THE GATE STANDS BEFORE me when I close my eyes, chains rattling, doors rising to admit the light. The noise of the gong boomed like distant thunder, swelling as the gate rose.

“You know the rules?” the coliseum guild had asked me while I chose my weapons. “Battle to submission. No point suits. No body shields. No projectiles. You fight until you or your opponent—or opponents—yield, get knocked out, or bleed out.” The rat-like man spoke fast, chewing his verrox stimulant all the while. I ignored him, selected the weapons I meant to use.

It had been a long time since I’d held a hoplon, an antique round shield. The sword was near a match to my own, long and straight, but two-edged where the highmatter needed only one. It was common zircon, white as the shell of my necklace, light and sharper than steel. Highmatter was not permitted in Colosso, not because it was too dangerous, but because it wasn’t sporting. Because any contest fought with highmatter might be ended too quickly.

“Do you know what I’m up against?”

The little man glanced up at the cameras on the wall, and his chewing slowed. “No, lordship. They hadn’t said.”

Liar.

The sword bounced in its scabbard at my hip opposite a long parrying dagger, and I carried a spear in my hands. I am no great lancer, but absent any information on who I was fighting—or what—prudence was most called for. The spear might save my life if it was some great beast I went to battle: an azhdarch or megathere, bull or lion.

Bluish light fell through the open gate, and for a minute my mind rebelled against what I saw.

Twin walls of water rose to either side of the gate, a narrow channel parted in the false sea that flooded the coliseum. Ahead a steep ramp rose to the floating platform, rising past the water to the air above. I stepped out, the concrete between my feet still wet where the waters had been parted. Pausing a moment, I tested the walls with my spear point. The tip passed through, splashing where it struck.

Static fields held the water back, fields as powerful as those that held the air in starships when their bay doors were opened. It was a staggeringly frivolous use of energy; to waste so much power on spectacle was a statement of power all its own. I advanced slowly, fearing those waters would close above my head.

I could not really hear the shouting until I climbed the ramp.

The noise of it! Even muffled by the barrier that hung like an invisible dome above the floor of the arena, the sound was deafening. A million faces clamored, flags waved, colors danced and swayed along with the mass of bodies in the seats. Straight ahead, the box from which I had watched the Car-Tannites fight with their nets loomed. Beneath its awning were seated several dozen figures in white, each with a crown of red fire. The lords of humanity in all their glory and splendor: terrible in the power, ancient in the majesty, petty in their outbursts as nigh-forgotten Jove.

I had not heard the master of ceremonies down in the trench, but as I mounted the last length of ramp, I heard him cry, “. . . the Hero of Aptucca! The Son of the Devil! The Demon in White himself! Lord Hadrian Marlowe!” And the cheers that answered him I prayed would deafen Maria Agrippina on her throne, and that all who looked on would wonder to see their Demon in White dressed in black and scarlet.

A moment later, all was forgotten, for I caught sight of the figure standing opposite me.

Alone.

One warrior, lonely as I, but as different from myself as any man could be. Where I was dark and muted—black clad, black-haired, and quiet—the figure opposite me was an explosion of color, dressed in striped yellow and blue belled pantaloons, green wraps tight about his calves, pointed green slippers trimmed with gold on his feet. He wore a matching green jacket over a white shirt. Gilt vambraces sheathed his arms. His pointed, olive face was smiling beneath an oiled beard and curling mustache, his goat-like hair carefree and tousled as he raised two gold-ringed hands in greeting.

The only thing muted about his entire appearance was the half-robe tied slip-fashion about his waist and left shoulder, the loose-square sleeve flapping in the wind like a cape. The garment was black as mine, a shadow, a symbol of his rank and training.

A mandyas.

And I felt my blood run cold as memory came rushing in.

Irshan.

