“WITH RESPECT, MINISTERS, THIS isn’t much to go on,” I said, steepling my hands before me, elbows on the polished, black glass table. I surveyed the eclectic mixture of military and ministerial personnel gathered for the briefing, high palatines and upjumped peasants alike.

In snide aristocratic tones, Sir Lorcan Breathnach replied, “I am quite confident the great Devil of Meidua will prove equal to the task.” This elicited titters from the older men on the bench, among whom I was disheartened but unsurprised to find Lord Augustin Bourbon, the Minister of War himself. “We all sleep more soundly at night, Sir Hadrian, knowing that you are guarding the door.”

As well you should, I thought, but only offered my tightest smile. Breathnach had been Director of Legion Intelligence for more than three hundred years, and despite the scars still visible on his neck and hands, his patrician life extension was running out. There was gray in the brown of his hair, a rime of frost at temples and forelock, and the craggy lines of his face seemed worn, as by countless winds. He was—or so I guessed—the sort of self-made man who despises such as I, we sons of ancient houses accorded positions which he believed we did not deserve.

“I am glad, sir, that despite the many labors crying for your attention you still find time to sleep at night,” I said. It was unbecoming of one in my position, but as a Knight Victorian I did not answer to Sir Lorcan.

Breathnach’s jaw tightened, but before he could reply, one of his junior aides interrupted. “The caravan’s beacon data hasn’t hit the datanet yet. Once it does we’ll be able to narrow our area of search.”

“Assuming the beacon transmitted at all,” said Otavia Corvo from her place at my right hand. My Norman captain gestured at the starmap holographed above the conference table, indicating the crimson line that stretched from Gododdin system toward Nemavand on the Norman frontier. “We’ll have to retrace their flight path exactly and just hope we catch something on our sensors.” She pressed the fingertips of one hand against the desktop to underscore her next thought. “I’m sorry, but why are we doing this? This is a job for interstellar patrol, not a special company.”

Before Breathnach or one of the others could answer, I said, “Because the Emperor ordered it, captain.”

“And you will do your duty!” snapped Lord Bourbon.

“As you say,” I said, trying to take the council’s ire from my officer onto myself. “But gentlemen, you must understand. You’ve given us little by way of intelligence. Peace.” I held up a hand for calm, studied the map once again. For more than sixteen thousand years the Sollan Empire had been expanding, its influence spreading across an ever-widening and lengthening wedge of the galaxy, spreading along the spiral arms until at last some brave pioneers made the leap across the gulfs that separated one arm from the next. Perseus at the outer rim; then Orion, where Earth lay in smoking ruins and mankind was born; then Sagittarius; Centaurus; and at last to the source of the Norma Arm so near the core where we had first encountered the Cielcin. Gododdin glowed brightly red, a lonely mote in the midst of the emptiness between the mighty shoals of Sagittarius and Centaurus. I followed the lost legion’s progress: a blazing thread woven across the gulf into Centaurus and across it, moving almost straight toward the core and galactic north. Their destination, Nemavand, lay on the far edge of the Centaurus Arm near the core, near the frontier and the freeholds of the Norman Expanse wherein I had spent so much of my youth. Somewhere in that distant country—nearly twenty thousand light-years from Forum—was Emesh at the very edge of Imperial dominion. And beyond that were Pharos and Rustam and Nagramma. Even with the Tamerlane, which was by design among the fastest ships in the Empire, we would be gone for decades, perhaps even a century.

Even if I succeeded at this dreadful task, I would have been removed from court life and the attentions of the Imperium for so long that to return would be like being born again. A lot could change in a hundred years, especially when one slept the frozen sleep of the sailor and did not change oneself. Whatever friends I had at court and whatever momentum my celebrity had won for me at Aptucca would be gone. I would never gain access to the Imperial Library, and all my efforts in the Imperial service would be for naught.

