Prologue: Burning Day

One dead king, and Yassen Knight would be free.

He slid close to the wall, tucking himself in the darkened corner where the guards above could not see him unless they were brave enough to weather the storm and lean over the stone edge. The rain lashed down, drenching him. It wasn’t like the thunderous, refreshing monsoons that swept across the deserts of Ravence leaving a riot of color in their wake. This storm bit down, clenching the coast in its grey jaws, unwilling to relent until it blended the world into hues of grey and brown.

Yassen shivered. He was lucky; he had been able to climb up the craggy cliff before the storm had hit. It had taken him nearly a half an hour, from the hidden cove to the hidden blind spot of the wall, clawing for footholds and hollow pockets as the wind lashed at him. There was no surveillance here; clearly, the king believed no man foolish or brave enough to attempt the climb. He was right, Yassen thought bitterly as he felt another raindrop trickle beneath the collar of his jacket and down his spine. He wasn’t foolish or brave.

He was desperate.

Lightning splintered across the darkening sky, followed by a great boom of thunder that rattled the coast with such force that Yassen felt its echoes in his bones.

He stood on a thin ledge, the cliff dropping steeply behind him, the black stone wall looming before him. His pulse gun was holstered beneath his jacket, the silencer tucked above his heart. He was carefully putting the metal stakes he had used during the climb into the small knapsack around his waist when his holopod pinged.

Yassen pulled out the pod, a smooth silver circle no bigger than his palm. Two holos blinked awake: the first showed the time, a quarter to the hour, which meant the guard change would happen in ten minutes; the second showed live cam feeds of the inner compound.

King Bormani of Veran had insisted on building his summer home on the eastern most point of his coast so that he could be the first to see the sun rise over his kingdom. The vanity of it. The sun rose everywhere, Yassen thought, so why did it matter if you saw it first? But that was the way of kings: excessive, unnecessary. Yassen had known many such nobles. Most had been too blinded by their own pride to see that the danger lurked on their own doorsteps.

Above him, two guards huddled along the inner wall, their heads tucked inside their thick jackets, their hands thrust into their pockets. They looked miserable.

His pod pinged, this time with a message.

“Guard change stalled. Climb.”

Yassen checked the cam feed and sure enough, the two guards above him glanced at their own pods. One guard, the bigger one, sprung up at once.

“Damn time,” Yassen heard one say.

“Don’t you think we should wait for the others?” the other said.

The big guard whirled around. “In this weather? I can’t feel my crackin’ toes. Stay if you like but I’m out.”

The smaller guard grumbled but stood up. He stepped forward towards the outer wall, and Yassen stilled. If he leaned over…

But rain was thick and the guard, probably thinking it was better to warm up with a bowl of soup than risk his neck peering over slippery stone, turned and hurried after his companion.

Lightning struck again, angrier this time. Despite himself, Yassen thanked the heavens. He had long ago lost his belief in the gods, but habit made him kiss his three fingers and press them to his chest for good luck. He did not invoke the Phoenix. Instead, he slipped off his gloves and rubbed chalk from his knapsack over his palms.

Yassen placed his hands against the wall and closed his eyes. The rough, slick stone brushed against his bare skin like a familiar friend. He had grown up climbing, clambering up canyons and sand dunes, the warm sun on his back, sand and grit in his nails. For a moment, Yassen cradled that memory, but then the pod chimed again, and he felt the memory curdle. He would never feel the rough grit of sand again. That was his past. Yassen gripped the stone and looked up. The wall loomed over him, black and bleak. Just one more climb, he reminded himself. One more dead king, and he would be free.

He tapped his toes together, and two blades made of Jantari steel flicked out. They cut through the stone like a knife through flesh. Hand hold here, insert foot here. Shift right. Shorn rock, move slow. Yassen fell into his familiar rhythm, sweat and rain beading down his forehead.  The lip of the wall loomed closer. Fifteen feet, then ten, then five.

Yassen peered over the edge. The wall was empty. Yassen pulled himself over and in one smooth motion, slipped out his pulse gun and silencer. His boot knives slid back. The rain drummed down, hard and mean like tiny pebbles. Yassen crept towards the staircase, gun balanced in his left hand, the other cradling a thin throwing knife that had been hidden in his boot.

When he reached the main floor, Yassen cautiously peered out across the grounds. He could see the two guards in this distance, hurrying down a garden path towards a grey, low building. The servants’ quarters. Beyond the building, he could see the faint silhouette of the king’s compound. He would be asleep right now. All Yassen had to do was climb onto the roof and slip into the topmost right hallway…

A sudden sound to Yassen’s right made him freeze, finger curled around the trigger. The rain drummed down, muffling most noise, but Yassen was sure…

There! It sounded like a squeal, raw and painful; the sound a marjarah squirming on the butcher’s table would make. The Verani considered the meat of the cat-like animal a delicacy. But the noise came from the direction of the king’s compound, not the kitchens.

Yassen crept forward as a far gate swung open and three guards ran out. They were shouting orders.

“Got out!” Their voices, dampened by the rain, came in little snatches. “Southside… Garden path!… Inform the king.”

Damn it! Yassen looked at the right topmost window of the king’s compound. It was still unlit. He had a few precious minutes to scale onto the roof. Perhaps he could make it through, shoot the king and the guards. But then how would he get out unnoticed?

For a moment, Yassen debated abandoning the assignment. The mission was compromised, he imagined himself telling Akaros, his handler. But then how many more assignments would they send him on before they finally granted him peace? How much longer until he could be free?

No, he had come too far. This would be his last job. He would fade away, slip past the Arohassin using the methods they had taught him. He had already made the rearrangements. An alias, Cassian Newman, with a passport from Nbru, a country that the Arohassin had no foothold in. Instead of sailing back to the rendezvous point, he would head out into the Ahi Sea.

Yassen waited until the guards were out of sight and then sprinted forward. Speed and confusion were his only advantage right now. He stuck to the perimeter of the circular garden, slipping between the dark, hunkering ferns.

A gutter ran up the backside of the grand, sprawling building of the king’s chambers.

He had just gripped it when a figure flickered from around the front of the house. A guard, head bent against the rain, his back to Yassen. He sounded annoyed, bickering into his pod.

“I told you I don’t know where it went! The old man shouldn’t even have it as a pet. It got scared by the storm and got out. There’s no need to wake up the king for his stupid—”

As the guard turned, Yassen’s knife cut cleanly into his eye. The man’s body stiffened, his mouth frozen in shock, and then he fell onto his knees. Yassen quickly closed the distance, and in one deft motion, he slipped out the knife and sliced the guard’s throat, covering his mouth. The guard gasped against his palm, then lay still.

A voice continued arguing through the guard’s holopod. Yassen picked it up.

“— going to be angry! The damned thing only listens to him—”

Yassen cut the line and slipped the holopod into his pocket. He heaved the guard’s body back and laid it against the far wall, blanketed by shadows. Guilt snaked around his chest. His task was to eliminate a king, not his subjects. It was not their fault that they had gotten embroiled in politics beyond their control.

Yassen kissed his three fingers and pressed them against the guard’s forehead.

“Go in peace, wherever that is,” he murmured.

