STROVI AND I EXITED the tower just as the curfew bells stopped ringing. The streets of the city were now silent and empty, the buildings half lit by a moon shrouded in clouds. There were no lanterns or lights to be seen, except for the one swinging from Strovi’s hand and those carried by the patrolling Legionnaires.

If I’d not had Strovi striding along with me I’d have been locked up within twenty paces: each time a Legionnaire spotted us, they’d hurriedly advance, then pause at the sight of the captain, bow, salute, and let us proceed. Strovi would often shout a word of encouragement to them, or clap them on the back and bid them farewell. In the dark of that night, he seemed far older and more at ease than I. I had to remind myself we were almost the same age.

“Deserters,” he said to me at one corner, almost apologetically.

“Beg pardon, sir?” I said.

“That’s why there’s so many patrols. Streets aren’t often safe at night. Too many mutineers and deserters trickling back from the walls, trying to make it out of the canton. Captain Miljin might have acted a bit mad with you yesterday, flashing his sword about, but he wasn’t wrong when he mentioned that. They hide in houses in the day and move by night.”

I tried and failed to suppress a yawn. “I-I…I see, sir. I’ll take note.”

He smiled sympathetically. “Tired?”

“Somewhat, sir. I’m not used to sleeping so high up in a tower. Especially one that moves with the wind.”

“Let us stop at a station, then. I could use a hotfoot myself.”

He led me to the next corner, where a huge black canvas tent had been set up in the street. Legion officers in varying states of armor milled about before it, resting, regrouping, or receiving orders. Though I was tall, most of these men were taller, thicker, stronger than I, augmented chaps who could cleave me in two if they so much as tried. Yet they all saluted Strovi as the captain led me through to the back, bowing their heads and tapping their collarbones respectfully.

At the back sat a clay stove, the fire within bright and flickering. Three young boys squatted nearby, tending to the flames and boiling pots of water. Strovi held up two fingers to them, and they poured us two cups of tea, then grabbed a clay cask and dropped in a healthy finger of sotwine to each.

Strovi held his cup up to me. “Hotfoot. Clar-tea and mulled sot. We’ll be dancing and prancing for hours now, Kol. Chin to roof.”

He tossed his cup back and I did the same. It was hot and acrid and sweet, but not unpleasant. Instantly I felt warmth fill my bones, and then I felt a strange bubbling at the bottom of my brain, as if it were cooking in a pot.

Strovi grinned as he saw my face. “The Apoths have made many amazing alterations, but this strain of clar-herb is my favorite.”

We tarried in the warmth of the fire, drinking the dregs of our tea—“The last sip,” Strovi commented, “you could practically chew”—while the captain politely inquired about my time in the Iudex, and Daretana, and with Ana. It felt quite strange: I hadn’t had such casual conversation with anyone in months—certainly not with Ana—but definitely not with someone like Strovi, who seemed to embody the full bloom of imperial service. The man’s movements were easy and graceful, and his face was handsome and noble, with a laugh that never entirely left his pale green eyes.

“Nice to have a bit of civilization, isn’t it?” he said as we finished. “The only thing missing is a puff of pipe.”

“Oh. Wait a moment, sir,” I said. I reached into my pocket and produced the half of a shootstraw pipe Miljin had given me.

Strovi laughed. “What magic! I’ve half a mind to ask what else you hide in there.” He waved to one of the boys, and they brought over a hot iron from the fire. Strovi held it to the tip of the pipe and sucked at it until its end flared hot. Then he drew deeply and savored the smoke, letting it leak out of his nostrils. “I haven’t tasted such a fine bit of weed in ages. Where did you get this?”

“From Miljin,” I said. Then: “Or, really, from a Signum Vartas, who happily volunteered his pipe after Miljin, ah, threatened castration and disembowelment.”

Strovi laughed dully. “The old man hasn’t changed, then. The iron fist in the iron glove, about as subtle as six blows from a hammer.”

“You might say that, sir.”

“Don’t have to be so formal, Kol. I mean—I’m following your lead here, a bit, aren’t I?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. The idea of such a veteran officer following me was baffling.

He held out the pipe to me. “Go on. It’s yours, I shouldn’t take it.”

I took the pipe from him and drew deeply, my lips touching where his had been. I had never smoked before—I couldn’t afford such a habit—but I found myself reveling in the taste of the smoke, the way it seemed to twirl in my belly like a dancer.

“This,” I said, “is something I could get used to.”

