The shuttle landed before towering gates, their wooden spikes touching the sky. Xae and I rode alone, the shuttle empty of Legionites and Almat citizens. The Landing was miles away from the First House, and our journey there gave the others many reasons to ask questions, but the shuttle's Conductor didn't bat an eye when I showed him Imiza's blade and boarded with Xae alone.
"This is lucky," I whispered to Xae, waiting for the ramp to unfurl. "I don't like it. Something doesn't feel right."
"I'm not giving up on Cade just because you feel nervous about our luck," she said.
"I never gave up on him." My voice rose. She lifted a finger to her lips, then faced the ramp and stiffened, the Conductor returning to open the shuttle doors.
I prodded Xae's back. We marched down the ramp into the oppressive, humid sun. I hadn't seen a blue sky in far too long; neither did Xae. She was distracted, staring up at the hazy blue and fumbling in her march. "Pay attention," I said in her ear. "Watch your step, keep your eyes forward."
She took a deep breath and matched my pace. We joined a short line of low-born Legionites, most of them human and barely ranking above Fleshlings. They were doubtlessly running errands so that their masters could attend the ascension. Xae and I stood at the back of a single-file line, Legionites standing on the left, their slaves bound on the right.
I never knew the Landing to be this quiet. Father took me here when I was a girl to purchase a chambermaid for Mother. I remembered the clamorous grounds, the gates open with passing masters and their newly-bought Fleshlings, the yards crammed with sweating humans, the drafty, bug-infested barracks bulging with the sounds of ill prisoners. Now, the yards stood empty, but the barbed-wire fence was ringed with guards, seven to each outpost. I'd never seen the place so heavily secured. The Almats trusted the fortress in the past; it was enough to keep the Fleshlings contained. This wasn't normal, not even for an ascension. Something must've happened here. The gates shifted open with a boom; several defeated feet were dragged forward by shackles each time somebody was admitted. We arrived near the threshold, only to find-
No, it couldn't be. Legionite Taurus. He wore the same silver mask as he did on the day he ensnared my son and took him into Tetra's crucible. He stood at the center of the gate to screen both Fleshlings and their Legionite masters. Taurus fed the slaves down a path to a processing center; a grated trench. Only the strong would survive. I remembered Father standing here in this very yard observing the slaves like cattle. The square remained sparse, yet I've never seen so many Fleshlings processed at once.
"Xae, do you see that Legionite there?" I nodded in his direction.
"Yes," she whispered.
"If he recognizes me, we abandon the mission. We come back and try again another time."
"This is our only chance, Zale."
"Sh, don't say that name, not even under your breath."
Taurus' aged voice rang as he kicked out an old man's knee: "Move it! We've not the time for lazy Fleshlings today!"
Xae flinched. I squared my shoulders and marched with the others, the line growing short. Taurus admitted the slave before us, her master a Legionite from House Helford. I never wanted to see the House sigil again, and looking at the crest stitched into his cape made me nauseous. They turned and marched past me to board a temple-bound shuttle. I didn't recognize them, and they didn't notice me. More luck. This can't be normal, this can't be good.
Taurus crooked a spindly finger at the two of us, inviting us into the gate's shadow. "Be quick. I've lost enough time." He lost agency when he perked up from his list. "Ah. Legionite Imiza." He did away with his parchment, paying mind to my face. "Glad to see you're fully healed and back on the warpath." His mask flexed, eyeholes narrowing at Xae. "Who's the scrawny infidel?"
Xae stiffened, drawing her lip into a snarl. I prayed that she wouldn't say anything-thankfully, she stood still and silent. "I've come to secure my offering. With the ceremony tonight, I shouldn't report to my House or present a Fleshling to the gods. The timing isn't appropriate."
"I hope she's well enough," said Taurus, a starship's length compared to Xae as he appraised her. "Gods might still be hungry."
I made a face to show that I didn't appreciate his joke. His laugh was loud enough to echo across the whole yard. And just as fast, he became stoic, leading his hand. "You know the drill: slaves to the right of us."
Xae shifted next to me. I squeezed her arm as a warning. "I'd like to see the Landing first," I said, "I haven't seen it since I left. I would like to purchase a Fleshling servant to care for my quarters at the Cren colony, and I need one that's trained." I glanced at Xae, faking my disdain the best I could. "Would you mind? I have a few hours before the ceremony."
The line died with us; Taurus gazed over my shoulder and chuffed. He stood from his slump as if waiting for the chance to show somebody, anybody the Landing's operations. He levied his i'qod axe over a shoulder and scooped us up as company. "Very well." The shadow he cast was monstrous when the sun caught his back. "We must catch up. Who knows when I'd get another audience with Cren's finest daughter."
I suppressed a shudder; an awful musk loomed from him and seemed to sweat out from acrid pores. Taurus always had an odor about him, but when he walked ahead of us, Xae scrunched her nostrils in a way that told me she was familiar. Her lips matched.
Xae regressed her pace, catching my shoulder. "He smells like Almat."
