“Gyre!” Gyre heard his father start forward, but Va’aht held up a warning hand. The centarch still had hold of Maya, who was staring down at her brother, too scared even to keep shrieking.

“That,” Va’aht said through clenched teeth, “was unwise.”

“He’s just a boy,” Gyre’s father said. “Please, I’ll answer for it, I’ll—”

“That’s Order blood, boy,” Va’aht said, raising his voice. “The blood of the Chosen. Every drop is worth all the flesh and bone in your body. Consider that, and reflect on my mercy.”

“Mercy, sir,” Gyre’s father said. “Please.”

Gyre heaved himself up onto his elbows.

“Let her go,” he croaked.

Va’aht put his hand on his haken. He didn’t draw the weapon, just touched it, and crooked one finger.

Pain exploded in Gyre’s head, a line of fire from cheek to eyebrow. He was falling backward, hitting the floor shoulder-first, feeling nothing but the searing agony in his face. He mashed his hand against it, and blood squished, torn skin shifting nauseatingly under his fingers. He only realized he was screaming when he had to stop to take a breath.

Va’aht loomed above him, an outline shimmering in a haze of tears.

“You’ll live, with care, though I daresay there’ll be a scar.” The centarch gave a humorless chuckle. “Let it be a lesson to you.”

He limped past, still carrying Maya. She screamed Gyre’s name again, but his thoughts were already fading into a fiery blur of pain. By the time his father reached his side, darkness was closing in around him.

Chapter 1

Twelve Years Later

It was hot, and Maya was watching an empty house.

She sat on a rickety chair, staring out a second-story window through the gap between two stained, threadbare curtains. It gave her a perfect view of the alley below, which contained nothing more obviously interesting than a midden aswarm with flies, and a mangy old dog, huddled miserably in the shrinking shadow of the building to try to keep out of the sun.

There was also the front door of a single-story shack that, as best as Maya and her mentor had been able to determine, was the lair of a monster.

Watching this was Maya’s assignment, which was all well and good, except that she was convinced the monster wasn’t actually home. There had been no movement through the one visible window of the little shack. No movement in the alley, either, aside from the drone of the flies, the panting of the dog, and the heat haze dancing above the baked-mud road.