by Will Wight
Not only were they wasting the effort she had spent to keep these people alive, there were Masons hiding within the ordinary unconscious citizens.
She did another quick count. Fifteen enemies.
That would have to be few enough. A woman with a sharpened knitting-needle was approaching a man that Shera knew to be a Mason faking sleep.
Shera braced herself, lifting a small brass whistle to her lips. She took a deep breath, then blew.
The cry of a winter-feather robin echoed out, sounding deafeningly loud to the Consultants. To anyone else nearby, it would be no louder than an ordinary whistle.
But they would still hear it.
She instantly rolled away from her last known position, her caution justified as a pistol-shot rang out and sent wood chips spraying around her. She slipped out of the wood-pile and behind a bush, ducking another shot, rolling behind a tent where a Shepherd already crouched.
The other Consultant, a young woman, signaled a question. Attack signal?
Shera shook her head. She had whistled for backup without triggering the nearby Shepherds into action.
Their best chance was to wait for the scout team to get into position. Which should be any second now.
Shera was confident that she had at least a few more seconds before the pack guessed where she was. They were shouting, screaming at her to come out, and they would corner her in only a few moments. But she had a few seconds of safety.
Another shot rang out, and her leg erupted in pain.
The agony whited out her senses for an instant, but she only let out a grunt, shoving herself backwards on her uninjured leg. A quick, habitual glance through watery eyes told her that the ball had torn a chunk out of the meat of her calf. Could have been worse, but her mobility was gone.
The Shepherd was already wrapping Shera’s leg in a stretch of cloth as she leaned away from the newly formed hole in the tent.
“Come on out,” the soldier called. “We’ll keep firing till we get you.”
Not a precise shot, then; he had just gotten lucky. Unless that was what he wanted her to think. Shera confirmed nothing, raising the whistle to her lips.
Her thoughts grew colder and colder until she felt only distant pain in her leg…and frustration. They could have left.
Then the former soldier and his twelve or thirteen remaining men could have walked away alive.
She blew the whistle twice, then rolled out from behind the tent.
As she’d expected, the soldier had a newly reloaded gun pointed in the direction of the tent, but his eyes were wide over his bandana. As he tracked her position, shadows rose from all around the garden.
A Mason lying on the ground came to life suddenly, startling the needle-wielding woman, disarming her and plunging her own needle through her throat.
A Shepherd put a knife into the eye of the pipe-wielding man at ten paces.
Another shadow wrapped garotte wire around a woman with a crossbow, crushing her windpipe as her finger spasmed on the trigger. A bolt launched into the night air.
All around her, Consultants killed. But they weren’t true killers.
Some Shepherds missed the mark, knives scraping on ribs or flying wide. This was why Shera had hesitated to call them to action. Shepherds and Masons were spies, not assassins.
There was only one true Gardener among them tonight.
And Shera wasn’t counting herself.
Lucan, leader of the scout team, vaulted over the fence before Shera’s signal faded from the air. He was clad head-to-toe in black, even his hair and skin dark, his bronze shears gleaming as he spread them like a pair of razor-edged wings.
In one smooth motion, he spun between four gang members. Four sprays of blood fountained into the darkness.
A silver spade flashed in the moon as Shera threw, sparing one of her Shepherds a club to the face. The pack member with the club glanced down, looking at the knife embedded into her shoulder, and the Shepherd finished the job with a thin needle to the woman’s neck.
That was the spade Shera had planned to use to save herself. Now the soldier’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Too late.
Shera stared into his eyes, unsurprised as Lucan’s bronze dagger took the man’s hand off at the wrist.
As a rule, daggers didn’t do that.
Cutting through bone, even at the joints, was the work of an axe. Or a saw.
But Intent could accomplish amazing things given enough time, and the shears of the Gardeners had been handed down from assassin to assassin for thousands of years. The pistol-clutching hand spun to the ground as Lucan passed his blade across the man’s throat.
He was flicking blood from both his knives as he approached Shera, concern in his eyes. Behind him, the only ones left standing were members of the Consultant’s Guild.
“How badly are you hurt?” he asked.
Shera shoved herself up to a standing position on her good leg, still grimacing at the pain. “Enough to get us off duty for a while.”
Half a year since killing the Emperor, and she had spent barely a handful of nights on the Gray Island. She was looking forward to the time off, though the ride back to the Island would be a nightmare with an open flesh wound.
Lucan did brighten at that prospect, though no one else would have been able to tell his expression behind the shroud covering his nose and mouth. “Perfect chance to get a look at their archives.”
Lucan had a question stuck between his teeth, and he hadn’t stopped fiddling with it for half a year.
Why had the High Council wanted Shera to kill the Emperor ahead of schedule?
Shera wondered herself, but she had long since resigned herself to never knowing. The deed was done anyway; there was no taking back her dagger-thrust now.
But Lucan had been dying to dig through the Miners’ archives, sure that they would hold the answers. Or at least clues, directions he could use to Read the truth.
The problem was that the entire world was in chaos after the Emperor’s death, which meant tens of thousands of people out-bidding one another to hire the Consultants. He had worked, if anything, even harder than Shera these last months.
