Desperately Abdumasi pronounced the words of ruin. His friends had told him these words were a curse, they’d tried to keep him from this lonely fate, why hadn’t he listened—because he couldn’t watch as his home was rotted away by cowards and quislings—and so he said the words that would sever him from the human community for all time and make him into a seeping wound of grief and horrible lonely power.

“Ayamma,” he whispered, “ayamma, ta ao-ath onvastai-ash e ser o-en incrisiath—”

The marine officer put a bag over Abdumasi’s head. He heard the crack of a dose bottle, and then the marine poured a cold sweet chemical through the sack. Abd’s nose tickled and went dead as rubber. Was it ether? Tsusenshan? He didn’t know, he couldn’t remember how to breathe to fight it off—

An octopus-kiss of absence crept over Abdumasi. He fumbled around, trying to find his ruined rapier, so he could hold something named Kindalana, but his hands wouldn’t answer.

He hadn’t managed to die. He’d let everyone down.

At least it wasn’t the fire. At least it wasn’t the fire.

Act One: The Fall of the Elided Keep

ACT ONE

THE FALL OF THE ELIDED KEEP

1. In the Ruin of Them

1

IN THE RUIN OF THEM

AT sunrise Baru shackled the prisoner for her drowning.

The Duchess Tain Hu smelled of brine and cold stone and the onions of her last meal. Last night they’d made their covenant. Until the dawn hours Tain Hu had whispered hoarse strategy to Baru: the names of her agents, and the shape of her plans. She gave Baru her arsenal, and her hope, and her faith.

“Remember. Remember the man in the iron circlet, and the ledger of secrets.”

“I will remember,” Baru hissed through raw-bitten lips. “I will.”

Now Baru came close to offer her the manacles that would kill her. And the air between them shivered, like steppe grass under silver cloud, with the charge of their grief and their resolve.

Tain Hu shrugged into her chains. Tested the steel. “Good metal.” She rolled her shoulders. “It’ll hold.”

She grinned and Baru couldn’t stand that grin on that fierce unbreakable face. She stepped closer, quick, like an assassin gutting the duchess, and with her right hand she grabbed a fistful of Hu’s hair. Into her ear Baru whispered one word in Urun, the tongue of Tain Hu’s blood. Piercing. Like an eagle’s kiss. Her lip brushed Hu’s earlobe and they touched for the last time:

“My general.”

And with grim joy Tain Hu whispered back: “Long live the queen.”

“Congratulations on your victory,” Baru said, and she spread her hands a little, as if saying, look at me, I am your victory, are you pleased?

“I wish you’d done it sooner,” Tain Hu murmured.