Prince Philip’s personal gladiator. A Maeskolos of Jadd. A Swordmaster of the Fifth Circle, the prince had said. The former sulshawar protector of Prince Constans du Olante. Memories of Sir Olorin Milta flashed in my mind, images thrown against the margins of my skull like lightning reflected off the underbelly of the clouds.

Beneath the shouting and the clamor, I heard him speak from across the round barge we stood upon. “Hadrian Marlowe!” he said, “It is an honor to meet you.” He bowed deeply, hands still extended to either side. It was a deeply respectful gesture, and for a moment I forgot the Empress and the useless princes. For a moment, there was only the respect of two warriors for one another, warriors who must be enemies, but warriors all the same. “I am a great fan.”

“The honor is mine, messer!” I said, returning the bow. “I have always admired your order.”

“My prince has asked that I chastise you,” he said simply, undoing the knot of his mandyas. “I must do so.”

“You will try!” I answered him.

Irshan smiled, teeth flashing. “Very good!” He tossed the garment aside. The wind caught it, and it moved like a sail through the air and puddled upon the water. “It is business, what we do.”

“I thought it was art?” I asked.

The smile widened. “That too.”

Trumpets sounded, the pennons about the inner wall of the arena dipped low.

Irshan circled the perimeter of the floating platform like a panther prowling its cage. Behind him I saw—and heard behind me—the rush of water as the trenches by which we’d arrived were closed. Water rushed in, and the mighty barge beneath us rocked at anchor.

The spear would do me little good against such a man as this. Had I faced some great predator, perhaps its superior reach would aid me, but against a Maeskolos, whose speed and skill were superhuman? It would be a hindrance. I would need all my skill, and my skill was with the blade, not the lance. The Maeskoloi were all of the eali al’aqran, the Jaddian palatines, and in Jadd the genetic regulation that keeps our palatines within the Chantry’s accepted realm of human norms was relaxed. He would be faster than me, stronger, more resilient.

I hurled my spear at Irshan. The Swordmaster did not leap aside, did not duck, did not even try to draw his sword—nor had he any shield to raise.

He caught it.

The Maeskolos caught the lance, stopped the spear tip mere inches from his chest. “Let us not be toying with trifles,” he said, the crowd gasping. “This is no weapon for such as we!” And he broke the wooden haft over his knee before tossing the pieces into the water behind him. “Come!”

If the Empress had wished for me to look the fool, she had succeeded.

I drew my sword, held the round shield up and ready, keeping my left toe pointed at the enemy. Sir Irshan reversed his pacing, arcing closer and back across the way in front of me. Off in the highest levels of the Colosseum, a massive drum began to sound. The noise of it shook the air. As he drew closer, Irshan drew his sword, a curving scimitar of the kind loved best by the Jaddians.

“Let us see what you can do!” He laughed, and close now whirled, blade whistling on the wind. I caught it on my shield, but did not strike—keeping my own blade tucked against my right shoulder. The swords were both ceramic and razor sharp, would tear skin and flesh and notch bone with ease. Irshan drew back, lips shrugging, as if he’d confirmed some private theory. He thrust, and tucking my elbow, I took the blow on the edge of the shield. Irshan was moving slowly. Testing me. Toying with me?

He pointed his left shoulder at me and threw a cut at my head. Seeing my chance, I raised my shield and advanced, stepping in with a thrust aimed square at the man’s armpit. Irshan melted away, moving sideways as if he were made of water. Of smoke. The blade flashed, coming round. I managed the parry in time, caught it on flat of my blade, and stepped in, hoping to off-balance the Maeskolos with a shield pulse.

But the Maeskolos was gone, dancing away on slippered feet. Several paces now between us, he jogged about the perimeter of the barge, sword held high for the watchers. The crowd cheered.

He was fast, but more lightly armored. I felt confident the white shirt hid a nanocarbon vest that—like my suit’s underlayment—would turn all but the most precise thrust. And I had a shield. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing.