"Xae-"
"No!" Her voice fell to a frantic whisper. "Like, dead Almat."
We crossed over the main operations where one of the massive Iron Boar tusks rounded off. An archway was shaven into the hull, leading across a molten quarry: the epicenter of slave labor. Quiet again; Taurus seemed to lead further away.
He said, "Apologies for the slim inventory, Xouqo's been-shall we say, picked over for Tetra's ascension." The Iron Boar churned dimly as we crossed. Either what Taurus said is true or the ore at Xouqo Landing had been mined dry. Or something worse.
"Take me to the stables." My throat seized, the words tasting bitter. "I don't have time to waste waiting for processing." I found Xae staring at me. She shot eyes like she was meeting me again for the first time-an M16 pointed at just another Almat. Her sudden disdain for me didn't make sense, she knew that we would be separated at some point during the mission. I hoped that she would get the message to search for Cade in whatever square Taurus sent her to, and that we'd be lucky enough to forego processing. I spared her a nod to keep her on track.
Taurus led the two of us out onto the yard and allowed us to walk ahead of him. Four interconnected barracks met between the foot of the bridge. They appeared scrapped together with corrugated metal sheets and frayed rebar for window slots, given as much care as Fleshlings. Many voices crooned from within; it sounded as though the slaves were already dead and packed in with not so much as inches to move. The walk through rattled me, but double that to Xae whose body language contorted, forgot for the briefest moment that she was playing a role and instead found permanence in her shackles.
We neared the stables; hooded slaves grazed an acre surrounded by barb wire fencing. Taurus, the bastard. His sigh then rose to a smile, then producing fangs. "It's a shame, really. Tis. So many converts left, and so little time." So little time. For what, I wondered.
"Yes. So little time." Xae was putting a puzzle together in her thousand-yard stare. She wouldn't even look me in the eye anymore.
"I wouldn't fret. Better they die quickly." He unhinged his axe like pulling a piece of himself out. "Hopefully, one of these lot will serve House Cren's purposes." He pointed out a clearing in the muck; a single child sat playing by himself facing away from us. That posture-no. Don't give me hope. He was leveraging his weight on one side like those with prosthetics. A Fleshling cape twice his size covered his face, its train ripped and filthy.
Now or never. I shot a look at Xae, who nodded her best servitude nod. "You. Retrieve that one for me."
Taurus wouldn't even allow me to finish before he closed in. "That one's rubbish. In fact, pardon my haggling but the best are actually inside the barracks-"
"I said, that one." With a snap of my long fingers, Xae headed for-I couldn't say his name. Not yet. She kept her head low and humble, but I could imagine the smirk on her lips as she walked away. Their burlap garments clumped together; I lost sight of Xae the deeper she passed through.
Taurus, he considered his i'qod axe silently. I recalled that look before. He still angered the same whether it be at the slave yards or courting my nightmare of a sister, only to be rejected. Yes, he hasn't changed at all. He caught me looking, remembering and felt prompted to speak. "Can I ask you something?"
I said nothing, gave him nothing yet he continued regardless.
"I'm conflicted. Very much conflicted. Have you ever had to go against your House for the greater good?"
Yes, I wanted to say. "I'd never," and neither would the Taurus I knew: golden boy of the Almat Code. I had to know: "What is it you have to do?"
"I-shouldn't say."
"Out with it, Legionite."
"I've been instructed to kill the Kam Sudi." That name. I haven't been called that in some time, the title given to my sister and I: the Dueling Dragons of House Helford. A rush coursed through my veins and felt like a thousand cuts across my spine. Taurus needs to kill Tetra.
"You realize what you're suggesting? Are you sure?" And his black-on-silver eyes were very much sure before he closed them and kneeled his head.
He sighed fire. "I do. I've come to realize the Kam Sudi are too dangerous to be left alive."
His next move I could taste the blood rushing, adrenaline bringing his arms to the side of his hip in a swing. I could see him brandish his axe before he tensed, his lips drawn in a grin, evident of how proud he was of his clever attempt to surprise me.
I shot away, slinging my glassblade from its sheath and widening my stance. Taurus aligned with his momentum, brought the axe to crash into mud. He laughed and tried for another. Mid-swing, I closed in low, sprang to an upward slice at his face. Rapid greaves; Taurus buckled, shifting steps away. But not before I caught his mask and carved through the bark effortlessly. A plume of splinters lingered. Taurus bit shadows and flashed full fangs at me.
"What's come over you?" I asked.
"Drop it! I know you're Zale. Or, is it Outcast now amongst the infidels?" His voice thundered and I could see Xae then spring up. These emaciated slaves didn't appear lucid enough to register her, us, not so much as sun hitting their eyes. All but one. It was that same slave. My quick look was all I could give, and it said: "Take him and run. Now."
Guards were already onto our commotion; Taurus eclipsed a setting sun set against his feral stare. "I know why I'm here, but why are you?" He already knew too much, so I attacked once again, this time flanking. He caught my strike on his axe hilt, scraped down and forced a clash. He seemed to read the stories of my scars then. "Oh. The child? Well, you're too late! I did what Tetra hadn't the heart to do: I piked that stubborn halfbreed and roasted him over a fire! and I'm to do the same to you!"
