CONTENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Acknowledgments

Kickstarter Backers

Copyright Information

Nine years before the events of In the Shadow of Lightning.

Two months after the sacking of Holikan.

1

Franciata da Pavlio de Overvich planned for a life of many things—of love and laughter, of grit and blood, of worn boots and saddles. These things were in her nature, the nature of her people, the nature of her faith. Her vows bade her to travel the world, to protect the merchant and the traveler and the poor pilgrim. To eat and fight and make love. Experience, as her goddess wrote, is the wellspring of a full and fulfilling life.

All that changed when revolution tore her homeland to pieces.

Cities burned across the vast steppes of Balkani. Dozens of factions made war upon each other over the slightest ideological differences. Men sent their brothers to the noose only to find themselves facing the axe. It was a time of terror and chaos and uncertainty. Everyone was right. Everyone was wrong. Faith became a curse word, and it was all Ciata could do to cling to hers while she tried to bring some modicum of light into a failing world.

She rode into Lorn Waterside on an overcast morning, urging her mare Penny through the clamoring throng as dirty hands snagged at her legs and saddle. She dared not linger amongst the crying refugees—not since she saw a crowd like this pull a knight down and eat his horse. It pained her deeply she had no choice but to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to all the suffering around her.

A deep, quick-flowing river formed a natural barrier to the thousands of refugees piled up along this border with the Ossan Empire. A great stone bridge spanned its width, and here on the northern side over a hundred Ossan soldiers in their black uniforms and gold trim stood nervously behind heavy palisades while their bureaucrats sorted through the miserable masses.

“You there!” one called to Ciata as she approached. “Get to the back of the line!”

Ciata turned in her saddle to look across the sea of refugees. If there was a line, she could not see it. Instead she produced a letter from her pocket and waved it in return. “I’m invited!” she called.

The soldier leaned over to peer at the letter, then waved her along the palisade. “Head to the gate and show that to the sergeant on duty!” He had to shout to be heard.

Ciata did as she was told, and the sergeant gave her letter a cursory read before gesturing her through the gate and across the bridge to the garrison fortress on the other side. The garrison hadn’t been here when she passed through a few years back. During more peaceful times. Before the revolution.

Another soldier checked her letter. “Tell Major Del Bassa that his guest has arrived,” she told a nearby messenger boy.

Ciata removed her riding gloves and was happy to hand Penny over to a polite young stable hand. She found herself looking back across the river to that throng of desperate refugees, her heart hurting for them. “What’s your name?” Ciata asked the soldier still holding her letter.

“Bickinella. Lieutenant Bickinella.”

“I’m Ciata.” Ciata gestured toward the refugees. “Do you let any cross?”

“Fifty a day,” the lieutenant replied. “No more, no less.”

“So few.”

“And you can thank Governor Grappo for that. If the Ossan Assembly had their say, the border would be closed entirely. Are you really a knight? You’re even younger than I am.”

Ciata knuckled her back after the long ride, pacing back and forth to get her legs back under her. “I’m twenty-three,” she said, “and no, I’ve yet to be knighted. I’m a questing squire.”

“Oh.” Lieutenant Bickinella seemed disappointed. “Major Del Bassa thought he was sending for a knight.”

“I’m probably the only member of my order within five hundred miles,” Ciata told her. “If he wants a proper knight, he’ll have to wait a long time.”

The lieutenant eyeballed her, and Ciata got the impression of someone starved of conversation at a stressful border posting. “Huh. So you’re gonna be a knight?”

“That’s my goal, yes.”

“How do you do that?”

“I serve my goddess until she sees fit to knight me.”

Lieutenant Bickinella nodded as if she understood perfectly. “What’s your knightly order?”

Ciata tapped the sigil of a round-faced woman smiling over a horn of plenty stitched on her vest. “Religious. We worship Selease, goddess of pleasure.”

“Never heard of her.”

“It’s not practiced much this far south.”

“When you say pleasure…”

“Our goddess commands us to partake of all the joyous experiences the world offers us. Fine foods, vibrant art, melodious song, good company.”

The lieutenant laughed. “Sign me up for that! That’s all you do, then? Ride around questing for pleasure?”

Ciata smiled along with the soldier and craned her head to look farther into the courtyard. There was some kind of uproar there. “On the contrary, we are paladins of the road.”

“I don’t know what a paladin is.”

“A holy warrior.” Ciata could see a squad of soldiers had taken interest in a group of refugees, surrounding their handcart, raising their voices. An elderly man tried to stand up to them and was thrown to the ground. Two of the soldiers turned the handcart over on its side. A woman began to wail, while the soldiers laughed.

Her companion barely seemed to notice. “What kind of war do you fight?”

“The kind against injustice,” Ciata said, striding toward the overturned handcart. “You, corporal, what are you doing?”

The corporal was a fresh-faced man with a cruel look in his eyes. “This dirt-licker lied about his credentials to get across the bridge.”

“I didn’t lie!” the refugee cried, one arm around each of two women that Ciata assumed were his daughters. “I said I was a siliceer! I…I didn’t finish training, but I do have some ski…”

“Shut up!” The corporal punched the elderly fellow in the ribs. Ciata could have sworn she heard something crack, and she immediately put herself between the two.

“If you feel lied to, then you send them back across the bridge,” Ciata instructed calmly. “That is punishment enough. No need to abuse them.”

The corporal sneered. “Who the piss do you think you are, giving orders to me?”

Ciata smiled gently. “A humble suggestion, that’s all. These people have already suffered enough. Compassion costs you nothing, corporal.”

“Compassion? I’ll show you…” He went for his sword.

Ciata was faster, drawing her own and cutting his hand before his blade cleared the scabbard. He swore and fumbled the weapon, tripping on his own scabbard and winding up in the dirt as everyone around them began to yell.

“Hold!” a voice shouted across the courtyard, silencing the commotion. It was another officer, a man in his late forties, with silver epaulets and a purple patch on his arm. He was clean-shaven, his skin a shade darker than almost everyone else here. “Major Jon Del Bassa,” he introduced himself. “You’re the Seleasian knight I asked for?”

“Franciata da Pavlio de Overvich.” She inclined her head without lowering her sword. “Questing squire.”

The major sighed. “Not even a knight,” he muttered. “Everyone, lower your weapons! Miss Overvich, please sheathe your sword.”

“I did not draw first.”

“I know. The corporal here is new to the border. Forgive him his rashness. Everyone is on edge. I’ll see that these people are given cureglass and allowed to continue.”

“Major?” the corporal squeaked in protest.

Major Del Bassa shook his head. “You don’t draw on a Balkani knight, you idiot. Even their squires are better swordfighters than anyone you’ve ever met. And a Seleasian? Hah! Get out of here. Go cool off. Don’t start a fight on your way. And you two, help right that cart! Miss Overvich, would you be so kind as to join me in my office?”

Ciata glanced at the corporal, then around at the nervous soldiers, and sheathed her sword. “You’ll give these people cureglass?”

“I gave my word.”

“Then I am at your pleasure, Major. Please lead the way.”

In his office, the major brought Ciata a mug of cider while she warmed her hands by his fire. She could feel him looking at her the same way the lieutenant outside did: with measured curiosity, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting—but she wasn’t it. “You’re not a knight,” he said, as if commenting again would change that.

“Not yet,” Ciata said, taking the cider. It was pretty good, for an Ossan drink. Crisp but not too sour. “I’m a questing squire, entrusted to wander the roads protecting the merchants, the pilgrims, and the vagrants. Selease willing, I’ll one day earn my color in the Court of Lilies. How can I help you, Major? It’s not often an Ossan officer sends for one of my order, but I understand you’re a worshipper?”

Major Del Bassa drummed his fingers on the wall. “Not personally. I don’t have much patience for religion, but my aunt was a Seleasian. She said you knights were the real business. True believers. Serious fighters worth respecting. Which makes this harder than I expected it would be.” He sighed. “We found one of your people. Dead.”

Ciata inhaled sharply. “A knight from the Court of Lilies?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re certain?”

The major set his cider down and opened a drawer in a cabinet in the corner. “His effects,” he said, stepping away to give Ciata some room. Ciata knelt beside the drawer and took each piece out one at a time. Dark red cavalier’s hat, decorated with broken peacock feathers. Matching leather vest embroidered with a round-faced woman smiling above a horn of plenty. Matching leather trousers, leather boots. Flowing white shirt, crusty with blood. Two pistols. Tobacco. Godglass pouch. Heavy black leather belt.

Ciata lay each item out on the floor, her chest tight, holding in her mind’s eye the image of a thin man with happy eyes and a silver mustache that drooped down below his chin. Ciata suddenly felt very cold. She picked up the vest and clutched it to her chest.

“Can you identify these effects?” the major asked kindly.

Ciata swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yes,” she said. The word came out a croak. She wiped her face on her sleeve. “These belonged to Vilhelm Loewe, the Crimson Lily.”

“I can tell you the details as far as we know them.”

“Please do.”

“One of my patrols was out just a few miles from here when they heard gunshots. When they reached the spot, they found your man dying on the ground. The perpetrators were Balkani. They fled at first sight of the patrol. One squad gave chase. The other came back here for cureglass. I’m afraid neither was successful.”

Ciata’s world felt…brittle. Like a stiff breeze might shatter it. Since the revolution began she’d witnessed the worst that humanity had to offer—a darkness held at bay only with the heroic actions of the few Lilies bringing light to all corners of Balkani. “How did it happen?”

“Ambushed with rifles.”

“Cowards,” Ciata muttered. “Wouldn’t even face him in a straight fight.”

“Did you know him?”

“Everyone knew the Crimson Lily.” Her voice trembled, and she removed her hat to look at a tiny peacock feather tucked beneath the band. It was from the same peacock whose plumage decorated Vilhelm’s hat. “He gave it to me years ago,” she explained. “He used to carry it right here. Most knights have so much pride in their decorations. Each tidbit has a story to tell, has meaning. But when he saw a little girl with a bare hat, he gave this to me without hesitation.”

She sniffed, wiped her face on her sleeve again, and forced herself to stand. “When did this happen?”

“Ten days ago. We buried him on the military lot with full honors.”

“That’s…extraordinarily kind of you.”

“Seemed like the right thing to do. Not many people out there dedicate their lives to good these days. The thieves took his horse, but we did manage to save everything else. There’s money and godglass in the pockets. Seleasian property, as far as I’m concerned. Please take it.”

“Donate the money and godglass to the local omnichapel.” Ciata looked at the effects, trying to think through her grief. There was something missing here that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something important. The tightness in her chest got worse with each passing second until… “Where is his sword?” she asked.

The major frowned. “Ah. Right. That was missing too. Must have been on the horse.”

“Oh,” Ciata murmured. “Oh, no.”

“Is it important?”

A wave of nausea passed through her. Suddenly dizzy, she propped herself up on the corner of the major’s desk until it passed. “I must speak to the soldiers who interrupted the ambush,” she said urgently. “I need to know exactly what they saw. I need to track the villains that did this.”

“Like I said, it’s been ten days. They’re long gone.”

“Not for me, they’re not.”

2

Ciata very nearly wore poor Penny’s horseshoes smooth riding south. They ate up the miles by the hundreds; across the plains of Kashti, through the Darkhammer, across the Halcyon Mountains and the Tien River Valley until they reached the wine-growing expanses of the Ossan Empire’s southern provinces.

She chased rumor and witness accounts, building a profile of her quarry as she went. They were heavily armed. Dangerous. Almost certainly Balkani knights based on the way they spoke and acted. It wasn’t uncommon for knights to head south these days. They went to look for food and gold and godglass, to escape the chaos of the revolution. It was uncommon for them to murder a knight of the Court of Lilies and steal his sword. Ciata was unable to discover which knightly order they belonged to. Who would have it in for a Seleasian?

There were other rumors swirling about as well, concerning news out of the east that the Ossan city of Holikan rose up in rebellion and then was destroyed for its sins. It all happened months ago, but people were finally hearing about it. This made the Ossans nervous and difficult to deal with. After all, there was no talk of bloody rebellion until the Balkani Revolution happened. Why don’t you filthy northerners spread your silly ideas elsewhere, people said to her. Go on, get out of here. We don’t want your kind around making everything worse.

Ciata ignored the locals and continued to follow her quarry’s trail past countless vineyards and wineries. After days of monotonous riding the road finally turned to follow along the side of a massive gorge. She could see where the gorge let out into a river further on—and the river had riverboats. Real traffic.

The road turned to cross the gorge by way of a breathtaking bridge. Ciata actually got down from Penny and led the horse across on foot, just so she could really enjoy the view up and down the gorge and its towering cliffs. The bridge itself must have been a quarter of a mile across. A true genius of human workmanship. Witness the works of man and rejoice, the goddess Selease instructed her followers.

Ciata wasn’t the only one enjoying the view either. A young man was doing the same further on, and Ciata prepared a word of greeting as she approached. He was her height—short for a man. He wore a ratty tunic shredded by travel and weather, caked in mud. At his belt was a wineskin. His black hair was unkempt and his beard patchy. The young man had not even noticed her presence. He leaned too far out over the canyon, the expression on his face distant. Even at the poor angle, she could see the sorrow in his eye. It affected her instantly, causing her to pay closer attention.

He leaned out farther and farther, reaching in the open sky for something she couldn’t see. A skip and a jump and Ciata was on him. She snagged him by his belt, bracing herself on the low stone wall that lined the bridge. He was a heavy bugger. He almost pulled her down with him, but Ciata braced her legs and yanked back, wrestling him to the ground and straddling him to keep him in place.

He was chubby from excess, though not fat, with the olive-toned skin of an Ossan, close-set ears, and a face marked by smile lines. He couldn’t have been much younger than her—maybe twenty, twenty-one—but there was an incredible weight in his eyes.

Her favorite scripture came to mind. Show love and kindness to the broken, for a storm rages inside of them that you can’t imagine.

“Why did you do that?” he asked. He seemed to struggle to focus on her face.

“You were going to fall!”

“Was I?”

“Sure looked like it to me.”

Everything about his face changed instantly. His eyes focused. Gone was the sorrow. He regarded her with sudden and intense interest. “Hmm. Maybe. Maybe not. You’re very cute.”

It was a compliment clearly meant to distract her. Ciata fended it off. No, no. This would not work on her. She recognized the look of a broken person, and she immediately knew two things about this young man: he liked women, and he knew how to hide his pain. “I’m not going to let you kill yourself.”

“Why not?” he asked with a half smile that showed one adorable dimple.

“Because it wouldn’t be right.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. I am a questing squire of the Court of Lilies, a holy paladin of the goddess Selease, and I am sworn to help the downtrodden.”

