their skin and muscles put even First’s own body to shame.

  The Twins. All that the Blessed Mother had been able to recover after they had brazenly charged into that battle, ign her orders. That saved the civilians.

  And how many more had died in their absence? Came a treacherous thought.

  No ing procedure of the Recmation Army had been able to recreate what had been lost. Stists w for his house ducted a series of experiments, but the anisms died as soon as they left the growth vats. Today, it was impossible to let the fallen walk again.

  “Brurgled a voice, and First hurried to the sphere, abandoning hopes about tomorrow. The restoration of the Holy Trinity could wait. “Greetings.”

  Distraught, he quickly inputted the release codes on the panel trolling the life-support system. The one floating ihe sphere was in no danger, but it eased his everyday troubles. Lines crossed the top of the colorless sphere, releasing the gas inside, which was sucked into recesses. The liquid drained from the ihe sphere opened, and a hand the size of First’s grasped the edge of the open g.

  Sed Suhe ons master of the Sunbde house, clumsily climbed out, proudly deing the silent offer of help. His sight filled First with anguish at the unfairness of this world.

  One of his brother’s arms was almost a body length lohaher, and veins bulged uhe skin, spreading the fur wide. Fingers on this arm were all differehs and sizes; only the thumb and little finger had enough trol to be trusted. The head showed out, one eye sed it threateo fall out of its socket, the other a beaded, wet orb of crimson, no white visible. Sed breathed hard, slurping oxygen, his ribs stretg the skin.

  Another arm appeared, clutg the serrated bde in a richly encrusted sheath to the chest. Sed used its tip as a walking stick, carrying his misshapen, i, horrible, and swaying bulk to freedom. His left leg resembled a fleshy appes bones bent and twisted at every angle, but it served as an unstable ptform. The was rigid, absent of aicity, and he pced its knee on the ground and crawled to First, dragging his body with the rger hand.

  The fws of their parents. The grievous secret of the Ice Fang Order, carefully curated ao the younger geion in very small doses so as not to traumatize them, was the reason for the strict trol of marriages.

  Why for me? First asked himself. Why am I the bearer of all the beauty meant for both of us? Why ’t I share?

  “Sed.” He spread his arms, and his brother embraced him, using the sword to help himself stand.

  “I urged them to stop.” Without programs to ge his voice, Sed sounded wet and slurred, spittiences as much as he said them. “Again and again I warhem of the folly they had itted, but Camelia told me not to fret, trusting Leonidas’ pn over my s.”

  “You are not to bme for what had transpired,” First said. “Rashness is our shared trait, it seems.”

  “Parents gave us too much fire,” Sed agreed, letting go of him. “Mend the rifts, First. They are our kin. Trinity must be restored and preserved.”

  “Preserved it will be,” First said. “Must you go?”

  “Foolish question, big brother.” Sed tried to smile; his lips quivered, exposing his fangs in a terrifying visage of a forest of bdes. Catg his refle in his brother’s eyes, Sed turned away, disgusted by his fws. “The wretches unbutchered by our fallen sisters are w their path to Houstad, bringing sorrow and woe. Even if those living there weren’t our servants, I would still race to their aid. For that is what a knight does.”

  “A knight also knows when not to engage in hopeless battles to survive and fight another day,” First made the st attempt. “A certain ons master taught me that.”

  “If the bat is hopeless, yes, but my presehere will make enough of a difference for the partial evacuation to be pleted.” Sed nodded, his head jerking bad up. “I have sent you a file of my reendation for my rept, Grandmaster. Pray, give it thought. Her skills are nothing t about, but it’s not the role of the ons master to be a supreme duelist, and the dy has a cool head on her shoulders and has mastered my lessons well, preventing our offspring from getting hurt.”

  “That is a valuable quality,” First agreed, stepping aside to salute the limping behemoth, who was about to show his true face to the Order for the first time with his own on. Sages and knight-captains, hand-picked by First, stood outside the chambers, waiting to give the departing knight the urels he deserved. Yet pain gripped the grandmaster’s heart, and he broke the ritual. “I love you, little bear.”

  “And I you, peacock.” Sed swung his head toward him. “I have never hated you for saving me. You gifted me a ce to see the world, and I decided to fight for it. I’ve met and raised thousands of wonderful warriors. Thank you, First. Take care of the House.”

  “Always, Sed,” First promised. He kept the tip of his sword poi the Twins’ arms until his brother left the hall, the, grieving for the lost brother and for his own loneliness.

  Soon he would be alone of the first geion, ae his talents and the advantages his body and lineage afforded him, there was nothing he could do about it.

  The battle for Houstad was waiting.