KNITE:

  Illora trembled. As a daughter of House Lorail, she had little to no talent in the ways of a Duros or Zephyr. Standing for as long as she had without the assistance of sensus was a difficult task.

  And so she trembled.

  “Granduncle,” Illora said, “how long will you have me stand here?”

  I looked up from the reports I’d been reading. The light of morning was encroaching into the territory of my chamber’s lanterns, asserting them into redundancy. Faint echoes thrummed in from outside, a function of the Painting I’d adjusted. Lira preferred silence, but I found there’s something soothing about letting the sounds of nature and life hum in the background. Birds sang. Servants ran to and fro, whispering less they were noticed. Steel-clad boots of patrolling guards plodded down cobbled pathways. There was the far-off clash of weapons, of warriors practicing. I suspect Helena was there, testing her skill. Somewhere on the estate, a woman giggled, and I could not help but suspect Roche was testing his own talents.

  “Are you no longer able?” I asked, turning to face Illora. “It has only been a day and a half.”

  “In my limited wisdom, I fail to understand why you wish me to. My attendance at the Academy was expected this morning. This… exercise has delayed me some.”

  I placed the reports down. “Tell me, why do you think I’ve had you wait?”

  Illora bowed before she spoke. I appreciated her offer of respect more than the respect itself. “The reason—or reasons—seem beyond my ability to understand.”

  “And if you had to hazard a guess?”

  “In all likelihood, I would invoke the hazard of being wrong.”

  I smiled. “You present a sharper mind than your mother and—save one—a more likable disposition than many of the members of your House I’ve had the displeasure of meeting.”

  Illora frowned. “If I may be so bold, I’d prefer you not speak ill of my family in my presence.”

  “Else?” I asked, still smiling.

  Illora bowed again. “Empty threats would insult us both. I merely ventured to express my distaste for hearing my family insulted, deserved or not.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Then I shall refrain from doing so as ardently as my motives allow.”

  Illora bowed a third time, much of the stiffness of her previous attempts gone. Unexpected concessions tend to have that effect.

  “Do you love your mother?” I asked.

  Illora’s eyes flew open. Only a fraction, and only for a moment, but enough to let me know the question had shaken her.

  “She has always been good to me,” Illora said.

  “And?”

  “And I should love her even if I do not.”

  I shook my head in amusement. “The more we speak, the more I like you, dear Illora. However, I’d prefer it if you did not construct your answers in ways that appease yet consist of no true substance with which to appease. I ask again—do you love your mother?”

  Illora’s eyes flicked to the side, and her lips rightened ever so slightly. I’d seen the very same look on many a wordsmith. It came upon them when their subversive tricks came to light, and they were trying to formulate a way out.

  “I understand having a complicated relationship with the woman who raised you,” I said. “Believe me, I do, but in the end, it always comes down to a simple yes or no.”

  “Then yes, I love my mother.”

  “And you will keep the secrets that could ruin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” I said, walking back to my seat. “You may leave.”

  Illora hesitated. “But…”

  I resumed my reading. She lingered, unwilling to leave things as they were.

  “Granduncle,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Excuse my rudeness, but may I ask a question?”

  “Since you stand there unpunished, you should assume you may.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why have you had me stand here for almost two days?”

  I shrugged. “To see if you would.”

  A tic, a faint line between her brows, there one moment and gone the next, smothered by her iron will. I appreciated that. I always appreciated self-control. Probably because my promises had taught me how difficult controlling oneself could be.

  “You are being civil?” Illora asked.

  “I see no reason not to be.”

  Another tic. “And trusting me with a secret that could unravel your plans?”

  “Because I know I can.”

  And another.

  I chuckled. “At least I offered you more substance than you did.”

  Illora smiled. It was an odd sight. Lira smiled too, just never this… genuinely. It's strange to see lips you’ve known for centuries do things you never imagined they would or could.

  “Is that to say you will not expound on your answers?” Illora asked.