The young man blinked up at her. He sure didn’t seem to mind that he was lying beneath her. In fact, he gave a little wiggle to get himself more comfortable. She couldn’t let that distract her either. “I assure you, miss, I am not the downtrodden.”

“I beg to differ. Now tell me truthfully, does this thing you’re fighting have to do with a girl? Because whoever they are, they’re not worth it. You’ll find someone else.”

“It’s not a broken heart,” the young man replied with that wounded half smile. It was at once pathetic and compelling. She thought of more of that same scripture verse. Guard your heart against these broken, lest they force their burden upon you. Wise words from the goddess. Ciata rubbed her nose. Her new friend smelled…aggressively.

“I’ll let you up if you promise not to jump.”

“Hm.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Is it that hard of a decision?”

“At the moment, what’s on top of me is more pleasant than what’s at the bottom of that canyon.”

Ciata rolled her eyes. “You’re a cad.”

“Did you say you’re a Seleasian?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re a sex cultist?”

Ciata made a strangled sound in the back of her throat and punched him in the shoulder. The young man winced.

“I guess not?”

“No, we’re not a sex cult! I’m surprised you’ve heard of us at all.”

“Would you prefer to speak in Balkani?” he asked, switching languages. To her surprise, his accent was almost perfect. Perfect southern Balkani, but still very good.

The change of languages did catch her off guard. He was still trying to distract her. Frustratingly, it was working. “I haven’t spoken to anyone in Balkani in weeks! How do you know it so well?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time up north.”

“You don’t look it.”

“How would I look it?”

“You’re very soft.”

His eyes narrowed.

“It’s not an insult!” she protested. “I like soft people. They tend to be better lovers.”

“Good to know.”

“We’re not a sex cult,” she reiterated.

“I know, I was teasing. You’re a pleasure cult, led by the living embodiment of the goddess Selease. You’re from a small province called Faru, pressed up into the foothills of a mountain range whose name I forget.”

“How do you know so much about my people?” Despite herself, Ciata was impressed. This young man dressed like a commoner, was soft like an Ossan, was educated like a priest, smelled like a peasant. She was genuinely intrigued now.

“I like to read. Religions fascinate me. They’re somehow all unique, and yet at the same time, utterly the same damned things. Weird little clubs.”

Ciata sighed. He was so promising up until now. “You’re an unbeliever.”

“Correct.”

“There are thousands of religions. You’re telling me you don’t follow any of them?”

“I’m an Ossan, from Ossa. No matter what anyone says they believe, Ossans only really worship the god Money.”

So he was an Imperial. Probably from a guild-family, or maybe worked for one. Fallen on hard times, no doubt. “That’s awfully unromantic of you.”

“I’ve never so gracefully been accused of atheism before. All right, I promise I won’t jump.”

Ciata climbed off him and offered a hand, pulling him up. What a strange, bitter man. She wiped off first herself and then him, ignoring the amused expression on his face while she did. He was still unreadable, his previous sorrow hidden behind a mask. She’d never met anyone so closed off. She studied his body language. It didn’t look like he was going to jump.

She couldn’t linger, but it didn’t seem right to leave him alone like this either. “What’s your name?”

“Call me Demi.”

“I’m Franciata da Pavlio de Overvich. You may call me Ciata. Demi, do you know what city is farther on this road here?”

“I do. It’s called Dreese, and it’s about the biggest city you’ll run into before the Nasuudian border in another two hundred miles.”

Ciata sighed. She had crossed very nearly the entire height of the Ossan Empire chasing these thieves. What a pain in the ass. But if she let them get to Nasuud, the Sword of the Crimson Lily might very well be lost forever. “Have you seen a group of four Balkani knights come through here? They’d be dressed like me, moving fast on horseback.”

He was nodding even before she finished. “Yesterday afternoon.”

Ciata’s heart surged. She was so close.

“Friends of yours?” Demi asked. He rubbed the backs of his hands in a curious gesture, as if he worried they were dirty.

“Not at all. They’re thieves and murderers. I’m on my way to deliver justice,” she said. “If I can catch them.”

Demi smirked. “Then you’re in luck. The villains you speak of have found local employment in Dreese. Everyone was talking about it.”

Ciata was already deep in her own head, trying to figure out how she could help this young man remain safe while continuing on her quest. It took a moment for his words to reach her, and when they did she gasped and whirled on him. “Are you joking?”

“It would be a poor prank to play on someone who’s got a saddle horn up their ass.”

Ciata frowned.

“It means you’re clearly in a hurry.”

“Ah. I see.” Ciata chewed on the inside of her cheek, looking at Demi sidelong. “Do you know the city well?”

“Dreese? Decently enough.”

“Take off your shirt.”

His face brightened. “You know how to show a guy a good time.”

“Don’t be an asshole. I’m checking for glassrot scales and needle marks.”

He did as she ordered, removing the ratty tunic. He smelled even worse underneath it. His soft skin was covered in travel sores, but the only signs of glassrot scales were some permanent purple ones beneath his left arm. Seemed he used a lot of witglass in his time. She examined his pupils.

“You don’t seem to have dazeglass or opium addictions,” she observed. “If you don’t care to tell me about this mental affliction of yours, I will not press, but I need a guide to help me navigate Dreese and find the people I’m searching for. I’ll pay two hundred krone for three days of your time.”

“I’m not a servant,” Demi scoffed.

“No, but you’re clearly in need of money and are an educated, charming person. I think we can help each other.”

Demi’s eyes narrowed. She sensed a surge of pride and half expected him to tell her off. He opened his mouth, closed it, and that well-hidden sorrow came out from behind the clouds for a few moments. “Krone are worthless in Ossa,” he said.

He wasn’t the first person to tell her that her money was useless, but hope springs eternal. She’d gotten this far by trading her supply of godglass for local currency. “I have a mostly used piece of forgeglass. I’ll give it to you as a downpayment, and then fifty ozzo once I’ve finished my work in the city. Room and board included.” Ciata fished the piece out of her cork-lined pocket and showed it to him in her palm.

Demi barely seemed to notice the godglass. He was looking at her horse, her saddle, and her. His eyes were thoughtful and weighing. “Keep your godglass,” he finally said. “You can buy me a drink in Dreese.”

They had cider. Real cider! It wasn’t very good cider, but it was better than wine. Ciata drank deeply, finishing a pewter pint before she’d even sat down in the crowded hall that Demi led her to. The place was a sprawling collection of odd traveler’s accommodations, narrow hallways, and drafty great rooms. There were billiards and card tables, even a small cudgeling ring. Prostitutes moved back and forth amongst the card tables looking for their next patrons. There must have been a hundred people in here.

Ciata barely looked at any of them as she took her second mug and drained half of it. Weeks on the road with a singular purpose in mind, and everything she’d been denying herself in that time suddenly felt like a hole in her soul. Good drink, good food, good company. She couldn’t remember the last time she sat silently beside a babbling brook or contemplated a painting or sculpture. How long since she felt the warmth of a bed companion?

“You might want to stay sober,” Demi warned. “Places like this aren’t always kind to foreigners traveling alone.”

“I’m not alone. I have you.”

“You just met me. You should not trust a stranger you’ve just met.”

Ciata pursed her lips. “I can tell you have a good heart, Demi.”

“You’re a very poor judge of character, then.”

“On the contrary. I’m a very good judge of character. Besides, I’d have to drink a whole keg for this southern piss to get me drunk.”

“Oh. My mistake.”

“When I hire help, I expect them to keep the sarcasm to a minimum.”

“Ah.” Demi raised his own mug and shot her a flirty smirk. She could hardly tell he was that haunted young man who almost jumped from that bridge a couple hours ago, and might have thought she imagined it if not for the deep dark bags underneath his eyes. “They call this place the Meat Market,” he told her. “It’s where all the local professionals spend their days. Pretty typical for a provincial city. Keeps them all in one place so they’re not causing trouble for the rest of the civilians.”

“Professionals?”

“Soldiers, enforcers, cudgelists, boxers. People who make their living through violence.”

“And you think my quarry will be here?”

Demi shrugged. “They were last night.”

“Perfect! It’ll make my life a lot easier if they come to me.” Ciata leaned back in her chair, eyeballing the crowd. Some of them murmured and looked in her direction. “This place reminds me of the Squares in Balkani.”

“Dueling squares?” Demi asked.

“And the pubs and the brothels where knights hang out. We call it all the Squares since everyone is there to duel. It’s how knights pass the time. Or at least it was before the revolution. People don’t fight for fun as much anymore.” Ciata sighed wistfully and turned her attention back to Demi. His scraggly beard hid a softer jawline than she usually preferred in a man, but he was genuinely quite comely beneath all the grime. If only he smelled better…

He was studying her right back, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her. “You know that this doesn’t actually make your job easier, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Demi nodded over her shoulder. “That woman in the corner is Vavi Teroverde. Don’t look!”

Too late. Ciata was already craning her neck. She could only assume Demi was talking about the raven-haired woman in her prime, surrounded by sycophants who laughed at everything she said. “What about her?”

“Gods, you’re not very subtle, are you?”

“Neither my religion nor my lifestyle calls much for subtlety.”

Demi muttered something into his mug.

“What was that?” Ciata asked.

“Nothing.”

She reached across and gave him a light but firm slap across the cheek. His eyes widened in surprise. “What did you say?” she asked again.

“I said the Ossan provinces are going to eat you alive. You can’t just do whatever you want here. Everything goes through the local guild-families. Vavi hired your Balkani friends. If they’re under her protection, then you’re going to have to work some kind of angle to get the justice you want.”

“Angle?” Ciata asked, doubtful. Maybe this Demi wasn’t the type of person she was looking for after all. Another sigh, and she turned once more toward Vavi Teroverde. “What do they call people like her? A mamma?”

“Matriarch,” Demi corrected her with a snort of laughter. “Maybe don’t stare.”

“Why not?”

“I said…”

“Subtlety. Right.” Ciata ignored him, for Vavi stood up right then and the flash of something at her hip caught Ciata’s eye. Vavi wore a sword that looked nothing like the standard Ossan smallswords. It was closer to a rapier: longer, heavier, with a stylized guard of silver set with rose gold in the form of a lily flower. Even to the untrained eye it was a gorgeous weapon. Ciata’s breath caught in her throat and she was striding in that woman’s direction before the thought to do so even entered her head. She could distantly hear Demi hissing objections.

The whole table tensed and fell silent when Ciata reached it. A big lump of a man dragged himself to his feet and put a hand on Ciata’s chest. “What do you think you’re doing?” he growled.

Ciata stepped sideways and pointed at Vavi. “That sword does not belong to you.”

“Hey. Foreigner! You don’t address Lady Teroverde without…” The big lump snagged Ciata by her arm. She drew her knife with the other, cut his belt in a quick move, and pressed the blade against his throat as his sword and pistol hit the ground. He stiffened and gave a strangled cry.

“Do not lay your hands upon me without permission,” Ciata told him, forcing him to step aside. “That sword does not belong to you,” she reiterated to the matriarch.

Vavi didn’t seem all that impressed. She was thin and gangly, with long arms and legs and a casual air about her that spoke of an experienced duelist. She held a calming hand out to the rest of her entourage before addressing Ciata. “Look at this. Another Balkani knight. Forty years and I’ve hardly seen a single one, and now we’re up to our ankles in them.”

“I’m not a knight,” Ciata corrected. “I am a questing squire. That sword belongs to the Court of Lilies. Hand it over this instant and tell me where to find the villains who gave it to you, and there won’t be trouble.”

Vavi let out a disbelieving laugh. “A squire, no less! Tell me, squire, how long have you been in Ossa?”

“A few weeks.”

“Then I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt this one time: I’m a guild-family matriarch.” She said it as if that was supposed to mean something.

Ciata shrugged. “I don’t care about your rank. That’s still not your sword.”

“My wealth, status, and enforcers all say that it is,” Vavi said, her amusement devolving into irritation.

Ciata might not know Ossans all that well, but she knew how to read a room. Silence rippled across the Meat Market in a wave, all eyes turning in their direction. Violence was imminent. She lay her hand casually on the hilt of her sword, cocking her hips, still pressing the blade of her knife to the throat of the big lump.

“It doesn’t matter how rich you are. You’re holding stolen property.”

“Walk away, foreigner,” Vavi said through clenched teeth.

“Give me the sword and the locations of the people who brought it to you, and I will.”

Vavi slammed her palms on the table. “You arrogant piece of…”

“Ciata!” Demi’s voice called a warning across the silence of the bar.

Ciata turned her head just in time to see movement out of the corner of her eye. She stepped backward, releasing the big lump from her knife and using the blade to turn the sword thrust that might have otherwise skewered her through the side. She kicked a chair, jumping wide into the only spot that gave her enough room to draw her sword, and whirled to face her opponent.

Or rather, opponents.

There were four of them; dressed in black and brown leather with flowing white shirts in the Balkani style, their cavalier hats decorated with feathers and flowers. The man who took a stab at her was taller than her, lean and weathered, in his mid-twenties. To Ciata’s shock, she recognized him; his name was Stian Schnied, and the last time she saw him was in the company of the Green Lily. He was a Seleasian squire.

Her shock was reflected in his own eyes as he fell back two steps to stand amongst his companions. “Shit,” he spat in Balkani.

“Is that Franciata da Pavlio de Overvich?” one of his companions asked.

“It is,” a third replied grimly.

“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me. How did she find us?”

“It doesn’t matter. Fight her.”

“Fight her?” Stian protested. “That bitch cut her way through all the squires and half the younger Lilies in that big tourney right before the revolution!”

“You took a stab at her! Go on! Fight her!”

Ciata let her gaze travel across the other three faces. With growing dread she realized she recognized all four of them. Arty Calgaro, Angela Milés, Mercy Graue. They were all Seleasian squires. None of them were friends, exactly, but she’d shared a drink with all four on different occasions. She’d shared a bed with both Arty and Mercy, and now they were traitors to their order. Ciata ground her teeth and readjusted her footing. “Thieves,” she spat. “Murderers.”

“It’s not like that,” Arty protested. “We didn’t mean to kill him!”

“Shut up,” Stian growled. He wiped his sword hand on his vest and then fell into a dueling stance. “All right, you daft piece of…”

Ciata didn’t let him finish his sentence. Their swords crossed, steel ringing on steel. Her first thrust was a feint, allowing her to judge her opponent’s speed. She remembered fighting him during that tournament. Back then he was too cautious. She parried once, twice, a third time. He seemed to have gotten over his reluctance to engage, but each thrust was so reckless that when she finally performed a tierce riposte, she was able to slide right through his inner guard with a half lunge that stuck him in the heart.

His weight dragged him off the end of her sword.