She didn’t want to go back and do research. She wanted to go back and relax. With him.
She placed a hand on his arm. “Don’t spend all your time in the library.”
He gave her a smile that she could barely see through his mask. “Of course not.” She gave into the pain of her injury, leaning against him as Shepherds and Masons cleaned up the yard around them, moving corpses and sleeping rioters alike.
“…I have to Read the rest of the island too.”
Shera almost stabbed him.
Chapter Five
Peace is always temporary. But then again, so is life.
—from the First Journal of Estyr Six
present day
The Regent Jorin Maze-walker squinted up at the vial of viscous red liquid. “It’s a wriggling knot, but I’d name it safe as springwater.”
Shera stared flatly at him.
“Its…my oath to eternity, it’s safe to drink. Am I not using words?”
Irritably, he tossed her the vial. She snatched it out of the air, but she had a question of her own. “What are you wearing?”
Instead of his usual darkened shadeglasses, he had a rough blindfold wrapped around his face. Where he would normally carry a bandage-wrapped sword on his back, now he had a cello case slung over his shoulder. She was certain that it contained his sword.
His clothes were well-used, but not rags; the sort of attire that anyone in the Capital might wear. The sort of outfit that Shera would have chosen for her disguises, usually, and that Meia and Lucan would have mocked her for.
She liked to use whatever was closest to hand for her disguises, because most strangers wouldn’t look carefully at her anyway. She wished Meia and Lucan were there to see Jorin now.
“Are you disguising yourself as a blind, homeless musician?”
“I’m all mummed up as anyone but Jorin Curse-breaker.” He adjusted the blindfold and hitched up the strap on his cello case. “It won’t burn us if we’ve got one extra Regent in our pocket.”
“One?”
When they had told the Imperialists that only one Regent would be in attendance, she had known they were lying, but she had hoped they were lying more.
“Rebels are buzzing up a hive in Axciss. I’ll tell you one thing Loreli can’t resist, and that’s a cry of distress. She booked a Navigator last sunset, and she won’t be back to these shores for at least two moons. Left her trust with us.” He pointed a finger at Shera. “And her disguise was worse than mine.”
Personally, Shera thought Loreli could have waited one more day before running off to another continent, but it was too late to ask her opinion now.
Jorin waved vaguely to the potion in Shera’s hand. “You should drink that down rabbit-quick. You’ll be rattling like a lifeboat until it settles in, and quicker started, quicker done.”
He swept her a bow and drifted away, joining the crowd.
They had been talking along a side street of the Capital; not the most secret location for a clandestine talk, but Shera had seen worse. All-but-invisible Shepherds watched her from nearby rooftops, keeping eavesdroppers clear.
Shera downed the potion in one gulp before following the Regent. It tasted like acid and cherries with a little blood mixed in, and she immediately wanted to forget the flavor. She tucked the empty vial away into her pocket for later disposal.
Immediately, dizziness settled onto her like a cloak. Enough that it would be hard to fight, though based on Jorin and Bareius’ instructions and her own experience with potions, the sensation would wear off as the actual effect took over.
Shera’s hand dropped to her right-hand side, where Bastion’s peaceful voice comforted her. It was a calm, steadying sensation, but she would have to give it up during the negotiations. She already felt restricted at the thought, which surprised her, as she’d only been Soulbound to this Vessel for a few weeks.
She rejoined the Guilds, waving them on. At her signal, the parade of Independent Guild members resumed.
Marching through the gates of the Imperial Palace.
Hundreds of wary eyes watched them from windows on the Capital streets, but only a handful had gathered to watch them. They hadn’t publicized their route beforehand.
Inside the Palace itself, though, thousands had gathered.
The Imperial Palace took up much of the Capital, and it was sometimes called a city unto itself. Shera had experienced herself that the staff who grew up inside the Palace had virtually nothing in common with those who grew up in the Capital proper. Some in those two populations never mixed at all.
And the people of the Palace were…not angry, exactly. But they did not look happy.
Frightened-looking groups and families clutched each other, watching the Independents enter while muttering. Their voice struck Shera as ominous. It felt like the rumble before a crowd became a mob.
As Shera watched the Guilds pass, Meia slipped up to the side and began muttering into her ear. “We have people infiltrating the crowd. Primary and secondary exit plans are secure.”
Their primary exit plan was Shera jumping from the top window carrying Bareius, and the secondary and emergency plans were worse.
“Does everyone know their places?” Shera asked softly.
“We’ve made them memorize every step.”
The Imperial Palace was crossed with a network of emergency tunnels, and the Consultants had secured several exits around the Rose Tower. She had to make sure that everyone among the Independents, not just the Consultants, knew where their nearest exit was in the event of sudden violence.
She missed the days when she only had to worry about herself. Especially since she wouldn’t give up a secret. The Imperial Guard thought all their tunnels were still secure, and they had to continue thinking so until Shera and all the others were miles gone. The more people who shared a secret, the less chance it would last.
Then again, they might not need to escape at all. She had to stop assuming they would have to run.