He laughed. “You look quite at home here, with your cone hat and your shootstraw pipe!”

“Then I only look it, sir. It’s not at all where I expected to be. Last month I was earning my dispensation by chasing down pay fraud.”

“It’s not so uncommon, though.” Strovi looked out at all the Legionnaires, all coming and going in the light of the flickering fire. “So many come here by so many roads, having made deals or signed contracts or bartered away some bit of their life for a bundle of talints. Yet when they’re here, standing among one another, and they realize what we hold back…That’s when they see.”

“See what, sir?”

“What the Empire really is.” He grinned at me. “Those walls out there—some stretches are four hundred years old. Made back when the Khanum still walked these lands in full force. Planned and wrought and manned by ancient peoples, some of them far stranger than anything the Apoths could brew up now. And since those first stones were laid, no leviathan has ever walked the Titan’s Path again, has never made it into the inner recesses of the land. And none has ever approached the Valley of Khanum. Because of how we suffer, and labor, and serve.” His grin grew rather dreamy. “The Empire is the people next to you, and before you. Bodies in boots on the wall, taking up posts served by the ancients. We are the fulcrum on which the rest of the Empire pivots. And we are all made equal and common in that service, and before its long history.” He paused. “Though perhaps I’m being sentimental.”

“I’d say Talagray could use some more sentiment,” I said honestly. “Especially after all we’ve discovered, sir.”

“Ha! But no need to be so formal.” The smile faded from his lips. “I mean, you call your immunis by her first name.”

“Ana is…different, sir. As you’ve no doubt seen.”

“Yes, but.” His smile was gone now. “You’re not in my Iyalet. I could be different, too. You could just call me Kepheus, if you liked.”

A strangely earnest look stole over his face, and his eyes searched mine. Despite his warm words he suddenly seemed terribly lonely, standing there in the light of the fires, his curls clinging to his temples. I reminded myself to stay controlled and contained.

“Never mind,” he said suddenly. “Perhaps I overstepped. Apologies. We should continue on, yes?”

I nodded and followed him into the night.

---

—

BY THE TIME we got to Suberek’s neighborhood it was fully dark. As Ana had suggested, Suberek’s fernpaper mill was one of many in this industrial section of town, which was stacked with tall, narrow wooden structures built next to the canals, all using the water’s trickle to power their many wheels and mechanisms. The mills were all quite similar, with stables and large doors at the back for the loading of their wagons. The great wheels hung still and blue and ghostly in the starlight. It must have made a merry scene in the day, but tonight it was strange and spectral.

Strovi pointed into the dark. “That one at the end. That’s it.”

I studied Suberek’s mill carefully. Utterly dark, no trace of light within. Fernpaper walls clean and thick, framed by stonewood posts. A sturdy structure that should withstand the fiercest of quakes.

“I’ll knock,” said Strovi, as we approached, “but I am empowered by the Legion to enter by force if unanswered. So if we can’t get in, I shall break in, to make sure this fellow still lives. That make sense?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

A gleaming grin. “Should be entertaining. I expect this will be the first time you’ve ever broken into a house.”

I chose not to answer that.

Strovi strode up to Suberek’s front door, lantern raised high in his hand. As I followed, the mill’s stables rose into view. The shadows behind the fence posts flickered and shivered in Strovi’s light, making it feel like all the darkness was shifting there. Perhaps it was the clar-tea running through my blood, but I liked it not at all.

Strovi raised a hand to knock as I stared into the stables. Yet then I noticed something and snatched his hand before his knuckles struck the door.

“What is it?” he asked.

I nodded toward the stables, where the gate was standing slightly ajar. Then I gestured to the other mills, whose stable gates were firmly shut.

“Gate’s left open,” I whispered. “Doesn’t seem right.”

Strovi looked at them, then at me. He nodded, drew his sword, and together we approached the stables.

The little yard within was utterly abandoned, no pony or mule or hog to pull any cart. A few hints of manure, most of it soft from the rains. I touched the hay piled in the corner and found it soft and mildewed. Smelled it and caught the scent of fungus. Days old at least.

I gestured to Strovi to lower the lantern, and when he did I read the mud at our feet. There I saw the scars and shapes of many footprints, mostly boots, many larger than my own—but no hoofprints of any kind, no animals. And it had just rained today, as my wet clothes could testify.

I looked at the mill again, thinking. Studied the windows, wondering if I might spy some movement within.