In answer to the Jaddian’s prancing, I thrust my own sword skyward. The cheer that answered Irshan’s little display drowned the Colosseum a second time. The Swordmaster stopped and bowed to me.

How he closed the gap between us I cannot say, and yet he did. It was all I could do to crouch behind my shield as the sword hit it. Once, twice, three times in rapid succession. I thrust over the shield, pressed the Maeskolos back. Irshan parried the blade effortlessly, but missed his riposte, which slid past me on the outside. I pushed the blade aside with my shield and slashed in across his torso, hoping to tear the green jacket and test my theory about the body armor beneath.

But Irshan had seen the blow coming. He did not parry it. He did not even step away. He brought his free hand down and slapped the flat of the blade with his open palm, knocking the blade into me. I was so stunned I didn’t have time to react when the Jaddian stepped into me, dropping his weight to use my own shield to knock me off balance.

I stumbled back, snarling, surprised when no follow-up came. Irshan simply stood there, tapping his scimitar against his knee.

“Surely you have more for me!” he said, and rested the tip of his sword against his left wrist, holding the blade on a slant before him, point and left hand high.

Grunting, I advanced, sword high. Irshan awaited me, patient as a spider. I feinted, and as Irshan twitched to reply, angled my shield and punched him with its edge. Irshan slapped the jab down with his high left hand.

“You are a cautious one!” he said. “I expected boldness.” I did not answer him. I punched again. Irshan slapped the attack down and thrust at my eyes. My sword was waiting, and as I advanced I swung overhead, pulling the elbow back so the point fell short of Irshan’s raised blade. I had a clear shot at his ribs and took it. The thrust found meat, but bounced off.

Armored indeed, I thought. No matter. I could see silver through the hole I’d made in the white linen in his shirt.

The Maeskolos laughed and pressed a hand to his ribs. “Jaja!” he exclaimed, “There he is!”

I did not like this Maeskolos. He smiled too easily.

He swept forward, blade rising from right hip to left shoulder. I turned the blow with my sword and stepped in with a thrust, but Irshan faded and stepped on my foot. The heel stomp might have fractured my arch, but my sabaton protected me. I tried again to repulse the fellow with my shield, but he faded back like flames tossed in the wind and lunged forward.

I, too, am faster than any normal man, and stronger. We palatines were bred with sharper reflexes, greater connectivity between motor cortex and spine, and a greater number of nerve cells and connections in the spine itself. Though my conscious mind barely tracked Irshan’s blade, neural connections that mapped from my eyes directly to my spine answered the man’s attacks, and the old training flowed through parry after parry as I fended off the assault. If you have ever encountered a snake and leaped away from it only to learn after you leaped that it was a snake you avoided, you will know what I mean. Sometimes, the body can think faster than the brain—and a palatine’s body doubly so.

Still I was driven back, retreating across the empty barge toward the edge. Vast as the platform was, it was nearly stable, but there at the edge I felt the ground beneath my feet wobble and sway. Still I held my own, tight parries and careful shield work fending off the Swordmaster’s flashing blade.

Irshan smiled through it all, though I detected his teeth clenching tighter beneath those curling mustachios. I was trying him, a little.

You’ve retreated enough.

The words came from some old childhood lesson. I had faced worse opponents, faster ones, stronger ones. Iubalu. The Demon of Arae. Even Father Calvert on Vorgossos. Creatures that moved so fast they were invisible, creatures even highmatter could not cut. Whatever Irshan was, he was not them.

His sword glanced off my ribs, carving a white scratch on the black ceramic. Snarling, I clamped my elbow down on the blade and slammed my shield hand up into his chin. Irshan gasped and staggered backward. The sword ground against my side and fell from his fingers. Before he could retrieve it, I stepped over it and kicked it backward—I hoped far enough to get it in the water and end this contest before I could be humiliated. But my footing was awkward, rushed, and the blade skittered to a halt two yards from the edge.

