MAHLIA STARED DULLY at the world around her. The opiates made the pain… not exactly go away, but made it less important. Irritating, still, but distant. She only had four fingers left.

Four out of ten ain’t bad.

It was just like the last time she’d been caught, when the Army of God had taken her good right hand. So much of it felt the same. She wasn’t even a person to them. It was all the same.

Except, that time Mouse had come to her rescue. She didn’t think that was likely this time.

Mahlia turned her head, trying to see where Mouse was. Someone kicked her. Lieutenant Sayle looked over at the noise and Mahlia froze. She didn’t want to show the man how scared she was, but she couldn’t help it. She was terrified. Just having him look at her filled Mahlia with a sick animal terror, as if she were a mouse being watched by a panther. All she wanted was for Sayle not to look at her. The man’s gray eyes held hers for a long time, promising more evil. At last he looked away. Mahlia lay still, heart pounding. Trying to make herself relax. Feeling the muddy pain of her newly missing finger.

From where she lay atop a pile of copper, she could see big buildings going by, and then the sky seemed to open up. They were out in the open, a huge rectangular lake stretched into the distance. The slaves wading around the edge of it, using floating boardwalks and rubble for purchase as they dragged the barge along. She could hear them splashing. She caught a glimpse of a white monument spiking up into the searing blue sky, right out of the center of the lake, a monolith of marble, its face yellowing in places, and cracked, but still vertical.

The scrap barge creaked as the men and women pulled on their ropes. They chanted and hauled. They were civvies. Or slaves. Or maybe just legs and arms and sweating backs.

Mahlia would have given the rest of her fingers just to be one of them.

Some of the soldier boys were standing up now, looking forward.

“There it is,” one of them said. Others stood, talking, craning their necks.

“The palace.”

“Damn, it’s big.”

“Can you see the Colonel?”

“Don’t be stupid. He doesn’t stand around waiting for a maggot like you to catch sight of him. He’s running a war.”

The palace, the palace…

Mahlia craned her neck. A huge marble building loomed into view. The palace. Marble from top to bottom. Steps marching up from the lake to its grand presence. A soaring dome stood central, seeming to touch the sky, and it was flanked on either side by broad marbled wings that encompassed more space than Banyan Town. Grand columns and intricate carvings decorated the structure, what must have taken decades of work to create.