He took off his jacket and draped it over the guard’s body. The others would find him, eventually. But please, heavens above, let it be after.

The side entrance lay open. Yassen stepped inside, knife in hand, pulse gun primed. He closed the door softly. He could hear loud, stress-filled voices down the corridor. To his left, a staircase curved upward into darkness. At the top, Yassen pressed his ear against the door on the landing. Nothing. Carefully, he propped it open an inch. The hallway was dark and muted, shadows flickering and dancing across the walls from the large window above. All else was silent.

Yassen slipped into the hall, his footsteps light. Little raindrops dripped down his clothing, a spattered trail that couldn’t be helped. Ahead of him was another staircase, this one grander and more ornate, swathed in soft carpet. He took the stairs two at a time, the fabric swallowing any sounds, and paused at the second level. The hall forked left and right, sconces glowing softly at intervals. Murmurs drifted from the right, where the king’s bedchamber lay.

Activating his silencer, Yassen crept toward it.

A guard appeared at the far end of the hall. Yassen stopped, heart thundering, pressing back into the shadows. The guard walked slowly, hands outstretched.

“Here Adria.” The guard made kissing sounds. “Here girl. It’s alright.”

He thinks I’m the cat. Yassen wanted to laugh, but then he thought of the other guard, lying cold and dead in the rain. He holstered his gun, slipping his knife back into his sleeve. The guard inched closer, searching the shadows of the opposite wall.

“Adriaaa, I have treats,” he sang.

When the guard’s back was to him, Yassen leaped out. The man whirled, but Yassen was faster. He turned on his heel, sidestepping the guard’s confused punch, and wrapped him in a chokehold. The guard kicked his feet, the thud of his heels muffled against the carpet.

Yassen squeezed harder. Slowly, and then all at once, the guard’s body fell limp. Yassen checked his pulse. He was alive, but he would be unconscious for at least a few minutes. Yassen quickly emptied the guard’s pockets, donning the man’s hat and jacket.

Thunder boomed around him as he jogged down the hallway. Another guard paced in front of the king’s door but stopped when Yassen approached.

“Did you find her?” he hissed.

“No,” Yassen said in a Verani accent, his hat tilted down, “but I did find this.”

He threw the unconscious guard’s holopod across the floor. It slid across the carpet, hitting the other guard’s feet. He bent to pick it up, a confused expression on his face, and when he looked up, Yassen kicked him solidly in the face. The guard crumpled to the floor with a thud. Yassen winced at the sound, but no one else appeared in the corridor.

Unholstering his pulse gun, he opened the king’s door and slipped inside.

The room was wide and swathed in silks and velvets of rich purple. A fire crackled softly in a hearth beside the window. King Bormani was sitting up in his bed, rubbing his eyes. He blinked sleepily as Yassen entered.

“Briske,” he said, “What is all that noise? And would you close that crackin’ window?”

The window panes creaked in the wind. It must have blown open during the storm, Yassen thought. Suddenly, it fell into place. Yes, it can work. Yassen strode to the window, escape route in mind, finger curled around the trigger.

A log snapped and sparks fluttered in the air.

Three things happened at once then.

First, the king yawned and then paused, as if finally noticing Yassen’s pulse gun. “Heavens above, Briske, what do you have that for?” as Yassen raised the weapon.

Second, an alarm blared. Loud and piercing through the house.

Third—and this Yassen would remember forever in the days to come—the fire. That damned, forsaken fire.

A single log snapped and rolled from the hearth, flames lashing out and catching Yassen’s leg. He yelled as he pulled the trigger. The pulse zipped through the air, missing Bormani’s head and ripping through the headboard.

The king shouted as Yassen tottered back, beating at the flames with his hands. His pants were wet, so the fire was sluggish, turning to steam. Relief filled his heart—just as his heel met the log and he tumbled. Flames leaped onto his dry jacket, laughing. They spread quickly, viciously.

Yassen screamed.

Guards barreled through the door. Bormani sprang from his bed and ran. The confused guards rushed to protect their king as Yassen pulled himself over the window ledge and rolled over.

He slammed onto the tiles of the roof below, the impact knocking the breath out of him. He tried to stop himself, but he was moving too fast. He fell off the slanted roof, crashing into the garden bushes. Thorns and branches whipped his face. The flames hissed angrily as they died. Yassen was aware of a searing sensation in his right arm, but adrenaline and the sheer desperation of survival kept it at bay as he staggered to his feet.

Sirens blared through the compound. Guards streamed out of the servants’ quarters in the distance.

Yassen ran.

He sprinted to the stone staircase as pulse fire shredded the air. He made it to the wall when he felt a pulse zip above him, barely missing his shoulder. Yassen stumbled back. A guard, hiding behind one of the supply huts on the top of the wall, shot again. Yassen backed down the staircase as the pulse blasted the spot where he’d just been.

One last job. After this, you’re done. 

Oh, what Yassen Knight wouldn’t do to be free.

Voices behind him, getting closer. He darted forward, knife in hand, and spun on the ball of his toe, flinging his arm as the guard popped up from the hut again. The knife cut through the man’s throat. The guard made a wet, gurgling sound.

Yassen ran to him, grabbing his knife and the guard’s pulse gun. Inside the supply hut, he found more guns, along with blankets, a half-eaten bowl of soup, holopods, and—yes—a rope.

He grabbed the rope and began to knot it, but his hands were trembling, his fingers too slick as they slipped over the knots.

The searing sensation in his arm grew worse. Yassen winced, teetering. White spots danced in his vision. He grabbed the rampart to steady himself as footsteps thundered up the staircase.

Come on, he said to himself. Almost done.

Finally, he knotted the rope to the rampart of the wall. It made a slithering sound as it fell over the edge, the line stopping ten feet short of the ground.

Yassen put the handle of the knife in his mouth to stop himself from screaming. With his left hand, he grabbed the rope and hauled himself over. He kicked off the wall, bouncing down, down, down, the rope sliding through his hands, burning his palm. He moaned into the knife handle. When he reached the rope’s end, Yassen stopped.

The drop below him was not too far, but the ledge was narrow. Beneath, the grey waves beat against the cliff.

“He’s over here!”

Yassen looked up. The guards were leaning over the wall edge. One guard trained his gun and shot. The pulse burned the stones just above Yassen.

Yassen stared down at the churning sea, despair filling his heart.

One last job. And then you’ll be free.

He kicked off the wall and plunged into the sea.

 

Chapter 1: Yassen

The king said to his people, “We are the chosen.”

And the people responded, “Chosen by whom?”

— from chapter 37 of The Great History of Sayon

 

To be forgiven, one must be burned. That’s what the Ravani said. They were fanatics and fire worshippers, but they were his people. And he was finally returning home.

Yassen held on to the railing of the hoverboat as it skimmed over the waves. He held on with his left arm, his right limp by his side. Around him, the world was dark, but the horizon began to purple with the faint glimmers of dawn. Soon, the sun would rise, and the twin moons of Sayon would lie down to rest. Soon, he would arrive at Rysanti, the Brass City. And soon, he would find his way back to the desert that had forsaken him.

Yassen withdrew a holopod from his jacket and pressed it open with his thumb. A small holo materialized with a message:

Look for the bull.