“Noyn jitat!” Irshan massaged his chin. He spat upon the platform. Was there red in it? “Let me say again what an honor it is! To be here. Fighting you.”

I did not feel like talking. I only bobbed my head.

“You do not say much!” he observed, settling—to my astonishment—into a loose-handed boxing guard. “I understood you were a great talker.”

He was trying to distract me.

“Nothing?” He beat his chest with both hands. “Very well. Keep your secrets. Epa!”

It almost felt unsporting, attacking an unarmed man, Maeskolos or no. But that was not the time to fuss about propriety. Maria Agrippina was watching, her and half the great lords of the Empire—or so it felt. I did not rush the Swordmaster, but gave ground, moving steadily back to finish the job I’d started with his sword.

Irshan darted forward, a colorful blur. I thrust my sword at him, but he slapped it aside with the flat of his hand and—stepping inside—threw a cross that caught my unarmored jaw and knocked me back a step. He worked his way around, struck me knife-handed in a joint between my armor’s ceramic plates and bruised my floating ribs. Breathing hard, I jumped back, slashing wildly. But Irshan blocked my sword on his gauntleted forearm again and again, moving faster and faster with each successive guard. He slapped the blade again—how was such a thing even possible? Fingers closed about my wrist, trapping my sword between us. He came inside my left arm, nearly embracing me, all his efforts focused on tearing the sword from my grasp. My left hand battered uselessly against his back. Ducking just a little, I got my sword behind his knee and lifted, charging forward in a way that took the man off his feet and slammed him to the ground. I raised my sword to strike—the crowd roaring—but Irshan kicked once, twice. The first foot stopped my sword on his sole, the second caught the edge of my shield and torqued it loose. Irshan writhed and snapped himself back to his feet, delivering a neat roundhouse kick that knocked the shield clean from my hand. It sailed clean across the barge platform, steel rim pinging as it bounced and rolled . . . and fell into the water.

Trying not to slow or let dismay sink its roots in my heart’s soil, I swung at the Jaddian, my blade flashing about my head in sheets of blurry white. Irshan danced through them like a juggler through his knives. On the last flurry I tucked my sword, fist snapping round in a hook that clipped the man with the pommel. Irshan let the next blow through, my blade digging useless against the armor skin beneath his clothes. Seizing his opportunity, he punched me in the cheek, and redoubling his attack hooked his hand behind my ear and seized my hair to push me down and to one side.

I lost my footing and fell even as I felt my scalp tear and blood run down my neck. Wincing, I must have lay there for just a second, for when the white of pain retreated and the dull ache began, I saw Irshan standing ten paces away.

His sword was in his hand.

He wasn’t smiling.

“I have to say, I’m disappointed,” he said, resting the scimitar once more against the back of his upraised hand. “This is all you have?” The crowd sat silent, almost still, and the Maeskolos spoke loudly, voice caught and amplified by the floating cameras, relayed from the Colosseum’s surround. “Get up! Stand and face me.” He slashed his sword through a showy arc, teeth bared. I could see the blood on them. That last pommel strike had knocked out one of his teeth. “Get up!”

I got up. My head was still pounding, and I knew each drumbeat heralded more lost blood. Fingers found the tear. It wasn’t serious.

“You can yield!” Irshan said. “No one would fault so great a man as you! Bow out with dignity.”

Was that Agrippina’s plan? Force the Halfmortal to beg mercy in Colosso? Embarrass me, humiliate me in front of nearly a million of the most powerful men and women in the galaxy? And for what? For Selene, of course, and Alexander. Breathnach’s hatred had been motivated by class: the hatred of the prole for the nobile. For all her airs, the Empress was no different. Like Bourbon—like the other houses who had not dipped their banners—she simply would not accept a former outcaste for a son-in-law, nor could she forgive as Alexander had forgiven me. Humiliating me would castrate me, politically, would see me stripped of whatever rank and power I possessed, would see the Red Company dispersed, would destroy my dream. I might still sit the Council, I might still wed Selene, but men would laugh that the Hero of Aptucca was beaten in the Colosseum by a contract fighter paid by wine-soaked and feeble-minded Prince Philip. I imagined Valka banished from Forum, imagined Lorian chained once more to a desk. I saw Crim and Ilex and Corvo and the rest paid and sent—shipless—back to the freeholds whence they came to fight and die as they would. And all of it: Smythe’s sacrifice and Ghen’s and the deaths of so many thousand men would come to naught. My own death would come to naught. My resurrection. My visions. My dream.