Meia vanished again, leaving Shera to look out over their procession.
The alchemists were in the lead, led by Bareius and Furman. They were half actual alchemists and half private army that Bareius had hired to defend him in case of an attack. Or to cause an attack if the Imperialists didn’t give him sufficient excuse.
That was just a hunch of Shera’s, but she had made sure that a heavy dose of his recruits were secretly her Masons.
As Bareius passed her, he gave her a long look up and down, then an exaggerated wink. He was indicating that he knew she’d taken the potion…she hoped.
Peace talks might stall if it was discovered that Bareius had unexpectedly committed “suicide.”
The Luminians were after the alchemists, a mix of white-clad Pilgrims and silver-armored knights that practically radiated righteousness.
Actually, not so many knights. Most of the Luminian Knights had been scattered around their route to match the Imperial Guard in security.
The Guards looked as menacing as always—more menacing in appearance than she had found them to be in practice. Kameira limbs jutted from red-and-black uniforms or ornamented stern faces. They covered every entrance along their planned route through the Imperial Palace, with four or five of them for every lone knight.
And in the shadows, Consultants covered them.
The Greenwardens were next, and even in her capacity as one of the Independent Guild leaders, Shera had precious few interactions with them. Their Guild Head, Tomas Stillwell, was a pleasant man with a gentle smile and tousled auburn hair who always spoke as though soothing an animal. A green vine with wide leaves grew all over his body, looping around him and providing some shade for his wheelchair.
All Greenwardens wore those living vines as a badge of honor, though Shera didn’t know if they were the product of Awakened objects or some kind of alchemical technique.
Finally, there came the Consultants.
All three of them.
The power of the Consultant’s Guild was not in what was seen, but what was buried beneath the surface, and they had decided to embrace that fact. Shera would represent them in the negotiations and the three High Councilors would represent them among the other Guilds. Their small size would make them stand out and would project confidence and an air of mystery.
Shera had approved of the decision because it meant more of the Guild could be assigned to actual security.
Kerian, Yala, and Tyril all wore their blacks with no shrouds over their faces. Instead, they had adopted the professional smiles of those dealing with unpleasant clients.
Shera fell in behind them, hoping to talk with them before the negotiations began, but she heard a sudden brisk wind.
Estyr Six landed beside her, which caused a much more pleasant surge in the surrounding crowd. Her long hair fluttered and settled against her back as the three skulls circled her in a lazy orbit.
“We’ll get there a few minutes before the Imperialists,” Estyr reported. “They’re trying to make us wait, but it gives us the advantage. We can make them walk through us.”
Shera eyed her. “Is that necessary?” She hadn’t expected Estyr to be someone who played games.
“Anything that might give us an edge.”
The three High Councilors had sped up to give Shera more time with the Regent. Or possibly to avoid having to face Estyr.
“You must have done this kind of thing before,” Shera said.
Estyr gave a wry grin. “A few times. Hammering out the Empire was more than just slamming Nakothi through a continental shelf.”
“What do you think our odds are?”
Estyr walked alongside Shera, but as she spent a handful of seconds thinking, she seemed to forget to move her feet. She drifted along instead, hovering only half an inch over the street.
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“I like our odds. A little blood spilled on both sides, but not so much that it can’t be cleaned up. I’ve seen worse than this ended with a treaty.” Her footsteps resumed, and she added, “If we’re dealing with people.”
Shera nodded grimly. Everyone had the same concern. If the Great Elders were involved, there would be no good ending.
“What sort of signs are you looking for?”
“Depends on who we’re dealing with. Urg’naut can be subtle, but he tilts minds one way or another. None of his Shades will show themselves to me, so he’ll have to work with brainwashing. It’s hard to detect, but it’s weak. Ach’magut is dead again, but who knows what he has or hasn’t foreseen? Kelarac likes to buy people. If we suspect someone of reporting to him, we can track down their behavior, see if they have any cult connections or if they’ve stolen any private artifacts.”
Estyr patted Shera on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a nose for this sort of thing.”
Shera wasn’t used to people comforting her.
“They can’t hide from me,” Estyr muttered, and Shera got the impression that the Regent was talking to herself. “I’ll tear them to pieces with my teeth. For every drop of human blood they spill, I will spill an ocean of their kind until the stars themselves drown.”
For a moment, Shera thought she heard a roar from the three skulls floating over Estyr’s head. The Regents seemed like she was in a trance, her eyes blazing like blue lightning, fists clenched at her sides.
Shera was in awe. She could practically taste the blood this woman had spilled. So this was what a legendary warrior of the Empire was like.
For once, Estyr really did remind her of the Emperor. When he had become lost in the old war or when he got too excited talking about the Elders, he had let his hatred overwhelm him, and the same anger radiated from him that shone from Estyr now.
The Regent caught herself, flashing Shera an embarrassed grin. “Did you catch it? That’s a quote from Tedric’s Heart Like a Churning Sea. My character. I went to see it probably…two hundred and fifteen years ago now? They got one of my actual descendants to play me, and I have to say I cried.”