He closed the holo, the smell of salt and brine filling his lungs.

The bull. It was nothing close to the Phoenix of Ravence, but then again, Samson liked to be subtle. Yassen wondered if he would be at the port to greet him.

A large wave tossed the boat, but Yassen did not lose his balance. Weeks at sea and suns of combat had taught him how to keep his ground. A cool wind licked his sleeve, and he felt a whisper of pain skitter down his right wrist. He grimaced. His skin was already beginning to purple.

After the Arohassin had pulled him half-conscious from the sea, Yassen had thought, in the delirium of pain, that he would be free. If not in this life, then in death. But the Arohassin had yanked him back from the brink. Treated his burns and saved his arm. Said that he was lucky to be alive while whispering among themselves when they thought he could not hear: Yassen Knight is no longer of use.

Yassen pulled down his sleeve. It was no matter. He was used to running.

As the hoverboat neared the harbor, the fog along the coastline began to evaporate. Slowly, Yassen saw the tall spires of the Brass City cut through the grey heavens. Skyscrapers of slate and steel from the mines of Sona steel glimmered in the early dawn as hovertrains weaved through the air, carrying the day laborers. Neon lights flickered within the metal jungle, and a silver bridge snaked through the entire city, connecting the outer rings to the wealthy, affluent center. Yassen squinted as the sun crested the horizon. Suddenly, its light hit the harbor, and the Brass City shone with a blinding intensity.

Yassen quickly clipped on his visor, a fiber sheath that covered his entire face. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing them to readjust before opening them again. The city stared back at him in subdued colors.

Queen Rydia, one of the first queens of Jantar, had wanted to ward off Enuu, the Evil Eye, so she had fashioned her port city out of unforgiving metal. If Yassen wasn’t careful, the brass could blind him.

The other passengers came up to deck, pulling on half-visors that covered their eyes. Yassen tightened his visor and wrapped a scarf around his neck. Most people could not recognize him—none of the passengers even knew of his name—but he could not take any chances. Samson had made it clear that he wanted no one to know of this meeting.

The hoverboat came to rest beside the platform, and Yassen disembarked with the rest of the passengers. Even in the early hours, the port was busy. On the other dock, soldiers barked out orders as fresh immigrants stumbled off a colony boat. Judging from the coiled silver bracelets on their wrists, Yassen guessed they were Sesharians refugees. They shuffled forward on the adjoining dock toward military buses. Some carried luggage, others with nothing save the clothes they wore. They all donned half-visors and walked with a resigned grace of a people weary of their fate.

Native Jantari, in their lightning suits and golden bracelets, kept a healthy distance from the immigrants. They stayed on the brass Homeland and Receiving docks where merchants stationed their carts. Unlike most of the city, the carts were made of pale driftwood, but the vendors still wore half-visors as they handled their wares. Yassen could already hear a merchant hawking satchels of vermilion tea while another shouted about a new delivery of mirrors from Cyleon that had a ninety percent accuracy of predicting one’s romantic future. Yassen shook his head. Only in Jantar.

Floating lanterns guided Yassen and the passengers to the glass-encased immigration office. Yassen slid his holopod into the port while a grim-faced attendant flicked something from his purple nails.

“Name?” he intoned.

“Cassian Newman,” Yassen said.

“Country of residence?”

“Nbru.”

The attendant waved his hand. “Take off your visor, please.”

Yassen unclipped his visor and saw shock register across the attendant’s face as he took in Yassen’s white, colorless eyes.

“Are you Jantari?” the attendant asked, surprised.

“No,” Yassen responded gruffly and clipped his visor back on. “My father was.”

“Hmph.” The attendant looked at his holopod and then back at him. “Purpose of your visit?”

Yassen paused. The attendant peered at him, and for one wild moment, Yassen wondered if he should turn away, jump back on the boat, and go wherever the sea pushed him. But then a coldness slithered down his right elbow, and he gripped his arm.

“To visit some old friends,” Yassen said.

The attendant snorted, but when the holopod slid back out, Yassen saw the burning insignia of a mohanti, a winged ox, on its surface.

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Jantar,” the attendant said and waved him through.

Yassen stepped through the glass immigration office and into Rysanti. He breathed in the sharp salt air, intermingled with spices both foreign and familiar. A storm had passed through recently, leaving puddles in its wake. A woman ahead of Yassen slipped on a wet plank and a merchant reached out to steady her. Yassen pushed past them, keeping his head down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the merchant swipe the woman’s holopod and hide it in his jacket. Yassen smothered a laugh.

As he wandered toward the Homeland dock, he scanned the faces in the crowd. The time was nearly two past the sun’s breath. Samson and his men should have been here by now.

He came to the bridge connecting the Receiving and Homeland docks. At the other end of bridge was a lonely tea stall, held together by worn planks—but the large holosign snagged his attention.

Warm your tired bones from your passage at sea! Fresh hot lemon cakes and Ravani tea served daily! it read.

It was the word Ravani that sent a jolt through Yassen. Home—the one he longed for but knew he was no longer welcome in.

Yassen drew up to the tea stall. Three large hourglasses hissed and steamed. Tea leaves floated along their bottoms, slowly steeping, as a heavyset Sesharian woman flipped them in timed intervals. On her hand, Yassen spotted a tattoo of a bull.

The same mark Samson had asked him to look for.

When the woman met Yassen’s eyes, she twirled the hourglass once more before drying her hands on the towel around her wide waist.

“Whatcha want?” she asked in a river-hoarse voice.

“One tea and cake, please,” Yassen said.

“You’re lucky. I just got a fresh batch of leaves from my connect. Straight from the canyons of Ravence.”

“Exactly why I want one,” he said and placed his holopod the counter insert. Yassen tapped it twice.

“Keep the change,” he added.

She nodded and turned back to the giant hourglasses.

The brass beneath Yassen’s feet grew warmer in the yawning day. Across the docks, more boats pulled in, carrying immigrant laborers and tourists. Yassen adjusted his visor, making sure it was fully in place, as the woman simultaneously flipped the hourglass and slid off its cap. In one fluid motion, the hot tea arced through the air and fell into the cup in her hand. She slid it across the counter.

“Mind the sleeve, the tea’s hot,” she said. “And here’s your cake.”

Yassen grabbed the cake box and lifted his cup in thanks. As he moved away from the stall, he scratched the plastic sleeve around the cup.

Slowly, a message burned through:

Look underneath the dock of fortunes.

He almost smiled. Clearly, Samson had not forgotten Yassen’s love of tea.

Yassen looked within the box and saw that there was no cake but something sharp, metallic. He reached inside and held it up. Made of silver, the insignia was smaller than his palm and etched in what seemed to be the shape of a teardrop. Yassen held it closer. No, it was more feather than teardrop.

He threw the sleeve and box into a bin, slid the silver into his pocket, and continued down the dock. The commerce section stretched on, a mile of storefronts welcoming him into the great nation of Jantar. Yassen sipped his tea, watching. A few paces down was a stall marketing tales of ruin and fortune. Like the tea stall, it too was old and decrepit, with a painting of woman reading palms painted across its front. He was beginning to recognize a pattern—and patterns were dangerous. Samson was getting lazy in his mansion.

