Nina looked at me, still vaguely interested, and I got the feeling she knew what I was thinking. However, some people can bluff like that.

  “Even if I can’t bring Cassel out,” I said, “I can attract his attention. Can you use that to sneak up on him from the back?”

  “As long as you have his attention, it’s fine. Oh, and—what’s your name?”

  “Vanth Umbra.”

  “Keep your head down, Vanth.”

  I lowered myself to the ground and went to stand in the entrance, where I could see most of the eastern streets. After some consideration, I sat on the ground with crossed legs, to look less like I’d been waiting specifically for them. The nd’s anger was unceasing like the surf. Of course it wouldn’t tire. One couldn’t expect it to simply move on, either.

  Never before did I experience something like that. Normally, the earth felt silent—you had to still your own mind and pay attention to hear even the faintest murmur. The closest reactions I’d ever felt had been caused by an intrusion from the Underworld, and I suspected miasma was either the cause or the symptom of that displeasure, or perhaps both. Nothing like this, though. How long had it gone on?

  Before the Protectorate, a city like High Tomenedra would’ve had a pontifex devoted to listening for signs of anything of the sort, and another one who’d make amends. Now none of them were left, only the King of the Dying Sun, and I didn’t even deal with the world of the living.

  Distracted as I was, I glimpsed a white-and-gold uniform in the distance. All of the columns were approaching at the same time, trying to keep a bance between speed and cautiousness. They’d decided to rid themselves of me as soon as possible; it pleased me to know they’d taken me seriously. Though I wasn’t looking at them directly, I noticed a barrier glinting on the ground ahead of them—of course, that wouldn’t be a problem to me.

  I pretended not to pay them any attention, and they slowed down to a crawl. They were only wary of me, though; I don’t think they even saw Nina. Only a few seconds ter, they rushed me. The idea was clearly to get rid of me before I could make good on my promise to destroy the city, or at least most of it. It wasn’t the worst idea, but even if Nina hadn’t been there, none of them had faced someone like me in their lives; none of them were ready, not individually or as a group. I think at least some knew it, but when I wouldn’t stand up and fight, or even face them, they discarded their hesitation and ran faster, determined to kill me at once. It was unheard of; a group of guards had never killed the King of the Dying Sun, not even once in the Protectorate’s history. But, I suppose, I was still an ordinary man to them.

  And they were hundreds; so many of them summoned spells, the air shimmered and wavered with an excess of magic, and the buzzing of it grew so loud it even drowned out the fury of the nd, for a moment.

  Most uba forms can’t be performed sitting down, at least not without harming yourself, but I hadn’t forgotten what Nina told me. It’d be a close call, but I wasn’t lying when I said I’d faced bad shit in my time, and as long as I survived anything else was a distant concern. And so the first volley of spells reached me and I went up on a crouch and deflected, one two three four, something thorn-sharp and an icy burn and a stab of pain I ignored and something that numbed my right arm but not enough to stop me, and I think one of the guards screamed but I ignored them too

  (though it’s very likely it wasn’t my deflected spell they were screaming at, because almost at the same time)

  something whipped out over my head, many thin and bright strands, and they wrapped themselves around the necks of a dozen guards, tightening and slicing, and if there was any noise I couldn’t hear it above everything else, but I smelled burnt flesh just as a dozen heads bounced in every direction and a dozen bodies fell lifelessly, tripping some of the guards that came right behind.

  This time, they weren’t screaming at anything I did. I didn’t move; more strands were shing out, too many and too fast to count, and the bodies were piling up, and the living were tripping over them and over each other, in their rush to get away.

  Something hit the ground at my left. It had to be Nina, but she’d wrapped herself in fmes, all pulsating like a living thing, in the shape of a long cloak with a hood thrown over her face—the outfit of a high-ranking qimayu, if I didn’t recall wrong. The living fme turned to me.

  “I’m fine,” I said. And if that wasn’t what she wanted to know, I’d still pretend it was.

  “Your nose is bleeding, but I guess that’s nothing to a young man like you. Anyway, step in here.” She pointed down. A barrier spell gleamed on the ground. I jumped to my feet and into the bright cordon. And not too te, as a fresh volley of spells arrived right then. Some hit the ground where I’d been crouching, a few others shattered harmlessly on the barrier.

  Though we stood very close together, her fmes didn’t burn me—didn’t even give off any heat. She was very short, too—I hadn’t noticed when we were both sitting. That mostly meant that, even with Nina standing in front of me, I had an unobstructed view of everything happening in the streets, not that it was a pleasant sight.

  How many guards were already dead? As much as a hundred? The charge had shattered. A handful of guards had managed to regroup, but Nina was even now picking at them, and others had run the way they’d come from, but more sounds of fighting came from those streets—it seemed they’d only rushed into another trap. I’d barely had time to think this when loose groups of people in work clothes came running from all directions.