"You liar!" I clashed against his axe, my arms shaking with the struggle. His strength and size outmatched mine. "You say these things to provoke me...I will not give into these games of yours-" Insults failed me. I would need to make this fast, cut through the Urik mail and expose a shot at his kidneys.
"I remember the way he looked at me when I drove the blade through his stomach." Taurus lifted his chin, his gaze sharp and gleaming with absolution. "How his eyes glassed over, how he gasped. I wonder if he thought of you when I left him to bleed, or if he cared to remember the infidels that raised him at all."
I failed to parry his blow. He caught me with his elbow, hooked my blade and sent it sprawling across the bridge. Then, in my desperate reaching for its hilt, he brought his axe crashing down. I caught it in my shoulder. Specter's thick armor slowed its force, but the strength of the blow split the muscles and crushed my collarbone. I cried out, my quivering knees coming to strike the harsh metal bridge. I saw my i'qod blade scrape across the dips in the steel platform, then teeter on the edge. Taurus took a lumbering step, and the cables shook. Imiza's sword plunged into the quarry. I heard a very faint splash.
No, I wouldn't surrender to him, but the pain in my shoulder begged me to relent. I wrenched my good arm back and grappled for my Helford blade, breaking the vow I swore to myself just to spit in the face of my deceiver. The pain rippled, grew, then sent shards of glass into my neck. The crippled bone shifted into a place where it shouldn't.
Taurus took advantage of my injury, he mustered up the energy to move faster than his hulking frame should allow. The shadow of his heel stretched across my breastplate. Caught up in the white-hot agony of a crushed bone and a twisted joint, I couldn't evade him. He stomped on my chest, the force throwing me against the bridge, my armor cracking against it. I've never felt my diaphragm spasm so, and the desperate fight for air that followed instilled in me a panic reminiscent of the day I lost my son.
He leered over his knee and I squirmed beneath his toes. "Your time with the Rebels softened you, Zale, just as your sister said," he jeered. "Your strength came through the Almat way, and you tossed it aside for these infidels! Well. Unlike you, rejecting the Almat way will secure my victory over the Kam Sudi"
"Don't hurt her!" I punched at his ankle, then tried to lift his boot from my chest, pressing weak blows into his shin. "Don't hurt her, don't hurt her!"
"Who, your sister?" He raised his brow and looked out at the yard, doubtlessly focusing on Xae. "Oh, you mean that Fleshling wretch?" He threw back his head and laughed. "Pathetic! I never thought that you, Helford's prize daughter, would fall so far as to take one of them as an ally."
"It would serve you well to do the same." I caught the handle of my blade, swept it out, then cut its edge toward his ankle. Fighting for air didn't help in making good decisions, and I defied my training with my thrashing movements, desperate to land a blow. He lifted his boot and let me breathe, then stomped on my wrist, pinning the sword to the ground. The wound in my shoulder tore, and I was overwhelmed by the pain. He seized my hesitation and fixed the sharp point of his ax hilt between my eyes then kicked away the Helford sword. It spun inches from my grasp-this is still a game to him.
His off hand reached behind his back; a whirring sound emitted. A laser pistol primed as he brought it to charge, casting a glow behind the axe hilt which burned to look at. "By the pull of this trigger, there will be a new age, with new eyes for House Helford. And the Kam Sudi will no longer pervert the Almat way."
I bared my teeth, the barrel of his pistol darkening my vision. Its white charge cast a glare. "You coward, not even I would finish you with a gun. You're a disgrace to the Almats, and that's coming from a traitor."
"Tch, you're not worthy of an Almat blade."
I scrambled back, pushing against the bridge and kicking out my legs. My heels slid on the smooth steel, and the scorching metal seared my skin. He stalked me as a hunter would, staring down the barrel of his gun with a sick smile showing his fangs. No one would choose to kill in such a dishonorable way, but I didn't think I'd live long enough to tell the others of his treachery. I backed into a rusty pole and tried to thrust myself against it, but the effort jarred my injured arm, and I'd lost enough blood to leave me praying for sleep. I collapsed, my energy spent. He set the gun between my brow.
"Did you kill him?" I asked. "Did you really kill my son?"
He set the charge. The winding bullet blazed between my brows. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. If I concentrate enough, I can manifest Caleb. I can feel him take my hand.
"Open your eyes," he said. "Come on, and you dared to call me a coward? Open your eyes and look at the gun."
I didn't mean to satisfy him, but I blinked up his shadow. He moved the barrel from my head, aimed across the bridge, and fired the bullet into the Fleshling crowd.
I watched the thin stream of light sail over the bridge's rails. Xae heard the gun snap, she turned her head to see us. The bullet wrenched a hole in her abdomen, searing through her armor and flickering through her spine. She swayed, stepped back, then fell to clutch the Almat dirt. She coughed and spat blood between her hands before she wrapped her arms around her stomach and died.
3052