All this flashed across my mind in an instant—in the instant it took to stand.

But stand I did. I stood and took up my sword, point straight and leveled at Irshan’s heart. A fey impulse took me, and thinking of the Cielcin and the striped masks they wore, I traced my thumb along my cheekbone beneath the left eye, drawing a red line.

As a boy, Sir Felix had forced me to stand with sword in hand—arm extended—for minutes and then hours at a time. I was certain I could out-wait the more flamboyant Maeskolos.

I was right.

He dashed toward me, attacking high. Unshielded now, I moved to turn his blade with my own, but he dropped it, passed it from one hand to the other and lashed out. The point scraped against my armor, carving another fine scratch on the old enamel. The next thrust came at my eyes. I swung sideways, swept the attack away, only for one slippered foot to strike my knee. The suit protected the joint and stopped it hyperextending, but I still stumbled, staggered back as a slash skated off my arm. Irshan’s hand and blade were a blur. The blows came so fast and so precisely that memory of my fight with Iubalu flashed like lightning into my conscious mind.

All laughter had fled the man’s face. His jovial demeanor was gone. The scimitar caught against the edge of a thigh pad and, grinding, tore through tunic and underlayment alike. I felt the skinsuit compress to stanch the bleeding and winced. It had taken skill to make that cut. Armorweave does not part easily.

But I had no time for awe or material science, had no time even for artistry.

The Jaddian sword whistled toward my head, and though I blocked it I did not block the heel spur kick that bit into my wounded thigh. My leg buckled, and I went to one knee before Irshan. I slashed wildly, hoping to catch the man in the liver. The sword would not cut, but a solid thrust to the liver would have the man on his back anyway.

But Irshan twisted, and my thrust found only the lining of his short jacket, and his hand . . . his hand found mine and seized fingers and sword hilt alike and twisting forced me back to my knees.

That was when I knew Irshan meant to kill me. He hadn’t been sent to humiliate me at all, but to rid the galaxy of Hadrian Marlowe.

I must have made the Empress angrier than I knew.

The crowd gasped and cheered as Irshan pulled the sword from my fingers and cast it away. I heard a distant splash. Irshan raised his sword, and though I could not see his face I knew he turned his eyes to the royal box, to the Empress and Crown Prince Aurelian, to Selene and Alexander, Titania and Vivienne, to Ricard and his master, Philip, and all the rest. I knew he awaited the judgment. Thumbs up or down. A million throats were roaring. A thousand trumpets played.

Surely now the Emperor would arrive, arrive and put a stop to all this madness. Surely I had suffered enough. I clenched my hands into fists, feeling Valka’s ring tighten. I was not afraid. My first death had put the fear of Death out of me. Perhaps the powers that had delivered me in Kharn Sagara’s Garden would deliver me again.

Or perhaps I would deliver myself.

Irshan had forgotten something.

He had forgotten my knife.

With my free left hand I pulled the parrying dagger loose from my belt and slammed it point first through the top of the man’s foot. I felt the thud of impact as the point dug into the false wood of the platform’s top, and heard Irshan howl with pain. His grip slackened on my arm—just for a moment, just enough. I surged to my feet, caught the Maeskolos by the wrist with both hands as he lashed down in fury. In my haste to block his attack, I’d left my knife in his foot, and he stumbled, momentarily pinned.

