Hatred gave him the willpower to move. To endure the way his skin along his face and forehead flapped loose, like a mask not properly tied.

“Cyrus,” he whispered. The name alone set a fire to his bleeding insides. “Find you. Kill you.”

He was out of the street. Buildings burned to either side of him, but the heat was a pleasant sensation to his strangely cool body. Arm out. Hand down. Drag. Move. Into the alley, continuing toward the sounds of people and buckets and salvation.

Regrets savaged his discordant thoughts. He never should have let the boy prince live. A quick sweep of his sword, and the brat would have died next to his parents. A hostage would make the transition easier, he’d thought. Foolish. Naïve. Better to excise former royalty immediately. Better to lance it all like a boil.

“I’ll kill you, Cyrus. I’ll kill you.”

Not quickly, either. Slowly. Publicly. Strip him naked and hang him from the Dead Flags by his wrists. Magus would flay the skin from his body while all of Vallessau watched, peel it back to show the ignorant believers the guts and bones and veins of their supposed savior. A mere man, dying in agony. The fate the prince deserved. A tired grin came to Magus. No, not just the prince. The fate all of Thanet deserved, and they’d get it soon enough. When the appointed hour came at last. When the God-Incarnate set foot upon the island, and looked upon a faithless, ungrateful people.

Fingers curled, hand down, flex, then drag. To the end of the alley now. The fire was brighter, the sky blotted out with smoke. The shouts of what he presumed to be the bucket brigade were close, so close. Magus craned his neck to stare at the exit, doing his best to ignore the horrible way it made the skin on his forehead slump to one side. There, in the smoke, he saw the dark shape of a man.

“Here,” he called out, and he lifted the one arm that had brought him all this way. “I’m here!”

The shape stepped from the smoke. The red and orange of the flames reflected off his armor, blending its hue, casting it to purple. Magus lowered his hand.

No, not a man. A paragon.

“You always were a stubborn one, weren’t you?” Soma said. He pulled his spear from his back and twirled it like a dancer. “In a way, I am grateful. When Sinshei ordered me to kill you amid the chaos, I thought for sure the Vagrant would do you in first. How lucky I am, for the pleasure to be mine.”

A faster twirl, the spear whooshing through the air.

“So you’re just… Sinshei’s dog after all,” Magus coughed out. “Pathetic.”