  I waved to the seat across the desk from me. “Come. Sit. Let us converse and see what I’m willing to disclose.”

  Illora sat, her posture immaculate.

  “So,” I began, “let us pay heed to your first question. What do you think you waiting two days before uttering a single word told me?”

  Illora shrugged. “A great deal, or very little, or somewhere in between. Such is the problem with making assumptions.”

  “Presumptions,” I corrected. “So please, humor me.”

  “It might've called me patient, fearful, intimidated, or respectful. It might've been I was calculating scenarios, gauging your reaction to my obedience, plotting some scheme, or simply frozen in dumbfounded disbelief at the sequence of events that has led to these rather unpredictable circumstances I find myself in. I could name more, but—”

  “No. Your answer served my purpose. Now, considering who I am, what I can do, and all I can see, what say you then?”

  “I wasn’t sure the tales of your soulsight were true.”

  “Some are, some aren’t. Yes, I can see the evil in any soul. Yes, I see emotions. No, I cannot read thoughts as Lorail can.”

  “I see,” she said. “Then I suspect you know exactly why I waited until I did.”

  “I do,” I said. The concern for her mother had not left her. To me, fear for another is to fear for oneself what the sour of old is to the sweet of fresh; I did not much like the smell of it. “I take it you have your answer?”

  Illora nodded. “‘The longer you let them simmer in fear, the softer the flesh of their will.’ It’s one of my mother's favorite sayings.”

  No wonder, I thought. It’s Lorail’s, too.

  “Why did you expect me to be uncivil?” I asked.

  “I was led to believe you were a savage who ignored the charm of civility.”

  “Then the answer to why I’d chosen to conduct myself in the manner I have rests entirely on your misguided preconceptions of who you expected me to be.”

  Her eyes came back to mine and regarded me for a quiet moment. “Perhaps.”

  “Is love pure?” I asked. Another widening of her eyes told me I’d surprised her again. After her initial tremor of surprise, she stewed, contemplating the question.

  “Rarely, if ever,” she said. “Rare enough I’ve never seen it.”

  “I think you speak of infatuation or some other such pervertible attraction. I agree—those do not signify a degree of virtue.”

  “Love does not require virtue.”

  “Well, to love another, you must have a measure of virtue, however small or separate or suffocated it may be.”

  “My grandmother has no goodness, yet I’m sure she holds some love for me.”

  I shook my head, remembering this girl had not yet reached her twentieth cycle. “I pity you if you believe she does. Lorail loves your potential and all it may accomplish for her, not you, hence departing from the meaning I’m ascribing to the word.”

  Illora looked at me like I was some strange creature she’d not yet encountered or heard of. “You are far from what I’d expected.”

  “And what was it you expected.”

  “A god more severe, less affable, and altogether more intimidating than you are.”

  “And the slaughter of house Tarneel did not portray me as such?”

  “No. Don’t get me wrong, you and your guards were impressive, but only that. Impressive. I’ve seen the matriarch do far worse, at least in the field of intimidation. Have you ever touched the mind of someone who’d suffered her entertainment?” Illora shook her head in disgust. “The pain she’s capable of is far worse than the display you had me observe.”

  “Illora, Illora! My dear Illora! Your every word makes me wonder how you came to be, descended from—” I cut myself off. “In spite of your upbringing, you are an honest soul.”

  Illora raised an eyebrow in bashful amusement. “Were you resisting the urge to insult my mother? I think you might've failed. As tacit as you were attempting to be, you did, by implication, call her a liar.”

  I slammed a hand to the table. Illora flinched back before my laughter had a chance to ease her concerns. I roared with it, tickled by the fearless humor of this brave girl who seemed a bright light of salvation in a family I’d conscripted to doom.

  “I did say I’d only go so far as not to impede my motives,” I said. “Moreover, I do not think Lorail would consider my words an insult.”

  Illora gave me a rueful smile of an age she hadn't reached. “I suppose lies are my House’s trade.”