Three guards stood along the edge of the platform beside the stall. One was dressed in a captain’s royal blue, the other two in the plain black of officers. All three wore helmet visors, their pulse guns strapped to their sides. They were laughing at some joke when the captain looked up and frowned at Yassen.

“You there,” he said imperiously.

Yassen slowly lowered his cup. The dock was full of carts and merchants. If he ran now, the guards could catch him.

“Yes, you, with the full face,” the captain called out, tapping his visor. “Come here!”

“Is there a problem?” Yassen asked as he approached.

“No full visors allowed on the dock, except for the guard,” the captain said.

“I didn’t know it was a crime to wear a full visor,” Yassen said. His voice was cool, perhaps a bit too nonchalant because the captain slapped the cup out of Yassen’s hand. The spilled tea hissed against the metal planks.

“New rules,” the captain said. “Only guards can wear full visors. Everybody else has to go half.”

His subordinates snickered. “Looks like he’s fresh off the boat, Cap. You got to cut it up for him,” one said.

Behind his visor, Yassen frowned. He glanced at the merchant leaning against the fortunes stall. The man wore a bored expression, as if the interaction before him was nothing new. But then the merchant bent forward, pressing his hands to the counter, and Yassen saw the sign of the bull tattooed there.

Samson’s men were watching.

“All right,” Yassen said. He would give them a show. Prove that he wasn’t as useless as the whispers told.

He unclipped his visor as the guards watched. “But you owe me another cup of tea.”

And then Yassen flung his arm out and rammed the visor against the captain’s face. The man stumbled back with a groan. The other two leapt forward, but Yassen was quicker; he swung around and gave four quick jabs, two each on the back, and the officers seized and sank to their knees in temporary paralysis.

“Fucking refugee!” the captain cried, reaching for his gun. Yassen pivoted behind him, his hand flashing out to unclip the captain’s helmet visor.

The captain whipped around, raising his gun…but then sunlight hit the planks before him, and the brass threw off its unforgiving light. Blinded, the captain fired.

The air screeched.

The pulse whizzed past Yassen’s right ear, tearing through the upper beams of a storefront. Immediately, merchants took cover. Someone screamed as the crowd on both docks began to run. Yassen swiftly vanished into the chaotic fray, letting the crowd push him toward the dock’s edge, and then he dove into the sea.

The cold water shocked him, and for a moment, Yassen floundered. His muscles clenched. And then he was coughing, swimming, and he surfaced beneath the dock. He willed himself to be still as footsteps thundered overhead and soldiers and guards barked out orders. Yassen caught glimpses of the captain in the spaces between the planks.

“All hells! Where did he go?” the captain yelled at the merchant manning the stall of wild tales.

The merchant shrugged. “He’s long gone.”

Yassen sank deeper into the water as the captain walked overhead, his subordinates wobbling behind. Something buzzed beneath him, and he could see the faint outlines of a dark shape in the depths. Slowly, Yassen began to swim away—but the dark shape remained stationary. He waited for the guards to pass and then sank beneath the surface.

A submersible, the size of one passenger.
Look underneath the dock of fortunes, indeed.

Samson, that bastard.

Yassen swam toward the sub. He placed his hand on the imprint panel of the hull, and then the sub buzzed again and rose to the surface.

The cockpit was small with barely enough room for him to stretch his legs, but he sighed and sank back just the same. The glass slid smoothly closed and rudders whined to life. The panel board lit up before him and bathed him in a pale, blue light.

A note was there. Handwritten. How rare, and so like Samson.

See you at the palace, it said, and before Yassen could question which palace, the sub was off.

 

Chapter 2: Elena

 When the future king arrived at the unforgiving desert, he called to his followers, “There, we will build our city.” He led them under the cloak of night when the sand had finally cooled. They built bricks of clay until their hands were coarse and peeling. The twin moons watched, compelled. They stayed in the sky longer that night to give the followers relief from the burning day.

—from chapter 41 of The Great History of Sayon

 

Elena ducked underneath an arch brimming with loyarian sparks. The little flecks of light appeared in clusters in dark awnings during monsoon season, like tiny fairy flames. The priests insisted it was an act of the divine, though Elena vaguely recalled a tutor offering a more prosaic explanation to do with moisture and sand.

The Phoenix blesses us, the priests insisted. She sends us a sign of good luck.

As the sparks drifted down around her, Elena gently brushed them from her hair and skin. Luck was not what she needed right now.

Her hand drifted underneath her shawl to rest above her hip where her holopod was hidden. Though lighter than a sack of tea leaves, it weighed heavily, cold against her sweaty skin. What she needed, what she wanted, was Varun to be as foolish and greedy as he had been the day she had learned about his true desire.

“Phoenix Above, it’s hotter than Her cursed fires,” Ferma said. She pulled at her collar as sweat trickled down her brow. “Are you sure they’re meeting now?”

“Yes.” Elena said, hopping over a stray shobu sprawled out on the sand. It merely yawned, shaking its lion-like mane before curling back to sleep. On the balcony above, an artisan flapped out a newly dyed scarf, sending droplets of carmine and amber raining down.

“Of course, the fire fanatics picked the hottest time of day to meet,” Ferma muttered.

The Yumi guard pulled her scarf tighter, hiding the trademark hair of her race: thick, long, silky strands that could harden into sharp shards and cut a man’s throat.

Ferma had been trained from infancy to be a soldier. There weren’t many of her people left on the second continent after the Burning of the Sixth Prophet, who ended nearly the entire Yumi race, but the ones who had lived served as army captains and warriors. Only the very best graced the royal halls. Ferma had been her mother’s Spear, as well as Elena’s mentor. She was the one who had taught Elena the art of holding a slingsword between her shoulder blades, how to keep it undetected before brandishing it with a quick flourish of her hips.

When Elena’s mother had died, Ferma had presided over Elena’s studies of history and politics, tended to her wounds after sparring sessions, pressed cool compresses to her forehead when she caught fever. Without a word, Ferma could command a room. Without a sound, she could murder a man.

Elena admired her elegance and her power. But it was a little funny that the one thing she just couldn’t handle was Rani’s heat.

Elena’s lips twitched. She was about to make a joke of it when someone shouted behind them. They both turned to see two black and blue-haired Sesharian teens whizz by on floating bladers, laughing as a merchant gave chase. On the bazaar corner, a group of drunk fans let out groans. The floating bank of holos played back the Cyleon goalie blocking Ravence’s shot and winning the Western Windsnatch Title. One fan threw down his drink, spraying the running merchant with beer.

“At least they didn’t pick a boring neighborhood.” Elena grinned. Ferma frowned in return.

Despite the cloying heat and dust, she enjoyed the bazaar’s winding streets and congested alleys. The capital was a jumble of incongruous sounds and architecture, of the stubborn past and marching modernity; tall pillars of blasted sandstone housed storefronts of holo-infused gauntlets and floating bladers. Merchants wheeled their carts, crying out the prices of the day for saffron sage and cloves, parrots from Cyleon, and spangled glass bracelets from the first continent. It was an uproar of hovercars beeping, drivers shouting, and pedestrians calling out as they crossed the road without the faintest fear of traffic; a rush of orphans crying, fathers begging, and businesswomen cursing as they rushed to the hovertrains in their pincer heels; a whirlwind of people rubbing elbows, knees, palms, and dreams. She could feel their collective breath, their sweat, their liveliness that was so unlike the long, cool halls of the Palace.