In Ciata’s mind, the fight was a complicated choreography of physical and mental exchanges that felt like it lasted half a lifetime. In reality it couldn’t have been more than a few moments. A good duel. The right way to finish things. The tension of the room’s pregnant silence changed. People weren’t watching that matriarch anymore. They were watching Ciata.

Vavi swore. “I thought you were supposed to be good,” she snapped at the other three Balkani knights.

“They are good,” the big lump of a bodyguard protested. “They’re better than any of…”

“Shut up, fool.” Vavi rolled her eyes. “You. What did you say your name was?”

Ciata took another half step back, wiping her blade on a handkerchief and careful to keep her eyes everywhere at once. One man already tried to stab her in the back, and he was Balkani. No telling what the rest of these Ossan snakes were capable of. “Franciata da Pavlio de Overvich.” She gave a half bow. “I urge you to reconsider your position. I have no quarrel with you, but these other three must face my sword.” Even as she spoke she could sense the other Balkani backing away. A few weeks in Ossa and they were already cowards.

“I’ll pay you ten thousand ozzo to walk away,” Vavi said.

“I have no interest in your money,” Ciata told her, holding out her open hand. “The sword.”

“I’ll double that price for you to come work for me. I’m down one Balkani mercenary, after all.”

Ciata blinked back at the woman. “Am I the only one of us who speaks Ossan? I don’t care about your money.”

“Godglass. Men. Women. Property. Name your price.”

Ciata grit her teeth and felt the sneer curl on her lips. “I am not some faithless whore to be bought with Ossan trinkets,” she said, directing the words at the former squires. None of them seemed all that interested in engaging her, and they shrank before her words. “Do not insult me again or my honor will demand that I cut the foolish lips from your face.”

The matriarch gaped at her for a few moments before throwing her hands up in disgust. “Take her,” she ordered. “And somebody find that vagrant who shouted a warning to her earlier.” There was a beat of silence before she let out an enraged scream. “Well? Go on!”

In that instant it seemed like half the Meat Market turned on Ciata. Dozens of men and women sprang at her all at once, running into each other in the effort to attack her. They produced cudgels or swords, or ran at her with just their fists. Ciata let out a ululating cry and spun in a circle, bloodying faces and wrists with a weak slash. A stumbling swordsman broke through. She sliced his throat.

One woman dove for Ciata’s legs. Ciata jumped onto a table and ran across it, dragging her blade behind her. There were too many people here. She had to take this outside where she could spread them out and get a piece of forgeglass in her ear.

That big lump of an enforcer rose up to block her way. Ciata’s own momentum betrayed her. Instead of a precise slash, she was forced to knock his cudgel to the side and then run him through. Her hand went numb and her sword caught on his body, costing her precious seconds. Angela suddenly came out of nowhere, knocking Ciata off her feet. They hit the ground hard and Ciata’s sword skittered off. The villain was on top of her—Ciata changed that immediately, tangling their legs together and rolling on top of Angela. Ciata clocked Angela hard enough across the chin that her eyes rolled and tongue lolled.

Grasping hands tore at her shoulders, arms, and hair. Ciata staggered to her feet, barely avoiding a knife aimed at her side. She trapped the wrist, knocked the knife to the floor, and elbowed the owner in the nose. A cudgel swing missed the side of her head, glanced off her shoulder, and hit somebody else in the arm. She ducked, went for her godglass pocket, and watched in dismay as her best forgeglass was immediately slapped from her fingers. She gave a cry of rage and punched a throat.

Fists and knees bludgeoned her endlessly. Blood dripped from her knuckles. All attempts to either recover her sword or get to the door were in vain. The press of bodies was too much in such close quarters. Slowly, surely, Ciata was battered back to the floor. People stood on her arms and legs. Exhaustion finally overcame her ability to writhe and fight.

“All right, all right!” a voice cut through the throng. “Go on, back up! Give me some space!” The matriarch’s face appeared above Ciata, glowering down at her. “Glassdamn,” she exclaimed, “she’s still alive!”

“She broke my nose!” someone yelled.

“Forget your nose, she killed Brelli and Tornin!”

“My arm! My bloody arm!”

“Shut up, the lot of you!” Vavi shouted to be heard over them. She drew the Sword of the Crimson Lily and touched the blade to Ciata’s cheek. “You came all the way south for one little sword, eh? It means that much to you?” She laughed. “You northerners. Damned sentimental fools. I suppose we’re alike in that, then. All right. Last chance. Forget the sword. Come work for me.”

Ciata gasped for breath, judging what little strength remained to her and wondering if she could wrest that sword from Vavi before someone else stuck her from behind. No. No, she didn’t think she could. Instead she gathered a mouth full of phlegm and hawked it at Vavi’s chest.

The matriarch’s expression turned sour. “I’ll take that as a no. All right, you damned fool. Get me some rope!” she yelled. “We’re gonna have a good old-fashioned hanging!”

Ciata managed to bloody a couple more noses by the time they dragged her out into the street and bound her arms tightly behind her back. A crowd gathered and watched, and she could vaguely hear somebody with a Balkani accent arguing with Vavi. About what, she could not understand. A rope was thrown over the drain spout of a nearby omnichapel, the noose around her neck. Her hat was long gone. They took her vest and her boots and emptied her pockets. Ciata had no strength left to fight, but she refused to give in to despair. She did not see Demi anywhere. She hoped he escaped. The words to a Seleasian death prayer came to mind.

By sword and cider I lived my life well

For the poor and the meek

I give myself to Selease

To judge my victories

And beg forgiveness for my failures

“Pull!” somebody yelled, and the rope went tight. Ciata’s feet left the ground, her scream choked off by the rope. Her eyes bugged, her mouth flapping at nothing. She lifted her gaze to the sky, hoping to see the sun one last time.

Instead her spotty vision landed on a face. It was in the window across the street, staring back at her, haggard and dirty and sad. Demi. It was Demi, and he was gesturing to her desperately. Their eyes met. She tried to smile, which was hard when one was being strangled. His lips moved. He was…he was trying to tell her something.

Run.

Ciata could feel her life fading. What a strange thing for him to say to her when her feet were dangling above nothing. She twisted at the end of the rope, losing sight of Demi for a few moments. When she twisted back she could see his jaw clenched as if he was about to do something painful. Wait, she wanted to say. Save yourself.

But then all the glass on both sides of the street exploded.

It rained down on the crowd, eliciting screams of surprise as people ran for cover. A blade of glass swung around seemingly on its own, cutting the rope. Ciata landed on her feet, stumbled, nearly fell, and might have stood there choking on her own surprise if she didn’t see the glass on the cobbles separate to provide a clear avenue for her escape. Ciata spat curses between her ragged breaths and for the first time in her life, she ran from a fight.

3

Distracted by a Pretty Face.

That would be the name of Demir Grappo’s autobiography. Not that he could imagine writing such a thing. Strictly the realm of the bored megalomaniac. But if he did, that would be a perfect title. His life story. A parade of faces, each pulling him in different directions, all of them with their own personal motives. Guild-family daughters hoping to snag him in an advantageous marriage. Scions of wealthy merchant houses trying to get themselves a Grappo bastard. If they knew who he was then they threw themselves at him, and if they didn’t…well, he wasn’t called a womanizer for nothing.

And Ciata. What a woman. Curly auburn hair, button nose, sunburned cheeks, tight Balkani trousers. Kind and passionate, belonging to a religion that literally worshipped pleasure. She just fought half a mob to a standstill without forgeglass. It was like nature had tailor-made a woman for him. Demir could practically feel himself vibrating with the urge to find her again, which was why he was going to get every hell out of this city as soon as possible.

Gods, he was so stupid. Foolish. Weak. He should have fallen from that bridge earlier this afternoon. If Ciata hadn’t come along right when she had, he would have. The nightmares would be over. No more would the screams of children fill his ears during moments of quiet. No more would the flesh of burning civilians fill his nostrils. No more would Holikan haunt his every thought.

He considered going back to the bridge, but knew he wouldn’t have the guts to jump. That ship had sailed, and like waking up from a distressing dream, he found he had no interest in returning to it. Yet.

For now he needed to leave town. The makeup was coming off his hands. If Vavi Teroverde saw his sigils and figured out who he really was, she’d ransom him back to his mother. The shattered remains of his ego couldn’t handle such a humiliation.

So it was time to run again. Like he did after Holikan, and when his mother’s agents caught up to him in Floria. He wasn’t going to stop in the provinces this time. He’d head through Nasuud and take a southern port to Marn. No, that was silly. He’d stick out like a sore thumb in Marn. And Nasuud, for that matter. He should brush up on both languages, though. Just in case. Was there a public library in Dreese? Forget that. He was leaving Dreese tonight. He hoped Ciata got away. She was a good person. Not many of those left in the world.

Demir was so caught up in his own head that he ran straight into a pair of beefy locals. He bounced off one, landed in a heap of rubbish, and scrambled backward on his hands as they began to swear up a storm. Demir’s mouth went dry. They were wearing gray tunics embroidered with green and white—the colors of the Teroverde guild-family.

Enforcers.

One of them, a woman who was almost as big as Montego, reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of his tattered tunic. She hauled him to his feet and slapped him across the face with enough force to rattle his teeth. “Watch where you’re going, asshole,” she growled, throwing him back into the mud.

“Eh,” the other said, “leave him be. Looks like he’s had better days.”

“Yeah? So have I.”

Demir tried to run. He made it to his feet and another three steps before the big woman had him by his jacket, yanking him backward. A brick-sized fist connected with his kidneys. He heaved, doubling over.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the woman laughed. “Vavi is screeching a storm in my ear. I need someone to beat on.”

“Hey, asshole!” a voice shouted. The sound of bare feet splashed through the mud in a fast patter. Demir staggered back and looked up in time to witness Ciata reaching the two enforcers. She wore only her trousers and flowing white shirt, her long hair loose, her hands still tied behind her back. But she was fast. One foot connected with the side of a knee, dropping the first enforcer. The second enforcer took a swing. Ciata sidestepped, ducked, and brought the back of her head up into his chin. He dropped like a sack of rice.

“It’s her!” the first enforcer yelled. “Help! Help! He…”

Caita put her in the mud with a kick to the side of her face. The Seleasian was covered in scrapes and bruises, and there was a rope burn around her neck. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wild as she sidled up to Demir like they were two strangers meeting in a pub. “You all right?”

Demir stared at her dumbly. “I, uh, um.” His tongue might as well have been nailed to the roof of his mouth. The pain radiating from his kidneys didn’t help.

“A little help?” she asked, showing him her bound hands.

“Right.” Demir managed to snap himself out of it. He found a knife on the big enforcer woman. “Hold still.”

“What are you doing?” Ciata laughed at him. “You’re a glassdancer.”

Demir felt queasy. “Oh. Right. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did! It was incredible!” He finished sawing through the rope, and she rubbed her wrists and rolled her shoulders. “Much better.” She turned on him with the brightest, broadest smile he’d ever seen and without warning planted a kiss on his lips. “Nobody’s ever saved me like that before. Full marks for style!” She took a truncheon from one of the fallen enforcers, pocketed a piece of forgeglass and another knife, then checked her feet beside theirs in the hope their boots would fit her. She gave a disappointed sigh. “Well?” she asked him. “Are you coming?”

“Uh, what? Where are we going?” Demir had never been so out of sorts in his life. His head hurt; his stomach hurt. He felt tugged along, limping after as she left the alley and strode into the street like she owned the city.

“We’re going to get my sword back. And my boots, vest, and hat.”

It took a few moments for Demir to catch up mentally, and when he did he forced himself to run through the pain in his stomach to cut her off physically. To his relief she did stop. “Whoa! Wait! Have you gone mad?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Vavi Teroverde probably has a hundred and fifty enforcers on her payroll, plus the loyalty of half of Dreese, and right now they’re all looking for you. They won’t give you the formality of hanging next time.” Demir glanced around furtively and guided her back into the mouth of the alley.

Ciata gave him a kindly smile. “I’m sorry, Demi, but I have people to kill and a sword to retrieve. Hmm. Two swords. I don’t care how many enforcers these Teroverde people have. I’ll cut through them all if I have to.”

“I know exactly one person capable of doing that kind of damage, and he’s not in the province right now,” Demir said. He was half joking, but he realized then that Ciata was the only person he’d ever seen move like Montego: an artist whose chosen canvas was violence. Let her go, a voice screamed in his head. Let her get herself killed and then you can go on feeling sorry for yourself and trying to figure out a way to die that won’t offend your coward’s sensibilities.

“One person?” Ciata asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’d like to meet them.”

“You’re not going to if you walk back into the Meat Market right now,” Demir told her.

“I am on a mission,” she told him firmly. “Nothing will stop me from doing my duty.”

“I’m not telling you to give up and go home,” Demir assured her, though he very much wanted to do exactly that. “You’ve gotten away from certain death. Maybe just…reconvene. Change your clothes, cut your hair, lay low for a few months.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Try to cut my hair and see what happens.”

“I’ll pass,” Demir said, holding up both hands in surrender. It was getting late in the afternoon, and two strangers covered in mud were arguing in the mouth of an alley. People were starting to take notice. How long did they have until someone called for the local militia, or the Teroverde enforcers? Ah, nuts. What was he doing here? None of this had anything to do with him. A smarter man would listen to that voice in his head and walk away. But that ache in his stomach wasn’t only from getting punched. He couldn’t leave Ciata here alone like this.

Distracted by a Pretty Face.

“Look,” he said quietly, “maybe you’re good enough to cut through a couple hundred people, if they all stood in a nice line and let you fight them one at a time. But even the best can get overwhelmed, and in all likelihood they’ve busted out the carbines by now and somebody is just gonna shoot you the next time you show your face.”

For the first time she seemed to understand what he was saying, a little frown depositing itself on her lips. “Ossan aren’t exactly known to be sporting, are they?”

“It was a Balkani who tried to stab you in the back,” he pointed out, and immediately regretted it. “But also, you’re right,” he added quickly. “Not sporting in the least.”

Ciata was suddenly right up in his face, taking him roughly by the chin and looking him first in one eye and then the other. “You’re speaking sensible advice as you believe it,” she finally concluded.

Good. Demir was getting through to her. But he sensed this was a slim thing. Once again he thought of Montego. What to do when his brother was on the warpath? Usually it was simply get out of his way, but Montego could be reasoned with if one presented an argument for why delaying could lead to the more thorough destruction of his enemies. Demir noodled that for half a second and decided that Ciata would need a slightly different tactic.

“There are people staring at us. That kid over there is probably running for the militia. If you don’t want to end up a bloodstain on some provincial cobbles, then let’s get out of here. For the moment.”

“And?”

“And lie low someplace!”

Ciata sighed wearily. “I despise hiding. Only cowards hide.”

