“Mercy, sir,” Gyre’s father said. “Please.”
Gyre heaved himself up onto his elbows.
“Let her go,” he croaked.
Va’aht put his hand on his haken. He didn’t draw the weapon, just touched it, and crooked one finger.
Pain exploded in Gyre’s head, a line of fire from cheek to eyebrow. He was falling backward, hitting the floor shoulder-first, feeling nothing but the searing agony in his face. He mashed his hand against it, and blood squished, torn skin shifting nauseatingly under his fingers. He only realized he was screaming when he had to stop to take a breath.
Va’aht loomed above him, an outline shimmering in a haze of tears.
“You’ll live, with care, though I daresay there’ll be a scar.” The centarch gave a humorless chuckle. “Let it be a lesson to you.”
He limped past, still carrying Maya. She screamed Gyre’s name again, but his thoughts were already fading into a fiery blur of pain. By the time his father reached his side, darkness was closing in around him.
Chapter 1
Twelve Years Later
It was hot, and Maya was watching an empty house.
She sat on a rickety chair, staring out a second-story window through the gap between two stained, threadbare curtains. It gave her a perfect view of the alley below, which contained nothing more obviously interesting than a midden aswarm with flies, and a mangy old dog, huddled miserably in the shrinking shadow of the building to try to keep out of the sun.
There was also the front door of a single-story shack that, as best as Maya and her mentor had been able to determine, was the lair of a monster.
Watching this was Maya’s assignment, which was all well and good, except that she was convinced the monster wasn’t actually home. There had been no movement through the one visible window of the little shack. No movement in the alley, either, aside from the drone of the flies, the panting of the dog, and the heat haze dancing above the baked-mud road.
The city of Bastion seemed designed for misery. It was surrounded by a Chosen relic, a rectangular unmetal wall stretching nearly a kilometer on its long sides and thirty meters high. The human city was jammed inside, like a wasp’s nest daubed between joists in an attic, the taller buildings around the edges leaning against the indestructible unmetal for support. All well and good for defending the city against bandits or plaguespawn, but it made for a tangled rat’s warren of streets, and the wall kept the air fetid and stagnant. The whole place smelled like a cesspool.
Her vantage point was a second-story room in the sort of flophouse that rented by the hour. At the moment, the room was only slightly more interesting than the alley. There was a bed whose stained sheets Maya had flatly refused to touch under any circumstances, a chamber pot, two rickety chairs that had been smashed and repaired so often they were more nail than wood, and a thirteen-year-old boy lying on his back and tossing baked nuts into the air to try to catch them in his mouth, surrounded by the evidence of his repeated failure at this task.
Maya glared at the boy, whose name was Marn. Against all appearances, he was also an agathios, another student of her mentor, Jaedia, and bearer of the same gift Maya wielded: deiat, the power of creation, the Chosen’s desperate legacy to humanity.
I refuse to believe the Chosen had Marn in mind, though. They would have taken one look at him and said, “Well, that’s it. Might as well close up shop and let the plaguespawn eat everyone.”
A nut caromed off Marn’s nose. Sensing her stare, he tipped his head back and looked at her upside down.
“What?” he said.
“You’re supposed to be studying chapter fifteen of the Inheritance,” Maya said.
“And you’re supposed to be watching the street, not paying attention to me,” Marn said, with thirteen-year-old sophistry. “So if you’ve noticed I’m not studying, then by definition—”
“Shut up.” Maya glanced guiltily back at the alley, but nothing had changed. The old dog rolled on his back, panting. “Hollis probably isn’t even there.”
“Jaedia thinks he is. Why else would she go to the Auxies for backup?”
“I don’t know why she bothers with the Auxies in the first place,” Maya grumbled. The local authorities were usually worse than useless. “Whatever’s in there, we can handle it.”
“If I had a haken, I could help,” Marn said, fumbling for another nut.
“If you had a haken, you’d blow your own head off.”
“Would not.”
“Would so.”
That was about the level of discourse she and Marn achieved, most days. Jaedia told her to forgive Marn for being thirteen, but Maya had been thirteen only four years ago and she was reasonably certain she’d never been that stupid. Or stubborn. She turned back to the window with a sigh.
If Hollis is there, he’s staying out of sight. The dhakim known as Hollis Plaguetouch had eluded the Order this long. Maybe he’s already cut and run. In which case …
Maya froze. Shadows moved on the wall of the alley. A moment later, three people came into view, walking single file. Two were large men, in the sleeveless white shirts and canvas trousers of common laborers. One was shaved bald, and the other wore his dark blue hair in a long queue. Between them walked a young woman in a colorful dress, long golden hair unbound. There was something off about the way she moved, but Maya didn’t catch it until she’d walked directly under the window. Oh, plaguefire.
“Marn!”
“Ow!” Marn rolled over. “Plague it, you made me drop that one in my eye!”
“They’re taking someone to the house!”
“Who is?” Marn got up and shuffled over to the window. The two men had reached the end of the street, one of them standing with the girl while the other unlocked the door.
“You think they’re with Hollis?” Marn whispered.
“The men are,” Maya said. “The girl’s a prisoner.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s gagged and her wrists are tied behind her back.”
Marn looked over at her nervously. “So—”
“Shut up and let me think.”
The door in the alley opened, and the trio went inside, one of the men pushing the girl along by the arm. She looks terrified.
Maya’s hand came up, unconsciously, and touched the Thing. It was a bad habit, calling attention to something that was supposed to stay secret, but she’d never been able to break it. The little piece of arcana, like a rounded crystal surrounded by a ring of smaller faceted stones, was embedded in Maya’s flesh just above her breastbone. It had saved her life as a girl, banishing the coughs and fevers that had nearly killed her, and ever since, she found herself tapping it when she was anxious, as though to make sure it was still there.
Jaedia won’t be back for another hour, at least. Her mentor had assigned her to watch for Hollis trying to leave, not people arriving. And she’d made it very clear that Maya wasn’t to do anything more than observe. But she didn’t consider them bringing in a prisoner, did she? Maya didn’t want to think about what might happen to a bound and gagged girl dragged into a nest of dhakim, but the images came all too readily to mind. Oh, fucking plaguefire.