She loved it.

“Dealer!” a merchant called.

Elena turned to see Eshaant pushing his cart towards them. Fresh makhana, sprinkled with ghee and spices, sat steaming in paper cones.

“Merchant.” Elena smiled, face hidden beneath her scarf. “What’s this? I thought you sold jaebli.”

“Ach, the rent for my spot was too high. Fucking Lohan raised the price and kicked me out. I’m telling you, these Sesharians are greedy little—”

Ferma stepped forward, and Eshaant stopped.

“Oh right, right. Sorry. I forgot that you and your friend support the refugee efforts.”

“They just want a home, same as us.” Elena nodded towards his cart. “Those look delicious.”

“Want one? I can throw you three for the price of two. Special deal just for you,” Eshaant winked.

“I’m tempted, but no.” Elena glanced at Ferma. “We have a rally to attend to.”

At this, Eshaant’s smile fell. “Don’t tell me you have business with the gold caps, dealer.”

“Business is business,” Elena said lightly, though the words felt cheap.

“Mhm.” Eshaant sniffed. “Be careful. They’re shits. I rather deal with a cheap Sesharian than an ass-kisser of the king like Jangir. Ego the size of Palace Hill, balls as big as makhanas.”

Ferma chuckled, and even Elena smiled.

“Bring a chilled pitcher of chaas. Add more spice to the makhana, and give two for one,” she said. “And when it’s too spicy for them, charge them for a glass.”

Eshaant whistled. “Clever. But alas, I won’t be here for long.”

“Why not?” Elena asked.

“I’m leaving for Cyleon the week of the coronation,” he said. “I can’t take it anymore. City is too crowded with Sesharians, and the gold caps are growing too rough. Last week, they seized my friend’s shop and forced him to pay double the rent. Or else they’d burn down his shop and blame rebels.”

Elena stilled. “They can’t do that.”

Eshaant rubbed a hand across his face, wiping sweat. “By the law, they can’t. But the law doesn’t care. The king doesn’t give a shit.”

“But I hear the new queen does,” Elena said, and she saw Ferma shoot her a glance.

“Ah, the heir.” Eshaant laughed, a thick, derisive sound that made her stomach twist. “She’s a puppet just like the rest. If she cared, why hasn’t she said anything yet?”

“Maybe it’s not as simple as that,” Elena said, her voice quiet.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Eshaant shrugged. “Either way, I’ll be gone. I hear summer in Cyleon is beautiful.”

“But not as beautiful as in the desert,” Elena interjected.

“No,” Eshaant said. “Btu the desert isn’t kind either. Don’t worry, dealer, I’ll send my regards.”

He dipped his head in farewell and continued on. As Elena watched him go, she felt that same weight slowly sink down her shoulders, like a body buried in sand. I won’t be the same, she thought.

“Don’t mind him,” Ferma said, her voice gentle. “Come,”

They swept through the bazaar, weaving between the shoppers.

“They should be gathering in front of Jasmine’s Tea Garden,” Elena said, increasing her pace.

“They’re already there. Jangir has begun his speech.” Ferma tapped her earpiece when Elena looked at her in surprise. “I sent a few men ahead of us to keep watch.”

Elena smiled. Of course, Ferma had thought ahead. But then, a smaller voice chided her.

So should have you.

Elena pushed back that needling voice of self-criticism and self-doubt. She would need all her wits about her today.

Music filled the square ahead of them. Elena spotted a street dancer, resplendent in her colorful lehenga and choli, twirling in rhythm to a musician playing the ravanahatha. A small crowd watched. Ferma pushed past them, but Elena paused to watch the dancer as she leapt, her face raised to the sun, her limbs long and brown. For a moment, Elena wondered what it would be like. To dance with wild abandon. To fill her heart with song and let it take away her worries, her fears. But then Ferma called for her, and Elena hurried after.

They turned down an alley so narrow she had to walk sideways to get through, underneath arches adorned with crimson flowers, around a corner and then a side street before she arrived at the dark awning of her favorite spot in the city—Jasmine’s Tea Garden.

Normally, she would have loved to duck inside and savor a cup of tulsi tea, but instead, she turned to the square where a crowd had gathered. It was larger than the last rally, men and women of all ages, Ravani and Sesharian alike. They all listened earnestly to a thin wheat-stalk of a man who stood on a raised platform. Despite his size, the man spoke with a deep booming voice that carried throughout the square, its timbre and richness reverberating through Elena. If she did not know better, she would have listened to Jangir for hours. Beguiled by his promises, captivated by his stories. But then she saw the golden cap on his head, on the heads of those in the crowd, and she remembered whose men they were.

“War is coming, my friends,” Jangir declared. “The Jantari ready their guns and oil their zeemirs as we speak. They defile our walls and call our king a heretic and a fraud. They spit upon the name of our god and wish to quench Her fire.”

Angry shouts broke out around her, the stamping of feet. Elena edged back and felt Ferma squeeze her shoulder, her hand firm and steady.

“Stay close,” she whispered.

“They call his daughter, our shining soon to be queen, a whore. They mock our traditions, destroy our outer posts. Just months ago in Rasbakan, five of our soldiers, our sons were…” Jangir shook his head, his expression etched with sorrow. “Sorry, my friends, I cannot tell you the truth. It is too terrible.”

“Tell us!” someone shouted.

“Tell us what they did!”

Jangir looked up, his eyes sweeping the crowd. For a moment, his eyes met hers. Elena’s heart stuttered. Did he recognize her, despite the disguise? But then his gaze slid away, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“They,” Jangir said slowly, his voice shaking with fury. “They were captured and sentenced to die in a Jantari prison.”

Elena bit her lip as the crowd erupted in anger. It was not true, this she knew. She had been in the war room with her father and the generals when the news of the attack had come months before. A minor squabble. No injuries on either side, no prisoners of war, nothing to merit a war they could not afford. But her father must have pocketed that report. Spun it, embellished it, and fed it to his blind, foolish followers.

He thought ahead, that needling voice said. He’s always thinking ahead.

She began to weave through the gathering, keeping her eyes on Jangir. He studied the crowd, felt their anger build, and did nothing to calm it. Elena thought she saw a ghost of a smile on his face, but she was too far to tell for certain.

“There he is,” Ferma hissed, pointing. A small man, shorter than Elena, stood at the fringe of the crowd. Varun. Jangir’s right-hand man watched his boss with a dark, clouded expression. His gold cap perched precariously on his head, as if on the verge of falling off.

“This way.” Ferma tugged her free from the throng of bodies.

“The other kingdoms are deaf to our pleas, and the Jantari are cunning,” Jangir continued. “They will lie and hide their sins while our sons and daughters suffer. War is coming my friends, and we must be ready. Enlist. Quell your fears and strengthen your hearts. We have the fire of the Phoenix on our side. And She will never leave us so long as the king is here.”