  No, souls are, I thought, but said nothing of it. “Tell me,” I said instead, “are you willing to do me a favor? I will offer you a promise of equal if not greater value in turn.”

  “It would depend.”

  “On?”

  “How the favor and promise weigh on my scales,” she said. “We may not attach the same value to them.” I almost chortled at that.

  “Say you return to The Academy,” I said, “and say you play at being my eyes and ears and hands for a time. Would a promise to keep your mother alive suit as payment?”

  “And I’d have to keep your return a secret?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “That’s a given.”

  “You said a favor for a promise. Seems to me you are asking for two.”

  “Ah, well, I thought my keeping you alive was implied.”

  A shiver of fear for herself passed through her for the first time. I resisted its inviting scent.

  “I had thought you did not kill innocents,” she said.

  I was too good at hiding my modest emotions to let my surprise show, masking my jolt of surprise into a move to lean forward. “My subordinates will take it upon themselves to solve that problem for me. Without my explicit instruction, you’d die the moment you left this room. To my guards, your very existence is reason enough to cut you down.”

  “And if I’d chosen to leave after you’d dismissed me?”

  I shrugged. There was no need for her to know one way or the other.

  Illora pouted, again reminding me of her age. “You are far more like my grandmother than you’d care to admit,” she said. My eyes narrowed. “This whole conversation was a manipulation, every word and action designed to pave a road for me to walk, which, like a clueless Mud, I did.”

  I leaned back, the tension of coiled violence dissipating from my limbs. “I had almost thought you foolish enough to accuse me of lying.”

  Illora stood, huffing like a child who’d lost a game. “I know you don’t lie. Merely employ sophistry. That verity only highlights my negligence. Grandmother would scold me to no end if she ever knew.”

  “Sit down and calm yourself, child. I’ve been playing this game for far too long for you to feel unjustly outmatched. And remember, while I am not as supreme as Lorail in the art of reading and manipulating thoughts, I am, when the need strikes me, rather accomplished at molding emotions to my liking.”

  Illora flushed, embarrassed she’d let her composure slip. “Am I to understand you’ll compel me to seal this agreement with a bond?”

  “It wouldn't do for me to unknowingly uphold an agreement you’ve already broken, would it? But no, not a bond as such.”

  “If not a bond, then—”

  “A promise.”

  “Of words?” she asked.

  I laughed.

  “Of souls then. How am I to know you aren't swindling me by some means I’m unable to decipher.”

  “As you know,” I said, “I never lie.”

  “But you don’t always tell the truth,” she countered.

  Another smile broke onto my lips. “Remember, child, I have the skill and strength to force you into a greater bond without the need for trickery.” Again, she did not need to know my promises would never allow it.

  Illora sighed in defeat. “Very well.”

  ***

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Half an hour later, I stood in Lira’s crypt, facing the cage Crowol had locked herself in, its door now open. She was unconscious, her lips cracked, skin dry, hair a wild nest of wiry threads. Sensus deprivation had stripped her of her beauty. With little to no talent in the Zephyr or Golem Arts, she was wholly susceptible to the skeleton cage. I’d known this. Yet her state surprised me. With all the talk of her being able to survive a week within the cage, I’d expected her to be in better condition.

  I nudged Crowol in the ribs with a boot. She groaned and blinked awake. Behind me, Roche, who I’d found hovering outside my temporary chambers, sword in hand and ready to take my grandniece's throat, snickered in delight. Behind his cheerful, sociable persona hid a damaged man who harbored a deep-seated darkness. Then again, he’d not have been one of mine if he wasn’t broken in some manner.

  “Greetings, Crowol,” I said. “I hear you are too valuable to discard.”

  “Who are you?” she croaked.

  “Unimportant for now,” I said. “What is important—at least to you—is that I’m having trouble with a particular verdict I must make. As it so intimately relates to your fate, would you be so kind as to assist me?”

  “You're a man,” she said, struggling to ascertain the situation.

