Ruler, Rival, Exile

Thanos knew her well enough to know that she’d already thought of somewhere to go. Thanos was surprised that she hadn’t already taken charge. He could guess why, though. The last time she’d been in charge, she’d lost Delos, first to Stephania, and then to the invaders.

“It’s all right,” Thanos said, reaching out to touch her arm. “I trust you. Wherever you decide, I’ll follow.”

He guessed that he wouldn’t be the only one. Ceres’s family would go with her, while the combatlords had sworn to follow her, whatever they were saying about running off to seek adventure elsewhere. As for Jeva… well, Thanos didn’t claim to know the woman well enough to know what she would do, but they could always drop her off somewhere, if she wanted.

“We can’t catch up to the smuggling boat that brought you to Delos,” Ceres said. “Even if we knew where it was, this small boat won’t move as fast as it can. And if we try to go too far… I think Akila won’t make it.”

Thanos nodded. He’d seen the wound that the First Stone had inflicted on their friend. Akila had survived as much through willpower as anything else, but he needed a real healer, and soon.

“Where then?” Thanos asked.

Ceres looked at him, then at the others. She still seemed almost frightened about saying what she needed to say.

“There’s only one place,” Ceres said. She raised her voice to a level where the whole ship could hear. “We need to get to Haylon.”

Her father and her brother immediately started to shake their heads. Even some of the combatlords didn’t look happy.

“Haylon won’t be safe,” Berin said. “Now that Delos has fallen, it will be a target.”

“Then we need to help them to defend,” Ceres said. “Maybe there won’t be people trying to take it out from under us while we do it this time.”

That was a good point. Delos had fallen for a lot of reasons: the sheer size of Felldust’s fleet, the people who hadn’t stayed to fight, the lack of stability as Stephania conducted her coup. Maybe things would be different on Haylon.

“It doesn’t have its fleet,” Thanos pointed out. “I persuaded most of them to help Delos.”

He felt a wave of guilt over that. If he hadn’t talked Akila into helping, a lot of good people wouldn’t be dead, and Haylon would have the means to defend itself. His friend wouldn’t be lying wounded on the deck of their boat, waiting for assistance.

“We… chose to come,” Akila managed from where he lay.

“And if they don’t have a fleet, it’s all the more reason to try to help them,” Ceres said. “All of you, think, it’s the only friendly place nearby. It held off the Empire when it was strong enough that Felldust didn’t dare to attack. It needs our help. So does Akila. We’re going to Haylon.”

Thanos couldn’t argue with any of that. More than that, he could see the others coming around to it. Ceres had always had the ability to do that. It had been her name, not his, that had brought the Bone Folk. It had been she who had been able to persuade Lord West’s men, and the rebellion. She impressed him more and more every time she did it.

It was enough that Thanos would follow wherever she wanted to go, to Haylon or beyond. He could put the attempt to find his parentage on hold for now. Ceres was what mattered; Ceres, and dealing with the damage that Felldust would do if they spread out beyond Delos. He’d heard it on the docks in Port Leyward: this wasn’t going to be a quick raid.

“There’s a problem if we want to go to Haylon,” Sartes pointed out. “To get there, we would have to go through Felldust’s fleet. That’s the direction they were coming from, right? And I don’t think they’re all sitting in Delos’s harbor.”

“They aren’t,” Thanos agreed, thinking back to what he’d seen in Felldust. There had been whole flotillas of ships that hadn’t set off for the Empire yet; the ships of the other Stones had sat waiting to see what would happen, or been there gathering supplies so that they could join in the process of raiding.

They would be a real threat if their small boat tried to sail to Haylon by the direct route. It would simply be a matter of luck whether they met with foes on the way, and Thanos wasn’t sure whether Ceres would be able to pull off her disappearing trick for them again.

“We’ll have to go around,” he said. “We skirt the coast until we’re well clear of any route they might take, then come around to Haylon from its far side.”

He could see that the others weren’t happy about that thought, and Thanos guessed that it wasn’t just because of the extra time involved. He knew what that route meant.