So long as the king is here. And what of your shining, soon to be queen? Elena thought bitterly as they approached Varun. Will you listen to her just as well as you listen to your king?

“Brother,” Ferma called out in a customary Ravani greeting.

Varun turned. He was a short man with thinning hair and beady eyes that were always roaming, always watching. His gaze landed on Elena and a weary smile broke on his face. “Have you brought me worthy news, dealer?”

“News that should be shared in private,” Elena said.

Varun hesitated, looking towards the stage, but Jangir was still spinning his tale, holding the crowd rapt.

“Let’s go inside the tea shop,” he said.

When they entered the store, the rich, earthy scent of tea leaves greeted them, and Jasmine, the owner, bustled over at once. Her eyes widened when she saw Elena’s clothed face. She was the only one who knew about Elena’s disguise; Ferma, ever quick to react, kept steering Varun toward a table at the back, and Elena pulled Jasmine aside.

“Your Highness,” Jasmine began but Elena held up her hand.

“As far as he knows, my name is Aahnah,” Elena said in a low voice. She nodded towards Varun. “Do you understand?”

Jasmine stiffened, her face turning pale. But before Elena could ask what was wrong, Ferma beckoned her.

“Just bring us a pot of tea,” Elena said and hurried over.

She sat down across from Varun, Ferma by her side. Elena touched her scarf, ensuring that only her eyes showed.

“I have something you might like to see,” she said, switching her accent to the rolling drawl of someone from south Rani.

“Ach, people always say they have something to show me.” Varun waved his hand. “And they show their faces to me. If you can’t even do that now that we’ve become acquainted for a few moons, then I’m not interested.” His eyes met Elena’s. “Show me your face, dealer.”

“It’s of someone powerful. That’s all you need to know.” Elena said coldly.

“I know many powerful people. And many who claim to know things about them.” Varun picked up a biscuit from the plate before Jasmine even set it down. He crunched it nosily as she poured their tea. “Your business is in trading secrets. So, this better be one I haven’t heard.”

“This is about Jangir.”

Varun paused chewing for only a moment, but Elena caught it. She smiled beneath her scarf.

“What about Jangir?” Varun asked, too casually.

“We heard you wish to replace him,” Ferma said, her voice muffled from behind her scraf.

Varun laughed. Crumbs fell from his lips as he took another biscuit. “Nonsense.”

“And we found a way that you can, without raising questions.”

Varun sipped his tea, hissing when he burned his tongue. He seemed to be on the verge of shouting for Jasmine when Elena pulled out the holopod and set it carefully on the table. Varun stopped.

“What is that?” The laughter was gone from his voice.

Elena shared a sidelong glance at Ferma as they had rehearsed. He took the bait.

“What?” he asked, leaning forward. His eyes darted between them. “What news do you bring?”

“Apparently your leader was scouted by the Jantari, over a sun ago,” Elena said slowly. “He’s been spreading lies and misinformation while sharing the recruitment numbers to his superiors. Why else do you think he campaigns so heavily for the war effort? In areas full of low wage Ravani and Sesharian refugees, men and women who know nothing about war? He’s not serving our king. He’s serving the Jantari.”

Elena patted the pod. “When you are alone, view its contents. And you’ll see that you were serving a traitor.”

It was a lie, of course. Jangir was a loyal royalist, but like her father, Elena had had no trouble concocting the reports, though she did have some difficulty replicating Muftasa’s seal. But Varun would not see the difference.

Most people will believe what you put in front of them, her father had told her once. Especially if you show them what they want to see.

“How…how did you get this?” Varun asked finally.

“My sources are credible.” Elena reached forward and turned over the pod, revealing the official insignia of the king etched into the metal. Varun gasped. His eyes widened in understanding, and when he looked at Elena, there was a new consideration in them. Respect. And cold calculation.

“Who are you, really?” he asked.

“My people believe you are the right man to lead the gold caps. And we wish for a quiet changing of power. Do you understand what I’m asking you?”

After a moment, Varun closed the pod and pocketed it. “I underestimated you, dealer. If that is what you really are.”

“Consider me someone who cares deeply for the future of our kingdom.”

She stood, Ferma rising with her. Varun gave her a quick nod.

“I will find a way,” he said.

Jangir was still speaking in heavy, impassioned tones, when Elena and Ferma left the square. His voice haunted Elena through the winding bazaar streets.

We have the fire of the Phoenix on our side. And She will never leave us so long as the king is here.

So as long as the king is here.

Elena was to ascend the throne in just a few short months, on her twenty-fifth birthday. She would become regent, the queen of the Fire Throne. This would become her kingdom, her domain. It would be her responsibility to protect and guard the Eternal Fire.

So why didn’t anyone else seem to welcome her rule?

Once they were a safe distance away, Ferma touched her arm.

“Did you give Varun the right pod?”

Elena slipped out the other pod in her pocket, the twin to Varun’s. She turned it over. Like the other, it shared the official insignia of the Phoenix, but below it was her family’s personal coat of arms: the crossed slingswords. Only she and her father could use such pods.

“You told Varun you wanted a quiet secession of power, but I thought—”

“I want them to tear each other apart.” Elena stopped at a corner. In the distance, the Fire Palace sat on its gleaming perch over the desert. “And I want my father to see it.”

When Ferma made no response, Elena turned. Ferma dropped her hand from her ear, her eyes raised heaven wards.

“Well, I don’t think you’ll have to wait for long.”

Elena followed Ferma’s gaze. There, in the distance, she saw the black oval shape of a hoverpod, like a smooth stone in a desert oasis. It descended in the direction of the dunes.

“Your father wants to see you.”

 

Chapter 3: Yassen

When the dragons began to leave, no Sayonai noticed. Not at first. It wasn’t until the droughts came and fires raged throughout the countrysides that the people raised their eyes to the heavens and realized — no one was there.
—from chapter 17 of The Great History of Sayon

Yassen watched the sea glide past him as he sank lower to the murky depths, past driftwood and other detritus and into darker waters. The sub shuddered as it neared the mouth of a cave along the rocky grade.

Yassen barely got to study the cave when the sub shot forward at a breakneck speed, throwing Yassen back into his seat. He realized then that the cave was a tunnel, and that it glinted with blue light. Up and up they went until Yassen saw a small opening, a shining patch of water shaped like a silver coin. The vessel bolted out and the sky opened above him with mountains jutting the horizon.

Yassen let out a shaky breath, his stomach queasy. The sub bobbed gently as the glass covering slid back. He was in the middle of a quiet lake surrounded by the soaring white peaks of the Sona Range. On the shore, a figure stood, waving.

Yassen recognized the set of his broad shoulders and chest, the wide-legged stance and bowed knees that befit a warrior, or a man who rode his horses hard. As the vessel glided closer, the man lowered his hand, and Yassen saw something flash on his smallest finger.

After all this time, he still wore his family crest.

“Welcome, Yassen,” the man said. His voice was deeper now, a steady rumble like that of a waterfall. It expanded and lingered in the air long after he had spoken. The voice of a Sesharian who had never forgotten his island home.

The sub docked, and Yassen hopped on shore. “Hey, Sam.”