  “Definitely an asset,” Roche sneered. “A genius unmatched in observation and wit. To be able to tell a man from a woman and then so succinctly phrase such a grand revelation, she must be—”

  Roche quietened at my cold look, reigning in his spiteful tirade. The massacre in Lira’s Hall had freed his vindictiveness from his apprehension, the belief that no godling or royal in the city could match his skill hardening his thirst for their suffering.

  I turned back to Crowol. “So?”

  “Where is the Mistress?” Crowol asked, having caught up a little.

  I turned to my handsome subordinate. “Roche, what would you choose?”

  A smile crept onto his face. If I didn’t know him better, he might’ve appeared to be contemplating good intentions. “I have a few. My preferred choice requires a dozen or so healing spikes, a box of hunger-crazed rats, some salt, and a whole lot of time. My second—”

  A spark. That was it. All the warnings we got. I pushed Roche out of the cage, feeling the divine matrix etched into Crowol’s soul build in power. “Close the door! Now!”

  Roche slammed the door closed, locking me and Crowol within. The skeleton cage completed its circuits. The etchings on the door aligned with those on the walls, ceiling, and floor to lock together the cluster of matrixes into a whole. The cerulean ball released by Crowol’s soul-imbedded matrix bounced off its luminous barrier just as it sprang to life.

  I reached for the fist-sized globe of sensus. Already, the skeleton cage devoured its energies. My Zephyr and Golem extraction matrixes spun, suckling thin streams of sensus from the starved air and stone within the enclosure, coalescing around the sphere and pulling it to my hand.

  “No!” Crowol screamed. She came for me, rage burning what little energy she had left. A crisp blow with the back of my hand threw her into the back wall. She shook it off and came again. The cell was small. It offered little room to maneuver. I didn’t need much. A tilt of my head evaded her clawed hand, fingers of bone fashioned by her Reaper abilities sparking against the door behind me. She paid the pain, if she felt any, no mind. My hand shot out, palm open, striking one side of her face and pushing onwards until the other met the wall. Neither speck nor crumb dislodged from the stone. Not to say the force was insignificant, but to tell the sensus-molded wall was less so.

  Crowol groaned. She was on the verge of fainting. Or so it appeared. I was not so unobservant to be surprised by the thin dagger she pulled from her sleeve. Calm had befallen her after my first attack, her soul shutting off her emotions. I’d seen it happen and knew her weakness was a pretense to lure me into a false sense of victory. I didn’t mind. Sometimes, the best way to avoid a trap is to fall into it.

  I released my soul. In a skeleton cage almost entirely cut off from the rest of the world, an instance was safe enough.

  She went breathless, frozen in the sudden pressure of a soul as old and powerful as mine. I plucked the weapon from her grasp before she acclimated herself to the smothering weight. On the brink of exhaustion, she crumpled, the fight snuffed out of her.

  “I’m doomed,” she said, her voice monotone. Defeated.

  “Almost certainly,” I said.

  “Kill me.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to suffer life a little while longer.”

  My attention returned to the ball of sensus she’d released. The protective film I’d shaped around it glowed within my grasp, flickering in strength.

  “Roche,” I called.

  Old hinges whimpered as the heavy door crawled open. I stepped out. Roche tortured the door closed behind me.

  “So, about the method of interrogation,” he said.

  “No. Her fate is Lira’s to do with as she pleases.”

  “Lira!” he said, throwing his hands up. “Why? Why would you give her something I want?”

  “I half promised her I would.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve had several godlings fall to you days before, hundreds if not thousands more to follow in days to come. Why does this one matter?”

  He frowned in defiance. “Because, in this instance, you are choosing her wants over mine.”

  “Lira’s?”

  “Yes! She who is sister to…” He looked away.

  “A hound, unfed and stripped of its strength, is of no use to its master.”

  Roche’s mind inhaled my words, the meaning he ingested measured in how deep a shade of embarrassment his skin flushed. When he understood enough, flushing scarlet despite the cold, he turned away and said, “Apologies, Master. I did not mean to be so… ungrateful.”

