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  "Thank you, Fehri. Good luck."

  Fehri bowed to him, took a final puff of the sacha, stamped it out on a crossbeam, and then left the stable.

  Talon headed for the exit behind him, his arms full with the cloak, the hat, and the shears while Fehri went the other direction, into the inn through a second door. When he reached the stable doors, he peeked out, checking for soldiers. There was one standing at attention near the mouth of the alley, and he watched while Fehri spoke to him, and then brought him away at a fast walk.

  "Time to go," Talon whispered, slipping out of the door and breaking for the street at a run. Fehri was gathering his men inside the inn. The soldier would spend valuable minutes questioning Urla about his whereabouts, during which he would cross over to the next zone of patrols.

  He was only three blocks from Davin's estate, only a block from the millinery, when he was finally spotted.

  "Hold, sir," the soldier called out from behind him. Talon didn't turn at first, continuing to walk as though he wasn't being spoken to.

  He heard the patter of the horse's hooves accelerate, and then the soldiers were right behind him.

  "I said, hold." The voice was gruff and angry.

  Talon stopped walking and faced them, keeping his eyes downcast. His uncommon blue would draw too much scrutiny. "My apologies, your Lordship. I didn't guess that you was talking to the likes of me."

  "There's no one else out here," the soldier said. He was young, a little pudgy, wearing light chain armor and a dull iron helm over his blacks. He was flanked by two others, who were even younger than he was.

  Little more than children.

  Talon kept his eyes down. "My apologies, your Lordship. Please forgive my ignorance."

  "What are you doing out here?"

  Talon held out the cloth and hat. "I been called out to visit Lord Varquist, your Lordship. He wanted a hat."

  "Lord Varquist? I've never heard of him."

  "Aye. He lives over yonder, near that estate that done burned down some fortnight or so ago. 'Twas fortunate for him the fire didn't spread. Your Lordship."

  The soldier whispered something to his companions. "An odd time of night to be out making hats."

  "Aye. It is, your Lordship. Begging your pardon, but between you and me, Lord Varquist is quite an odd soul." He cackled at the comment, coughing in the middle of his laugh. "I'm not a wealthy man, your Lordship, and my poor birth prevented me from serving him as proudly as you do. As it is, there's just me, me wife and the hats. I can't afford to turn down work, even if it means heading out in the middling of the night, and running into you fine gentlemen."

  The soldier was silent for a moment, and then dismounted his horse. He came in close to Talon. "Let me see your face."

  "My apologies, your Lordship," Talon said, backing away. "I've got this sickness." He coughed again for effect. "I don't want to pass it to you."

  The soldier reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, squeezing tight enough that it would have caused most men to cry out. Talon did his best imitation, coughing, whimpering and whining at the pain.

  "Let me see your face," the man repeated.

  Talon breathed in slowly, gathering his focus in case he needed to change his tactics. He looked up at the soldier, making a face that he hoped was pitiful.

  The soldier stared at him. At his eyes first, and then at the stubble and dirt on his face, his black clothes, his soldier's boots.

  "Where did you get army blacks?" the soldier asked, still scrutinizing him and growing more suspicious.

  "My son, your Lordship. He's a soldier. We're the same size. He passed them down to me." He tried to sound frightened. He wasn't sure how convincing it was, and he was losing confidence in his trickery. He had hoped to avoid being seen at all, and if that couldn't be avoided to bypass the kind of notice that would identify his dress, even if he had removed his markings from it. He had failed on both counts.

  "Didn't you just say it was only your wife and your cat - what the Heden?"

  The soldier's eyes flew up and over Talon, fear taking control of his face. Talon looked back, finding Oz racing towards them, the juggernaut carrying his massive sword in hand and bearing down on the soldiers.

  "My apologies, your Lordship," Talon said, dropping the clothes from his arms and striking the soldier in the face with enough force to break his nose. He grabbed the hilt of the man's sword even as he fell to the ground.

