An exclusive glimpse into the action in the epic new sequel
** spoilers abound. you have been warned **
They were met at the gates by their emissary and another soldier of the same generation, cleaner and better-fed, his accouterments differing only in details. “Sire,” that man said, voice pitched low. He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder into the city. “My Satray is delighted to have you here, but it might be best you not announce yourself.”
Sathriel met his eyes, brows climbing.
“There’s been… unrest.” He glanced into the city again. “When word reached us of…” He opened and closed his mouth as he sought for a safe way to allude to recent events. Eventually, he seemed to decide it didn’t exist. “Outraged citizens took to the streets. Hanvir and Shirad have many holdings in Cha Gobeli, and after a warehouse was fired, one of the mason’s workshops overrun and vandalized…”
“Yes?” Sathriel prompted. “I don’t know enough to know what you aren’t telling me.”
The soldier swallowed heavily. “They said, if the Satray couldn’t keep the peace, someone had to.”
“They put your Satray under house arrest in her own city, then sent their hirelings out into the streets to kill the more loyal citizens who were outraged by their coup.”
To this, the man bowed his head, as if he felt implicated.
“It seems as if you have something of a situation here,” Sathriel commented.
Looking grateful, the man replied, “You can see why my mistress is concerned for your safety in this… climate.”
“I can,” the emperor allowed. “But that’s yesterday’s thinking, it’s what led us to this place. If I won’t put myself at risk to defend what’s mine, what right do I have to complain that it’s been taken from me?”
“Sire,” the soldier said glumly. It was pretty obvious this didn’t mean: Hooray!
“Well.” His hands moved purposefully on the reins. “It looks as though I must confront these foolish merchants. Do you think your mistress would like to be present?”
It seemed pretty clear that the answer was ‘no,’ but he chose to bow his head and acquiesce. Since this had been settled, however insincerely, they set a course for the Satray’s palace. Sathriel remained calm, composed; unnaturally so. It was fascinating, Bayam thought, to watch him sleepwalk through a challenge that had defeated generations of his antecedents.
His grandfather had been cowed and humiliated.
His father had known himself unequal and placed his faith in the next generation.
Necavos didn’t seem to have tried, content to let her brother labor on behalf of both of them.
The Timerians didn’t have their guards at the city’s gates—their concern had been entirely with the city’s residents—and their party was able to pass within unchallenged. In defiance of the forsaken wasteland beyond its walls, Cha Gobeli was beautiful, its windowless buildings of brick or clay carved in relief or decorated in brightly-colored tiles. It was a dry and dusty place, but the buildings were tall and close, casting the streets into welcome shade.
The city had a hushed, fearful ambience. There was no ominous taint of old smoke like there had been in Brumail, but you could feel the tension. The air seemed to thrum and twitch with it.
They hadn’t gone four blocks when they came across the first signs of recent violence. Blood stained the cobbles of a street broader than most and made grizzly spatters across the western wall. More horrifying yet were the streaks along the ground where something had been dragged away; it could only have been bodies. People had died here and been hauled off like garbage by their murderers.
The Satray’s palace lay toward the city center, but this was a sizable city and it took them a while to get there. They never passed another place where people had obviously died but they went through a market at one point where half the stalls had been smashed to flinders. The narrow street was practically empty of shoppers, vendors with downcast eyes picking up the shattered lengths of wood that had been their livelihood desultorily. Many of them turned to watch them go, gazes lingering on Sathriel. Bayam wanted to say it was hope in their eyes, but mostly they just seemed weary.
He had expected to be recognized almost instantly, he had expected to be challenged. It was an exaggeration to claim that everyone in the empire knew Sathriel’s face, but many did and he was making no attempt to be circumspect. The Timerians in Procalias had blamed him for their troubles; so had the ordinary citizens, come to that, and the way Sathriel bid them adieu by alluding to his reawakening of magic had appeared to take credit for it. The situation was somewhat different here, but the Timerians would be bound to be wary. Now that their kind were openly at war with the throne, tussling with agents of the government over control, there would be no more ignoring one another.
He had assumed there would be patrols on every block, enforcing the peace with the point of a sword. At every intersection, he tensed as he peered around him with frantic speed, ready to reach for the pyramid. Prepared to fight for their lives and dreading it. They had nearly arrived at their destination when he learned why this wasn’t happening.
They were nigh on to the palace by then, and could see its gilded spires over the nearest roofs, when they heard the sound of conflict elsewhere in the city. Bayam had been picturing innocent civilians murdered in the street, small children torn from their mothers, old men with a cane in one hand and a basket of groceries in the other run down callously by cavalry, but that wasn’t what he was listening to. There were no terrified, high-pitched screams as victims sought to get away: an angry roar like the sea at storm was cut by staccato barks of command.
“You didn’t mention the unrest is ongoing.” Sathriel must have heard it too.
“It’s the brickmakers, sire. Shirad’s been putting the squeeze on our brickmakers for years and it looks like they’re just not going to take it anymore, they don’t care how many of ‘em die. It’s now with a weapon in hand or tomorrow from an empty belly, they’re saying.”
Ordinarily, Sathriel would have said something confident and positive to do with the plan he was formulating; today, he cast a single, sorrowful glance at Bayam. Until this taciturn phase ran its course, it was his job to say, “I guess we know where we’re going.”
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