  “I understand your rage and how it blinds you. Most times, I think it an asset.”

  He inclined his head in thanks. “So, what happened.”

  “Crowol is not one of Lira’s.”

  “Then whose is she?”

  I smiled. “Well, Elur’s, of course.”

  I had to forgive him a few more times for the torrent of Tunnels and wires he threw at me.

  ***

  The idea came to me late; we were packed and ready to leave when it crossed my mind. One more reason Helena wasn’t fond of its arrival.

  “Why?” she asked.

  I checked the leather straps on Qaniin—the name I’d given my spirited horse. We’d come to an understanding, me and her, by which I mean she’d come to understand the futility of her resistance. I had worried this might weaken her spirit, but…

  “Lira is yours,” Helena pleaded, a hand waylaying Qaniin’s efforts to take a bite from her side. “Why must I remain?”

  “Because my plans say you must.”

  “Because of the child?”

  “No. But now that Merkon is healed, I’d rather not take him with us. That he has you to keep him from harm pleases me.”

  “Yes, but Lira—”

  “I suggest you cease your attempts to change my mind. It serves no one for you to continue in your efforts.”

  Helena dropped her travel pack. “How long?”

  I looked over at Sanas and Roche instead. He was amusing her with some ludicrous tale or other from his time as Pakur. She smiled at him like a mother might smile at her child when they recount wonders of the world she’d long since grown bored of.

  “Sanas,” I called. “Roche. Mount up.”

  Our departure went without incident. I think the true gods—whoever he, she, or they were—had chosen to leave them for our journey back. You might think we’d gone far and done much before we returned. If so, you’d be wrong. The barren shores of Haloryeray were still in sight when I got the call to return.

  Lira’s bond screamed at me. I jerked in my saddle. Qaniin neighed a complaint, and I patted her an apology. She tried to reach back and bite my hand. I was growing more and more fond of the angry beast. Where other steeds panicked, she attacked. That was a worthy instinct.

  I turned back towards the city. Roche fell silent mid-sentence. Sanas lost her placid smile. I passed between them and urged Qaniin into a gallop. They followed without a word.

  The first incident occurred almost as soon as we met the invisible border of the city. We shouldn’t have galloped in. A trail of dust rose behind us, all too visible on the flat land west of Haloryarey. I shouldn't have kept my hood lowered. A man on a speeding horse was reason enough for a patrolling guard to swipe a sword at him without question or warning. I blocked the attack but otherwise ignored the Halorian who threw it. Sanas surrounded her in a tight circle of fire meant to suffocate her into unconsciousness. Roche flung out one of his deadly wires and ended the matter. The guard’s head slid off her shoulders and rolled out of the flaming trap.

  The next was a patrol—if three guards could be called a patrol. Sanas and I barged past one each before they could react. I stopped Roche from killing the third, a young girl who’d not lived long enough to deserve death. She managed to call for reinforcements. Roche thanked me for bringing him more victims. I did not care to tell him my favor did him a greater service than he suspected.

  I blocked all attempts to hinder me with brute force, trampling over or pushing aside anyone who stood in my path. Qaniin was good at that. Being large, powerful, and fearless makes you good at that. Being mean, which she was to a fault, helps.

  Sanas kept the pursuers at bay with streams of fire. That didn’t last long. Horses don’t much like fire, and her stallion’s bucking and neighing ensured she knew. Roche didn’t have her limitations. He hooted and hollered as he decapitated or dismembered whatever guard made the mistake of falling within the considerable reach of his near-invisible weapons. I extended him the same favor several times, removing potential victims from his path with bursts of wind, lashes of sensus, and Tunnells of suggestion.

  By the time we got back to Lira’s mansion, we’d pulled along a horde of angry Halorians along a trail of dead and dying. Roche turned to meet them at the gate, welcoming them with crazed laughter. Helena was there to compete. As was Sanas, though I think they had differing opinions on how they’d go about it.