There followed a brief struggle, two bleeding men alone in the Grand Colosseum, wrestling over a sword. The blade came free, and seizing it with both my hands I stumbled back. There was no time for questions, no time for hesitancy. Even wounded and lame, the Maeskolos was dangerous. Too dangerous to be kept alive. I swung my blade—his blade—for the kill. Dimly, I recalled another man struck down by his own sword.

Moments repeat. Moments recur.

But not always.

Irshan did not try to block. He did not even fade.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket.

A blue-white light flashed, sprouted . . . shone the color of moonlight.

The highmatter blade rose to parry, and sliced the ceramic scimitar in two. I hardly had time to think, hardly had time to understand what was happening.

Highmatter was forbidden in Colosso.

But this was not Colosso. Irshan was not an opponent.

Irshan was an assassin. But whose?

It happened so fast, happened in less than half a second, happened before my broken sword’s point could strike the floor.

The Emperor had not appeared.

The Swordmaster’s unstoppable sword flashed toward my eyes.

I raised my hand in a doomed and desperate attempt to save my life.

My left hand.

The crowd screamed.

Irshan froze.

The highmatter cut through my vambrace, parted skin and flesh and sinew like air, and stopped . . . stopped when it encountered Kharn Sagara’s false bones. The prosthesis was adamant, the same stuff of which starship hulls were made. Starship hulls and the body armor of the Exalted. Confusion ruled the stands. Highmatter on the field? Had Marlowe’s armor stopped it?

Then they saw the blood spilling from my wounded arm, gushing from where the Maeskolos had severed veins. And they screamed.

“Halfmortal!” The cry went up, repeated. “Halfmortal! Halfmortal!”

Irshan’s shock lasted only a moment. Stumbling with his hobbled foot, he lashed out again, and again I blocked him with my left arm. The thunder of the crowd shook the world and set the gulls that roosted in the hanging towers above to flight. Irshan thrust his weapon toward me, and I caught it. Caught it as he had caught my spear. The liquid metal flexed beneath my fingers, and I felt the muscle sever and weep blood. Armorweave tightened, trying to spare me. I stepped forward, still holding the impossibly sharp blade in my fist. The Jaddian’s eyes bulged.

The broken ceramic sword was still in my hand. I did not hesitate. I did not consult the Empress for her judgment. I thrust its broken point down through the opening at the base of my enemy’s neck. The highmatter blade evaporated the moment Irshan dropped it from his grasp, and he fell toward me. I could not support his weight, and he fell to the ground, broken weapon still lodged in his shoulder. Blood ran everywhere.

I pressed my knee into his sternum, his highmatter sword unkindled in my hand.

“Whom do you serve?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Tell me and I’ll end it now.”

The Martians were coming. The static fields had opened and figures were coming up the ramps. I needed to get away. Back to the shuttle. Back to the Tamerlane. Back to safety. Placing an assassin in the Colosseum was a bold move, and whoever had done it, even the Empress, would need to move quickly in these moments of fallout.

“Was it the Empress?” I asked, pressing my knee harder.

Irshan did not speak. Blood ran from his shoulder, from his mouth. Too much blood. The sword in his shoulder should have stanched the flow, not sped it. Something was happening.

“Was it the Empress?” I asked again. “Whom do you serve?”

My knee fell inward. Irshan’s ribs collapsed. Blood began streaming from his eyes, the corners of his mouth, and where it ran it boiled. His face bubbled and ran like wax, great lesions opening in his neck. My knee now smeared with gore, I stood and clambered back. His arms flailed against the decking, whole sheets of skin sloughing off like the papery sheath of an onion, blood and bits of melting muscle smeared on the planks.

Not the Empress, I remember thinking, turning shocked as the Martians pounded across the platform, shaking us all where we floated on the water. Not the Empress. I staggered past the guards, waving them away. The ramp lay ahead of me, water rising to either side. I practically slid down it, but only after tarrying a moment to look back at Irshan’s body.