Samson Kytuu was taller than Yassen, straight-backed with a high forehead and an aquiline nose. When he smiled at Yassen, it was a wide grin that reached the corners of his eyes—the same one he had given when they had been scrawny boys crouched outside a Ravani bakery many suns ago. Back then, the smile had promised a distracted baker’s daughter and three loaves of honeyed bread. Now—Yassen wasn’t sure what it promised.

Yassen held up the metal feather, and it glinted in the sun.

“Why this?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it,” Samson said, and Yassen squinted, studying the seal. Here, under the dancing gleams of sun, he saw that it was not a feather after all, but a single, flickering flame.

“Of course,” he murmured.

He had met Samson in Rani. They had been orphans, hungry and stranded. While Yassen scoured the desert for castaway trinkets to sell, Samson pickpocketed. They would pool their money to buy food and when they had too little, they stole. Together, they had survived.

Yassen could feel Samson watching him, studying him, possibly experiencing the same shocks that came when meeting a childhood friend after a very long time.

The physical distance between them wasn’t far, but the awkward silence seemed to stretch endlessly.

Suddenly, the sub gave a loud hiss, releasing a burst of steam; as one, Yassen and Samson jumped and drew their guns, gazes locked on the innocent vessel.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Samson’s lips twitched. They looked at each other and then the vessel, and the next thing Yassen knew they were both laughing so hard their bodies shook—a laugh that warmed the arid silence and melted guarded fronts, a laugh that they had shared as boys.

Samson holstered his pulse gun with a grin. He kissed his three fingers and pressed them against Yassen’s forehead, the customary Ravani greeting given to friends and family.

“It’s been too long, Cassian.”

Yassen blinked. Cassian. It had been his code name when he and Samson were in the Arohassin, before Samson had escaped. It hadn’t felt right to continue using that name when the person he had loved most was no longer there to whisper it.

“You remembered,” he said.

“I still remember many things about you.”

They took a stone path that curved along the mountainside. Retherin pines, their velvet trunks and tawny orange leaves shining in the sunlight, covered the grade. A mountain lark flitted above them, giving its three-note call of peace. The Jantari were known to mine these mountains, yet Yassen did not see the telltale ugly metal hulls of the rigs.

“I’ve bought the entire land from here to the next summit,” Samson said as if to answer his thoughts.

Yassen stared at him. “And they just…let you?”

“Of course not, Cass, you know better. In exchange, my soldiers protect the mines on the northern range,” Samson said. “Easy work, though. I even made a small base in the middle—a training grounds of sorts. Perhaps I’ll show you sometime.”

“There has to be more to it,” Yassen said, eyeing him. “I’ve never heard of the King Farin being the generous type.”

Samson smiled slowly, though he stared straight ahead. “Always the observant one, Cass.”

The path grew steeper. Yassen felt his calves begin to burn when they finally crested the hill, and the house suddenly rose above him as if to stun him with all its glory.

It was a behemoth, more palace than a mansion of a successful militant. Melded of black Sesharian marble and Jantari steel, the building curved around the mountainside like two great wings of some mythic beast.

“You put a mountain in the middle of your house?” Yassen asked, turning to Samson.

“Welcome to Chand Mahal, Cass,” his friend replied.

The moon palace. Austere, cold, beautiful—Yassen could see it.

Twin towers, modest in height yet resplendent with their embellished ridges of lapis lazuli flowers, stood on the edges of the sprawling gardens. Soldiers stationed there lowered their pulse guns and saluted as they passed.

Pale-kissed roses and glowing, dancing tiger lilies swayed in the breeze, spreading their aroma across the grounds. Yassen spotted gardeners snipping away vines. Though they wore gloves, Yassen could tell by their raven-black hair that they were Sesharians. They each bowed as Samson approached, but he paid them no mind.

Eventually, they reached the black, yawning entrance of the palace, with its arched marble columns and rippling sculptures of dragons. The guards beside the entrance bowed, and Yassen watched Samson raise his hand, murmuring some command to put them at ease.

“They treat you like a king,” Yassen said mildly as they entered the foyer.

To say the outside of the palace was magnificent was an affront to its interior. Two spiraling staircases swept up and diverged in opposite directions toward two wings. A gem-encrusted dragon coiled across the marble floor. Above, a million tiny glass tiles reflected the sunshine, so it seemed that the very stars were within this room, within his reach. Yassen tried to stop himself from staring, but he couldn’t.

“Some say so, but it’s more out of respect than divine right,” Samson replied.

Yassen tried to compose himself, looking back out the doorway where the gardeners, relieved of their master’s presence, resumed their task of pruning.

“Do they know who I am?”

“A half-Ravani and half-Jantari mutt,” Samson teased, but then he slung his arm around Yassen’s neck, his voice lowering. “We’re more than orphans now, Cass.” He gazed up at the ceiling that captured the heavens. “That’s all they need to know.”

Yassen gazed around him. How different this was from the derelict ruins they had once slept in. Here, they could host and feed an entire army and still not know the pang of hunger. Perhaps this was what Samson had intended—to create a palace so grand that no one would ever think to mention his wayward upbringing.

Their wayward upbringings.

Yassen felt a numbness in his right arm, and he flexed his fingers with some difficulty. Samson had chosen a different path, and this was what he had to show for it.

“Let’s eat. I know you must be starving,” Samson said.

As if on cue, a servant with lips stained blue from indigo snuff appeared from the adjoining wing.

“Sires,” he said, bowing. Yassen spotted the same bull tattoo on his hand.

“Yassen, this is Maru, my most trusted man. Maru, this is Yassen, my childhood friend,” Samson said. He gripped his shoulder, hands harder than what Yassen remembered. “A brother, actually.”

Yassen warmed at the distinction, but he smiled warily. Though Samson appeared easy, he suspected his old friend still harbored doubts about Yassen’s loyalties. He would have to convince Samson that he was done with the Arohassin. That what he truly desired, above all else, was a quiet morning on this mountainside.

“A pleasure,” Maru said, his eyes lingering on Yassen’s rumpled clothes. “The refreshments are ready for you.”

“Splendid,” Samson said. He pulled Yassen closer, grinning. “A little bird told me that you still like Ravani tea.”

Maru led them down a long hall full of light and crystal. Yet another dragon coiled across the ceiling here, its scales fashioned with mirrors that reflected their steps.

They came to two great doors. A river curved along the edges of the gate and swirled inward toward the doorknobs. Samson stepped forward. A pale light scanned his hand. Another thin beam swept across his face. Samson blinked, and then the beam closed, the river hissed, and the door unlocked to reveal the mountain.

A pathway of metal and stone cut its way through a courtyard of carefully pruned palehearts. Above, a mountain peak glimmered in the glare of the sun, but Yassen did not squint. He could not appear weak before Samson.

The path led to a terrace furnished with ivory chaises. Samson motioned for them to sit as two Sesharian servants placed pots of tea and platters of sandwiches and sweets before them. As they poured tea into their cups, lazy wafts of steam uncurled in the air. Yassen drank in the rich smell of Vermi leaves and lemongrass. Arranged on a three-tier platter were an assortment of sandwiches filled with apricot jam, gingerberry beads, and smoked meat. Another servant brought out a selection of powdered dew nuts, syrup-coated figs, and cloud cookies that, when bitten, dissolved into honeyed air.