  Lira’s bond was faint—the closer to death the soul, the weaker its signature. There wasn’t much time left.

  “Roche! Helena! No more killing!” I called. Without me there, they’d sully their soul, perhaps spoil themselves into becoming meals to my hunger. “Incapacitate.”

  With those words, I left them to it, cutting through the meandering pathway and into the mansion, an impromptu Painting softening my masculine features. All the guards ignored me in favor of attending to the commotion at the gate.

  Up the stairs and down a few hallways brought me to the Fracture. The door was open. Lira lay face-first beside the torture chair. Danar stood over her, dazed, a Nuf blade in hand, the black metal a glut of famine. One step brought me to his side. A single blow to his temple spilled him to the floor. I pried the knife from his grasp and turned to Lira.

  The Nuf—a Golodanian creation meant to cut into the soul through the flesh—had only managed to score a touch. Thankfully, her loss to me had reinvigorated lessons she’d long forgotten; she’d weaved a turtle-like defense that left her soul in hibernation.

  My eyes landed on Danar.

  “Please,” Lira said. She sat up, and the bond blazed back to life as she left the protective shell of her defense. “Spare him.”

  “Another who’s difficult to replace?”

  “Impossible.”

  My brow furrowed. “How so? You rule a city of slaves, do you not? I’m sure—”

  That’s when I felt it. The thing Lira had hidden from me even as I had rummaged through her soul and bound her to my service. It was a drop in the ocean of her consciousness, surrounded and covered by the murky waters of her corrosive nature.

  Noticing my discovery, Lira averted her gaze. I stepped closer and lifted her face, disrupting the pesky resistance she was assembling. That’s how good she was. So good as to muster resistance despite how tightly she was bound.

  I searched deep into her soul, following the blips she so wanted to hide. What I found was, to me, the epitome of the unexpected.

  Love. Love for him. For Danar. For a man. For one she deemed part of a breed or class of people she thought better off—and of—as slaves. And even now, even under the weight of his treachery, she loved him still. Too much to take his life or let it be taken. Too much not to forgive. How? Whatever she held for her mother and daughter was mired in self-interest. She obsessed over Lorail as an ideal, as what she should strive for, then hated her for being unable to imitate her well enough. She doted on her daughter for being what she wanted her to be—strong in all the ways her mother wasn’t—and then hated her for being it. Her love for this man was unlike. Dirtied, but only on the surface, only as an act to hide it from prying eyes.

  “Oh,” I said, genuinely surprised.

  “Please.” That single word almost broke Lira. She struggled to her feet and took a deep breath, her eyes shut tight. “Any evil he has committed was my doing. I know you do not take the lives of innocents.”

  “I don’t,” I said, “but he’s no innocent.”

  “Are those thrust before impossible options to blame for their choices?”

  I laughed at her. “By that very same reasoning, you are innocent.”

  “No, but I ought to be considered less guilty.” She nodded to Danar. “As should he.”

  I shook my head. I’d thought her cleverer. Wiser. “You’ve spent too much time wallowing in self-pity, Lira. It’s convinced you your faults aren’t your own.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. After some consideration, she asked, “What will become of him?”

  “That would depend on why.”

  “Why?”

  Screams and explosions continued to resound from the battle outside. I looked towards the door. “Go before it spirals out of control,” I instructed. “I’ll have a better grasp of your lover's fate once you return.”

  Lira winced, realizing my intent. “A scrying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Must—”

  “Yes.”

  “May I—”

  “No.”

  “But I’m free to use—”

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  “I Tunneled you without a scrap of Meaning. Dismiss your worries and go about the task I’ve set you. Now go!”

  Lira bowed, stole a nerve-wracked look at her lover, and then hobbled from the room.

  The slave-turned-assassin lay unconscious. Danar hadn't a lick of royal stock. His grey hair was dyed in places by the tawny shade of its youth. Thick lips and heavy brows lent him exotic looks of a flavor more common with Kolokasians. His broad nose and pronounced cheekbones suggested a drop or two of Southerner blood. He was not too handsome, kind, intelligent, wise, or brave. Why? I asked myself. Why this man of all others?

