Cyrus surrendered to his elder’s wisdom. He took a long drink, the faint cherry flavor pleasant across his tongue. With alcohol in his veins, perhaps he would possess the courage needed to voice the fear he’d kept locked within him ever since the nightmares of burning boats.

  “I just wonder, what if Jase has a point?” Cyrus asked, setting down the bottle.

  “The man rambled without ceasing. Narrow matters down for me. Which of his arguments do you think most had value?”

  The paladin had a grin on his face, and his tone was gentle. He was trying to alleviate the tension, and it would have worked if Cyrus’s thoughts weren’t so grim. Still, he appreciated the effort.

  “Our war against the empire’s initial invasion was one of constant failure,” Cyrus said. “What if we had never fought? What if we willingly accepted a place in Everlorn’s growing borders? If we’d simply knelt, if we’d bowed our heads…”

  The words trailed off. The rest were too painful.

  Rayan’s hand settled on Cyrus’s shoulder.

  “You blame yourself,” he said.

  Cyrus closed his eyes, heard his mother’s scream as Magus’s sword fell.

  “If I’d not tried to escape, then maybe they’d have lived. We would be together still.”

  “Do you hate me for that? For being the one who sought to rescue you?”

  Cyrus shook his head. It might sound like it, but he’d never once blamed Rayan for trying to smuggle him out of the castle. How could he? Amid the burning docks and crumbling walls, such an escape made perfect sense.

  “I have never,” he said. “Please, Rayan, believe me when I say I have ever looked on you as a friend and protector.”

  The old paladin smiled.

  “Good. Now listen to me, as your friend, when I tell you this. Even if you surrendered, another reason would have been given to take your parents’ lives. Heed this lesson instead. If you had come with me, you would have remained free. It was your attempt to placate the empire, and give them what they wanted, that made you their prisoner.”

  “Is that why you hate Lord Mosau?”

  The paladin sighed.

  “There are many kinds of death, Cyrus, and if you live long enough you will see them all. Many fear the swift and brutal strike of a sword. I do not, for I know my goddess awaits me when the light of this world fades. It is the slower deaths I fear, and it is a slower death Jase delivers his subjects when he bows his head to the empire. A long, unending bleeding, what is good and vital draining away drop by drop into Everlorn’s cup. Their faith. Their sovereignty. Their dignity. The executioner’s ax remains above their necks; yet instead of falling swiftly, it sways back and forth, ever slowly, the cuts thin at first, but only at first.”

  Cyrus grabbed the bottle and tilted it in a toast.

  “Then here is to victory, or a swift death,” he said, and drained a third of it.

  If Cyrus slept, it was for only a few minutes before he was startled out of his bed by frantic knocking on his door. He did not open it until he held a sword in hand. A servant waited on the other side, and he blanched at the sight of naked steel.

  “Please, you must gather your things and follow me,” the young man said.

  “Why? What has happened?”

  The servant hesitated a moment.

  “The empire is here.”

  The empire was everywhere in Thanet, even in Thiva. Cyrus had seen their priests preaching on street corners and upon high pedestals set alongside the river. But for Jase to have them flee in the middle of the night meant someone had come to the castle, someone Jase could not refuse…

  “Who?” he asked, and stepped out from his room. “Who is here?”

  The door to Rayan’s room opened, and the paladin stepped out with his armor and belongings bundled and on his back. His sword, however, was now buckled to his waist.

  “Time is not on our side,” he said. “Save your questions for later.”

  Cyrus glanced between him and the servant, then accepted the gentle rebuke.

  “So be it.”

  He dressed, but not for travel as Rayan did. He donned his hood and cloak, belted his swords to his waist, and then reached for his mask. The wood felt like fire in his hand, but he did not don it. Not yet. Into his pocket, instead.

  Only if I need it, he thought. Only then.

  Faint, distant laughter mocked him.

  “How will we escape unnoticed?” Cyrus asked once back out in the hall. The distant clamor of movement, of a sleeping castle coming to life, echoed throughout halls. “There is only the drawbridge.”