It was a kind of death sentence, and I did not doubt that one or more of these fine gentlemen had suggested it to the Emperor. Bourbon, perhaps? I could see the old minister’s full moon face whispering at His Radiance’s side. How Bourbon could manage to be so exalted a palatine and yet so corpulent was a mystery, yet corpulent he was: as round of body as he was of face, with thick sideburns and a thicker mustache that recalled some species of walrus or manatee such as swam in the royal aquaria. He was a man of evil reputation, treacherous and venal. I’d heard it said that Augustin had sold out his own father, Philippe, when House Bourbon turned against itself centuries ago, backing his uncle—Prince Charles LIV—for the throne. He whispered then, muttering some comment or other to the gaunt man at his side—a senior logothete I could not name.

Sir Friedrich Oberlin, the junior logothete who had intervened with Breathnach moments before, cleared his throat. “Nemavand is crucial to the defense of the Centaurine border. Until Hermonassa, the Cielcin had not crossed the gulf in force for nearly four centuries, when they raided as far south as the Sagittarius.” He indicated a belt of systems far closer to Forum and the heart of the Empire. I remembered those raids. They had come when I was just a boy on Delos. One of those attacks had destroyed Cai Shen, a Consortium mining colony, and made my father far wealthier than he had already been. “Since then the bulk of their efforts have been concentrated in the Norman Expanse, we think because they have territory there.”

I nodded. That had been the consensus, though in seven centuries of fighting we had not found a single Cielcin colony. The xenobites did not establish colonies. They lived in migratory starship clusters, plying the dark and waterless seas between the stars, falling into solar systems long enough to suck of the stars for fuel and of our worlds for meat. And then they were gone, vanishing into the Dark like wolves in the misty forests of night.

“I know all this,” I said. It was possible the Cielcin had planetbound colonies somewhere in the Norman Expanse or the Veil of Marinus, or perhaps it was in those regions of space the greater part of the nomadic hordes sailed between the stars.

“There is more,” Breathnach said, tone almost grudging. “Give him the rest, Friedrich.”

The young officer cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.” He called up a set of schematics depicting half a dozen vessels, two troop carriers and four smaller battleships, each graceful and pointed as an arrowhead. “The convoy we sent to Nemavand was fifty thousand strong. Two legions: the 116th and the 337th Sagittarine. But they’re not the first we’ve lost in that region.” Two more red lines flowed out of Gododdin on the map, crossing the gulf into Centaurus before diverging to disparate points in the farther arm. The man Friedrich pressed on. “As you can see, we’ve lost two others in the last century. One forty years ago and the other about ninety. Their paths diverge rather dramatically once they reach Centaurus, after they refuel here, at Dion Station.”

“So you think they’re being hit somewhere between Gododdin and Dion,” I said, finishing the man’s train of thought.

“The Cielcin would have destroyed the fuel depot if they’d found it,” Corvo said, meaning the station.

“Bloody likely,” said one of the legion brass, a woman nearly so tall as Corvo.

“Unless they know exactly where Dion is,” I said, staring at a spot on the table before me. “Unless they like us sending our convoys straight toward it time and again. Why would you keep sending them if you’d lost four legions this way?”

I saw the answer a moment before Bourbon gave it to me, “Because there’s not another road into Centaurus for a thousand light-years east or west. Look at the map, boy!”

Not for the first time, I was glad my hands were in my lap. I twisted Prince Aranata’s ring on my thumb and scowled at the fat man. “Nevertheless . . .” I let the word drag across the air between us before continuing. “So you think the odds are good our convoy vanished somewhere in the gulf between Gododdin and Dion.” I studied the map of the galaxy hanging above us. “That does narrow things down a bit. But even still by the time we get there I rather doubt there’ll be anything left. It’ll take years just to reach Gododdin, to say nothing of how long it will take to sweep the gulf. Gentlemen, I’m afraid those men are already dead.”

“Very likely,” Breathnach agreed. “But you’re just the man for the job, Marlowe.”

Beside him, Augustin Bourbon made a low, wet sound that passed for laughter. “Just do try and bring them back alive this time, if at all possible. We were so disappointed after the Arae affair . . . So few survivors. And the barbarians escaped as well. Such a pity.”