“They still your favorite, yes?” Samson smiled when he caught Yassen staring at the cloud cookies.

Yassen couldn’t help smiling in return. He nodded and sank back in his seat.

A flutter of color drew their attention, and Yassen caught the fleeting image of a clawed falcon diving into the canopy for unseen prey. Its descent sent off a flurry of calls. Among them, Yassen recognized the flute-like voice of a mountain lark.

“They can be a nuisance sometimes, but I swear, come dawn, they make the most beautiful chorus you’ve ever heard,” Samson said. He bit into a cloud cookie, vapors of red escaping from between his lips.

At the edge of the courtyard, a gardener ripped out a cropping of silver-headed mushrooms that gave off such a strong, sulfurous scent that he could smell it from the terrace.

“Are we having mushrooms for dinner?” he asked and turned to Samson, who was carefully applying a layer of gingerberry beads to a piece of toast.

“No, because I assume they still turn your stomach,” Samson said. “Remember the time when you threw up all over Akaros’s shoes? Skies above, he was livid. He must have made you scrub those filthy leather loafers a hundred and fifty times before he put them back on.”

“I spat in them for good measure,” Yassen said, and Samson laughed.

“How is that old man? Keeping the boys miserable as always?”

Yassen didn’t answer; instead, he motioned to the signet ring on Samson’s pinky. “I thought you had given up on the family name. Or at least that’s what the reporters say.”

“What do you think?” Samson asked, and Yassen recognized the subtle edge in his voice. It was the same voice Samson would use when they had to interrogate their sources for information. He was testing him.

Yassen hesitated, eyeing his friend. Though he had the same smile, this man was a stranger, not the boy Yassen had once known. The boy who had clutched his arm so hard that Yassen found marks in the morning; the boy who had promised that he was done with his name, done with the Arohassin, and that he was leaving and would one day come back for Yassen.

Yassen felt the ghost of Samson’s hand pressing into his flesh.

“I think that—as much as you decry your family name and the horrors it’s brought upon you—you still miss Seshar. Maybe not all the people, but at least the horses.” Samson chuckled at that. Yassen pushed on, picking his words with care. “But what I still don’t understand is, with all the wealth and power you’ve built, why haven’t you gone back. Why haven’t you punished the people who killed your family?”

“I see you haven’t changed a bit.” Samson lowered his leg, sitting straighter. He reached for his tea, pouring carefully, but Yassen heard the coldness in his voice.  “You’re still obsessed with punishment. They drilled that one deep.”

“You were supposed to come back,” Yassen said, hating the faint crack in his voice. “You made a vow to get me out.”

Samson stopped pouring. There was a slight tremor in his hand as he set the pot down.

“We both know the Arohassin would have cut off our heads if I had returned,” he said softly. But there was pain in his eyes. Samson had abandoned him to a miserable fate. And now here Yassen was, a thin, scarred, burnt reminder of Samson’s shortcomings. Perhaps the militant knew of guilt, too.

“I see you’ve employed your people,” Yassen said after a while, nodding to the gardeners and the servants. “Are they all Sesharians?”

“Every single one.”

“And Farin gave them to you?”

“You don’t give men. They’re not slaves,” Samson said, a hint of reproach in his voice. “I simply convinced Farin that not all colonized people make good miners.”

“They make better soldiers,” Yassen said pointedly, looking at Samson.

Samson paused and then gave a slow nod. “Some better than others.”

A servant came to refill their cups. When she left, Samson cleared his throat.

“Look, Cass. I’m glad you called me. And, I-I’m sorry for leaving you behind. You’ll never know how sorry I am. After you helped me escape during our squad mission, I wanted to come back. To find you. But it wasn’t safe, for me or you.” He paused, biting his lip.

“But when you told me that you had defected, I had to take safety precautions. You see, Cass,” he placed his hand in the space between them, the dragon insignia of his ring flashing in the light. “I already have an assignment for you. But I won’t force you to take it. It’s your choice. Heavens know you deserve rest.”

His words were kind. But Yassen knew he really had no choice as Samson tapped the table and holos shot up. News clippings and images opened before them, but Yassen already knew what they contained.

“Ravence,” he said simply before Samson could speak.

Samson shook his head. “I knew you’d figure it out. Yes. Ravence is about to crown its new queen, and they’ve asked me to provide security. You know why?” His eyes bore into Yassen.

Yassen met his gaze without flinching.

“Because the Arohassin plan to attack and assassinate the Ravani family on the coronation day.”

“Did they tell you anything else before you ran?”

“Everything I know, I give to you,” Yassen said and withdrew a holopod from his pocket. It contained names, meeting points, and—the mother trove of all—a map of the Arohassin sleeper agents in Ravence. “This is proof that I’ve truly defected. It’s all there, Sam.”

“Then you already know what I’m going to ask you,” Samson said. He hesitated for a moment. “Come with me to Ravence. I’ve already spoken to King Leo. He’s agreed to give you a royal pardon if you help dismantle the Arohassin. Freedom, Yassen. You’ll finally have it.”

Yassen looked down at his hands. Freedom, what a funny word. Here, in the heady mountain air, in the quiet, he felt so close to it. But Ravence…

He pinched the nerve between his finger and thumb, flexing his fingers. Ravence was his home. And despite the peace of this garden, he knew what he really longed for was the desert. The endless, rolling dunes.

He watched Samson sit back and look at him, not with the pretense of childhood familiarity, but with the cold, calculated air of a militant.

“Take out that flame I gave you,” Samson said.

Yassen pulled the metal insignia from his pocket and placed it on the holopod. A confidential file opened—his own.

“That flame contains everything I have on you. Names, dates, even the serial number of your guns. It could lock you away for life. But I give it to you as a measure of good will,” Samson said.

Yassen laughed. “So, you’ve been watching me.”

“Watching and waiting for the right moment,” Samson agreed. “I want no secrets between us, Cass. I said long ago that I would help you get home, and this, this is it. I mean to fulfill that promise. People are going to question my decision, but I know you. You haven’t changed.”

Yassen studied Samson, searching his face for a trace of dishonesty, but either he was true to his word, or too well-trained in hiding his thoughts. The look on his face was one of belief. Actual belief. The same burning belief that opened a floodgate when Samson, gripping Yassen’s arm after being whipped for failing his mission, had babbled about revenge and defection. The same belief that shone in his eyes when he told Yassen, in a rare instance of drug-induced clarity, that he, Yassen Knight, would survive. Survive out of all of them. Survive to live out old age and perhaps even forgiveness from the gods.

What Samson hadn’t known was that Yassen did not find himself to be in the ranks of the forgiven. He was well beyond that point. The burns up his arms told him so. His long flight across the sea told him so. The faces he saw in the night told him so. Guilt, that snake-like poison, wormed its way down his throat as Yassen smiled—a smile he knew would break the cold, calculated air Samson held up as a shield because he too hadn’t changed.

Yassen reached for the flame and slipped it back into his pocket.

“I’ll go to Ravence with you if you get me amnesty,” he said. “And then I’ll be free.”

Samson kissed his three fingers and held them in the air. Yassen did the same, and they touched their fingers together, sealing the promise.