Then the wind shifted, rose. I caught an aroma in the air, faint but powerful. As the wind died it vanished, but I recognized it: the scent of rot, and putrefaction.

I kept staring at the house. I felt my blood dancing in my ears, felt sweat trickling on my back, the wooden sword at my side heavy and sagging.

Strovi’s face was pale in the lantern light. “Something’s wrong,” he whispered.

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded. Then I crept to the side door, knelt, pressed my nose close to the bottom gap, and inhaled.

The aroma of death was overpowering—a familiar one, after Aristan’s house. My eyes watered, and it took all my effort not to cough or gag.

I withdrew from the door and crossed to the corner of the stables.

Strovi followed, lantern held high. “What is it?” he whispered.

“Something is dead inside,” I said softly.

His eyes grew wide. “Sanctum…You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. And no animal’s been in these stables for days. Yet here, many boot prints. It rained mere hours ago. So they are very recent—but the death inside is not.”

Strovi turned to the house, head cocked. Then he placed the lantern on the ground and shut its chimney, killing its light.

“They’re still in there,” he whispered. “Aren’t they.”

I said nothing.

“I shall go and fetch a Legion patrol,” he said. “They’ll come and we can round them up.”

I looked down at the lantern at our feet, thinking. Panic began unspooling in my belly.

“Wait. Open the light back up,” I said.

“What? Damn it all, they’ll see the light!”

“They’ll have already seen the light, from the front windows. They’d have seen us come.”

“So?”

“So if the light’s suddenly gone out, and they didn’t see it leave, then they’ll worry, and—”

Then the side door opened, and they came out.

---

—

I COUNTED FIVE of them in the dark, large men in light armor, their buckles and buttons winking in the dim light—along with the points of their swords, of course.

Imperial longswords. Bright and glimmering. Finely made tools for quick and easy killing. They offered no shout or cry of warning. They just advanced, swords unsheathed.

Strovi reacted much faster than I, raising his weapon to guard position quickly. His attacker moved in, swinging his sword in a diagonal downward slash, left to right. Strovi caught the blow with his blade and stepped forward into his stance, and I watched him, waiting to see if the gallant captain would live more than a second longer. But then a second attacker was on me, his sword raised high, and all I could think about was the edge of his blade.

I watched the sword approach, unable to comprehend or believe what was happening—and then my eyes shivered and trembled.

Everything slowed down.

I read the swords and the feet and the positions of their shoulders of all those about me. Angles of wrists, of knees, of hips. Grips and crossguards and the tilt of a sword’s edge. I read it all, engraved it all…

And then I was moved.

This was the only word for it: I did not move, but rather my muscles moved me, like my skeleton was being thoughtlessly shoved about by the flesh around it.

I leapt backward as my attacker approached, mindful of the stable wall behind me. Then I drew my wooden blade, raised it with both hands, and caught the attacker’s blow, my right elbow angled high.

My attacker’s sword should have cut clean through my practice weapon, yet I had angled it in just such a way that his sword did not cut straight through, but rather at an angle to it, as if trying to shave off the edge. This meant his sword got lodged within my own, trapped inside my wood and leaden blade. My attacker grunted in surprise, evidently not expecting such a thing.

My eyes fluttered. Memories of my training poured into my mind, and my muscles.

Instantly I recalled my old dueling coach Princeps Trof bellowing—Stop a swing at the right position, children, and you open up the whole of their body. And remember—you don’t swordfight with just a fucking sword!

Old Trof had shown us what to do then.

And I remembered.

I was moved, again.

I stepped forward and shoved my right elbow into where I gauged my attacker’s throat to be in the darkness, as hard as I could. My elbow instead met the crunch of cartilage, and the splash of hot blood—his nose.

A howl in the darkness, but I had no attention for it: my muscles were moving me, guiding me mindlessly through the countless dueling steps I’d learned so many months ago. I reached forward with my left hand, grabbed my attacker’s wrist, wrenched down, and used my own sword to twist his blade to his left.

His grip broke, and his sword fell free. I snatched the handle as my attacker fell back, wrenched his imperial longsword out of my shabby wooden one, and assumed a two-handed stance.

I had a sword now, a real one, for the first time in my imperial career.

I surveyed the darkened yard before me.

Strovi was still on his feet, engaged with two attackers. The one I’d disarmed was crumpled to my right. A fourth approached me to my left, growling and swinging his longsword across his body from left to right, intending to strike me on the shoulder or neck.