  He heard the thwip of bowstrings, and the ping of the arrowheads smacking against Oz, his heavy shell deflecting them without concern.

  "Oz," Talon shouted.

  The juggernaut didn't pause. It steamed past him, swinging its huge blade and cutting the soldiers down from their mounts.

  "Oz," he repeated.

  Oz turned, its red eyes blazing. "It is pleased to see First of Nine."

  "What did you do?" The first soldier was still alive, on his hands and knees. Talon put the sword to his throat. "Be still."

  The soldier didn't move.

  "It is worried. It is coming."

  "Worried?"

  "It is not right back."

  Talon looked at the corpses of the other soldiers. Oz had almost cut them in half.

  "I was coming back," he said. "I was dealing with them."

  "It is worried."

  It said it as though that was all the reason it needed.

  "I gave you an order," Talon said.

  Oz was silent.

  "Oz. You disobeyed me."

  The juggernaut was still. "It is sorry."

  Talon stared back at the creature. There was much more to it than he understood, but there was one thing he was sure of: Oz was not like any of the other juggernauts. The question was, why?

  "Here," Talon said, picking up the cloak and holding it out to it. "Put this on, quickly. You should have left your sword with mine. Now we have to find somewhere to hide it."

  "It is sorry," Oz repeated. It put the sword on the ground and took the offered cloak and deftly slipped it over its shoulders with one arm. Then it took the hat and placed it over its head.

  "It is wearing clothes," Oz said.

  "Yes. Keep the cloak closed." Even though Urla had gotten it from a man called 'the bear' it was still pulling at the juggernaut's shoulders, and it barely dropped to the top of its ankles. The hat was also pulled on tight, the shadow of the wide brim just barely enough to keep its face in darkness, the glow if its eyes hidden.

  Talon looked down at the soldier, who stayed motionless beneath the sword. He shifted his hand forward and drew a neat line into his bare neck, cutting deep. The soldier gurgled in pain and fell.

  Murderer.

  Talon closed his eyes.

  Yes. He saw too much. A risk we couldn't take.

  "Let's go," he said, dropping the sword to the dirt next to the body.

  Before they could, a rush of footsteps echoed around them. The soldiers ran in from the alleys and cross-streets, a hundred strong or more. Dozens of arrows trained on them, tense bowmen keeping their strings taught and ready to loose.

  Oz started reaching for its sword.

  "Don't," Talon said. "That is an order, and you had better follow it."

  Oz stopped moving.

  Three men on horseback parted the masses, riding ahead to where they stood. One took the reins of the dead soldier's horses. The other two came close.

  "Silas Morningstar," Fehri said, his eyes filled with disgust at the carnage. "You are under arrest."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Spyne

  General Spyne made the last few steps up to the top of the ridge. He was sweaty from the climb, breathing hard, the anger pulsing beneath the surface of an icy stare. The rest of the Historians filed in behind him, wheezing and gasping, complaining at the soreness of their muscles, and wishing they had been able to bring the horses up the steep terrain.

  All except Worm. He didn't so much climb the mountain as flow up it, soundlessly making the ascent without breaking
a sweat, without breathing any harder, and of course without a word. He was the one who paused next to Spyne, looking down the slope on the other side towards the distant ruin that was Genesia.

  "Home," Spyne said.

  The small emotion that had sat in his gut for the last two days had grown to a strange yearning, an overwhelming desire to see the place again. Now he gazed down onto the crater. It had lost its obscuring mist, down to the patches of bones and the trees beyond, down to the mountain of stone and slagged ircidium that rested in the center. A true tomb within a tomb.

  "We came all this way for some ruins?" Rose asked.

  Spyne turned, finding the man a few steps behind him. He rushed him, knocking aside his defenses and putting his hands around his throat, using it to drag him to the edge.

  "Ruins?" he whispered. This was where he had lived. This was where he had changed. This was his legacy, their legacy, and Talon had brought it to dust.

  "General. General, please." Rose's voice strained beneath the hands. "I'm sorry."

