WE RODE BACK TO Talagray in silence. Miljin’s gruff bravado had vanished. Now he slumped on his horse, glowering ahead, scabbard swinging at his side. It wasn’t until we could see the fortifications and the bombards ahead—all pointed toward us—that he finally spoke.

“Didn’t use to be like this,” he said.

“Pardon, sir?” I asked. “Like what?”

“All this skulking and skullduggery,” he said. “Keeping order out here used to mean using this…” He patted his sword again. “Until everyone got in line. I mean, it’s a goddamned military city. But then the Empire got good at making money, and then they went and got it in everything, even here. Got big, got complex. Now we need boys like you with brains brimming with…hell, I’ve no idea what’s in your skull, son.”

I glanced at him. “So you, sir…You’re not…”

“I’m no Sublime,” he said. “Got grafts and suffusions and the like for strength and reaction speed and recovery. Same shit they use on horses, some tell me. But none of it went toward my mind. Sometimes feel like they keep me around out of some misguided sense of duty.”

“Ana did say you’re a war hero, sir,” I said.

He laughed roughly. “The thing about war, boy, is while it happens, you’ve no idea what’s going on—and when it’s over, everyone spends the rest of your life telling you what you did.” He gestured at the towers of Talagray ahead. “We don’t need war heroes here anyway. We need plotters. Like your Ana. Even if she has pissed off a lot of powerful people.”

“She has?”

“Oh, yes. That’s the problem with figuring shit out—eventually you run into someone who’d prefer all their shit remained thoroughly unfigured. You know much with a blade, lad?”

“I was first in my swordsmanship class, sir,” I said. “About the only class I was ever any good at.”

“That doesn’t sound right. You were as sharp as a medikker’s knife back there. About as cheery and personable, too. But Uhad mentioned you were made for the Iudex.”

“He did?” I said, surprised.

“Aye. Said you scored shit on all your other Iyalet exams, except Iudex. Those you were fantastic on.”

I looked at him sidelong. The comment seemed genuine, and I did not see any suspicion on Miljin’s face. I tried to relax.

“Still, exams are different from serving,” he said. “Just as policy and codes of conduct can’t guide every goddamn investigation. Ever been in a fight, boy? A real one?”

“No, sir.”

“Hum. You’ll want to amend that.”

I looked at him again. He appeared serious. “Why’s that, sir?”

“Ever wonder why Dolabra was transferred to your little canton,” he said, “but without an assistant?”

I blinked. The idea had not occurred to me. I’d always assumed her previous staff had stayed behind.

“Rumor has it,” he said, “Dolabra’s previous assistant investigator ran into the wrong end of a sword. Were I in your trousers, boy, I’d learn all I could about fighting, and start growing eyes on all sides of my head.” Then he spat and glanced up at the sky. “If you want to see it, now’s your chance.”

My mind was still spinning from what he’d said. “Wh-what, sir?” I said, startled.

“You were looking east this morning, yeah?” he said. “But the mist was too heavy. Well, now it’s burned off. Take your gander if you please, boy.”

I looked back over my shoulder. Then I pulled on the reins of my horse and stopped.

The plains of Tala stretched out behind me, brilliant and viridine, yet the landscape was not flat, not everywhere: huge, tufty humps and hills lay here and there, some high, some sunken, and—strangest of all—each was covered with huge, ancient tree stumps like scales on a fish. The largest hill was enormous, almost like a small mountain, shot through with curving rock formations that were a glimmering pale green. The trees that covered its surface were not stumps but newly grown saplings, narrow and stretching into the sky, and their trunks were of many strange colors, violet and blue and a dull yellow.

I stared at the hill and saw something buried in its side. An appendage, perhaps, like a beetle’s leg—an enormous one, a quarter of a league long, covered in pale gray chitin and ending in a curious claw. I wondered what was buried in that hill.

And then I realized. The green rock formations in the hill were not rock at all.

They were bones. Ribs.

The leviathan’s carcass was not buried in the hill. The leviathan’s carcass was the hill.

I felt my hands trembling as they gripped the reins of my horse, my eye fixed on the huge, mountainous growth, covered with those strange, shimmering trees.

“Their blood changes all that’s about them,” said Miljin quietly.

I turned, alarmed, and realized he’d ridden up beside me without my noticing. “P-pardon?” I asked.

“Their blood,” he says. “When it hits the soil, it makes the grass grow like mad. Makes trees and plants of all kinds sprout out everywhere. Some start bearing fruit that…does things to you, if you eat it. Usually the Apoths burn the carcasses. Can’t do that now. Not with the breach there. Too many people about, and too many fumes.”

I cast my eyes beyond the enormous, grass-covered body of the dead leviathan and spied the wide, rambling black strip of the sea wall in the distance—and there, straight east, a tiny gap, the barest break in the ribbon of stone. Only then did I realize how far the leviathan had rampaged, how much territory it had crossed, and how close it had come to destroying Talagray, which suddenly felt hardly larger than the carcass before me.

How odd it was to meet your maker in this fashion; for all the wonders of the Empire—from Sublimes like myself, to cracklers and fretvines and Miljin’s muscles—came from the blood of such beings.

Miljin wheeled his horse back west. “Come on. Sun’s getting low. Let’s get in before curfew.”

My eye lingered on the chitinous limb extending from the hillock. I noted the color of its armor—so gray, and so pale—and reflected that its color was not unlike that of my own skin. Then I turned and left.

---

—

MILJIN AND I parted ways at the Trinity in Talagray, though he held me back for a moment. “Here,” he said. “You deserve this, after today.” He pulled Vartas’s shootstraw pipe from his pocket, snapped it in half, and held one half out to me. “Find a hot iron somewhere and enjoy the smoke.”

I took it from him, sniffing its end. It was spicy and aromatic. “I will, sir.”

“I’ll report to Uhad. You grab some grub and get to your master. I’ve no doubt she’ll want to dig all throughout your head.” He eyed the darkening sky. “Night’ll be here soon, and with it the curfew. So stay indoors and stay safe.”

“Understood, sir.”

He walked out into the courtyard, then paused midstep as a light rain began to fall. He shot me a look over his shoulder. “A shit end to a shit day!” he barked, half grinning, and strode off.

I smiled after him. Then I waited, counting the seconds and watching as his form receded into the sheets of rain.

I counted out a full two minutes. Then I turned, walked across the Iudex tower entryway, and slipped out into a side street.

All about me the city was closing. Food vendors and inns were bawling out their last calls, the humid air heavy with the scents of fat and spice. Legion patrols roamed the streets, holding their lanterns high and pulling out their curfew bells. Soon tarrying in the street would carry serious penalties—yet I had some final business to conduct.

I summoned the map of Talagray in my memory as I ventured farther into the city. Rona Aristan of the Engineering Iyalet, Secretary Princeps to Commander Blas for going on twelve years. Her address was carved into my skull like it was wrought of molten lead. She lived on the western side of the city, close to the Trinity. And if I hurried, I could make it there and back before curfew.