Billos hurried to the front window and peeked past a drawn drape. Two uniformed warriors with silver badges on their chests were climbing out of a black-and-white buggy topped with flashing lights.

The establishment in which Billos had dispatched Steve and his jukebox warriors was only a stone’s toss from here.

“Billos?”

He spun to Darsal, who was watching him with wide eyes. “What?” he snapped.

“What’s happening?”

“Are you deaf? I told you what’s happening! I suggest you snap out of it and make yourself useful.”

“Is that what I mean to you? Just a tool to dispatch for your own purposes?”

“What are you talking about? We’re in a battle. Are you blind as well?”

Her eyes glared. He’d seen this look of defiance a thousand times, and he knew that his words would do nothing to win her over.

“I’m talking about the way you look at me, as if my coming to save you means nothing. All you want to do is kill villagers. From the moment you climbed out of that chair in the white room, you’ve had nothing on your mind but flexing this new power of yours.”

She was being about as logical as a stick of firewood. “I’m trying to save you!” retorted Billos.

“Is now really the time for this?” Papa asked, parting the shade next to the rear exit. Several warriors ran past the window in the direction of the establishment where Billos had slain Steve.

“Save me?” Darsal whispered harshly. “It’s always me, the poor little girl who’s being beaten by her uncle, that needs saving, is that it?”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t have saved you back then? You’d be dead now.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have. Not if you intended to make me your slave instead!”

After Darsal’s parents had been killed when she was only eight, her uncle, Blaken the Blacksmith, who was too much of a coward to fight with the Guard but had proven his value by crafting metal swords, had taken her in. He used to beat her in drunken fits, but Darsal was too shy to confess her plight to anyone. Billos had witnessed such a beating late one night when he was out sneaking through the streets of Southern, looking for trouble. He had taken it upon himself to break into her room and introduce himself.

When the beatings had become unbearable six months later, Billos had arranged an accident that had put Blaken on crutches. Permanently.

“How did you suddenly become my slave?” he demanded, flummoxed by her strained connections. “I’m trying to save us here, for the sake of Elyon!”

“No, I don’t think so. I think you’re trying to save your own neck for the sake of Billos. That’s the way you’ve always been. It’s always about Billos, isn’t it?”

“I think my sister is right,” Karas said.