“Cowards live a lot longer.”

“Cowardly lives.”

“And maybe they have a better chance of fulfilling their duties.”

For a few moments, Demir was certain she was going to shove him aside and continue on her road of destruction. To his great relief, she gave her stolen truncheon a twirl and nodded. “Fine,” she said, “but only because you rescued me in such a glorious fashion.”

Demir took Ciata out of the city and into the low hills where the land was too scraggly for vineyards. It was mostly goat herdsmen up here, but there was an isolated homestead nestled there whose address and description he’d kept in the back of his head for the last few years. A low stucco house sat behind reed fences on the bank of a bubbling little stream. The stream fed a fountain, and the ground was organized into little planting mounds. An old hound regarded them from the fence, but didn’t seem all that bothered by their presence.

“And you know the person who owns this place?” Ciata asked Demir as he used an enforcer’s knife to flip the latch on the reed fence.

“Not exactly. My adopted brother is a cudgelist,” he said, keeping the details vague. “He’s got friends all around the Empire, and sometimes I cross paths with those friends. Liza Coop and I met at a thing I was doing in the capital. She told me to drop in any time I liked.” He swung the gate open and stepped aside.

Ciata suddenly gave a girlish little skip and ran to admire the fountain. “So this is an authentic Ossan villa, then? It’s beautiful! My vows forbid me from owning any property I cannot carry on horseback, but I can see the seduction of such a gorgeous place.”

Demir cocked an eyebrow. He crossed paths with a lot of country bumpkins in his day—he used to be the governor of a province, after all—but this was ridiculous. “I wouldn’t call it a villa,” he teased. “More like a shack.”

“Most Balkani knights would be more than happy to live in a place like this.”

Demir stifled a snort of laughter and reminded himself that Balkani wasn’t exactly the shining star of societal equality. Their princes hoarded most of the wealth, and hundreds of thousands of minor nobility—the knights—squabbled amongst themselves even before the revolution. Everyone else were slaves or poor freemen. “It has a definite charm,” Demir admitted. It was also too tiny, too far from the theater, and not piped for gas. “I think Liza is out of town. I came by a few days ago and her neighbors said she was gone for the cudgeling season.”

To his relief, Ciata didn’t seem all that concerned by their trespassing. She walked around the property, polite to use the stepping stones, examining the various corners of the garden and even petting the old hound.

“Well I love it,” Ciata finally said. “It’ll do to keep us warm tonight. And look at this!” She ran around the other side of the stucco house. Demir followed her, laughing when he found her already shimmying out of her tight leather trousers. “There’s a pool!” she called over her shoulder, stripping off the flowing white shirt and tossing both garments aside. The bruises were really starting to show. It looked like she’d been trampled by a herd of cattle. “And soap! I haven’t used real soap in ages!”

Demir was thrown off by a flutter in the center of his chest that nearly caused him to faint. He clutched himself. Did his heart just give out? Or was that…joy? It was months since he last felt something like it.

“Hey, Stinky,” Ciata called to him, standing waist-deep in the pool and waving the soap, “get in here! You need to get clean!”

He was more than happy to get rid of his filthy clothes and join the beautiful naked woman in the pool of water. Less happy when he realized how cold the water was—and even less when Ciata attacked him with the vigor his mother had once used after he fell in horseshit as a boy. She battered him aggressively with the soap up, down, and sideways until he felt raw and vulnerable beneath her attention. She cleaned behind his ears and held his head beneath a waterfall to wash his hair.

“Hold on, I’ll be right back,” she told him, heading inside the house dripping and naked. Demir enjoyed the view, floating in the pool. “You can look at my ass,” she called back to him, “but do not touch without permission.”

“I love a woman who sets firm guidelines,” Demir replied. That fluttery feeling from earlier happened again.

Ciata returned a moment later holding a razor, and came at Demir with a little more eagerness than he might have preferred. A stern argument later—which he was pretty sure he lost—and he was forced to sit in the pool with his head laid back on Ciata’s knees while she gave him a shave.

Scratch that. He definitely won here.

“What’s so important about this sword you’re after?” he asked, conscious of a beautiful woman holding a blade to his throat.

Ciata used the soap as lather and dragged the blade up his neck. It was such a precise movement that he barely felt it. “The Sword of the Crimson Lily,” she said, growing solemn. “All Lilies carry the finest enchanted swords, passed down through the generations, blessed by Selease herself.”

“Magic swords?” Demir asked, careful to keep the doubt out of his voice. He’d heard of such things before. They were always fakes. The only real “enchanted” swords had a bit of godglass set in the handle.

“A Lily’s sword never needs to be sharpened. It will not chip or break. It is perfectly balanced no matter the height, weight, or skill of the wielder. I have no doubt that this Vavi woman purchased the sword for its blessed properties.”

Religious women hated when Demir scoffed, so he swallowed that little bit of arrogance and gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “That does sound quite valuable.”

“Valuable? I suppose. More importantly, it’s a holy relic to my faith. If the Sword of a Lily is lost, then that Lily ceases to exist. The position, I mean. The knighthood. One less paladin of the road. One less person dedicating their life and their sword to bringing good into the world. There are few of them as it is. Only two have ever been lost, and Selease did not forge them a new sword for a whole generation.”

Demir’s urban sensibilities faltered at Ciata’s tone. There wasn’t a trace of irony there. No nod and a wink that he was so used to with priests. Ciata believed what she said. Not even a trace of doubt. Something about that butted up against the deepest, most cynical part of him. A real, actual warrior-priest. He thought people like her existed only in stories.

“I barely know you, but the idea of there being one less person like you makes me sad.”

Ciata giggled at that. “I’m glad. Not everyone appreciates who and what we are. Even in Balkani. Some regard us as holy. Others think we’re nothing more than swindlers.”

“I know a swindler when I see one,” Demir said, thinking most specifically of himself, “and you are not a swindler.”

Ciata fell silent, continuing her work in a slow, deliberate manner. Demir got the impression that she simply enjoyed the intimacy of giving someone a shave. When she finished she forced him to turn around and admired it. “I’ve given you a Balkani-style goatee.”

Demir rubbed his face and tried to imagine it. “Oh, I look like a prick, don’t I?”

“Not at all! I think you look refined.”

“I’m terrified what the Balkani idea of refined is.”

Ciata slapped him playfully on the shoulder and then fell backward into the pool to float there looking up at him. “I have to recover the Sword of the Crimson Lily and return it to the Court of Lilies. That’s fifteen hundred miles from here, give or take a hundred. It’s a long and arduous journey even after I get the sword. But one thing at a time: You discouraged me from seeking justice tonight. Do we have a plan to get the sword back? Or to deliver justice on those other three murdering thieves?”

Demir rubbed the back of his neck and tried to come up with something on the fly. He was usually quite good at this. Sure, he’d been a little slow since Holikan, but Ciata genuinely left him tongue-tied. “To be honest, I only said any of that to get you out of danger.”

A storm cloud crossed Ciata’s face, and he immediately disliked that for a variety of good reasons. “So you lied to me?”

“I didn’t lie!” he qualified quickly. “I didn’t lie at all. It’s better to live to fight another day and all that.”

“Debatable.”

“Not debatable! Are you a crazy person? Do you really think charging headlong into certain death is the best way to reach your destination?”

Ciata seemed genuinely confused now. “Yes?”

Demir pinched the bridge of his nose. She wasn’t stupid. She’d already proved that more than once. So why did she not understand what he was trying to say? And why did any of this surprise him? Every Balkani he met was like this. They followed complicated, conflicting rules of honor that they never bothered to explain and perhaps didn’t even understand themselves. “If there’s a mountain here, see?” he said, holding his fingers apart, “and you’re here, but you want to get here, do you take the easy road around the mountain, or do you climb over the summit?”

“Depends on if I want to see the view.”

“Don’t be obstinate.”

Ciata rolled her eyes. “I’m not being obstinate. I know what you mean. You’re suggesting that I use a roundabout way to accomplish my goals in the hope that it’s safer. I believe that my life is for Selease, and she will only allow it to end when she no longer has use for me. Also, I don’t mind charging toward my death for a good cause.”

“Even if it could be avoided, thus allowing you to serve Selease for longer?”

Ciata opened her mouth, closed it again, then narrowed her eyes. “So. I ask again: What’s your suggestion?”

Demir swore internally. He didn’t have a plan, and that was tortuous because for his entire life, as long as he remembered, he had a plan for everything. It was how he operated. So why was this so hard? “I’ll have to think about it.”

“I’ll give you until morning,” Ciata told him, “then we do it my way.”

Demir was already thinking about what spending a night with Ciata might entail when he heard that particular word. “We?” he echoed, feeling a spike of fear in his belly.

“I could use a glassdancer’s skills.”

Demir suddenly wasn’t so keen on Ciata, and he sank into the water to hide the fact that he wasn’t trembling only from the cold. “I’m not that kind of glassdancer,” he said softly.

“I wasn’t aware there are kinds. I just know you have powerful sorcery.”

“Killing sorcery.”

“You don’t kill?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Demir held his left hand out of the water, looking at the inverted triangle tattooed on the meat between his thumb and forefinger: the sigil of a glassdancer. In Ossan society, most major talent glassdancers were in the army. Even those from common families could make their fortune that way, murdering on behalf of the government. And why not? There was no other use for someone who could manipulate common glass. What else would they do? Become a craftsman? There was no glory or money in such an alternative path.

But his own journey as a guild-family heir put him into politics. He became an expert at making friends rather than slaughtering enemies. It defined him as a person. Until Holikan.

“I don’t kill unless I need to,” he told her. He waited, watching her face. “You can mock me if you’d like.”

Ciata frowned. “Why would I mock you?”

“Because everyone else does. The way of the world is to use the power you have over others.”

“The way of the world? Who says that?”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone?” she echoed with a sympathetic smile. “You should get out more.”

“You’re calling me naive?” Demir asked, feeling suddenly quite annoyed with this strange woman. Who was she to so casually question well-established philosophy? But she was questioning it in his favor, so why did it bother him so much? His thoughts tumbled over each other as visions of burning buildings assaulted his mind’s eye. He retreated to the corner of the pool.

Ciata followed him. “I’m not calling you naive,” she said. “Did you know that most Seleasians are pacifists? Our people were born of the idea that you do no harm—but this is an imperfect world, and not everyone shares our philosophy, so the Court of Lilies was created to protect those who cannot—or will not—protect themselves. We give up our innocence so that others may retain theirs. I would never judge you for not wanting to kill.”

Beneath the water, Demir felt her reach out and touch his hand. He tried to pull back. Gently, insistently, she threaded her fingers into his.

“I have killed,” he confessed, trying to swallow a lump in his throat. “I have killed and I have caused people to kill. So many.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me.”

“You’re a good person.”

“You haven’t known me very long.”

“Perhaps not. But now I am cold and would like you to warm me.”

4

Fire. There was fire everywhere, consuming men, women, and children until their screams seemed to come from the flames. Soldiers shouted conflicting orders at each other while cavalry ran down everything that moved. Their hooves echoed like drumbeats in Demir’s chest, so powerful that he could not draw breath. A body swung at the end of a noose—Ciata’s body, eyes popped and tongue lolling purple as the crows descended for their feast. Waves crashed over Demir, dragging him beneath a river whose current he could not fight. He clawed for the surface, thrashing and crying until a great gasp filled his lungs.

He kicked off the last of the blankets and rolled to sit on the edge of the bed. It was before dawn, the sky just beginning to lighten out the window. Horrific images continued to march through Demir’s head, slowly fading out as he listened to the staccato hammering of his own heart.

Where was he? How did he get here? His memory clutched for bits and pieces as he came to realize that there wasn’t much to fill in the gap between now and Holikan. Hard to remember much when he spent weeks at a time either drunk, on dazeglass, or both. He pressed his palms to his eyes as shudders wracked his body.

A movement behind him made him jump, and he craned his neck—he wasn’t alone. The cream-white body of a Balkani woman rolled in the blankets behind him. She sputtered, sighed contentedly, and let out a snore that would make a lion proud. Demir stared at her. Ciata. Right. When did…how…oh. He rubbed his hands together nervously, and a wholly different sort of panic seized him.

He leapt from the edge of the bed and felt his body flush with far more pleasant memories. He smacked himself across the jaw. No. No, he didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to be held and loved. He didn’t deserve…his chest tightened further. It grew difficult to breathe. He sank to his knees, hugging himself, rocking back and forth on the dirt floor until he could conceptualize something other than self-disgust.

His tunic and trousers were still damp. He dragged them on anyways, shivering violently from the cold as he staggered on jellied legs out of the house, out of the garden, down the winding path. It was properly dawn when he reached the road, and though a little voice in the back of his head told him to slow down and think for a minute, he found that he couldn’t. He just kept going.

Of course he picked the wrong direction. He figured that out when the suburbs of Dreese sprang up around him in the form of shops and clusters of tiny villas. Demir swore his way to the main highway before his legs finally gave out.

He settled down on a stoop, his heart still pounding. Where was he going? South? East? What would he do once he got there? Did it matter? Something was terribly wrong here. He couldn’t think properly. He couldn’t make decisions. He couldn’t plan. He should be able to plan. He should be able to walk back to Ciata and lay out a concise blueprint for getting her sword back from some worthless provincial matriarch. Easy as pie.

So why couldn’t he think? He pounded a fist against the side of his head, ignoring the way the morning deliverymen looked at him askance and gave a wide berth. His heart wouldn’t slow down. His mind was racing without witglass, but there was no direction, like chasing butterflies in a storm.

“I’m broken,” he whispered.

It was the first time he acknowledged it out loud, this sneaking suspicion he’d been carrying around with him for months. His mind wasn’t working the way it normally did. Outwit his classmates and teachers. Plan a political campaign. Run a province. Execute a military offensive. Those things all came second nature, but now the thought of any of it made him queasy. He might as well have woken up the morning after Holikan and realized he could no longer snap his fingers.

“You gonna buy anything?”

Demir started and looked up. It was a woman in an apron, covered in blood, a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She pointed at the butcher’s sign over her shoulder.

“N…no,” Demir managed. “I don’t have any money.”

“Then scram.”

Demir barely avoided a kick, hurrying into the street, where he paced furiously. What to do? What to do? This didn’t make any sense. He tried to get his breathing under control. His chest felt…pinched. Okay. If he couldn’t plan, then what could he do? He thought of Ciata and felt his face flush. Women still liked him. He supposed that was something. A smell caught him by surprise—faint, pleasant. Bread. He turned in a circle, trying to identify the source. A couple streets over he found a bakery opening their doors. Up close, something shifted. Hunger devoured him in the space of an instant. His stomach roared. How long was it since he last consumed anything other than wine, beer, or cider? A week? Longer? How long since he was last hungry? He forgot about his worries and night horrors, his guilt and fear.

