Of Killers and Kings

by Will Wight

  Shera shifted her weight to try and keep her left-hand shear away from Loreli.

  “From the beginning, I was willing to go to prison to serve the Empire,” Lucan said. His voice was strong and confident.

  As well it might have been. He’d be in prison for…six hours? Maybe twelve. It depended on if Shera slept before breaking him out or not.

  “And you?” Loreli asked Shera. She looked equally compassionate, which meant she must not have Read Shera’s shear yet.

  Shera tried to subtly slip further away from the Regent as she answered. “I’m going to break him out before the end of the day, so I’m fine.”

  Alagaeus looked irritated by that for some reason, but Estyr and Jorin both chuckled.

  “That might be a tougher root to chew than you think,” Jorin said.

  “Why do you think we gave up so easily?” Estyr asked. “If we had pardoned you both, it would have split the Guild against Yala. And he doesn’t want that.”

  Shera glanced around to see if someone else might have snuck back into the conversation. Maybe Tyril.

  Lucan was looking down on her with a pained expression. “Shera…at least for a few years. After that, we can appeal. My freedom isn’t worth losing Guild unity.” He waited for a moment, and when she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I knew what I was getting into.”

  Shera felt like she was hearing a different language.

  “…what?”

  That was all she could think of to say.

  When dawn broke and the Regents left, she and Lucan were still arguing.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We are very careful when we select subjects to become Soulbound, and we never make the attempt unless we have Imperial permission and can reasonably guarantee the subject’s safety.

  —Official Magister response on the subject of Soulbinding success rate

  Thirty-seven percent.

  —Consultant estimate of actual Soulbinding success rate

  present day

  Shera was woken by an explosion that rocked the entire building.

  The instant she regained consciousness, she was hit by an even greater blow: her two Soulbound Vessels pulling her in different directions.

  Syphren was practically salivating. Great power! Seize it, take it, consume it now!

  The Awakened blade was doing its best to push her toward an unleashed bonfire of power shining from nearby. She could feel it herself, a ball of energy, and the part of her connected to Syphren yearned to drink from it.

  Bastion, on the other hand, was quietly panicking. A threat looms. Release the Veil! Defend them all!

  Shera struggled within herself, wrestling down both Vessels as they competed with one another. When she regained control, she realized she was crouched on the floor with her back to the wall, both shears raised to defend herself.

  At least my instincts are working.

  As she pulled on her gray uniform, a Shepherd knocked and let herself into the room. “Regent Jorin leveled a building three streets north,” she reported.

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t speculate.”

  That was a standard Shepherd response indicating that she hadn’t had the chance to run her information by the Architects or Masons for analysis yet. When Shera finished dressing and headed for the door, the other Consultant followed her out and then vanished.

  That was considered good manners for Shepherds.

  It wasn’t hard to find Jorin; everyone else in the Imperial Palace was headed in the same direction, and there was only one pile of rubble with a cloud of dust drifting up. The rest of the street had been diligently repaired from the battle against the Imperialists, but now Jorin had undone some of that work himself.

  Shera had to walk down the open street, past Imperial Guards who looked like they would draw pistols on her if she gave them half an excuse.

  Her Vessels were still riled up, which made it even harder to resist the Guards’ hostile stares. They wanted her to kill the Guards for her own protection. And to devour their strength.

  Sometimes, having the shears agree was worse than having them bicker.

  Jorin stood in the middle of the street, surrounded by Guards himself. Coming up on him from behind, Shera saw the bandage-wrapped sword slung across his back and the wide brim of his hat.

  Kerian, a couple of other Consultants, and a handful of members from other Guilds now stood in a loose crowd around Jorin, talking amongst themselves or staring at the rubble.

  Shera took a peek herself. As far as she could tell, this building was no different than any of the other half-repaired structures around them.

  “Rough day?” she asked.

  “Jyrine Marten has gone the way of yesterday’s wind.”

  When Shera decoded that sentence, a cold anger settled on her. She had only let Jyrine live because Meia and the High Councilors had insisted she be interrogated. Shera had intended to execute her immediately, but they had intervened.

  The Regent’s shadeglasses turned to Shera. “Slipped out from beneath my paws and I was none the wiser. Not half a breath after her scheduled questioning, no less. I need the transcript of that interrogation three days before yesterday.”

  One of the Shepherds dashed off.

  Shera looked to Kerian. “Jyrine Tessella Marten is ripe for harvest.”

  “Already noted.” Within the hour, there would be a Gardener assignment with Jyrine’s name on it.

  Kerian looked no happier than Shera felt. She would be visiting Meia soon, no doubt. As the last person to speak with Jyrine, Meia would be facing a lot of visitors.

  “Did she walk out of here?” Shera asked. If this was Calder Marten’s action, that meant there were Imperialists still in the Guard.

  “Do cats bark? If she didn’t take a void transfer out of here, I’ll eat my hat. This stinks of Kelarac.” Jorin swiped angrily at the air, and the feel of his Intent sent half a dozen people around him stumbling back. Shera herself felt sick, and Syphren’s appetite surged.