  I dove into him.

  He was a Duros. That was the first thing I noticed. His core was dark yellow, tinged with amber, almost golden. A Reaper, then. Surgeon cores tended to be lighter, touched by grey, almost flaxen. He was unbonded. That was the second thing. There were scars from when a bond had been erected and more from when it had been removed. I could sense Lira’s hand in both.

  Enough dawdling, I thought.

  I grabbed onto his latest memories and played them in reverse.

  The crack to his head was a mix of pain and bliss for him, a wash of relief. Next came the reason why. It made me glad I could no longer feel pain. The compulsion slithered into and around his body, the tension seizing his muscles and creaking his bones. But the bodily pain could not compare to the riot in his soul. I skipped past those long minutes he wallowed in that trench of suffering.

  The cut was feeble. The war in his soul when he made it was not. On one side was his love for her, rich and ferocious. Again, I found myself surprised. I’m not often amazed—or so there was a time I’d thought that was the case. I supposed my tolerance for the unexpected had begun to decay in those peaceful years I’d spent hidden from conflict.

  On the other was the matrix, cold and calculated. I latched onto it.

  Danar’s soul groaned. The strain was building. He could not handle much more. I kept going, following the thread.

  A smile formed on my lips when I reached its end. I had to appreciate its brilliance.

  The matrix remained. Most surreptitious matrixes dissipate after activation. I studied for clues as to why this one hadn't.

  My smile grew. I knew who was responsible. Brilliant was too weak a word.

  I searched for the thread linked to the memory of when the matrix took root, looking to confirm my suspicion. A familiar face came into view. It was proof enough. Curiosity pushed me further, and I dove into the memory.

  Sweat dripped from Danar’s brow. He knew he’d be sweating and was prepared for it. Duros Arts generated heat, and heat generated sweat. He rolled his shoulders. The back of his neck ached right where the bond had been. It always did after an intense training session. His complaints died at the thought of having decades more than anyone of his skill should have. He had Lira to thank for that.

  Transel walked in. His servant. A man. He had to be a man. No woman would serve him, be they slave or not, had they known him as Lira’s chosen or not.

  “Shall I begin, Master?” Transel asked.

  “Yes.”

  Transel approached, hunched forward like he bowed one too many times and came stuck. Danar liked that about him. He told himself he didn’t know why. He did; Transel was a reminder that Danar was not an actual slave.

  Taking a bundle of thick linen from his servant, Danar rubbed himself dry. “Exactly as it was,” he instructed.

  He’d had to use his quarters for his training. The rug his beloved had gifted him, too good to be soiled by sweat, was rolled up and stored out of the way whenever he had the mind to train. It was worth the effort. Every morsel of skill he gained meant more time alive. Besides, he would never dishonor the gifts she had given him.

  “A man with a servant?” A familiar voice said from the entrance. “What has become of Halor for it to fall so far from what our goddess envisioned?”

  Danar kept his expression clear as he turned to her. So many years of acting the part of a slave had taught him the skills needed to survive in a place that considered him less than human. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Crowol pointed at his man, Transel. “You there. Be gone.”

  The hunched slave gave no thought to his master, leaving without thought. It irked Danar. He did not let it show, understanding too well why the man had done what he’d done.

  Crowol came to stand before him. “Is your presence in our mistress’ bed still getting a warm reception?”

  Danar bit back his anger. The disrespect wasn’t his to punish.

  Crowol stepped closer. “Does your tongue require so much rest beforehand for all the effort it suffers during? Is that why you choose not to answer me?”

  Danar swallowed. It took all of him not to let his rage show. “What might I do for you, Crowol?”

  “To start with, stop addressing me by name.” She took another step, bringing her close enough to kiss—not that he would ever think to debase himself so. “No other man in Halor would dare. That skillful tongue of yours doesn’t change what you are, does it? It can’t elevate you beyond your lowly existence, can it?”