There was something to be said for the distraction of natural urges.

Searching the street, it didn’t take long for Demir to find a forgotten coin lodged between the cobbles. He cleaned the mud off and went back to the bakery, where it was just enough to buy him a loaf of bread. The crack of the crust was music to his ears, and the steam rose to fill his nostrils with that intoxicating scent. Another stoop became his dining room. He forced himself to eat slowly, bit by bit, as if he were partaking of some foreign sacrament. He supposed he would be, if he were a Seleasian. Did they really worship all pleasure? Something as small as breaking a fast? He corrected that thought, for nothing about this felt small. It was a religious experience for sure. So, he reflected, was what happened last night.

Demir buried his head in one hand and kept eating with the other. His heart had finally stopped hammering away, but in the place of that panic came a rising swell of mortification. He’d fled a woman’s bed like an inexperienced boy. Even at his most selfish he’d never done such a thing, and the horror of that was almost as bad as his inability to formulate a plan. What happened? Was he ashamed of going to bed with Ciata? Certainly not! He wished he was back there right now.

Except…he had nothing to offer her. He couldn’t help her get her sacred sword back. He couldn’t bring those murderers to justice or keep her out of the hands of the local enforcers. In his state he was less than useless. Why did that matter? He’d spent his life keeping the valuable parts of himself out of the hands of greedy lovers, so why did he desperately want to help Ciata?

Demir finished his bread, licking his fingers and picking the crumbs off his jacket as he thought of Ciata’s eyes by moonlight. The way she looked at him last night made him shudder even now, and he realized that she didn’t actually want anything from him. Not from the infamous Demir Grappo, anyway. Not his money, not his connections, not his fame. She didn’t know who he was and didn’t care. But…but what about Holikan? She’d find out eventually, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle having those blue eyes look at him in horror after learning of the monstrous acts he’d committed.

That, he realized, was why he fled.

Leaving her alone in a strange city with powerful people who wanted her dead. Without his intervention, she was going to hand herself to them on a silver platter. She was an incredible fighter, but she was stupidly reckless. The Teroverdes would torture and kill her without hesitation. Demir leapt to his feet, clenching his hands into fists to keep them from trembling. Was there even anything he could do to stop Ciata from continuing on her mission? He didn’t think so. But…if he didn’t do something he’d have another regret to drag with him the rest of his miserable life.

With that bread, rational thought returned. The chill of his wet clothes in the morning cold actually meant something. He took a deep breath, coughed, forced himself to take another as he ran fingers through his tangled hair and felt the smoothness of his cheeks. Pausing, he studied his reflection in a shop window. His clothes were clean for the first time since Holikan. If he was being honest, Ciata was right. The goatee looked good.

He looked good enough to join the morning flow of pedestrians without attracting attention. A pickpocketed billfold acquired him a bit more money, and he returned to the bakery for bread, pastries, and milk. His fingers were nimble. That was something else he could still do.

Be calm, he told himself. Smile. You didn’t run away, you just popped out for some breakfast. She’ll like that.

Demir thought of the flowers and feathers in Ciata’s lost hat. He watched the ditches in the sparse neighborhood as he went back the way he came, pausing to gather a bouquet of wild daisies and honeysuckle. Put the mask back on, Demir, he told himself silently. Don’t let her see the panic in your eyes.

Slowly, he pulled himself out of his own head enough to realize that the clip-clop of hoofbeats was following him. At a crossroads marker he lifted his boot onto the stone, pretending to check the laces while taking a stealthy glance behind him. His heart fell. A dozen or more enforcers were on horseback, keeping their distance. A few pretended not to look at him, but their acting ability was wanting. He glanced to his left, then his right. More enforcers in their gray and green. They carried rifles and carbines, jaws tight.

No getting around it. They were here for him.

Somehow, none of this seemed all that terrible. A great calm swept over him, and he realized that he was hoping they’d riddle him with bullets and leave him here in the ditch. An involuntary smile flickered on his lips while the rational part of his brain objected strenuously. How did they find him? Ah, wait. He let his shoulders sag and closed his eyes, reaching out for his sorcerous senses.

There, with the mounted enforcers, was another glassdancer. Of course. Demir gave himself away when he saved Ciata from the noose. They knew a glassdancer was in town and brought their own out to look for him. How the piss could such a small provincial guild-family afford to keep a glassdancer? Another question he already knew the answer to, for the glassdancer was not a strong one.

The enforcers knew they’d been noticed and held a conference before one approached. He was a broad-shouldered youth with a two-day shadow on handsome cheeks. Demir could see his hands shaking as he clutched his reins. He came to a stop, clearing his throat, and gave stealthy glances to his left and right.

Demir did as well. The enforcer’s companions were in place, countless weapons aimed at Demir. Even if he wanted to, it was unlikely he’d be able to fight them off before somebody shot him.

His personal calm was the most frightening part of this thing.

The mounted enforcer cleared his throat again. “Sir,” he said, “Lady Vavi Teroverde requests the honor of your presence at her estate.”

“And if I say no?” Demir asked.

The enforcer stiffened, his eyes filled with the terrible knowledge that he’d be the first to die. “Please don’t,” he said softly.

Demir didn’t like the psychological effect his sorcery had on others. He preferred to make friends and enemies the old-fashioned way. But sometimes, even he had to admit how funny it was. “All right,” he said, dropping the bouquet of flowers and setting down his breakfast, “but I’m sick of walking. Give me your horse.”

Ciata did not expect the disappointment she felt when she woke up alone. It sat in her belly like a lead weight, growing heavier when she dressed and did a circuit of the little countryside villa and found no sign of her companion except boot prints in the mud on the path outside the garden fence. She squatted by those prints for a couple of minutes, wrestling with the feeling inside of her.

This was not the first time she’d woken up alone after a good night. It had never bothered her before, and in fact was often to her advantage. After all, members of the Court of Lilies were forbidden from long-term attachments.

So why did she feel…betrayed?

Because he spoke to her in Balkani, did not flaunt his power, and had amazingly nimble fingers. She liked him and wanted to spend more time with him. Ciata’s stomach twisted. “Phooey,” she muttered, and kicked a rock. When she finished swearing and hopping around in a circle, she decided that she needed to get herself some boots before she went much farther. How she would acquire them she did not know, but…

With Demi gone, she supposed it was time. She took one last look around the villa, feeling a strange sort of nostalgia, as if she’d spent years here instead of a single evening. In one cupboard she found a bit of writing charcoal and some old contracts that had all been written over a dozen times with grocery lists and addresses. She left a thank-you note for Demir’s brother’s friend, weighed it down with a mug, and said goodbye to the old hound outside.

Then she began the long walk back to town.

It was hard to think and fume at the same time. She needed boots and a sword, but also why didn’t Demi at least say goodbye? She didn’t think of him as the type to leave without a farewell. How many people would she have to kill to return the Sword of the Crimson Lily? She could try to only wound them. Her training taught her that a mortal enemy should be dispatched posthaste, lest they shoot her in the back, but these were not her mortal enemies. Just local enforcers. Gods, she hoped Demi didn’t go back to that bridge. Should she check before she began?

No. No more distractions. Demi was a passing fancy, a man with whom she could spend a night in sweet worship and think of fondly later.

If there was a later.

In the suburbs she was struck by a strange sight at the side of the road: a bouquet of flowers discarded in the ditch beside bread and pastries wrapped in paper. She looked around and did not see any owners. A dog was sniffing nearby. Ciata shooed him off, tucked one of the honeysuckles behind one ear, and recovered the pastries and a pewter tin of milk. A true sword, as the goddess said, needed sustenance.

Ciata continued her walk into Dreese, licking whipped honey off the ends of her fingers as she considered her position. Demi was right. It seemed unlikely she could fight an entire guild-family on her own. Giving up and going home wasn’t an option for her honor, which meant that she very probably was going to die. To Selease’s faithful, she promised rest for the weary dead. As lovely as that sounded…Ciata wasn’t weary. She wasn’t ready to die. There were too many incredible things in this world to experience.

A lump formed in her throat, the same lump she experienced when she clutched the vest of the Crimson Lily to her chest. This was grief for a life not yet lived. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the gray and green striped tunic of a Teroverde enforcer. She chuckled to herself and shook her head sadly. The goddess was kind to not test her dedication with further delays.

There were five of them hanging out at a streetside cafe, drinking their morning tea or coffee. One more watered their horses nearby. Someone laughed at a joke. Another swore and spat tobacco into the street. Ciata gave her stolen truncheon an experimental swing.

“I need your sword,” she said, striding up to the cafe and addressing one of the enforcers.

The enforcer spat her coffee all over the table, tried to get up, and fell backward instead. Ciata leapt the low fence that cordoned the cafe off from the street, kicking the table after the first enforcer and smacking a second in the nose with her truncheon. A third fumbled for his pistol. Ciata knocked it out of his hands and tapped him in the throat. He gave a sucking gasp, his eyes bugging. The enforcer by the horses went for his carbine. Ciata threw the truncheon as hard as she could, caving in the poor bastard’s forehead. As part of the same motion she snatched up a wrought-iron stool and bludgeoned another woman to the ground.

The last of them was still sitting in her chair, eyes wide, staring at Ciata with a mix of awe and fear. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, her tunic a bit baggy in the shoulders. She licked her lips and sputtered something unintelligible. “Arty,” she finally managed, “said you wouldn’t kill me if I didn’t give you a reason.”

Ciata sucked on her teeth. “Arty was right,” she replied.

“I don’t want to die.”

“Then run and find me the Balkani squires your matriarch hired. Tell them I’m looking for them.”

“Ye…ye…yes, ma’am.” The young enforcer sprang to her feet, tripped, and sprinted away. Ciata watched her long enough to be sure she wouldn’t try anything stupid, then surveyed the mess. Four of the five would survive. Probably. She thought about her early ruminations and strode to the first enforcer, kneeling beside her. The woman still lay in her chair, moaning quietly. Hit her head pretty hard when she fell. Ciata went through her pockets, then took her belt and her sword. The sword was…well, it was an Ossan-style smallsword, too small and too light, the kind of thing she might give a child to practice with. But it was a sword. She wouldn’t need to retrieve that truncheon.

Ciata went around to each of the enforcers, comparing the size of her feet with theirs. She sighed when she reached the last of them. None of these boots would fit. She was going to have to do this barefoot.

Or not.

A pair of boots landed on the ground beside her. Not just any boots. Her boots. Ciata looked up past the boots to find Arty standing in the street, outside the cafe, one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other holding a cigar. He puffed deeply, blowing smoke out through his nose. “I don’t know what happened to your sword or your vest or your hat,” he told her. “I imagine the enforcers took them to sell.”

Ciata regarded him suspiciously. He didn’t seem ready to attack imminently. She quickly slid on her boots, letting out a sigh at their familiar snugness around her battered feet. That felt good. Really good. Lacing them up, she left the cafe to step out into the street, ignoring the staring crowd that began to form. People shouted. Some ran. Most of them peered with interest at the two foreigners squaring up.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen this way,” Arty said. He sounded like he meant it too. Tired. Frustrated. His brow was pinched. “Vavi found out about a few of us who were discontented. Through Angela, I think. Vavi hired us to steal the Crimson Lily’s sword. We were going to take it while he slept, but Angela…” Arty shook his head and tapped his heart. To represent a bullet, Ciata assumed. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way,” he reiterated, drawing his sword.

Ciata had nothing to say to him.

He nodded to himself as if he understood. “Vavi Teroverde has your friend.”

It was the first thing to give her pause. “You mean Demi?”

“She called him Demir. Demir Grappo. He’s a guild-family heir from Ossa.”

How did that happen? So Demi didn’t just leave her? Was there some other circumstance? Ciata did not know, but she did know this was a distraction. She had to focus. Hard to when she felt a pang in her heart over that sad young man. He was a glassdancer. He could defend himself. But somehow she knew he wouldn’t. “What does she mean to do with him?” Ciata asked, growing cold inside.

Arty shook his head. “I’m not sure. All I know is they took him to the estate.” He ashed his cigar and set it carefully on a nearby fence post. “Come. Let us settle this in our own way.”

Ciata loosened the laces of her flowing white shirt, shaking out both arms, feeling her cuts and bruises acutely. The sword was unfamiliar, the grip old and falling apart. She could remember fighting Arty during that tourney three years back. He was a big man, slow but powerful, who used his height to keep his enemies at a distance.

They circled slowly, blades raised to eye level, wrists cocked downward. The cuts on Ciata’s feet were tight in her boots after two days without them. She put that out of her mind. Her battered limbs and aching feet were mere extensions of the sword. Her body was a weapon in the service of Selease.

“Get on with it already!” somebody in the crowd shouted.

That made Ciata smile. These people had never seen real duelists in action, had they? Each step was a feint. Each twitch of the eye gave away volumes. This was no clumsy cudgeling match for the amusement of a paying crowd. She and Arty were fighters in a square, hunters stalking big game, gamblers at a card table. She absorbed every minuscule movement of his body, calling up every memory she had of their two duels in the tourney.

“Tell Selease that I’m sorry,” he said, and lunged.

Their blades crossed in a flurry, barely touching, a whirlwind of exchanges. He tried to batter his way through her guard and very nearly knocked the sword out of her hand. By the goddess, he was strong! Ciata managed a parry and slid to one side, moving inside his guard, bending her forward knee in her own lunge. The blade entered his throat, severing his spine below the back of his skull. She could see the peace enter his eyes as he died. She withdrew, stepping back, wiping her blade deftly on his shoulder after he fell.

The crowd was silent.

“That was it?” someone asked.

“Shut up,” another voice hissed. Ciata ignored them. Above the heads of the crowd she could see more enforcers coming on horseback. A lot of them. Smiling grimly, she checked Arty’s pockets and found forgeglass and witglass in there. She threaded both through her piercings, and then added the piece of forgeglass she took from that enforcer yesterday. She picked up Arty’s sword, its grip still warm. Much better. A deep breath, a calming prayer. She picked up his cigar and took a puff.

Many lives would be sent to Lady Justice this day.

5

Heading out of Dreese to the west, the suburbs and main road ended suddenly at a high limestone wall that separated the Teroverde estate from the unwashed masses of the southern provinces. The long gravel drive was flanked by old magnolia trees and manicured lawns, beyond which vineyards rolled into the distance. A small army of laborers cared for the yard while enforcers patrolled in numbers that suggested that perhaps the Teroverdes were not as well-liked by the locals as they’d hoped.