  “There are places in the garden one may hide,” the servant explained. “We will wait there until I receive a signal the drawbridge is clear, and then you may cross. Now hurry, please, the runners from the outer gate bought us precious little time!”

  The pair hurried after the servant, following him down hallways and to a side door exiting the castle into the green gardens outside. They hunkered down among the rows of bushes, safely hidden, but Cyrus’s curiosity was too strong.

  “We’re to wait until the bridge out is clear, yeah?” he asked their guide.

  “Indeed.”

  “Then I’m going to said drawbridge to have a gander at our uninvited guests.”

  Panic widened the servant’s eyes.

  “It is not safe!”

  Cyrus turned and grinned at him.

  “That has never stopped me before.”

  He crouch-walked through the garden, head bowed and hands gliding along the grass to keep himself balanced. He’d seen only a glimpse of the garden upon arriving at the castle, but he remembered the rows of rose and catmint bushes that formed a sort of barrier marking off the pathway between the drawbridge and the castle entrance. He hurried there and, through the red and purple blooms, peered at the enormous imperial retinue filling both the drawbridge and the street beyond.

  Dread settled in Cyrus’s heart. Among the dozens of soldiers were two paragons, each a potent foe on their own. All together they would require an army to be killed. An army, or a god. Yet Cyrus’s dread came not from them, but from the man who walked at their forefront, the Heir-Incarnate, Galvanis vin Lucavi.

  Cyrus had never laid eyes upon him before, and he peered over the bush as high as he dared. Bathed in the moonlight, the heir’s pale skin took on a bluish tone, so smooth, so perfect, he looked less like a man and more a marble statue come to life. His long blond hair was tied into a ponytail and then draped over his shoulder, the end tied with silver thread that sparkled in the night. His golden armor was thick even for a paragon, yet he moved with the fluidity of a hunting panther.

  You recognize him, don’t you? What he is? What he’s becoming?

  “He’s nothing like me,” Cyrus whispered in protest, but there was no one to hear him.

  You know better. You sense the divine. Stop lying to yourself, Vagrant.

  It was true. Galvanis reeked of it, like a scent only Cyrus could track. Prayer and faith radiated off of the Heir-Incarnate in lucid purple waves. It crackled through his skin like lightning. He might be human, but not entirely. A transformation had already begun, one Cyrus was painfully intimate with. All this, due to the faith of the populace in his appointment granted by his father.

  A shiver ran through Cyrus. If this was the power of the Heir, how grand and terrifying was the might of the God-Incarnate himself?

  The blue doors opened, and Jase stepped out with his head and back already bowed. He greeted the Heir-Incarnate loudly, and when he dropped to his knees, his servants and soldiers gathered behind him did the same. Galvanis observed him a moment, said something Cyrus could not hear, and then bade the man to stand.

  Rayan joined Cyrus during the commotion, crouching by his side, and together they watched the silhouette of the Heir-Incarnate vanish into the castle. His retinue followed, dozens of soldiers laughing and chatting as they flooded inside in search of food and bed.

  “There are few tasks that would bring the Heir-Incarnate out from Vallessau,” the paladin whispered, echoing Cyrus’s thoughts.

  “He’s hunting Lycaena, to execute her a second time if she lives.”

  Rayan nodded in agreement. His face hardened, his lips curling into a worried frown. Their guide servant rushed to their side, and Cyrus needed no explanation that the rapid hooting of an owl from the gateway was the signal they waited for. Rayan stood, and he shifted his rucksack to the opposite shoulder. He glared at the closed doors of the castle, then shook his head.

  “Whatever dangers Keles faced have magnified tenfold,” he said. “For her sake, we must find her, Cyrus… before the empire does.”

  CHAPTER 6

  STASIA

  Stasia hesitated at the door to the makeshift forge. Her father had sequestered himself within more and more over the past month. If he left, it was to look over lists and maps with messengers while plotting insurrections all across Thanet. It seemed he had abandoned Vallessau and was focusing his efforts elsewhere. She knew that wasn’t true, though. He still thought Vallessau could be saved.