Unbidden, my fists clenched in my lap. The soldiers we had been sent to rescue on Arae had been dead when we arrived, converted into mechanical puppets by the Extrasolarians. Rage is blindness, that part of me that yet spoke in Gibson’s voice whispered. When I spoke, my tone was calm. Steady. I did not argue. Lord Bourbon and the Director were not the sorts of men one argued with. “I’m confused, honorable gentlemen,” I said, and paused to allow Breathnach or Bourbon the opportunity to insult me again. To my surprise, neither man did, but I supposed the bait was too obvious. “On Arae, we discovered intelligence that the Cielcin have partnered with certain agencies among the Extrasolarians. Was something about this discovery unsatisfying to you? Or would you have preferred to learn about it only when the enemy was at our gates?” Having found enough forward momentum, I stood, palms pressed flat against the table. “With respect, none of you was at Arae. None of you saw what was left of those men, and none of you wishes more than I that they were still alive. So don’t insult me.”

Despite Bourbon’s hand on his arm, Breathnach stood to match me. “Are you quite done, Marlowe?” The fat minister had been right to try to restrain the craggy Director. The question would have been more commanding if he hadn’t lost his composure to ask it.

Not quite, I thought. Still in the same even tone, I said, “The Emperor has ordered me to Gododdin, so I will go. And with your leave, I will go now.” I extended one hand in salute before plucking the storage crystal from the table before me.

I did not wait for permission to leave.

---

“They mean for us to fail,” I said to my companions once we regained the relative security of our shuttle. I looked from Pallino to Otavia and back again, never minding the pilot officer and the four Red Company soldiers who’d accompanied us as something of an honor guard. “What we did at Aptucca’s frightened the politicians. They’re afraid of me.” I twisted Aranata’s ring again. Through the small portholes on the shuttle the Legion Intelligence offices fell away, white columns and painted capitals and domes glittering in the sun. I watched the Eternal City roll beneath us. Forum was astonishingly temperate for a gas giant, the winds milder than they had any right or reason to be—and their worst excesses were curbed by the weather satellites that kept the storms at bay.

From our height, the Eternal City blossomed from the clouds like the palace of some fairy queen, like Olympos of old. Here among the clouds, humanity had worn the trappings of godhood for so long they had almost forgotten they were animals, though still they snarled and bit.

“Would it really be so bad?” Pallino asked. “Maybe they’d let you go.”

I almost laughed at that. “Let me go? Go where, Pal?”

“Wherever you like,” he said, and crossed his arms. “Back to the Veil, back to mercenary life. Hell, you could slip off and be a scholiast if that’s what you really want. You and Valka.”

Valka. There was a thought. Valka had not left the Tamerlane since we’d returned to Forum two years before, fresh off our latest mission. She was Tavrosi, and the machine implanted in her head—though it was a secret known only to a few of our company—put her in danger. The Chantry’s Inquisition would not have looked kindly on someone carrying the dreaded machines into the heart of the Sollan Empire. I was not sure her diplomatic status could protect her here, where security mattered more than justice.

From the perversion of the flesh, O Mother deliver us.

But if I was dismissed from the Imperial court in disgrace, we might go anywhere, might see the Marching Towers on Sadal Suud, climb the mountain to the Temple of Athten Var, visit all the ruins the Quiet left littered across the galaxy. Might forget the war. It was tempting.

“You know we can’t do that,” I said. I could still see the blood and the way Raine Smythe and her soldier had been torn apart by the Cielcin, could remember clearly the way one held her severed arm aloft before feasting on it. And the visions I had seen . . . the Cielcin burning across the stars, billions dead and dying or enslaved.

I squeezed my left hand with my right, feeling the faint ridges on the artificial bone. I had lost the arm when I lost my life aboard the Demiurge, and even after almost a hundred years, the arm did not feel truly mine. It had been a gift from the Undying King of Vorgossos, from Kharn Sagara himself. I had saved his life—both his lives, for he had splintered, his consciousness transferred into both the clones he kept near at hand to protect his immortality. It was a permanent reminder of what I had lost, what I had given to the fight.

“But it will be good to get the hell out of this place,” Captain Corvo said, staring down at the city through hooded eyes. I wondered what she saw when she looked down on the gilt spires and soaring domes, the cataracts pouring from the clouds and vanishing only to fall upon some terraced garden suspended far below. There was nothing like it in all the universe. No city so fair . . . or so terrible.