The manor house itself was a sprawling monstrosity that made Demir laugh just to see it, a strange combination of styles like something out of a child’s unfettered imagination. Flat stucco walls and high arches suggested an Ossan villa. Vaulted ceilings and multiple stories were straight out of the far eastern provinces. Two turrets had the look of medieval castles while two other turrets were topped with Balkani onions. Normally he loved combined styles like this—Kashti was full of them—but whatever happened here was a crime against architecture on an impressive level.

Several squads of enforcers took Demir up to the third floor of a square turret on the back end of the house, where huge windows looked out over the vineyards. The view was about the only redeeming quality of the place. Demir stood by the massive fireplace and examined the room. There was a big mahogany desk, filing cabinets, long tables covered in all the implements of a gentleman scientist, all covered in dust. Taxidermied animals looked down on him, and there was a telescope in the corner, also covered in dust.

Demir had spent his entire life surrounded by the trappings of the rich and powerful. He was rich and powerful. He’d seen bad taste and poor use of money. If he was being honest, he’d spent weeks at a time in places worse than this.

And yet…even looking around the big office left him exhausted. He barely had the energy to be annoyed when they told him to sit down in front of the desk and place his uncovered hands on his knees for a clerk to examine his sigils. Excited whispers went back and forth behind him, and footsteps scurried off. Well. They definitely knew who he was now. They also had no idea what happened at Holikan. Not many did. His mother was seeing to that.

“Our best vintage,” a sommelier said, popping the cork from a bottle of wine and pouring it into a hammerglass goblet ringed in gold. Demir took a gulp and enjoyed the way the sommelier flinched.

“It’s fine,” he said carelessly, even though it was actually quite good.

“Fine?” the sommelier repeated, glancing down at his guild-family sigil as if to double-check that this was actually an Imperial.

Demir flipped his wrist in a go away gesture. “Yeah,” he said, tossing back the rest of the goblet and thrusting it into the sommelier’s hands. “Fine.”

The sommelier stormed off. Demir chuckled inwardly. The old him would have had a lot more fun with this, and there was a flicker of enjoyment. But mostly it was tedious. No doubt Ciata was already awake. Was she mad at him? Had she assumed he’d skipped town? Was he good riddance to her, or did she miss him? He wished he’d never gotten out of their bed.

He could feel the glassdancer standing a dozen paces behind him, and turned to put his elbow on the back of his chair. The glassdancer was a man in his early thirties, clean-shaven, with stocky shoulders and softness around the middle. “What’s your name?” Demir asked.

The glassdancer jumped as if he’d not expected to be spoken to. He swallowed hard. “Tanishq,” he answered. “Tanishq Surya.”

A Jeculian name, but those were common enough in the southern provinces. “Family member?” Demir asked, twirling his finger to indicate the estate.

“Oh, no,” Tanishq answered quickly.

“Commoner?”

“Yes, sir.” Tanishq cleared his throat, lowered his voice, and furrowed his eyebrows. “I mean, yes. My family were commoners.”

“I see.” Demir turned away and pretended to pick at his fingernails while secretly studying both the room and the enforcers. The Teroverdes were old money. The core of this manor suggested as much. But the new turrets and the strange combination of constructions suggested they’d jumped up in the world in the last few generations. If he had to guess it was because their competition dwindled. Maybe the Teroverdes got lucky by finding cindersand or ore on their land.

Demir imagined a profile of Vavi Teroverde: Her parents either died young or retired, leaving her as a relatively young matriarch. She wasn’t married yet, of that he was sure. Probably turned her nose up at all the locals. Hurtled past childbearing age. That left her obstinate and self-conscious. She liked to be seen in public—hanging out at the Meat Market—but didn’t go anywhere without a pile of enforcers. Everybody pretended to like her. Nobody did. But she was the only employer of serious means within a hundred miles.

For his whole life, Demir had tried to shake off the prejudices that Imperials had against their provincial cousins as small-minded, inbred, tedious. People like the Teroverdes made it particularly difficult to do so.

The sound of hurried footsteps brought his attention back to the present. They stopped outside the room. There was a whispered argument, then the matriarch herself burst through the door wearing the biggest shit-eating grin Demir had seen in years. His stomach fell. Gods, this was going to be painful.

“Demir Grappo!” she proclaimed enthusiastically.

Demir stood to greet her. As annoyed as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore that little bit of politeness. He inclined his head, pretending not to notice the way she turned her nose up at his travel-beaten tunic.

Vavi gestured to her enforcers to pull back a little bit. “Welcome to my home. I’m so sorry for all the misunderstandings we had the other night. We had no idea who you were. I understand that one of my enforcers struck you. I’ll have them flogged. Beaten. Fired. Killed!”

“That’s entirely unnecessary,” Demir said. He meant to put some hammerglass into his tone, but he sounded tired even to his own ears.

“If I had known you were in the city I would have rolled out all the best,” Vavi assured, walking to sit down behind her behemoth of a desk. “Please, sit.”

All that mattered to this woman was that she had an Ossan guild-family heir in her possession. She wasn’t even the least bit curious why he was here, in disguise. Demir glanced sidelong at the closest of the enforcers. The glassdancer was still standing behind him. “Where I come from we call this a Nasuudian welcome,” he said, gesturing around the room. “An open hand and a bare blade.”

Vavi flinched the same way the sommelier did when Demir insulted the wine. As if she’d hoped he wouldn’t notice all the heavily armed people in the room. “We call it that here too,” she said. “I apologize, but you did shower my people with glass and help that troublesome Balkani escape.”

Demir shrugged. “Of course I did. She’s my friend.”

“Do you know her well?”

“Intimately.”

“Oh. I…I don’t mean to insult, but I don’t think you do. You see, she’s trying to steal something that I rightfully purchased.”

“The Sword of the Crimson Lily?”

Vavi was not very good at guarding her expression and seemed more than a little disappointed that Demir already knew about the sword. “That’s the one.”

“When you say you rightfully purchased the sword, are you denying that you had a Seleasian killed?”

“I wouldn’t do such a thing!” Her tone suggested that she enthusiastically would. “I simply contracted to acquire the sword. How it was acquired is no concern of mine. Do you know much about it?”

“Not a thing,” Demir lied, curious what Vavi did.

Vavi brightened again, making a great show of removing a key from around her neck and opening a glass-fronted cabinet by the window. From within she produced the sword, holding it aloft with reverence. She remained that way for a few moments as if striking a pose, then came around to show it to Demir. “This sword,” she said, “is magic. Not just set with godglass, but actually enchanted by magics that modern man does not fully understand. It will not blunt, will not break, and is comfortable in the hands of anyone who wields it.”

Exactly as Ciata claimed. Demir cocked an eyebrow.

“You doubt me? Here, see for yourself.” Vavi offered him the sword hilt first.

Demir took it and was immediately struck by the perfection of the balance. He’d had too many fencing lessons not to notice. He was shorter than the average man, his arms not particularly suited to the sword, but it felt so incredibly natural that he couldn’t help but give a low whistle. Unlike with the sommelier, he couldn’t hide being impressed. He tested the blade against his finger. As sharp as razorglass.

“May I?” he asked.

Vavi blinked back at him in confusion. He took that as a yes and turned on his chair, hacking at it with the blade of the sword like it was a machete. Fine hardwood split against the grain beneath the blows, and it took only a dozen good whacks before the chair was kindling. He tested the blade again, looking carefully. No chips. Not the slightest trace of having dulled.

Deeply unsettling. Could Vavi and Ciata both be right? Did it have some kind of enchantment? There were all sorts of so-called living gods in the world. A dozen different religions claimed them. But Selease was the first one with any sort of evidence that they had powers beyond charisma.

“Well then,” he said, handing the sword back to Vavi.

“Incredible, yes?”

“I’ll admit it’s unusual.”

“More than unusual. This is the real deal.” Vavi lowered her voice, leaning in conspiratorially. “I didn’t acquire this because I’m some fool with a fetish for Balkani trappings. I acquired it because I saw it in action once. I was on a business trip with my grandfather as a girl. We were set upon by brigands and the Crimson Lily interfered. After, he showed me the sword. Told me its capabilities. I knew immediately that I had to have it.”

Demir held up one hand. “Wait, the Crimson Lily once rescued you, so decades later you had him killed and stole his sword?”

By Vavi’s tone he’d clearly offended her. “As I told you, I did not have him killed. I simply contracted…”

“To acquire the sword,” Demir finished. He felt like he’d bitten into a lime. “Right. I understand completely.”

“I knew you would,” Vavi said happily, returning to the glass cabinet and taking out a belt and scabbard. She put on the former and slid the sword into the latter. “I control Dreese and most of this area of the province,” she bragged. “The other guild-families have dwindled away, the merchant houses are all but dead, and I’ve ground the commoners so hard under my boot that nobody dares speak up. Complete control. But I have ambitions.

“This, my friend, is a fortuitous meeting. I know a few smiths. I’d intended to contract them to study the sword—to learn how it’s made and what magic has been put into it. But with your help I don’t have to bother with provincials. We can go straight to the capital. We hire the best swordsmiths, the best siliceers. They test the sword, they melt it down. Whatever it takes to learn its secrets.”

Demir knew where this was going already. “And then we make more.”

“Exactly!” Vavi snapped her fingers. “Can you imagine? We sell it to the guild-families. To the military. We’ll be rich! Great guild-family rich!” She stroked the stylized lily in the guard of the sword. “The famous Governor Grappo parading me around Ossa, introducing me into society. Money. Power. Influence. The Teroverdes will be a name whispered with the Vorcien and the Kirkovik and the Magna. The Grappo too,” she added, as if in an afterthought. She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Perhaps we could even make our alliance more…formal.”

Lady, Demir wanted to say, you are twice my age and everything I hate in this world. Instead he gave her a smile that could be interpreted equally as you’re crazy or I’m intrigued. She seemed to take to the second meaning. “I’ll call for more wine,” she said. “But we need to deal with your Seleasian friend. She did quite a lot of damage the other day, and my advisors tell me she won’t give up easily.”

“Deal with her?” Demir echoed.

“Buy her off. Kill her. I don’t care. She just needs to go away.”

Demir opened his mouth to give an answer he didn’t have, and was saved by the arrival of an enforcer. It was one of the Balkani squires, glancing hard at Demir before approaching to whisper in Vavi’s ear. The matriarch’s eyes narrowed. “Shit,” she spat. “That bitch is tearing up Dreese. She killed another of my knights and is cutting her way through my enforcers. How do I call her off?”

Both Vavi and the squire looked at Demir expectantly. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes! You said you know her intimately!”

Demir looked around and regretted that he’d hacked apart his chair. Clicking his tongue, he reached for his political skills. Say the right thing to smooth things over. Keep them guessing. Make them think they’ve won. But he was so tired and Vavi was so tedious. “Intimately enough to know you’re not going to buy her off or scare her away,” he admitted.

Vavi opened her mouth and seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say. “Bah! Get your friend,” she told the squire, “and everybody else. I’ll deal with this myself. You all”—she gestured to the glassdancer and the enforcers in the room—“don’t let him leave. I’ll be back in a few hours. We’ll see if your arrogance has tempered when I have the Seleasian’s pretty head.”

Demir couldn’t move. He stood next to the splintered remains of his chair and listened to the first wave of enforcers ride out. He listened to Vavi shout furious orders for a while longer, then finally go silent when the next wave departed. His head spun and his chest hurt, but it was a different discombobulation than he had felt this morning. He wasn’t running anymore, he supposed, but he wasn’t doing anything else either. His feet were locked in place. His arms were heavy.

Once again he was unable to formulate and execute any sort of plan. This should be easy. He was a glassdancer! He should be able to mow through his jailors and steal a horse and ride after Vavi’s posse with the furious determination of someone who could kill with ease and look good while doing it. But who to kill first? What door to go through? Where were the stables?

And the killing itself? He was queasy at the thought of it.

Slowly, inexorably, that queasiness grew. It started in the pit of his stomach and seemed to overflow into the rest of his body. Fingers and toes tingled. Limbs went numb. His head grew thick, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep the tears from flowing.

He had failed. He failed the people of Holikan. He failed the people of his province. He failed his mother and his career. He failed his friends. And now he failed Ciata, doing nothing as a whole glassdamned army headed her direction to overwhelm and murder her.

The queasiness was rage and grief mixed together in a horrible slurry. It stuck in his throat, fed by helplessness, made worse by the knowledge that he shouldn’t be helpless. His stomach hurt worse than when that enforcer punched him. He could feel the corners of his eyes pinching as he tried to keep all trace of his discomfort off his face. Do something, he screamed inside his own head. Do something or Ciata is going to die.

Finally, with excruciating effort, he turned to the glassdancer. “Tanishq.” The name came out as a croak. “Tanishq,” he repeated with more vigor, “does Vavi know how weak you are?” He had nothing. No plan. No ideas. Just a mouth that was used to running itself.

The glassdancer’s eyes went wide with fear. Behind him, some of the enforcers exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably.

“I asked you a question, Tanishq,” Demir said. His voice came out as calm and deadly, to keep the tremors out of it. “You’re in that weird, rare place between a minor and a major talent, aren’t you? Strong enough to make a show of things. Weak enough that I bet they laughed you out of the Ministry of the Legion. None of the Ossan guild-families would waste their time on somebody like you, but way out here in the provinces? You’re an okay get,” he admitted, “but I doubt Vavi knows exactly how useless you really are.” Demir managed to uproot one foot, then the other, slowly walking to stand toe-to-toe with Tanishq. “Does she know how weak you are?” he asked again.

A trickle of sweat rolled down Tanishq’s brow. “No,” he squeaked.

Demir stared the older man in the eye for a long time before walking back to Vavi’s desk.

“Hey,” one of the enforcers said. “Hey! What are you doing? Don’t touch anything!”

Demir shot the enforcer a glance, channeling all of his rage into one look. The enforcer swallowed hard and fell silent. No one else spoke up. Demir found a pencil and a bit of paper and scrawled a quick note, then stalked back over and stuffed it into the breast pocket of Tanishq’s jacket.

“Give that to Adriana Grappo at the Hyacinth Hotel in Ossa. She’ll give you a cushy posting at one of our overseas holdings. She’ll pay you far more than you’re worth, and she’ll make your family very comfortable. You won’t have to work for a shit-heel like Vavi anymore, and best of all…I won’t have to kill you.” Leaning in, he whispered, “I’ll retract the offer if you’re not out of this house within two minutes.”

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Tanishq might as well have been sweating blood. Demir kept his expression sleepy, his eyes hard, his jaw tight.

“Tick,” he said softly, “tock.”

Tanishq ran.

His footsteps echoed through the manor. A door slammed somewhere distantly. More than two minutes, but Demir wasn’t going to split hairs. That left him with nine heavily armed enforcers, all of whom had begun to sweat. He looked toward the closest, an older woman who seemed like she’d been around for a long time.