  Danar stepped back and gave her a quick bow. “I beg your pardon. If you so choose to tell me, I will address you in whatever manner you command.”

  Crowol undid the distance he’d created, seemingly without moving. “Mistress shall do.”

  “My mistress might take offense.”

  “That is my worry.”

  “And mine.”

  Crowol’s arm blurred, her hand clasping the back of his neck. He had barely felt the touch when—

  Danar woke in his bed. The rug was back where it was meant to be. The sweat he’d worked up had dried. He counted the memory a dream, assuming he’d worked himself into a nightmare. He hadn't. That he thought he had was an effect of why he hadn't.

  Another thread. Another memory. Years had passed.

  “Bring Crowol to me,” Lira said. “I’ll be waiting in the Fracture room.” It sounded like an order. It wasn’t. They both knew he could refuse. More importantly, they both knew she’d let him. But he would never deny her. His love for her didn’t burn as brightly as hers for him, but burn it did.

  “Where do you expect she is?” he asked.

  “The crypts,” Lira offered.

  “I thought she hated the place.”

  “She does.”

  “Then why is she there?”

  “You assume it is by choice.”

  Danar was taken aback. Besides himself, Crowol was the closest thing to a friend Lira had. “Why?”

  “We will see.”

  His pace was brisk. For all the times he’d been in the crypts, the place unnerved him.

  He opened the cage. Crowol lay a mess. The sight gladdened him. Excepting his beloved, any Halorian in pain gladdened him. He closed in on the dry heap of bones and skin. He could barely feel her weight when he picked her up, barely feel her touch when she put a finger to his nape. And as much and as often as he rallied his efforts, the matrix undid his will and overpowered him.

  I left Danar’s memories and followed a thread to the matrix itself. Simple and elegant, the caster hadn’t bothered to hide the casting in some elaborate concealment but placed it in the one place they knew Lira would never look: the parts of Danar's soul she already occupied. Danar was meant to wound her. Lira was meant to survive, meant to find out she was outplayed. Elur, Lira’s sister, the trickster she was, wouldn’t have it any other way.

  I carried the slave to the crypts below. I did so for two reasons: First, until the matrix was understood and erased, I could not afford to keep him outside a skeleton cage; second, Crowol’s fate remained unclear. Her escape might’ve spelled disaster.

  I needn’t have worried. I met her on the stairs. Her soul barely appeared to my soulsight. She crawled on her hands and knees. I slung her over my other shoulder and threw her back into her cage. Danar went into the cell beside hers.

  My guards were waiting for me in the garden. Lira alone was unwounded. None of them seemed to mind their injuries. Helena was her impassive self. Bruises bloomed on her skin, the deep purple they promised already settling about her knuckles. Sanas was more concerned with reprimanding Roche for his actions than the deep cut on her shoulder. Roche smiled his charming smile, his elation outshining the pain of his wounds or the guilt of disappointing Sanas.

  “How is he?” Lira asked.

  “Alive,” I said.

  “Word of this will get out. It will sow dissent in my city. My sisters will not squander this opportunity to move against me.”

  “My city,” I corrected. “And leave the worrying to me. Your task is to do your best to reaffirm your control over Haloryarey.” I looked over at Helena. “Hers is to keep you safe from your sisters’ machinations while you do so.”

  “What of Crowol?” Lira asked.

  I looked to Roche. Menacing glee marked his understanding.

  “Gods!” he said, vocalizing his delight. “This might be the best week of my life. Better than the Golden Battle.”

  Sanas lay a hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t,” I said. Sanas turned to me, a flash of irritation wrinkling her brow. I turned back to Roche. “Break her, but do not take her life.”

  “Why?” he sulked.

  “Lira, once he’s done, expunge all her memories of my guards and me, then send her back to her master. Take away the where, who, why, and how her fragmented mind came to be. Let the not-knowing break her further. Let her master see what becomes of the spies she sends here.”