  He was just convinced only the missing Vagrant would save it.

  Frustration gave her the strength to push open the wood door. She and her sister were busy fighting, bleeding, and nearly dying for this damn city. If only her father would notice and appreciate that sacrifice, instead of pining for a brat who fled the moment things turned dire.

  “How go things?” she asked. Her father’s back was to her as he bent over an anvil with a tiny hammer in hand. At the sound of her voice, he spun around, his body positioned between her and the anvil.

  “Better, if I were not interrupted,” he said. “Is something amiss?”

  “Must something be amiss for me to speak with my father?”

  He crossed his arms. A faint smirk tugged at the right half of his face.

  “History says yes, Stasia.” He turned back around, and she heard the ping of metal, a much higher pitch than the steel of his normal weapons. He opened a nearby cupboard and deposited his work into it fast enough she caught only a quick glimmer of silver bracelets. That done, he wiped his hands on his smithy apron. When he next spoke, he sounded much more at ease.

  “Forgive me, I should not snap at you,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here, for I’ve a request to make, and it saves me time from hunting you down.”

  Stasia hesitated. The reason she came, these thoughts, these questions—she could not banish them. They were worms crawling through her skull. Yet they felt foolish, too, and she could not shake a fear her father would mock her for acknowledging them.

  “Sure, what is it you need?” she asked. So much easier to let him guide the conversation, and to delay her reason for coming.

  “Commander Pilus has been training soldiers in Pelion,” he said. “It is a small village eighty miles southwest of here along Tannis Road, in case you are unfamiliar. Our spies confirmed that the Heir-Incarnate is heading north with a contingent of his soldiers, so it is prudent we strike while they are absent. I would have you visit our new recruits and test their mettle against your own.”

  “Do you think it is wise for me to leave when things are so dangerous in Vallessau?”

  Her father shrugged.

  “It is not my fault we are shorthanded of capable individuals. With Rayan dragging the Vagrant north, it is either you, Mari, or Arn. Of the three, I trust the Lioness and the Heretic to handle a Humbled, at least until Cyrus returns to the fold. The task of aiding Pilus therefore falls to you.”

  Stasia tried not to feel hurt by such a decision. Arn was a paragon, and Mari a god-whisperer. They each possessed supernatural gifts for a fight against the panther god. Stasia, meanwhile, had only her well-honed but still natural human muscles to guide her axes.

  At least, she assumed them natural. Soma and Rihim claimed otherwise…

  “Until Cyrus returns to the fold?” she asked. “I’m sorry, but did we all forget how and when Cyrus left?”

  “He has not left!” Thorda shouted. Stasia lifted her chin and stepped closer. Her hands clenched into fists. Her frustration gave her the courage to face him eye to eye.

  “Wake up, Father. He is gone, and has been for a month. Whatever happened between you and him, it won’t repair on its own. Let me talk to him. We spent years training together. Maybe if you would tell me what happened, I could help.”

  “There is nothing you can do. He must accept his destiny, and he will, Stasia. He will. I hold faith.”

  Stasia’s mood soured, and there was only one way she knew how to react—with anger.

  “Of course you hold faith in him,” she said. “Gods forbid you hold faith in your own daughters. We’re just the hired help here in Thanet. How could we ever hope to win without a spoiled princeling to take the credit for all our hard work?”

  “I thought you wanted to topple an empire, Stasia. Or do you kill solely for accolades and praise, mighty Ax of Lahareed?”

  It was such a low blow she didn’t know how to respond. She had not spread those stories. Over a decade prior, she had accompanied her sister in attacking a mountainside fortress to kill an ailing regent. Afterward, she had flung his corpse off the cliff and then dove after it. Her ax had cleaved it in half, showering a gathering crowd below with bone and gore. Mari caught her as she fell, her sister gifted at that time with the form of the flying Falcon Reaper. The two had flown overhead, a defiant display against the imperial occupation.