  It wasn't enough. Not this time. The anger burned and boiled in him, stealing away any sense of logic. He squeezed even tighter.

  "Do you know what I sacrificed for these ruins? Do you know what I gave?"

  He didn't remember all of it. He remembered enough. His eyes closed, his mind putting the tower back together, standing it upright. The reactor. He could remember the smell of the flowers that lined the corridors, giving off their natural phosphorescent light. He could remember the music and the children. The majesty of what they were building, the thrumming of the ebocite core.

  It had been beautiful.

  He remembered his wife. Simple, plain, and wonderful.

  She had been beautiful, too.

  War had stolen her away. War stole it all away.

  He remembered the pain.

  The magic was untested. It was all theory and guesswork, based on what little they knew about the enemy. Creating them, creating the Nine, had been painful. Beyond painful. A pain he still carried with him. So many had died. So many had been incompatible. Why had he survived? Why was he here now?

  Rose's hands were on his, trying to pry them apart. His face was turning pale, his eyes beginning to bulge. The rest of the Historians were motionless, watching him, waiting for him to finish his work. They were hard men, and they were smart men. At least, smart enough to know when to stay silent. Most of them.

  "He took it," Spyne said. "He took my home."

  The promise. That's why he was here. He remembered the promise. He had to. It was the only thing that made sense to him. It was the only thing to hold onto, when nothing else brought him any feeling at all. It was the reason he had led the juggernauts through Genesia, slaughtering every man, woman, and child they discovered. It was the reason he burned the books, destroyed the past.

  It was the reason he had murdered his wife and daughter.

  Their bones were down there, mixed with all the others.

  The anger flared, a fire burning ever brighter. He lifted Rose off his feet, squeezing one last time with a strength that was beyond human. The man's spine crumbled beneath the pressure, stopping his pleading for good. He hurled the body away from him, dropping to his knees and burying his face in his hands even as it rolled down the slope to join the others.

  He had never remembered it before. Not until he had been sent here. Not until he had seen it. Who he was. What he was. He wasn't supposed to know this. The promise wasn't supposed to be broken. Not now. Not ever.

  He hated Talon for that, too.

  The sound of boots on the ground in front of him brought him back to his senses. His head lifted, and he found Worm descending the slope, everything about him calm and steady. He felt the anger again, the internal sun that threatened to burn him alive from within. It had been cooled somewhat by the violence. It sparked at the sight of the Historian moving ahead of him. It wasn't enough for him to act on it.

  "Worm, hold," he said.

  Worm stopped and looked back, waiting.

  He couldn't end him, the way he had Rose. Ash, Cain, even Peyn, yes. Not Worm.

  "With me," Spyne said, straightening up and turning his face to stone. "Talon was here. He's gone now. I know it. We missed him." He looked out across the ridge line. He couldn't have missed by much.

  "Shall we turn around, my Lord?" Peyn asked, careful to stay a few paces behind.

  "No. We go down."

  He didn't give a reason. He didn't need to. He wouldn't have liked the decision, but Spyne had a feeling he had known sending him here was a risk. That his memories were a risk. He also would have to know that Spyne was the most loyal of the Nine. The one least likely to forget the promise. The one who would act out of emotion, out of anger.

  He had forgotten for a thousand years, and now Talon Rast had forced him to remember.

  His wife was down there. His daughter. His home.

  In ruins.

  All of it destroyed.

  If Talon had his way, for nothing.

  He would find his former friend, and crush him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Talon

  Word traveled quickly among the soldiers that Silas Morningstar had been caught.

  The groups of guards that had been spread throughout the city keeping lookout for him were recalled, and they waited at the gates to the palace as Fehri and his own company of men led Talon and his brute of a companion through.

  Talon didn't balk under their gaze. He didn't flinch at their insults and jibes, their spittle and anger. He kept his head up, his posture proud, confronting them, daring them to lose their own sense of control, to push their way past the soldiers to get a piece of him. He was the Liar, their enemy. He had killed their brothers in arms. He had killed an Overlord.

