He needed only a second, hurling the pair of vials beneath the carriage. The glass shattered, spilling a pair of liquids on the street.
The instant the fluids touched, they reacted. A blaze shot up, consuming the carriage in a blink.
This was the most powerful incendiary that they could create, bound by their limited alchemical knowledge and the requirement that it stay stable until used. The Guards shouted, turning to Karson, but he had already raised his musket.
The plan had gone even better than Karson had expected. The door was opening, and Teach covered the other door, which meant the false Emperor was emerging without her protection. If he had come out the other side, Karson wouldn’t have the privilege of killing the man himself.
He raised his musket, the gun shivering with his excitement. The Guards would be too late.
The second a figure began to emerge, Karson squeezed the trigger.
The musket-ball bounced off Calder Marten’s helmet.
He wore a suit of pure white armor that covered him from head to toe, his helmet covering his face entirely. Karson couldn’t see an inch of the man’s skin, only the dark that stretched between white plates. Even the visor, where the eyes or bits of the face would usually be visible, was entirely covered by what looked like darkened glass. He was a walking, inhuman statue clad in metal.
The musket-ball had done nothing.
Trembling with rage, Karson pulled a sword from his belt. He had practiced three hours a day for the last four years, trained by his fellows, channeling rage into his blade. It was as invested for this moment as he could make it, and he was as prepared as he could be.
The false Emperor signaled the Imperial Guard back, drawing his own sword. It was mottled orange-and-black, as though it had been formed from live coals, but Karson’s blade was made for this exact moment.
You have him, the voice whispered.
With a single stroke, Calder Marten sliced Karson’s sword in half.
Astonishment and despair tried to weigh down Karson’s anger, but his rage won out. He tossed himself at Marten, clawing at the armor, trying to pry it away.
“Don’t hurt him,” Marten ordered, his voice echoing hollow in the helmet.
The Liar King marched on, dragging Karson with him. He seemed to be trying to avoid stabbing Karson, keeping his sword low, but he walked across the street. He peered into the alley, looking to one side and then the other. After a moment, he focused on the spot where Karson had been hiding a moment before.
With his fingertips, Karson pried at the man’s helmet. It was lifting up, he felt. Soon he would be able to pry the helmet off, to expose Calder Marten’s head to the guns of his dying compatriots…
Marten drove his orange-spotted blade into the cobblestones.
The shadow on the street writhed like a pierced snake. Darkness spewed into the air like blood, and the shade hissed and screamed, sounds echoing in Karson’s mind in a voice that sounded like his own.
He lost his grip, falling to the floor, that scream all he could hear.
The heart of the shadow burned red where it was pierced by Marten’s sword, and in an instant, the darkness curled up and burned away like a dry leaf in flame. Suddenly, there was a hollow emptiness inside Karson, like a piece of his mind had gone missing.
The inhuman armored figure of the false Emperor knelt, and Marten raised his own visor. A young face, little older than Karson himself, looked down kindly. He didn’t look as corrupt as Karson had pictured him—he was pale-skinned, but he had gotten plenty of sun, and he wore the beginnings of a short, red beard.
“A spawn of Urg’naut,” Calder Marten explained. “It burrowed itself into your thoughts. This wasn’t you.”
Karson spat in his face. “Death to the false Emperor!”
He clawed for Marten’s eyes.
Marten stood, easily avoiding his fingernails. He thumbed the spit from his cheek. “General,” he said loudly.
Teach appeared at his side, staring death into Karson’s eyes. Looking at her this close, it was hard to believe her just an animal. “Yes sir?”
“Have the survivors taken to the nearest prison.”
One of the nearby Guards spoke up. “Candle Bay Imperial Prison has just reopened.”
Marten’s face contorted. Though Karson didn’t understand the source of the false Emperor’s pain, he felt a savage glee at seeing it.
“…Candle Bay Imperial Prison it is,” Calder Marten said, sliding down his visor once again.
Karson screamed at him as he was taken away, swearing vengeance, waiting for the voice of his hatred to reignite his rage.
He heard only the groans of the dying.
Chapter One
He Who Sees has spoken.
The Rebel will blind He Who Sees. This is seen, so it must be.
The Killer will spill the blood of the Rebel. This is seen, so it must be.
The King will rise from the ashes of the Killer. This is seen, so it must be.
What is seen must come to pass before the eye of the future is blinded.
Praise be to He Who Sees.
—from a fragment of pottery recovered by the Blackwatch from an Elder cult known as the Thousand Eyes
(fragment has not been successfully dated)
present day
The coronation of the Imperial Steward was a more lavish celebration than Calder had ever seen. The population of the Capital surged with people from hundreds of miles around, all of them packed into the Emperor’s Hall of Address, a specially constructed auditorium used only on those rare occasions when the Emperor wanted to speak to the entire nation.
The Guild of Witnesses would be in attendance, keeping and distributing records of this historic occurrence: the official appointment of an Imperial heir. The sky was filled with Imperial Guards, some capable of flight themselves while others used flying Kameira or some of those unreliable flying devices that the Magister’s Guild tested every few years.
Though Calder had been named by the Imperialist Guilds as the Steward weeks before, they had never held a public ceremony. Now that the Independents were weakened and largely quiet, the loyal Guild Heads had declared now to be the perfect time to present Calder to the public.
He only wished he could see it himself.
He stood at the highest window of an office building halfway across the city, looking out the window with a spyglass, catching irregular glimpses of his own coronation. He could only see the Emperor’s stage when his body double stood at a certain place, so he watched his own behavior in brief snatches.
“I could have at least attended,” he said aloud.
“Now they can’t blow you up,” Bliss responded. The Head of the Blackwatch lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling with the same intensity he used to watch the coronation.
Her hair lay beneath her in a pale puddle, her black coat still neatly buttoned up. “And Ach’magut’s Inquisitors can’t dissect you,” Bliss continued. “I’m sure there are enough remaining to swarm over the walls and pull you to pieces. The alchemists can’t get you with their gas. Did you know they have a solution that will turn you inside out? It’s expensive and impossible to make in large batches, but I’m sure a single thrown canister is possible for the Head of the Alchemist’s Guild to produce. And of course there are the Consultant assassins—”