  “That’s enough.” Nina stepped out of the barrier. I followed. “Let them run.”

  The newcomers—I’m not sure how many of them were strikers—didn’t look entirely pleased with this, or with my presence. I chose to be gracious and assume they hadn’t been informed of it beforehand.

  I had more pressing things to care about, anyway. My locket was giving off a scent of fear.

  “I’ll be leaving,” I said.

  “Where?” Nina asked. “I might be able to help.”

  “Where my boy is.” I couldn’t see her face, but I know she was smiling. “I did my part. Don’t try to stop me.”

  “We’ll be marching against Cassel now. If you want to, feel free to come join us whenever you’re free, will you?”

  I nodded and ran away on a random direction. Despite Nina’s words, the fight still raged on—I doubted it’d st much longer, though. The bulk of the guards were dead or fugitive; the vast majority of the rioters—I suppose that’s what they were—were coalescing around their leader, though I jumped over the body of one, and saw a couple others on my way. My left shoulder still smarted; not enough to concern me though.

  Once I was out of sight, I rubbed a thumb over my nostrils; it came out bloody. I used this offering to open a portal into the Underworld—pageantry is good, but as long as you bleed you don’t need much more.

  I jumped into the Underworld without a look back. Most days, I would’ve opened a portal out just as quickly; it figures I’d be unlucky that time, out of all times. I arrived into some sort of swamp, a dark and dank pce where I sank on watery mud to the knee, where pnts or trees of some sort were constantly spewing fumes that covered the sky. I was skilled enough not to jump somepce that’d kill me, but discomfort is another matter; the stench was enough to stagger me. Before I could recover my standing, something stirred out of the water and wrapped itself around my waist; my blood had attracted it.

  My knife was immediately on my right hand; I stabbed the thing, and it retreated with a growl of protest. I got the impression of a huge thing on the other end, as if I’d been grabbed by an elephant’s trunk. I rubbed my bloody nose again and tried to open another portal. It wouldn’t open.

  I would’ve taken a deep breath, but those fumes wouldn’t improve the situation. My self-control, at the very least, didn’t waver. What I felt from the locket wasn’t quite panic, so I trusted Azul wasn’t in immediate danger and could keep himself safe until I reached him.

  What was obstructing my portals, then? I could open one when I was about to drop from exhaustion, so the issue must be in my surroundings. Tentatively, I took a couple of steps. I could move; my brain must’ve been affected by the fumes or the pressing situation, because I almost expected to have been caught in one of the quicksands you always read about in novels, that gulp down an unlucky character in seconds. I was more fortunate, but the swamp still extended as far as the eye could see—though admittedly that wasn’t very far, thanks to the fumes-spewing vegetation.

  Before I could decide on a direction to take, the ground shook under my feet; rather than falling on my face, I clung to one of those pnts, which turned out to be some kind of thick vine, swaying precariously under my weight.

  And then the ground lifted up, taking me and the vines and the whole swamp along. My stomach curled up on itself. What if I stood on top of some living creature, and I’d provoked it to flight after stabbing it?

  “I’m sorry!” I shouted, but of course the creature wouldn’t listen anymore, if it was even capable of doing so.

  As we moved up, we rose above the cover of fumes. A kilometer or so away, an immense wing fpped up and down. I ran in that direction. Though the swamp slowed my progress, and the fumes covered my sight after a few moments, I cleared the distance in a reasonable few minutes. After climbing over a bony protrusion that made me thankful for my leathers, I jumped out of the creature’s back. Gravity did the rest, pulling me down just as it was going up.

  Buffeted by the wind like a ragdoll tossed into a hurricane, my eyes filled with tears—something I was thankful for, as that meant I wouldn’t see the ground. But never mind that, because as far up as I’d been, the ground still approached fast. I swiped my thumb under my nose, hard enough to make it bleed again, and opened another portal, reciting an incantation I couldn’t hear over the wind.

  I fell through the portal headfirst. My self-control hadn’t fgged—I remembered to picture the portal standing next to the ground, so that I dropped into the world of the living from a very small distance. It was enough to make every single bone in my body vibrate in pain, though.

  But never mind that. My locket had heated up, urgent and panicking.

  I dragged myself to my feet. You can’t imagine how good the air in the world of the living tastes until you’ve breathed the fumes of a flying swamp-vine creature of the Underworld. Unfortunately, I was still half-covered in mud and vine slime, and they were turning into miasma; I didn’t have time to cleanse myself, never mind to rest a few moments.

  The portal should’ve brought me close to Azul, at least; I stood at the doors of a half-finished building that rose into a green-and-blue spire. Shouts came from the inside. Gritting my teeth, I gave the doors a good kick; they bent under the strain. I gathered my strength and kicked again. This time, the doors burst open.

  And not a moment too soon.

  broccolifloret