Six days after the coronation, and Zetun had learned to breathe again.

  The markets reopened. The refineries hummed. Children played in streets that had almost ceased to exist. The city was healing, slowly, imperfectly, the way cities always heal: by forgetting what had almost happened and focusing on what came next.

  Life continued.

  But some things had changed in ways that wouldn't show for months. Years. Generations.

  Some things had slipped through the cracks while everyone was looking elsewhere.

  Some things were here already.

  Margrave was having the time of his life.

  Three beautiful women hung on his every word, in a cozy wine cellar near the arena district. Their wine cups forgotten, their eyes wide with fascination. They had introduced themselves as minor nobility from the eastern provinces, curious about the Bloody Left Hand, willing to pay handsomely for stories that wouldn't appear in any official record.

  Margrave was happy to oblige.

  "I found him, you know." He leaned back in his chair, basking in the attention. "When he was nothing. I gave him his first real job. Introduced him to Nyssara. Set up the meeting that started everything."

  The first woman leaned forward, her short dark hair framing a face of sharp angles. Talata, she'd called herself. Her hand rested on Margrave's arm, and her skin was warm. Radiating tender warmth.

  "What's he really like?" she asked. "The stories make him sound sooo cold."

  "He is cold. Calculates everything." Margrave patted her hand, enjoying the heat of it. "But there's something underneath. Something he only shows Nyssara."

  The second woman smiled, and her teeth caught the candlelight like polished ivory. Khamsa. Red hair like autumn fire, pale skin, nails painted the color of dried blood. When she smiled, which was often, it was the kind of smile that made you want to smile back, even if you couldn't quite say why.

  "And what makes him.... weak?" she asked, drumming those elegant nails against her cup. "Every legend has weaknesses."

  "His hands never healed right after the Portal. Can barely grip a sword some days." Margrave drank deeply. "And the corruption. The black veins. They receded but didn't disappear. He's still dying, just slower."

  The third woman made a sound of sympathy. Tamanya. Brunette, blue-eyed, the kind of face painters would kill for. She spoke slowly, savoring each word, letting them linger in the air like honey dripping from a spoon.

  "Tell us more," she said. "Tell us everything."

  And Margrave did.

  (to be continued)

  The Imperial study.

  Damian stood by the window, silhouetted against the evening light, every inch the young Emperor. His posture was perfect. His voice was steady. His silver eyes were clear and focused as he outlined the security arrangements for the coming months.

  "The Bloody Left Hand will handle external threats," he said. "But internal security requires a different touch. Someone who understands the court. Someone the nobles respect and fear in equal measure."

  Commander Marella stood at attention, her armor polished to a mirror shine.

  "You want me to lead the palace guard, Your Majesty?"

  "I want you to be my shadow in the light." Damian turned from the window, and his smile was warm, genuine, the smile of a young man who had survived something terrible and come out stronger. "The Left Hand works in darkness. You'll work in plain sight. Every door I walk through, you'll have checked first. Every hand I shake, you'll have vetted. Every night I sleep, you'll be standing guard."

  "Every night, Your Majesty?"

  "Every night." He crossed to his desk, picked up a document, handed it to her. "Your commission. Signed and sealed. You answer only to me."

  Marella looked at the paper. At the imperial seal. At the future it represented.

  "I won't let you down," she said.

  "I know you won't." Damian's hand rested briefly on her shoulder, warm and human and reassuring. "We're going to rebuild this empire, Commander. Together. And it starts with trust."

  So Marella trusted him.

  (to be continued)

  Silas sat in a chair by the window, watching his son play in the courtyard below. Pigol was running, kicking, chasing a ball with other children from the neighborhood. A week ago the boy had been dying. Brass spreading through his veins. Skin turning to metal. Eyes going dull and distant.

  Now he was playing.

  Now he was alive.

  And Silas could watch him.

  Somehow, she made it possible.

  "I don't know how to thank you," Silas said to the woman standing beside him.

  Dr. Dylana Senna smiled, tired but genuine. She was younger than he'd expected, with kind eyes and ink-stained fingers. The sort of person who forgot to eat because she was too busy working. The sort of person who saved children because she couldn't stand to watch them die.

  "Seeing him healthy is thanks enough," she said. "The treatment is still experimental, but Marcus responded beautifully. He's going to be fine, Mr. Attia."

  "Silas. Please."

  "Silas." She watched Pigol catch the ball, triumphant, holding it above his head like a trophy. "He's a fighter. That matters more than any medicine I could give him."

  Silas wiped his eyes. He wasn't ashamed of the tears. His boy was alive. His boy was playing in the sun. He got to watch him.

  "If there's ever anything I can do," he said. "Anything at all. You saved my son. That's a debt I'll never be able to repay."

  Dylana's smile widened slightly.