At what was left of it.

The man had melted. A slurry of red and yellow fluid soaked those bright clothes, crowned his black hair. No bones were left, no skin, no sinew. Only an empty armorweave suit, striped pantaloons, and green slippers soaked brown.

Poison. A vicious poison.

Dispholide.

I had only ever heard of it—had never seen it used. A few grains of dispholide would dissolve a full-grown man. A few more could kill an azhdarch. It went by many names: the Drowner, the Green Death, the Mermaid’s Kiss, the Priest’s Poison. The Priest’s Poison because it was an instrument of the Holy Terran Chantry, devised by the Choir—their shadowy research division—in the deeps of time, molded from the venom of an ancient serpent long vanished from the galaxy, tempered and strengthened by eons of refinement.

The Chantry again.

No one stopped me as I stumbled bleeding back into the hypogeum. I made it all the way to the rear gates before anyone tried. But I bullied the two Martians down and thrust the unkindled blade in their faces, and they stood down. Irshan’s face kept melting behind my eyes, and the memory of the way in which his chest had caved in beneath my weight replayed until I thought I must vomit.

The poison must have been in him. Suspended in nano-scale capsules awash in his blood, awaiting some remote command to dissolve and kill him if he failed.

I needed to get to the shuttle. I’d lost too much blood myself, and the thought of that dreadful venom on my armor forced numb panic into my brain. Was I going into shock? Gibson’s aphorisms rattled in my ears like the chimes off Cielcin spears, and I tried to still my ragged breathing. Not far now, not far.

The wind pushed me on as I staggered down the strand. I’ve no memory of the walk there, the ride on the lift up to the shuttle platforms. I held my mangled left arm twisted against my chest. My scalp was still throbbing, and my knee ached. My right hand—the hand I had originally lost—held the weapon that had nearly killed me. A dim thought occurred to me as I limped along, leaning on the rail. Had it been my right arm that Kharn replaced—had the Quiet not intervened and traded my lost right arm for my left—I would be dead.

Cries of Halfmortal! Halfmortal! Halfmortal! resounded in my ears, borne up by the wind and the clamor of the Colosseum behind me. And another cry, words shouted from within and behind.

This must be.

The words shouted from my past, and at the sound of them I tried to clench my false-boned hand. The hand the Quiet had changed. Realization glued me to a stop, and swaying I leaned against the rail. Was I mad? Or did I understand another piece of what had happened to me?

Had the Quiet seen this moment . . . and changed the arm I’d lost to save my life?

The shuttle crouched before me, black beetle shape with wings tucked and hatch opened. Siran was aboard, she and my pilot officer and my paltry guard the Martians had ordered remain. I resumed walking toward them. “Siran!” I cried out. “Siran!”

But no one came.

How had I slipped away? There should have been more guards. The Martians should have stopped me. And where was Siran? I mounted the ramp, calling out, clutching my wounded arm to my chest.

No one was there.

Siran would never leave me. Not Siran. Something was wrong. She would not have abandoned her post, and certainly not without leaving at least one man behind.

Everything clicked at once, even in my addled mind. I’d been allowed to retreat here. Panic gripped me, but I pried back its fingers. “Siran!” I peered into cockpit, and saw the pilot officer.

Dead.

I turned and ran as fast as I could, fumbling for the shield catch on a belt that was not there.

I ran just fast enough.

The shuttle exploded behind me. I felt both eardrums rupture as I was lifted bodily from my feet and hurled ten yards down the runway. How I managed to avoid falling off into the bottomless sky I’ll never know.

My last thought was that Siran was dead. Pallino had survived the Irchtani. Valka had survived the knife-missile. But this third time paid for all. I crashed into the pavement shoulder first, crushing my mangled arm. The pain whited out my vision and my ears permanently rang.

Dimly, I was aware of someone shouting my name.

“Had! Had!”

Not Hadrian, I remember thinking. Not Halfmortal.