Jeva was the one to say it.

“Taking that route would bring us through the Passage of Monsters,” she said. “It might be better to take our chances with Felldust.”

Thanos shook his head. “They’ll hunt us down if they see us. At least this way, we have a chance of going undetected.”

“We have a chance of getting eaten too,” the Bone Folk woman pointed out.

Thanos shrugged. There were no better options that he could see. There was no time to go anywhere else, and no better way through. They could risk this, or sit there until Akila died, and Thanos wouldn’t abandon his friend like that.

Ceres seemed to feel the same way.

“The Passage of Monsters it is. Let’s get the sail up!”

CHAPTER FIVE

Ulren, the Second Stone, approached the five-sided tower with the calm determination of a man who had plotted everything that might happen next. Around him, the dust of the city swirled in its usual endless dance, making him want to cough or cover his mouth. Ulren did neither. This was a moment to appear strong.

There were guards on the doors, as there always were. Ostensibly paid by all five Stones, but Irrien’s men in truth. That was why they crossed their pikes in challenge, a small reminder to any lesser Stone of their place.

“Who goes?” one called.

Ulren smiled at that. “The new First Stone of Felldust.”

He had a moment to see the shock in their eyes before his men stepped from the dust, raising their crossbows. He did not have the sheer weight of arms that Irrien did or the cunning spies of Vexa, the wealth of Kas or the noble friends of Borion, but he had enough of each, and now, finally, he had the boldness to use them.

He enjoyed the sight of crossbow bolts feathering the guards’ chests after they’d held him back so many times. It was petty, but this was a moment to give in to pettiness. This was the moment when he got to do everything he’d ever wanted.

He opened the door with his key, stepping inside into the light of the tower. What did it say about the city that the lamp smoke–filled air inside was still better than that outdoors? Still, even that seemed sweet today.

“Be swift,” he said to the men and women who followed. “Strike quickly.”

They spread out, the gleam of their weapons dulled with lamp black. When guards came from one of the corridors, they leapt forward in silence, striking out. Ulren didn’t stop to watch the blood and the death. Right then, none of that mattered.

He set off up the seemingly endless flights of stairs that led to the top chamber. He’d done this so many times now, and each time, it had been in the expectation that he would be there as a lesser thing, second or third or less in a city where the First of Five was the one place that mattered.

That was the cruel joke of the city, in Ulren’s eyes. Everyone fighting to be on top, five working in concert, but everyone knew that the First Stone was the strongest. Ulren had been plotting to be First for so long that he couldn’t remember a time when he’d wanted anything else.

He’d been cautious, even though this should always have been his. He’d built his power, starting with the lands of his family but adding to them, tending his resources the way a gardener might have tended a plant. He’d been so patient, so very patient. He’d worked himself to the very edge of taking the First Stone’s seat.

Then Irrien had come along, and he’d had to be patient again.

Around Ulren, the killings continued as he climbed. Servants in the First Stone’s colors died, cut down by his men. No hesitation, no remorse. Felldust was a land where even an innocent-looking slave might hold a dagger, hoping to advance.

A soldier charged from the shadows, and Ulren grappled with him, looking for leverage.

The man was strong, although maybe that was simply age weighing against him. Ulren found that his body ached now when he’d been in the training ring in his home, and the slave girls who’d once come to him quite willingly now had to hide their looks of disgust and dismay. There were days when he walked into rooms and could barely remember why he’d bothered.

But he’d lost none of his cunning. He turned with the force of the other man’s rush, hooking his foot behind his attacker’s leg and pushing with what strength he had. The soldier stumbled, and then tumbled, going head over heels down the spiral stairs that led up the five-sided tower. Ulren left him for his warriors to finish. It was enough that he hadn’t seemed weak.

“Everything is in place in the rest of the city?” he asked Travlen, the priest who had given up his order to walk beside him.

“Yes, my lord. Your warriors are hitting those of Irrien’s people who remain in the city even as we speak. A number of his business enterprises have offered to come over to your side, while in those that haven’t, I’m told the slaughter has been enough to please the gods themselves.”