  "Money is overrated. Don't you worry. We will see about that debt somewhere in the future."

  And so Silas nodded.

  Margrave was still talking when Talata's grip tightened on his arm.

  "You've been so helpful," she said, and her voice had changed. A little Deeper. Wrong cadence. "The Bloody Left Hand sounds absolutely fascinating."

  He tried to pull away. Found he couldn't move an inch.

  Her skin was no longer warm. It was hot. Burning. He looked down and saw smoke rising from where her fingers touched his flesh, saw his skin bubbling, then blackening, saw meat cooking on his own bones.

  "We've been looking for entertainment," Khamsa said, and when she smiled now there were too many teeth. Three rows of them, spiraling back into a throat that had no end, each one sharp as a scalpel and twice as hungry. Her elegant nails had lengthened into claws that caught the candlelight like knives.

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  "The mortal world has been so boring," Tamanya said, and her tongue uncoiled from her mouth as she spoke, longer and longer, wet and glistening, sliding across the table toward him like a snake made of muscle and want. "But then we heard about the Portal. About a human who could resist corruption through sacrifice. Who interested Malgrin enough to stay bound."

  "We had to see for ourselves," Talata whispered, her grip melting through to the bone now. "Had to find out everything about him. His weaknesses. His relationships. His schedule. I think we are fans."

  Margrave tried to scream.

  Tamanya's tongue found his mouth first.

  It pushed past his teeth, past his throat, slithering eagerly down his esophagus into places tongues were never meant to go. He felt it moving inside him, tasting him, exploring him, taking inventory of everything he was.

  Khamsa's claws opened his chest like a letter.

  She reached inside with hands that had been elegant and were now something else entirely, something with too many joints and not enough mercy. She found his heart while it was still beating, cradled it in her palm, felt it pulse against her fingers.

  "Tell us a secret," she said. "One you've never told anyone."

  Margrave couldn't speak. Tamanya's tongue was wrapped around his vocal cords. But somehow the answer came anyway, pulled from his mind like a splinter from a wound.

  "Good," Khamsa said. "Thank you."

  Then she squeezed.

  Talata took his arms. Her touch reduced them to smoke and grease, flesh sloughing away, bones crumbling, everything that had been Margrave - ready for consumption.

  Tamanya took his brain. Her tongue found the place where he kept his secrets and his fears and his small private joys, and she swallowed the inside of his skull in one gulp.

  Khamsa took his heart and intestines. She ate through him slowly, letting the flavor linger, commenting on the texture of his ambitions and the aftertaste of every secret he'd ever sold.

  When they were finished, there was nothing left.

  Not even a stain on the floor.

  Three beautiful women walked out of the wine cellar and into the Zetun night, wearing borrowed faces and stolen smiles, searching for the Bloody Left Hand with patience older than mountains.

  They had all the time in the world.

  And they were so looking forward to meeting him.

  Silas woke in the middle of the night with someone else's thoughts in his head.

  Can you see the ceiling, Silas?

  He could. Wooden beams. Water stains. The familiar geography of his bedroom.

  Good. The connection is strong.

  He sat up, heart pounding. The voice was inside him. Behind his eyes. In the place where his vision lived.

  Don't be alarmed. This was part of our arrangement. Surely you remember.

  He remembered.

  The clinic. His son dying by inches while the brass consumed him. Dylana's kind smile and her gentle voice and the terms she'd laid out so carefully.

  Your sight restored. Your son healed. In exchange for access. Just access, Silas.

  Just the ability to see what you see, when I choose to look.

  "You're in my head," he whispered to the darkness.

  I'm in your eyes. There's a difference. A pause that felt almost playful. Go back to sleep. I just wanted to test the range. You're doing wonderfully.

  The presence receded. But it didn't leave. He could feel it there, dormant, waiting. A passenger behind his pupils.

  He got out of bed. Walked to Marcus's room. Needed to see his son, needed to confirm that at least that part of the bargain had been real.

  Pigol was awake.

  The boy sat on the edge of his bed, perfectly still, staring at the wall. The moonlight caught the brass striations beneath his skin, the places where metal had fused with muscle before Dylana stopped the plague's progression.

  "Pipo?"

  "Father." The boy's voice was flat. Controlled. "You should be sleeping."

  "So should you."

  "I don't sleep....anymore." Pigol turned to look at him, and his eyes were wrong. Too steady. Functional. The eyes of something much older wearing a child's face. "Dr. Senna says that's normal. A side effect of the treatment. She says I'm special now."

  "Pigol what did she do to you?"

  "She saved me." The boy smiled, and the smile was perfect, and the perfection was the most terrifying thing Silas had ever seen. "She saved me, and now I'm going to help her save everyone else. Isn't that wonderful, Father?"

  Silas couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Could only stand there watching his son, his beautiful boy, the child he had sold his sight to protect.