  That had only been the start. Blood had flowed like rivers from both ax and talon. And yet Lahareed still fell. Its resistance broke beneath waves of steel, faith in the Falcon Reaper faded away, and years later they departed, seeking a new nation, a new battlefield. It might have spread her reputation far and wide, but for her, it was her greatest failure. She had given everything of herself, and it led to nothing. Lahareed had shown the limits of her ax.

  And yet still she fought. Still she killed. Her father should know the resolve it took to continue, shouldn’t he? He knew the sacrifices she offered, the lonely nights, the inability to ever lay down roots, all to fight a war for a home she barely remembered.

  “Accolades,” she said, voice falling low and dangerous. “You think I suffer all this for accolades?”

  Thorda picked up various tools, little hammers and pliers, and began organizing them on a pegboard. It was as if he had to be doing something, anything, to keep his gaze elsewhere.

  “Truthfully, I do not know why you suffer as you do,” he said. “Especially for one such as me.”

  It wasn’t much of an apology, but Stasia had learned to live with less. She took in a long breath and counted to three before letting it out. She must approach this next topic calmly, and fully under control.

  “There’s something I wanted to ask you before I go,” she said, easing into the actual point of her questioning. “It’s about the Humbled.”

  “Worry not about him. With Arn’s help, your sister is capable of putting him down.”

  Putting him down, like the Humbled were a rabid dog. Though was it all that far from the truth? Beaten and broken gods, offering up their faith to the God-Incarnate in distant Eldrid. They were sickly shadows, twisted from their original purpose. They should be defending their people, not aiding their oppressors. Perhaps putting them down was absolutely the best way to view it.

  “It’s not killing him I’m worried about,” Stasia said. “It’s something he said.”

  “Oh?” Thorda asked. No inflection in the slightest, and barely a lift of an eyebrow. That alone made Stasia suspicious. He should have been disdainful, or incurious. Instead, he feigned nothing at all.

  “The Humbled insisted that he smelled other gods on the island,” she said, then hesitated. Damn it, why was she so nervous? Even now she could not voice the entire accusation, but a hint of it. “Miquoan gods.”

  Thorda crossed his arms and glared.

  “You bother me with the delusions of a Humbled? What could that even mean, Stasia?”

  There was the disdain. There was the disregard she expected. It was almost comforting.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and started to pace around the cramped forge. It was far from the grand space her father preferred at their country-side mansion, but stuck in Vallessau, this converted room would have to do. He’d opened holes in the roof to allow the smoke out, installed the forge, and added shelves to contain his tools and ingredients. “He seemed so sure of himself.”

  “Of course he is sure,” Thorda said. He slammed his hammer onto a shelf. “His mind has been warped by decades of torture. He likely thinks Miquoan gods lurk everywhere he goes. His hatred of us, and of the betrayal I committed against his nation, might be the very impetus used to break him. He is not to be trusted, my daughter, only eliminated.”

  If only it were that simple, but Rihim’s claim had tossed kindling onto an already burning fire.

  “He’s not the first to claim I have divine blood,” she said.

  “What then?” Thorda asked. “What other trustworthy person has told you lies?”

  A tiny bit of heat flushed into Stasia’s cheeks.

  “A paragon,” she admitted. “One in blue armor by the name of Soma. When we fought after the hangings, he made a claim similar to Rihim’s.”

  “And now we are putting the word of the empire’s paragons over my own.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “That is exactly what you are doing. Liars and manipulators are casting doubt upon your abilities, Stasia. They seek only to confuse you.”

  “But why would he lie? It doesn’t make any sense. Soma said I might be a god, or at least a demi-god.”

  Again she hesitated. Why? She didn’t actually believe this nonsense… did she? No. She had to know. She had to have an answer, one given from her father’s lips, or it would drive her mad. Stasia forced out the words, even if they were halted and embarrassed.

  “Am… am I one?”

  At that, her father laughed.

  “We are descendants of Miquo, Stasia. For hundreds of years, Miquoan gods lived and walked among us, and they sired many, many children. Of course you have the faint blood of gods within you. Mari does, too, as well as every single Miquoan refugee you might ever meet. We are a blessed people. It was why we isolated ourselves, and bore so much hatred from the outside world.”