My eyes fluttered. Read the movement, read the position.

His choice, I saw, was a bad one.

Old Trof’s voice in my ear—A fight with blades is all about exposure and leverages! Which swings and slashes and cuts offer your opponent the most openings? Where and when can a movement be stopped? Where shall the sword’s path start and end? This is the language of steel, my children!

My muscles were moving me again, stepping me forward with my sword straight upright to catch my attacker’s blade before it could cross their body.

The steels struck, the reverberations dancing up my wrist. Yet because I had stopped the swing so early, the whole of his body was open to me.

Three smallspan, cried Trof’s voice in my memories. Three smallspan, my children! A sword point must only penetrate three smallspan deep on the trunk or neck of a person to disable and kill them. Don’t do any more fucking work than you have to!

I angled my blade to my left, trapping the strong of their sword against my crossguard; and then I jabbed the point left and up, and into their throat.

A cough, a gurgle, and the hot splash of blood in the dark. A salty flavor in my mouth, a stinging in my eyes. I blinked, and the figure fell backward into darkness.

I kept moving.

Another man was coming on my right, screaming, thrusting forward with his sword. If I had been even slightly slower he would have scored a devastating hit; yet I was jittering with clar-tea, and my eyes recognized the movement, and my muscles summoned up the memory of when Trof had forced me to train against such an attack.

I danced to the right, away from the path of his blade. I hacked down hard against the narrow of his blade, putting maximal twist on his grip (The grip, children, screamed old Trof in my ears, is always, always the weakest point of all fights!), and then I kept moving forward and hacked down again, this time closer to his crossguard, trusting that my destabilizing blow would make it too hard to respond.

I felt the crunch of the bones in his hands, my blade perhaps severing a thumb. He cried out, swung around, and tried to raise his sword with his good hand, but it was too late. My muscles shoved me forward, thrusting my blade into his shoulder; and then, when he turned, into the side of his knee. He collapsed into the mud, shrieking.

A grunt to my right. The man whose nose I’d broken was charging at me, howling. No sword in his hand. I responded instantly, thoughtlessly: a simple jab into his midsection, near the neck, then dancing back. He staggered, tried to turn to see me, and kicked over Strovi’s mai-lantern as he did so. Blue light strobed the yard as the lantern fell open, and I saw him clearly: a man of thirty or forty, nose broken and dribbling blood, and blood spurting from the deep gash just below his left collarbone.

He locked eyes with me, mouth working. A piteous, lost look, as if he’d awoken from a bad dream. Then he fell to the side.

I was moving again, being moved, being pulled, dancing through the muddy yard. Strovi was there in the corner, still fighting two men at once, both with their backs to me.

Trof’s voice in my mind, screaming, howling—Rathras cavalry knew that when chasing down fleeing souls, strike at the backs of their knees with a spear! Down them first, then kill them!

I watched almost helplessly as my sword licked forward, its point diving down to shred the tissue at the back of the man’s knee. But then…

My left heel met slick mud. My foot slid forward. Instantly, I was sent sprawling in the mud and crashed into one of the attacker’s legs.

The man turned, snarling. I saw him raise his blade, its point aimed at my chest.

Then there was a flash of blood from the side of his throat. I felt my face fanned with warmth and wetness. Then he toppled over, stupidly pawing at his neck, and I saw Captain Strovi behind him, his blade black with blood.

I did not see how Strovi felled the final attacker. My eyes were filled with blood, and my head was reeling from where it’d struck the mud. Yet as I sat up, I was aware of only Strovi standing in the yard, his chest heaving as he sucked air into his body, and somewhere the sound of moaning.

I staggered to my feet, then stared around, dazed. The memories of my training withdrew from my body like a veil.

“Who…who are these people?” I mumbled.

“Who are they?” said Strovi. “Who are you?”

“What?”

“Where the hell did you learn to fight like that?” he demanded. “You killed, what, two men? And disabled another?”

“I…I just recalled my training,” I said, taken aback.

“You just…just recalled it? Your basic training?”

“Yes. Why?”

He shook his head, stewing for a moment. “These are Legion deserters. You can tell by their uniforms. They must have been holed up in the house. I never would have thought to see a day when an Iudexii could outfight a Legionnaire, let alone three of them, but…” Another shake of his head. “Hell. I’ll go get a patrol. You stay here. Got it?”

I nodded. Then he sprinted away into the streets.