We banked round the ivory finger of the great clock tower that overshadowed the Campus Raphael. Despite myself, I felt a longing for my own home, for the black fortress of Devil’s Rest on its acropolis overlooking the sea. For all its faults—and they are numberless—I felt a sudden affection for the Empire of my home, for Delos where I was born, and even for the Eternal City. How much worse the world would become if that beautiful city fell! How much poorer. And though the men who ruled her were terrible and venal and cruel, no city or empire was made great by its rulers. Or by merely its rulers. Rome of old was not loved for its greatness, so the poet wrote. Rome was great because men loved her, as I loved my Empire in that moment.

“When do you pick up this prince we’re taking with us?” Pallino asked.

I forced myself to stop fidgeting with my hands and look Pallino in the eyes. It was still strange seeing him like this: his youth and eye restored. I leaned back in my seat. “Not for three days. He’s being prepared, as I understand it. Medical exams and the like. RNA indoctrination.”

“So he’ll at least know how to lace up his boots, then,” Corvo put in, brushing floating, bleached curls from her dark face.

“Or buckle them, at least,” Pallino said with a snort. “Strange they’re saddling us with a princeling for a punishment detail like this. Isn’t it?”

“Not at all,” I replied. “This way he won’t be in any danger.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t complain about that either,” Otavia said, the trace of a frown touching her lips. “Be nice to not be fighting for our lives for once.”

Pallino leaned forward, hands still tucked into the crooks of his arms. “I take it you didn’t get access to the archives like you wanted, eh?”

“No.” I turned away to look out the porthole and propped my chin against my fist. “I asked the Emperor, but . . .” I made a vague gesture with the other hand. That thought did not need finishing. We flew on in silence a while after that. I watched the city marching on and the play of aircraft threading the towers.

“If we fail, the Emperor may dissolve the Red Company,” I said, still not looking at any of the others. I wet my lips. “You’re sure this shuttle’s not bugged?”

Corvo nodded. “Ilex went over it personally. Even had the doctor give it a once over.”

Valka, I thought. Well, if Valka had cleared it. “I think that either the Emperor or someone very near him thinks I’ve grown popular enough to pose some kind of threat.” I thought about Carax asking me to bless him and the medallion he had offered me. “Maybe they think I’m going to make a play for one of the ministries. War, maybe. Maybe that’s why Bourbon hates me—thinks I want his job—or maybe it’s more than that. They can’t possibly think I want the throne. The Emperor has . . . a hundred ten children? A hundred twenty? I couldn’t get close if I wanted to. Even if this whole city fell out of the sky today, half that brood’s offworld. Besides, I’m not another Boniface the Pretender.”

“You really think someone’s out to get you?” Corvo asked.

“I think they’ve got me,” I said coldly, fixing Otavia with my sharpest glare. “How long will it take us to reach Gododdin?”

The captain shrugged, shaking off the force of my evil eye. “Twelve years at full warp to cross the Sagittarius Arm.”

“That’s twenty-four years minimum I’m away from this place. By the time we get back, I’ll be irrelevant, especially if we return empty-handed—which we are intended to do.”

Now it was Corvo’s turn to cross her arms, an impressive gesture with her physique. “You’re sure we’re meant to fail?”

My eyebrows shot up. “We’re being set up. I’m sure of it. I can’t blame them. I’d do the same . . . The only question is: who’s behind it? Was this mission the Emperor’s idea or has someone been whispering in his ear?” Augustin Bourbon came to mind. The Minister of War sat on the Imperial council. He had the Emperor’s ear. It would have been no difficulty to suggest that the troubling upstart Hadrian Marlowe be sent on a fruitless expedition to the edge of forever just until things settle down.

“Does it matter?” Pallino asked.

“Of course it matters,” I said, a little too sharply. I sat up straight, extending one hand, palm up. “It’s bad enough if it’s Bourbon or some other minister behind this, but if it’s the Emperor himself . . .” That was another thought that didn’t need to be finished.

I squeezed my fist shut.