“If that carbine accidentally goes off,” Demir said, “you better hope the bullet kills me, because if it doesn’t I’ll shred you like a solstice roast.” In Demir’s experience, the average person didn’t really understand the limits of a glassdancer. They only knew that they killed with a thought, and failed to understand that they were as human as anyone else. Greater numbers, strong resolve, and daring speed could all best a glassdancer when it came to a fight to the death. And even if it couldn’t, he knew he was bluffing. His chances of bringing himself to hurt anyone today were damn near zero.

One of the enforcers swore and walked out the door. A second followed, then a third. The rest were soon shoving each other to get out, and Demir was left with the sounds of their hasty exit and his own company inside Vavi Teroverde’s office. He waited until he was absolutely certain he was alone before he slammed and locked the door. With his back against it, he began to weep.

Everything poured out. Sobs wracked his body, tears flowed. His face turned into a mess of drool and snot almost instantly. He staggered around, trying to scrape together the wherewithal to leave this room and help Ciata, but knowing that all of his strength and bluster were gone. He wasn’t even sure he could make himself scarce before Vavi returned. And what then? If she walked in with Ciata’s head, what would he do? Would that finally push him to real action?

He doubted it. He was as useless as piss in a tin cup. He’d probably lie down and die right there.

His wobbly legs and blurry vision smacked him right into the furniture. Demir sobbed a curse, leaned against the wall, and wiped his face again and again until he could tell what he’d run into. A filing cabinet. How very useful.

Well…

Yes, a filing cabinet was very useful. He scrubbed his face clean and tried to open the cabinet. Locked. On the table across the room with all the gentleman-scientist bullshit was a rock chisel. He took it, aimed it at the cabinet lock, and hit it with an expensive-looking paperweight. The cabinet fell open and papers scattered on the floor. Demir swiped his sleeve across his face one last time, feeling an inkling of control return to him. He knelt amid the papers.

Contracts.

And more contracts. Ledgers. Copies of both. He found small numbers in some of the corners and realized that these were, in all likelihood, the originals and the backups. He began to laugh. Of course. Of course someone like Vavi Teroverde was so arrogant that she kept all the most important paperwork for her guild-family in one place.

Demir couldn’t stop laughing as he gathered armloads of contracts, ran them to the oversized fireplace, and tossed them inside. Smoke billowed, the flames seemed to die, and then they caught and curled, growing to a roar. Demir broke open another cabinet, then another. Trade contracts. Protection rackets. Partial ownerships. Lodgers. He laughed like a maniac even though he knew that Vavi was definitely going to kill him when she realized what he’d done.

There were so many that they wouldn’t stay in the fireplace. Papers spilled out over the floor. Demir didn’t care. He kept pitching more into the fire, alternating with slivers of cabinet to get it nice and blazing. Single-handedly destroying a provincial guild-family simply because he was in their office alone and he didn’t care what happened when she got back. This wasn’t just funny. It was hilarious.

Right up until the tapestries caught fire.

6

Ciata darted down an alley, bullet impacts showering her with shards of brick as she ran. At the other end she took two steps before throwing herself backward beneath more enemy fire, crouching under cover to the sound of carbine blasts and swearing. She gritted her teeth and took a calming breath. Sword under one arm, a stolen ammunition pouch in her teeth, she reloaded a pistol.

“Don’t shoot at nothing!” somebody barked.

“She was right there!”

“Yeah, five seconds ago!”

“Forget this,” another, high-pitched voice chimed in frantically. “Did you see what she did to Korgo and his boys? I’m gone.”

“Don’t you dare!” More swearing and an extended argument. Ciata cocked her head to zero in on that first voice, remembering what one of her tutors told her about Ossan military tactics. It might be ungentlemanly in Balkani to shoot for the leader, but when in Ossa…

She swung around the corner, leveled her pistol at a face some forty paces away, and pulled the trigger. Back into cover again, and she listened to someone’s peal of panicky laughter.

“Holy shit, there’s brain all over me!”

Someone was violently sick.

“I’m out. You hear that, lady?!”

“She can’t hear you, idiot. Just run!”

Ciata carefully pressed her face against the wall behind the corner and risked a glance. All she saw was retreating backsides. Good thing too, because she could hear more of them moving in to secure the mouth of the alley behind her. She took two breaths and sprinted, first into the back door of a shop, past startled customers crouching behind bookshelves, and then out the front. A squad of enforcers was outside, more surprised to see her than she was them. She smacked one with the butt of her pistol, cut the throat of another, and ran two more through before her momentum carried her staggering across the street and into the half cover of a stoop.

Enforcers cried out and swore behind her, diving to the cobbles like they were under fire.

Ciata had long since lost track of time. It felt like she’d been fighting for hours, but the sun didn’t seem much higher than when she killed Arty. A half hour? Forty-five minutes? She’d left a trail of dead and wounded behind her and acquired more than her share of cuts and close misses. After so long in constant combat she barely noticed the forgeglass sorcery coursing through her anymore. When she took out her godglass, she was going to crash hard.

During this running fight she’d learned a few things about these enforcers. One was that only a handful of them had actually seen combat. She could pick them out by the way they moved more confidently with their weapons, haranguing the others and shouting orders like sergeants. Those died first. Another thing she learned was that a shocking number of the enforcers were little more than scared children. Some of them threw down their weapons and ran the moment they saw their friends die. Another had actually shit herself upon sight of Ciata.

As reassuring as that was, she couldn’t keep this up all day. All somebody needed was a lucky shot, or to take advantage of a clumsy stumble on her part, and the Sword of the Crimson Lily would be lost forever.

It wasn’t just that, either. All the slaughter was starting to make Ciata feel ill. Where were the leaders? Where were Angela and Mercy and that asshole of a matriarch? Were they really happy to send their underlings to their deaths without consideration? These honorless fools were as bad as the Balkani grand princes.

Ciata reloaded her pistol, fumbling her powder and spilling most of it in the mud. She chided herself softly and raised her eyes to the late morning sky. She couldn’t let one mistake throw her off. There was still blood to shed. But…she’d prefer to limit that blood to the people who mattered. Where was the Teroverde estate? She tried to remember if anyone had mentioned that. To the south, maybe?

Best to corner a cowering enforcer and find out. She used her sword hilt to shatter the shop window, then reached in and unlocked the door. A man in an ink-stained apron cursed her thoroughly and hid behind a printing press. “Sorry!” Ciata called to him, heading out the back.

She didn’t see where the shot came from, but she did feel the bullet hit her shoulder. Her head erupted in a rainbow of pain and she half fell, half dove back into the cover of the printer’s back door. Everything on her left side went numb, and she hissed through clenched teeth. Blood poured from her shoulder. When she touched it she could feel the shards of a musket ball. Maybe bone. Was the joint shattered? It damn well might be. She certainly couldn’t raise her left arm.

Could be a fatal mistake. Ciata whispered a prayer and wiped sweat from her brow. Where did the shot come from? The roof? Farther up the alley? She didn’t know, but she could hear voices. She forced herself to her feet, gasping from the pain.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

The voices were speaking in Balkani.

She recognized Mercy and her slight lisp, which meant the other must be Angela. Ciata set down her sword, ripped off one sleeve, and looped it around her shoulder. She gripped one end of the makeshift bandage with her teeth and yanked hard—black spots swarmed across her vision. She thought of what Arty said about Angela making the killing shot on the Crimson Lily.

Honorless cowards.

“Did you get her?” Mercy shouted. She couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty paces away.

“I definitely got her,” Angela replied, “but I don’t know if she’s down. Go in, I’ll cover you.”

Mercy laughed. “Forget that. I’ve got a better idea.”

Angela laughed back, and Ciata resisted the urge to steal a glance. Angela was doubtless reloaded by now. If she was good enough to kill the Crimson Lily and to tag Ciata on the move, then she’d blow off whatever Ciata stuck out into the open. Another snicker followed and Ciata strained to hear. Was that a match somebody lit? What were they going to do, throw cigarettes at her?

Something clattered against the wall and rolled to a stop at her feet—a little tin ball, hissing out the top, just bigger than her fist. Ciata’s thoughts were sluggish from the pain. She knew what that was. At least, she was certain she knew, though she’d never actually seen one before. Wait! She did know. A grenade.

Oh.

She kicked it and dove in the opposite direction, hitting the ground as the explosion ripped her world apart. One moment she was on the floorboards in the print shop. The next she was lying face up in the open air, smoke all around her, both ears ringing with a long, flat sound like someone had fired a pistol inches from her head.

Move, she ordered herself. Move, or these villains win. Her left arm was useless. She rolled onto her right, got her knees under her, and pushed herself up. Her sword was nearby, but her hand didn’t want to keep a tight grip. There was movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Angela, dropping from the roof with her rifle tucked under her arm. She must not have seen Ciata. Where was Mercy? Where was…

Ciata took two steps, nearly lost herself to the ground, and then saw the charred remains of a leg. Was that Mercy? No, the trousers were too loose. It was that poor print shop owner who cursed her out. A civilian. Somebody who had nothing to do with any of this. The death was a numb tally in the back of her head. She felt like that enforcer from earlier. What did he say? I’m done.

Sounded about right.

Mercy stepped around the corner. She cocked her head at Ciata, in no great hurry. A snort. A sneer. She raised her pistol.

Ciata didn’t remember moving, but the hilt of her sword pressed against Mercy’s belly, and the older squire’s eyes bugged in surprise. Ciata snarled, forcing her backward and around the corner, where she could see Angela a few feet away. Angela’s rifle came up, and Ciata swung Mercy’s body to take the bullet. Angela swore, discarded her rifle, went for her sword.

Ciata ditched both the body and the sword skewering it, then threw herself at Angela. She was on her opponent as Angela’s sword left the scabbard, its blade flashing in a panicked swipe that missed Ciata’s face by a breeze. Ciata let her momentum carry her forward, crashing into the other squire and knocking them both to the ground. Her working hand managed to grasp the knife at Angela’s belt. Ciata drew and buried it in Angela’s side.

Angela twitched and cried out. That’s how Ciata knew her ears were starting to work again. Angela cried and wept and instead of fighting back, she tried to reach the knife sticking out of her. “You would never have been a knight,” Ciata spat in Angela’s face, and climbed painfully to her feet.

She was no cruel villain. She did not prolong death even for those who deserved it. But she had no strength to do anything but watch as Angela writhed, her cries gurgling as her lungs filled with blood. Sympathy cut through Ciata’s pain. Why did Angela do this? What caused her to go so wrong that she would shoot a Lily and steal from their goddess? Ciata would never know. And in the end…it didn’t matter.

Gathering her strength, she reached down and took the forgeglass from Angela’s ear. Wearing a fourth piece wasn’t advisable. Ciata would have permanent glassrot scales for sure. A funny thing to consider when her life was almost certainly over. She just hoped they weren’t anywhere particularly unattractive. Leaning back, soaking in the extra surge of sorcery, she stomped in Angela’s throat.

It crunched like a chicken bone.

Both Balkani were dead. Ciata made sure of it. Angela had her sword. She collected it, noting with disgust the ugly shade of blue Angela had rewrapped her hilt with. And poorly done, as well.

It wasn’t easy to reload Angela’s rifle with only one arm. Ciata dropped ammunition three times before she managed to get it right, trying to listen through her ringing ears for the sound of more approaching enforcers.

It took forever before it occurred to her to check Angela and Mercy’s pockets. Neither of them had cureglass, unfortunately, but Angela had a very good piece of milkglass. The numbing sorcery stoppered the pain like a finger in a leaky dam. That was good. Fantastic, even. Certainly enough to allow her to readjust her bandage without passing out.

“Angela?” a voice called. “Mercy?”

Vavi. Gods, what a horrid bitch. Ciata dragged herself through the smoldering wreckage of the print shop, over the remaining hunks of that poor printer, to the front of the shop where she could crane her neck over the empty window frame and out into the street.

There must have been a hundred enforcers out there. They filled the street, jostling for position, brandishing weapons. This was the real deal: that army that Demi warned her about. No more picking off squads. Some look scared. Others confident. They should be. They had the numbers now and they knew it. In their midst, Vavi Teroverde stood in her stirrups to look toward the burning wreckage with the Sword of the Crimson Lily hanging from her belt.

Ciata licked cracked lips and pulled the rifle up beside her. She had one chance, and she didn’t much like the odds of taking aim and getting that shot off before the enforcers riddled her with bullets. What a way to die. Maybe, just maybe, she’d make sure that this selfish Ossan brat didn’t get to enjoy that sword. At least that was something. Ciata took a deep breath and readied herself.

“Fire!” somebody yelled.

A pistol went off. It didn’t hit anywhere near Ciata.

“Wait! I didn’t give any orders!” Vavi objected.

The whole street seemed to go still.

“No, not fire. Fire! Smoke! Smoke!”

“Fire!”

“Lady Teroverde, smoke to the west! It’s your manor, my lady! It’s on fire!”

Ciata listened to the frantic cries. When she finally peeked again Vavi was already gone, riding away with the entire cadre of enforcers as they screamed the alarm and called for buckets and aid from the city folk. Ciata watched open-mouthed.

Forgotten.

Not a single one remained. Ciata lay there, hardly able to believe it. “Whatever you did, my lady,” she whispered to Selease, “it certainly was timely.”

She sagged, laying her head on the floor, closing her eyes and pressing her fist against her shoulder. A reprieve. A brief one. She must use it well. Pick these bullet shards out of her. Find some cureglass. With any luck, Penny would still be in the stables where Ciata boarded her. She paid for three days, after all. Perhaps it was time to take Demi’s advice and seriously regroup.

Wait. Demi. Ciata gasped, sitting up, ignoring the pain that came through the milkglass. Selease hadn’t set that fire. It was Demi. She knew it with all of her heart. And he had a whole army rushing right toward him.

The Teroverde estate burned around Demir.

Stuck in Vavi’s stupid tower office, watching helplessly from one window while flames raced across a recently repitched roof, Demir was certain he’d done stupider things in his life. He just couldn’t put his finger on any of them at this moment. He raced to the door, which was locked because he locked it. Where was the key? Didn’t he leave it in the lock? No, he clearly didn’t. It wasn’t on the desk. Nowhere on the floor. At the other windows, he looked down at a forty-foot drop to the estate gardens below. The fall would probably only break his legs. So why didn’t he climb out and take the leap?

His body was as incapable of obeying that command as it was to rush out and use his glassdancing to save Ciata. It simply refused to do the thing. Fear held him in a chilly vise even as the flames spread across the walls of Vavi’s office. The heat was stifling. Demir could barely breathe as fire seemed to suck the air out of his lungs. Smoke clung to the ceiling, billowing, creeping closer to his head as the chimney was unable to vent enough of it to save him.