  Oz was ambivalent behind him, not reacting at all to the noise or the emotion. They hadn't tried to remove its hat or cloak, perhaps out of fear after what it had done to their comrades. It remained nothing more than a beast of a man to them, trailing behind its master.

  "Where is your whore?" a voice cried out from the crowd in front of the gates, even as they began to swing open.

  "Yeah, I'd love to get a taste of that," another shouted.

  "How much?" yelled a third.

  Talon refused to let the words affect him, though they boiled him on the inside. His mind was locked on the image of Eryn as he last saw her. It was the reason he was here. It was why he was enduring this.

  He raised his hand up to scratch his face, drawing a sharp look from the guard next to him, who inched his sword closer.

  "Watch yourself, Liar."

  "Just an itch," Talon said.

  Fehri shifted in his saddle to glance back at them. After seeing the soldier's face when he showed up to claim them, Talon was no longer sure that the so-called servant of Amman was still going to see their plan through. He couldn't believe he was enough of an actor for his face to have paled and twisted in such a way of his own accord.

  Although, perhaps the fact that he was still alive was testament to the Captain's word. Even if he had been disgusted by the violence, Fehri had made a promise, and Talon had placed his trust. It wouldn't be in the spirit of Amman to break it.

  "Take his head!"

  The shouts continued.

  "Cut him in half!"

  "Put him in the guillotine!"

  They marched through the gates, to the large courtyard at the front of the palace. The barracks were on the left side, and hundreds of soldiers had risen from their sleep to see what the fuss was about. They stood in linen pants and bare chests, joining in the fury of the crowd, adding their shouts and curses. The entrance to the dungeon would be on the right side, closer to the palace proper. Their escort shifted that way, leading them away from the others.

  A small bastion was the only external hint of the prison below the palace, a block of simple stone with an iron door at its center, and a stoic elder soldier standing in front of it.

  "Commander
Trock," Fehri said, dismounting his horse and sharing a bow with the soldier. "I bring you Silas Morningstar, and one of his outlaw companions. He is to be interred at once."

  Trock. When Talon heard the name, his mind fell from Eryn, back to somewhere else. A battlefield, somewhere. He saw the man, so much younger than he appeared now. He was infantry then, a boy of seventeen or eighteen. He tried to place the battle, the date, the reasons. All he saw was his face.

  Trock smiled and looked at Talon. "The Liar captured at last. The Overlord will be tickled. Me and my boys will take it from here."

  Fehri shook his head. "I captured him. I'm responsible for his safety. I'll lead him down. The Overlord will want to speak to him before she decides his fate."

  "Death, for sure," Trock said. "As you wish, my Lord."

  He knocked on the door, and it swung inward. A half-dozen jailers in faded leathers came forward to claim them.

  Fehri turned to his man. "Wait here. Make sure the Overlord is sent word of this one's arrival."

  "Yes, my Lord."

  Fehri moved in behind Talon and Oz, holding his sword at the ready. "Shall we?"

  Trock took the lead, with the other jailers surrounding them. Oz barely fit through the door, scraping it with its shoulder, its hat threatening to be pulled from its head. The bastion had only a small station inside for the guards, and then an iron gate that led to a set of stairs which dove deep below the palace. The gate was already open, inviting them in.

  The iron door closed and locked the moment they were through, the mechanism echoing in the small space.

  "Won't be leaving now," one of the jailers said.

  "Or ever," another added.

  "Quiet," Trock said. He turned and looked back, and then approached them. "You won't need that in here." He reached up, grabbing the brim of Oz's hat and ripping it away. When he saw what was beneath it, he blanched. "What is this?"

  Oz's arm shot out from under the cloak, its hand wrapping around Trock's neck. "It is One Zero. It is called Oz."

  There was a moment of silence as each of the other jailers recovered from the shock of the juggernaut, and then they started to reach for their weapons.