  Some intact support beams in the already-collapsed beams rotted away in seconds, and Shera got some insight into what had happened to the house in the first place. At least the Regent was channeling his frustration into something that could be rebuilt.

  “It cost Kelarac to do this,” Jorin went on. “In fuel and in risk. If I had sensed him…but he doesn’t dump out his purse for every liquored-up farmer who puts on a cultist mask. She’s key to something. Now we’re all on the block and awaiting the headsman.”

  Shera’s heart detached and she examined the situation coldly, as though she stared down a target. “What kind of threat are we facing?”

  “We have to bet on Kelarac himself.” The Regent straightened before turning his gaze to address the growing crowd. “Evacuate the Capital. Squeeze it dry if you have to drag them out of their homes with hooks. Every second counts, gentlefolk. For all we know, he could be here within the hour.”

  The onlookers threw out a number of panicked questions, but Shera was closer to Jorin. “You think he’ll be coming here?”

  “The void was torn open here. This is the crack in the door.” He stared off into the distance. “As long as we can hold onto the wheel until Loreli comes back. As long as we can do that…”

  At that point, one of the other questions caught his attention, and he turned away from Shera. She stepped back to join Kerian.

  “What have we heard from the Great Elder tombs?”

  Kerian’s braids swayed as she shook her head. “We’re spread thin, just like the other Guilds. Our contacts are generally still intact, but there’s been too much upheaval lately. We’re trying to rebuild lines into the tombs, but we can’t know how much work there is yet to be done.”

  “And how many combatants do we have capable of scoring a blow on a Great Elder?”

  “The Regent would be the expert, but…” Kerian looked between Shera and Jorin. “…I would say that, in our current state, we would be lucky to have
as many as five.”

  Shera rested palms on her two Vessels, letting their emotions flutter around each other inside her mind. It was easier to withstand them while she was focused on a mission; their competing urges tugged her left and right while she stood in the middle.

  She had begun thinking like the Head of the Consultant’s Guild again. This wasn’t her responsibility anymore.

  She could leave this to Kerian.

  Protect the Guild, Bastion whispered.

  Syphren agreed, eager for any kind of action.

  The Emperor would tell her that it was her responsibility to oppose the Elders.

  Meia would tell her that it was her duty as a Consultant.

  Lucan would say that if she could serve to protect people, she should.

  And Shera herself…

  …as much as she wanted to give up and let someone else lead, she reluctantly recognized that she was in a unique position to direct the Consultants. So, for the good of the Empire, she would act.

  This one time.

  “What have you announced to the Guild about me?”

  “Nothing,” Kerian said. She patted the leather satchel she often carried slung over her shoulder. “Your paperwork is in here. I haven’t yet found the time to file it properly.”

  Shera scanned her expression for mockery but saw nothing she could read. “…well, good. Hold off. I have a plan. Once we’re on the other side of this, we can talk about my retirement.”

  “Very good, Guild Head.”

  In a broad conference room of the Imperial Palace, almost forty people gathered at Shera’s order. There had been chairs set up before, but the Shepherds removed them.

  Shera faced the crowd. The three High Councilors waited for her at the front, backed by all the Gardeners and every Reader they could find among the Architects. Darius Allbright had been dragged in as well, though he’d protested; he had to help the Luminian Order coordinate the evacuation of the city. Shera had forced him here anyway.

  This was the second time Shera had addressed all the Gardeners, but today she felt only focus. If a Great Elder was coming to the city, they needed to make drastic moves just to survive. And the Council of Architects was not known for its drastic action.

  She had to plunge the knife in herself.

  “As you’ve heard by now, we think there’s a Great Elder coming for us.”

  Everyone in the room shifted either their feet or their gaze, which among Consultants was enough to show how out of sorts they really were.

  “Circumstances as they are, we have very few who can fight Kelarac or any of his lieutenants. We need more combat-capable Soulbound, and we need them now.”

  Meia looked frazzled; she probably hadn’t escaped interrogation all day. Shera intended to ask Meia some questions herself.

  But at the mention of Soulbound, Meia’s eyes shot up to meet Shera’s.

  “We only have one pair of Awakened shears in the Guild,” Shera said, placing her hands on her own hips. “I need every Gardener Soulbound by tomorrow at sunset.”

  Silence.

  One of the Architect Readers looked around and, seeing no support, began to hesitantly speak. “Guild Head, that is…impossible. For a number of reasons. You aren’t a Reader yourself, so from your perspective—”

  “Darius Allbright. Tell them how hard it was to Awaken my shears.”

  Darius scratched the back of his neck, causing an odd distortion as his hand passed through the veil of shadow over his face. “I only Awakened one of them, but in my experience it was…unprecedented. I would describe it as the weapon being on the verge of Awakening itself.”

  The Readers in the room looked to one another. A few of them leaned closer to the Gardeners bearing shears.

  None of the practicing Gardeners were Readers. Lucan had been the only one in the Guild, and this would have been so much easier with him here.

  Everything would have been easier.

  She cleared her thoughts and focused on what she knew of Guild history. Though Reading was an advantage in many ways, Gardeners were more effective when they weren’t distracted by Intent. Readers also tended to be more valuable in other roles, and thus were rarely risked on the sorts of dangerous assignments that Gardeners accepted daily.