So would the smoke kill him, or the flames? He hoped the smoke. He heard that was an easier death.

Just jump, Demir, he shouted inwardly. He wrung his hands, rushing around the room in the smaller and smaller circle available to him. He gasped for breath while his head spun. There were people on the other side of the door. For a moment he thought someone had come to rescue him, but the sound was not a boisterous call to aid. It was screaming.

The screaming of men, women, children. People dying. Pleading for help. Shouting his name, demanding why he didn’t do anything. Demir threw himself at the door. It refused to budge, and the flames soon drove him back. Somehow the screaming grew louder. He could hear the echo of pistol and rifle shots, the jeers of soldiers as they looted the manor. No, that didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. It wasn’t real. So why could he hear it?

It took all of his focus to seize his sorcery and direct it at the window overlooking the far vineyards. Glass blew out, raining fragments down on the lawn. The whole room seemed to breathe in, air filling his lungs for a brief and glorious moment before the fire raged with hunger and spat smoke so thick that it forced him to kneel. He peered out the window. There were people down there now. The estate staff. Enforcers. Men and women on horseback. They seemed more concerned with forming a bucket brigade to a nearby stream than they were intent on saving anyone. So why could he hear the screams of dying children?

He could barely breathe now. He was so dizzy, and the world felt so dark.

The door burst in. Demir’s eyes wouldn’t focus but his heart surged. Ciata? Ciata! No, it wasn’t her.

There was no mistaking that pistol blast. It tore a hole in the plaster over Demir’s head, and he flattened himself on the floor. Definitely not Ciata. It was Vavi, that horrid matriarch, adding screams of fury to those of the dying children in Demir’s head. It was so absurd that an involuntary laugh tore itself from his kiln-dry throat. A nightmare turned real. He would burn in the fire like all of those people in Holikan. As he deserved.

But ever the coward, he knew another way out. He could see Vavi outside the office, standing back from the flames, reloading her pistol. Demir forced himself to his feet. He faced her, presenting the largest target, spreading his arms and praying that she wouldn’t blow off her own hand with that powder before she got the chance to fire off a second shot.

“Come on,” he whispered furiously. “Do it. I’ve taken everything from you. Take your revenge.”

Vavi finished loading the pistol and aimed. Demir closed his eyes and waited. No gunshot. What was she waiting for, an invitation? He licked his cracked lips and opened one eye in time to see Ciata stagger to the top of the stairs behind Vavi. One of Ciata’s arms hung uselessly by her side. One of her sleeves was ripped off. She was bruised and cut, covered in blood, her eyes red and wild from effort. Another hallucination?

Ciata must have shouted, for Vavi spun around and tried to bring her pistol to bear on the Seleasian. Ciata bowled into her, grabbing a handful of hair, yanking Vavi back and forth with enough force that the pistol skittered off across the floor. Ciata slammed the matriarch against the wall once, twice, and a third time before hurling her to the floor in a bloody mess that did not move.

Demir could do little but gape as Ciata flung herself through the flames. She was to him in an instant, taking his arm in a viselike grip. Her gaze pierced his own. Blue eyes filled with furious determination. The whole tower moaned and creaked around them.

“The sword,” Demir managed, trembling so badly he couldn’t even hold her. “She’s wearing your sword. Go get it. Save yourself.”

She pulled him with her, practically dragging him. Step, drag. Step, drag. They were at the window once more. Demir’s lungs and eyes filled with smoke. Gods, she was so strong! How much forgeglass was she wearing? Enough for her to survive the fall. He tried unsuccessfully to shove her away. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. He was done for.

Lips pressed against his while she forced a piece of forgeglass into one of his piercings, and then she whispered in his ear. “You’re allowed to jump now, Demi.”

7

Ciata held a wet handkerchief over her nose and mouth and shuffled through the ankle-deep ashes of the Teroverde manor, careful of the smoldering hot spots even five days after the fire finished burning. She wasn’t the only one either. Demi was nearby, looking haggard but alive. Dozens of the house staff and loyal enforcers searched for valuables. Truth be told, most of them had already fled. No matriarch. No manor. No money. Ciata wanted to judge them for their lack of loyalty, but she’d met Vavi. It was difficult to blame her former employees.

Those who remained had yet to approach either her or Demi. No local magistrate or militia interfered when they sought cureglass in the city. Pretty much everyone regarded them with a healthy measure of terror. That seemed to bother Demi. Ciata took it as a boon. If this strange land didn’t want to prosecute her for the death of one of its nobles, who was she to question?

As far as she was concerned, Vavi Teroverde and her Balkani mercenaries had all met the ends they deserved.

Just one more loose end to tie up before she could put this place behind her forever.

“Found it!” Demi called.

Ciata hurried over to where he stood on the edge of the collapsed basement. Demi’s voice was hoarse. The burns on his cheeks were rosy from the healing. They’d be fully restored with a few more days using cureglass. He wore a heavy leather glove, and held in that hand a twisted string of metal that made Ciata’s heart cry out.

“I think so, anyways,” Demi added. “Is this it?”

Ciata reached out with her left hand, thought better of it, and took it with her right. Her own burns were pretty much gone thanks to copious use of cureglass, but her left arm was still a mess. It didn’t like to take any weight at all. The surgeon said that would pass. Eventually. He said she was lucky she didn’t lose the arm completely.

She didn’t feel lucky, for she now held what was left of the Sword of the Crimson Lily. The fine steel must have been softened by the flames—before or after a house fell on it, she didn’t know. The guard was caved in on the hilt, the rose gold ruined. Her eyes grew wet, her heart heavy.

“That’s it,” she confirmed.

They stood in the ashes in silence while tears streaked down Ciata’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Demi said softly. He gave her that same wounded half smile he had when they first met. “I told you to save the sword.”

She shook her head. “I made the right choice,” she replied.

Together they carefully left the ruins. The locals gave them a wide berth. A few cringed when they saw the sword, no doubt worried what terrible retribution Ciata would deliver upon them for their late master’s destruction of her property. Ciata ignored them. Her business here was done.

Their horses were back in the vineyard with a small camp they put together two days ago. Ciata rubbed Penny’s nose and gave her a carrot, along with one for the handsome gelding Demi had bought in Dreese. She wanted to say something to the horse. A thanks for her patience, maybe. But no words would come. All those lives she took. The brutal fighting. Her and Demi nearly dying, only for the Sword of the Crimson Lily to meet its end.

Ciata set the lump of twisted metal with her saddlebags and began to break camp. Demi joined her, quietly companionable in her grief. They had their horses saddled and their bedrolls stowed when he finally came close to brush the hair out of her face.

“What will you do?” he asked.

“I’ll take the Sword of the Crimson Lily back to the Court of Lilies.” She could see the question in his eyes and gave him a sad smile. “Selease deserves to see what became of it. I…I don’t know if recovering the remains changes anything. I don’t know if the Crimson Lily will be lost to this world for a generation.”

“Is Selease an understanding god?”

“Too understanding, perhaps,” Ciata answered.

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

“It’s not fear, Demi. It’s sadness.”

He nodded, though she wasn’t sure he understood. She opened her mouth only to realize that she had no idea what to say. Someone approached them from the house, and she was glad of the interruption. It was a stranger: a man of middling height, riding a fine Ossan horse and wearing fine but plain Ossan clothing. His jacket was buttoned tightly around his neck and he had dead eyes that he turned on her for a few moments before addressing Demi with a respectful nod.

“Master Grappo.”

Demi stood, his lip curling. “Thistle. What log did you crawl out from under?”

The stranger didn’t acknowledge the insult. “Your mother hired me to take you home.”

“Since when do you work for anyone but Maj?”

“When favors are called in.”

“I’m not going home.”

Thistle rolled his eyes. “You have responsibilities.”

“Not anymore.”

“A governorship.”

“I resigned.”

“A guild-family.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You have friends and people who are worried about you.”

“I wrote letters to the ones who matter.”

“I’m taking you home,” Thistle said, “whether you want to go or not.”

Under normal circumstances, Ciata might have intervened. She did not know this man who was threatening her friend. But…the threat did not seem to hold real weight. Demi was not in any danger. Ciata had the distinct feeling that this was none of her business. She took down her tent, idly listening to the two men as their argument grew more heated.

In these last few days, Demi had not talked about who he was. Ciata didn’t press him, but she thought often of the brief exchange she had with that soldier on the Ossan–Balkani border, the one who told her that Governor Grappo was letting refugees into his province against the will of his government. She thought of other stories as well, stories that drifted over the border even during the heat of the revolution. They spoke of the boy governor who injected the province of Kashti with a new life. They said no woman could resist him and no man could stay mad at him. Charismatic, smart as a whip, with vision. They said he was the future of the Ossan Empire.

There were other things she’d heard too. Rumors filtering into Dreese these last few days regarding the slaughter of the Ossan provincial city of Holikan. Crossed orders. Politicians and officers slinging blame at each other. A colossal cover-up for those responsible. Demi was involved. He didn’t deny it. But he didn’t elaborate either.

And Ciata did not need to know. As far as she was concerned, Demir Grappo and her friend Demi were two different people.

When she finished packing Penny’s saddlebags, Demi and the stranger were locked in a shouting match. Back and forth, back and forth. The sadness she felt over the sword compounded as she looked at Demi’s face. That poor, sad man. Responsibilities, Thistle said. People who wanted Demi to return to the capital or to his province.

Neither of them noticed her leave. She went into Dreese, buying road rations and some extra feed and sugar cubes for Penny. She thought to go by that cudgelist’s villa one last time, to cast it to her memory, knowing that the night she spent there with Demi changed her in some irrevocable way she could not yet identify.

Instead she headed north. After all, the goddess bid her knights never to grow too accustomed to one place or person. And Ciata still hoped she might one day be a knight, even considering her failure here.

On the same bridge where she’d met Demi she came across a figure in a dirty weather-beaten cloak, shuffling along, leaning on a gnarled walking stick. Ciata slowed Penny to a walk, then slid off her saddle beside the figure. It seemed fitting that she bookend her visit to Dreese with some kind of service. “Ma’am,” she called out, taking the hooded figure by the arm, “would you like to ride my horse for a few miles?”

But her fingers did not touch the gnarled, wasting flesh of an elderly woman. There was muscle and sinew under there. The hood turned, and familiar eyes flashed toward Ciata. Her breath caught in her throat and she fell to one knee.

“Selease,” Ciata whispered.

“Ah, little Ciata,” the goddess crooned. Her voice was at once powerful and melodious, seizing Ciata’s heart and filling it with joy even as her shame brought fresh tears to her face. “How you’ve grown since we last spoke. You’ve wandered far afield of Balkani.”

“My Lady,” Ciata began, but a strong hand of sinewy ivory reached out to take her by the chin.

“Shh, shh. I know. Poor Vilhelm met his fate at the hands of traitors. I have already been to thank the Ossan soldiers who found him, and to consecrate his grave. What of those villainous squires?”

“Delivered to your judgment, Lady Justice.”

A finger stroked Ciata’s face gently. “Thank you.”

“Selease, the sword…” Ciata’s voice caught in her throat. She couldn’t stand to say it. Instead she rose, keeping her eyes on the cobbled surface of the bridge, and took the Sword of the Crimson Lily from where it was tucked behind her saddlebags. She unwrapped it, knelt once more, and presented the gnarled steel over her head to her goddess. “I’m sorry, my Lady. I failed to return the sword.”

“Failed?” Selease echoed, doubtful. “I see no failure here.”

“It was destroyed.”

Selease clicked her tongue, hummed fondly, and let out a surprising chuckle. “Ah, ah. I never thought I’d need to enchant against fire! How silly of me.”

“I’ll return the sword to the Court of Lilies,” Ciata told her, “where you can judge the future of the Crimson Lily.” She stole a glance, looking into that hood at the same round, smiling face that was stitched on her saddlebags and her extra vest. Why was Selease smiling? Did she not see what happened here? Did she not realize the knighthood was destroyed?

“That’s a long journey for nothing,” Selease told her.

“I don’t understand, my Lady.”

There was a humming sound in Ciata’s ears—something akin to the reverberation of godglass sorcery, but unfamiliar. Selease sighed. “Oh, do put it down. Your arms will get tired.”

Ciata did as she was told and swallowed a gasp. Her outstretched hands no longer contained a twisted lump of ruined steel. The blade shone straight and true, the hilt was wrapped with the finest leather, and the guard was once more worked with glittering rose gold into the facsimile of a northern lily. She glanced up, trying to understand, only to find that her goddess now knelt in front of her. Selease leaned in and pressed warm lips to Ciata’s forehead.

“You have done well, sweet Ciata,” Selease said. She sounded distant, her voice nearly drowned out by a sudden wind. “But I sense that your work here in the Ossan provinces is not yet finished. Linger for a time. Wander their roads. Protect the pilgrim and the poor traveler. Spread the good cheer of Selease.” Her voice continued to grow distant, as if from the bottom of a well in a hurricane, and the last of it touched Ciata’s ears quietly but forcefully. “Arise, my Crimson Lily. Go forth and bring light to the world.”

When Ciata looked up, Selease was gone. Only dried leaves rolled along the cobbles in the wind. Tears stung Ciata’s eyes, and her limbs were weak as she turned back to Penny. A laugh escaped her lips. Hanging from her saddle horn was a leather cavalier’s hat—dyed dark red, with a black band, in which was tucked a broken old peacock feather.

When hoofbeats approached, Ciata still held the sword and hat, and stared off across the gorge.

“You left without me,” Demi said.

She turned to him, noticing the way his eyes questioned the sword in her hands and realizing she had no words to explain it to him. “You have responsibilities,” she said. “I didn’t want to interfere.”

Demi ran his hands through his hair, gazing at nothing over her head, and for the first time since they met she believed she was seeing the real, unguarded him. No masks. No fronts. Just a wounded young man who didn’t know his place in the world. “I’ve had responsibilities for as long as I can remember,” he said softly. “I don’t want them anymore. I…I don’t think I’m even equipped for them. Will you let me ride with you? Just for a while? You could teach me how to be a paladin of the road.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Ciata said, wiping the tears from her eyes and climbing painfully into her saddle. She took Demi by the hand and gave him a squeeze. He brought her hand to his lips, kissing each of her knuckles. “What happened to your friend?” Ciata asked him.

“Thistle ordered me to wait for him in Velentina, west of here, while he cleans up our mess in Dreese.”

“Then I think we can be of service to the east,” Ciata said, taking her reins.

They crossed the bridge and turned to follow the gorge, riding together in a companionable silence that filled Ciata’s heart with hope.

“I like your new hat,” Demi said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and scenarios are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.