  "Go back to bed," Pigol said. "Dr. Senna will need your eyes tomorrow. You should rest."

  The boy turned back to the wall.

  Silas retreated to his room on legs that felt boneless.

  He lay in the darkness, staring at a ceiling he could only see because a monster had given him new eyes, and he tried to saving whether saving his son had been worth the price.

  He couldn't find an answer. He could never.

  Damian's dining room blazed with candlelight.

  Three hundred candles, precisely arranged. A table set for twelve. Crystal glasses and silver cutlery and plates rimmed with gold. The room smelled of roasted meat and exotic spices.

  Marella stood at attention by the door, exactly where her Emperor had posted her.

  "Ambassador Vrell, please try the wine," Damian said warmly. "I had it brought up from the cellars specifically for this occasion."

  He was speaking to an empty chair.

  Marella felt something cold settle in her stomach.

  "Your Majesty," she said carefully. "The ambassadors....When will they be arriving?"

  "Arriving?" Damian laughed, gesturing at the empty seats around him. "They've been here for an hour. We're discussing trade routes through the northern passes. Fascinating perspectives, really."

  His voice changed when he addressed different chairs. Sometimes warm and diplomatic. Sometimes older, darker, amused. Sometimes he seemed to be arguing with himself across the table, negotiating, making deals with his own reflection in the wine.

  "Your Majesty. There's no one there."

  Damian turned to look at her. His silver eyes were clear. Lucid. Absolutely certain.

  "Of course there is, Commander." He tilted his head, and the gesture was wrong somehow, a few degrees off from human motion. "Perhaps you're tired. The stress of recent events. Why don't you stand guard outside? We have sensitive matters to discuss."

  Marella didn't move.

  "That's an order, Commander."

  She found herself walking toward the door. Her legs moved without her permission. Her hand reached for the handle without her consent.

  "We're going to be having many dinners like this," Damian said behind her. "Important meetings. Delicate negotiations. You'll guard the door for all of them. You'll hear things. Strange things. Things that don't make sense."

  The door handle was cold under her fingers.

  "You won't speak of them to anyone. You won't write them down. You won't even let yourself think about them too carefully." His voice had layers now. Harmonics. Two speakers using one throat. "Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty."

  "Good." She heard his chair scrape as he turned back to his invisible guests. "Now close the door. Ambassador Keth was just about to make a fascinating point about harbor tariffs."

  Marella stepped into the hallway.

  Closed the door behind her.

  Stood at attention with her hand on her sword and her mind full of things she would never be able to unsee.

  The Emperor of Zetun was no more.

  And she was the only one who knew.

  And she could never, ever tell.

  The safe house rang with the sound of combat.

  Nyssara came at me fast, her blade a blur, testing the reflexes I'd been rebuilding the past days. I moved through the shadows like I was born to them and activated the first of my new tricks.

  The world shifted. I stepped sideways through darkness and emerged behind her.

  "Better," she said, spinning to meet my strike. "But you're still telegraphing the exit point."

  "I'm working on it."

  Our blades locked. She pressed forward, testing my strength. I held, barely.

  "The ability needs a name," she said.

  "Malgrin's being difficult about that."

  "Tell her it's called [REDACTED], the demon said in my head. And that the other one is [REDACTED]. She'll love the mystery."

  "He says they're classified."

  Nyssara snorted. Disengaged. Reset her stance.

  "The meeting with Senna. Tomorrow night."

  "I know."

  "You're an idiot."

  "Definitely."

  She lowered her sword. Looked at me with something complicated in her eyes.

  "The conversation," she said. "The one we keep putting off."

  "After Senna. After we stop the plague."

  "You keep saying that."

  "I keep meaning it."

  "And if we never stop?" She stepped closer. "If there's always another crisis? Another disaster? Another world-ending threat that needs the Bloody Left Hand?"

  "Then we'll find time between them."

  "Will we?"

  "Yes."

  "Promise?"

  "Yes."

  "Liar."

  The word was soft. Almost fond.

  "I'm not lying," I said.

  "I know you believe that." She was very close now. Close enough that I could see the flecks of darker grey in her eyes. "But I have this feeling. This intuition. That we're never going to have that talk. That something's going to happen, and we'll run out of time, and all these maybes will stay maybes forever."

  "Nyssara..."

  "Don't."

  Her hand found my chest. Rested there, over my heart. "Don't tell me I'm wrong. Don't promise me things you can't guarantee. Just..."

  She didn't finish the sentence.

  She leaned in instead.

  I saw it happening. Understood what it meant. Felt my heart stutter in my chest and my thoughts scatter like startled birds.

  Her eyes closed.

  Her lips parted.

  The distance between us became something that could be measured in breaths.

  And then

  [REDACTED]

  [END OF VOLUME 1]