  Even Kerian spoke up with an objection of her own. “There is a reason why none of the shears were Awakened before yours, Guild Head. Most Awakened weapons are easy to sense coming. How can a Gardener do their work in the shadows with bright lights tied to their belts?”

  “And we can’t do it,” another Reader protested. “No matter how close the weapon is to Awakening, we need time to catalog the Intent in the weapon and get to know the subject. If the three of us aren’t in sync, you’ll be risking us all!”

  A chorus of agreement rose up.

  Not, Shera noticed, from the Gardeners.

  Shera had not proposed this action lightly. She was gambling with the lives of the few people she still cared about: Kerian, Ayana, and Meia.

  She knew the risks. And so did they.

  As the words died down, Shera slowly locked eyes with everyone in the room carrying bronze daggers. Kerian looked resigned, Meia eager, Ayana conflicted, and Benji…well, the newly minted Gardener would jump into a volcano for the chance to become a Soulbound.

  “Gardeners,” Shera said, “this is a voluntary mission. Even if it works on all of you, fourteen new Soulbound might not be enough to turn the tide against Kelarac. What do you think?”

  “If it improves our odds by even a small fraction, that’s enough,” Meia said, but Shera knew she was dreaming about her chance to truly rival a Champion. The only reason she hadn’t Awakened her shears already was the risk of losing the ancient weapons.

  And because the shears were technically Guild property, and no one had given her permission.

  Ayana’s voice scraped out of her throat. “Agreed.”

  “Yes!” Benji shouted.

  Shera gestured for him to calm down.

  The other Gardeners voiced their assent one at a time until, at last, Kerian gave a reluctant nod.

  Another Reader threw up her hands. “This still won’t work. Maybe if we had a few weeks…”

  Finally Yala strode out. Her hair was pulled tight behind her, and the tail whipped Shera in the face as the High Mason turned around to address the rest of the crowd.

  Shera found it hard to believe that wasn’t intentional.

  “You may be Architects, but you’re Consultants first,” Yala snapped. “If you didn’t want to bet your lives on your Guild, you should have joined the Greenwardens. You are the only ones on the Gray Island who don’t have to risk their necks, so today it’s your turn.”

  Shera couldn’t see Yala’s expression, but the front row all flinched back from the High Mason as she spat her final words: “Get it done.”

  The Reader who had spoken swallowed hard and asked quietly. “How…how long do we have?”

  “Tomorrow at sunset,” Yala snapped.

  Which was exactly what Shera would have said, had she been given a chance to say it.

  She pushed Yala to one side and addressed the room again. “You may think I don’t understand what kind of risk I’m asking you to take. Here’s what I understand: I’m going to be fighting a Great Elder tomorrow. I’d rather not do it alone.”

  Shera walked out, passing Darius on the way. She had brought the Luminian for his testimony about Awakening Bastion, and she didn’t know if he would stay to Awaken a set of shears himself or if he would return to his Luminian duties. That was up to him.

  She glanced back before exiting, looking over the room of quiet, determined, and frightened people.

  “Go to work,” she said.

  The next day was chaos.

  Every soldier and Guild member in the Capital was assigned to the evacuation, and Shera faced a stream of problems on behalf of the Consultants. Not least of which was their lines of communication.

  They had managed to conta
ct several of the Great Elder tombs or adjacent facilities, but the news was bleak.

  Every time the Consultants received another message, it was only to learn they were too late.

  “Where is the Blackwatch?”

  “Call the Order!”

  “Trying to reach someone, anyone…”

  “Emperor save us.”

  The messages came in from Awakened chalkboards, from Soulbound with powers of communication, from exhausted messengers arriving on Kameira worked nearly to death. The more they learned, the worse the news became.

  The defenses around the Elder tombs had been weakened too far by the Guild War, and many of them had fallen to attack. Some had been driven out by Elderspawn, some by human cultists, still others had refused to work with enemy Guilds anymore.

  Now it was impossible to know the status of any of the Great Elders. Kthanikahr could be devouring towns in Dylia and no one would be the wiser.

  They were blind.

  Yala finally cornered Shera, pinning her against the wall. “We need to take the Guild out of here.”

  Shera narrowly resisted the urge to break her arm. “I thought we agreed we need Soulbound to fight Kelarac.”

  “We agreed that the Guild needs Soulbound more than we need to continue investing in Gardener shears. With the Elder Tombs overrun, it’s far too risky to stay in the Capital. The Great Elders will head straight here, and we could be facing them all! That’s suicide, no matter how many Soulbound we have.”

  Shera pushed past Yala and walked away, hoping the High Mason would take the hint. “You must be confident to think you know what’s going through Kelarac’s head.”

  “Soulbinding the Gardeners is still the right idea. In case we need them to defend ourselves.”

  Shera gritted her teeth and spun to face Yala. “You say you love this Guild. Do you remember who we—”

  Her mind was overwhelmed with an urge so powerful that she couldn’t resist. Her Vessels drowned out all her thoughts with an impulse louder than a shout.