She took the man’s sheath next, and after fastening it at her hip, she swept a final, disinterested glance around her. At the road, sunken like a frown into the mountain. At the eight corpses with steam clawing off their bodies. So much blood, so much Cleaved oil.

She had told herself at the last fight that she would find a cleaner way to do this. If not for her own eyes, then for whoever had to find the bodies. Perhaps at the next ambush she would finally succeed. Or at the ambush after that—because there would always be another. Just as eventually the Emperor’s army would catch up to her from behind, and she would kill, kill, kill.

Her stomach growled, an earthly reminder of why she had come here and why she had wanted to slay all these soldiers in the first place.

Even Puppeteers had to eat.

So after reclaiming her staff, she hauled herself off the muddy road, and Iseult det Midenzi entered the forest in search of food.

TWO

Safiya fon Hasstrel watched her hand, resting above the flames. It should have hurt. It should have burned and smoked and sent her howling.

Instead, she felt nothing. Wherever fire touched her palm, the flesh turned to shadows and the flames flickered through. She could see her skeleton, gray bones wrapped inside the darkness, disrupted only by a faint circle where a new Witchmark stained her skin.

“That’s enough, Empress.” An armored hand swatted Safi from the candle. “That’ll leave scars.”

“I know,” Safi replied. It was why she couldn’t stop doing it.

“Where are your attendants?”

“I sent them away.” Safi scrutinized the clot of pale crosshatching on her palm. It grew thicker each time she touched the Firewitched flame. Fascinating. Foul.

“Hell-pits, Safi, you can’t keep dismissing them.”

Safi. The Hell-Bard rarely forgot Safi’s new title. It was that misstep more than anything that sent Safi’s gaze to Lev. One of only three people she trusted in this entire wretched palace. This entire wretched land.

The sturdy woman was in full Hell-Bard regalia today, as she had been every day since her appointment as Safi’s private guard. Crimson and gold, the chain mail should have shone. The leather should have gleamed.

Instead, the uniform was dull. Drained of dimension and color like everything else in the world. The four-poster bed was no longer scarlet, the thick Hasstrel rugs were no longer blue, and the palace spires outside the wide windows—the city rooftops spreading on and on and on until the white-capped mountains beyond … the mountains Iseult had run to with Hell-Bards in pursuit …

It was all gray and flat. A painting left too long in the sun.

“You need to get dressed.” Lev laid a hand on Safi’s shoulder. “His Imperial Majesty is expecting you.”

“Good for him.”

“Safi.”