* * * *
At sundown Andriv and his Alakeph company reached the nerashi mesas. They arrived in a pure white beam, a narrow lance that shone like sunlight through the dense fog, distended by swollen combat packs and iron harnesses beneath their cloaks. Their silence, which still must’ve registered as spectral to those beyond the order, managed to sever whatever disputes had been erupting between the third platform’s merchants and Huuri attendants.
“Just how I remember ’em,” the tracker whispered to Anna. “In sore need of a fuck.”
Crude as it was, those words reflected a grain of what Anna now saw in the brothers. They had grown ruthlessly efficient under the order’s new leadership, growing ever closer to a stark, rigorous incarnation only known through the cardinal Kojadi scriptures. But that theoretical return to form mirrored their strength: Not a single monastery or foundling hall had been raided in the past year, which was not to say that zealots hadn’t devoted serious time and manpower to such attempts.
Upon each brother’s back was a sleek, leather-wrapped ruj, likely bearing the stamped emblem of a cartel based in Nur Kuref or Leejadal. They were vicious instruments, as precise and honed for killing as any other works that had stemmed from the north’s postwar patents. No longer were their models burdened by cranked cogs or chaotic sprays of iron. Now they were slotted with tin boxes, their cartridges filled with fléchettes and copper bolts and whatever else the tinkerers could devise, primed to open a man’s skull at a hundred paces—or more.
Even their polished ceramic vests had become a vestige of the old ways, no more effective than the straw cuirasses Anna had seen on Gosuri huntsmen. The only protection was a keen eye, a lack of hesitation.
Anna studied Konrad as he made his way over the battered, windswept surface of the mesa, bowing deeply to Andriv near a row of slumbering nerashi. It was impossible to determine how earnest his words and gestures were. She considered that Jenis might’ve cut to the core of the brother’s character, perceiving something within Konrad that she’d overlooked since his Breaking:
His truths were malleable.
His truths were weapons.
“You didn’t mention the girl,” the tracker said. “Slipped your mind, did it?”
Anna glanced sidelong, watching the tracker’s breaths leak through the satin shroud and bleed off as ashen wisps. “I didn’t have time to get around to it.”
“Strange.” He grunted and folded his arms. “Running those pretty lips never used to be a problem.”
“He didn’t want to hear anything that extends beyond Kowak.”
“Huh,” the tracker said. “That’s the way of it, then?”
“That’s the way.”
“I’d reckon the old crow would want to know about your sukra.” He shrugged. “Then again, you really don’t know anything about him, do you? You don’t know what his hands have done.”
“Nobody needs to know everything.” Anna turned her head slowly. “And you’ll hold that wicked tongue, or I’ll cut it out.”
The tracker’s satin shifted, hinting at a broad, blackened smile beneath the veil. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Chapter 3
Nightfall descended as their nerash broke away from the mainland and thrust out over the Eastern Sea. The remainder of their flock—four weathered Hazani models, bloated to haul immense quantities of freight or fighters—soared alongside them, marked by crimson everburn flares that gave the illusion of abominations worming through black depths.
Anna wasn’t certain that the crafts could ever grant her something akin to comfort, nor could she understand the appeal of being sealed in the stomach of a howling bird, but their role was vital. And as far as nerashi went, this design was better than most. Ration trunks, padded inner walls, a heating strip along the floor panel—it was far from welcoming, but it was bearable. She could learn to appreciate bearable.
No longer enthralled by the drifting red baubles, Anna slid away from the window and shifted to the edge of her cot. She was dimly aware of the river-tongue flowing between the bunk aisles, so chaste and formal that it had to be among the Alakeph, but the tongue no longer felt like her own. It was the price of constant exile, constant burning bridges, constant rebirths in the womb of meditation.
She suspected that when it was all over, she would not know her own place.
“Kuzalem?”
Anna spun to find Andriv holding a bundle of scrolls beneath his arm. She’d only seen him in passing, but now she noted that he had the sharp, clear gaze of a man with known intentions. That was more than she could say for most.
He was older than Yatrin, but still rather young for a captain, much less a commander. His hair was a dusty brown, cropped and swept to one side. Every feature was pronounced, yet narrow, somehow shrunken; in fact, if not for the deep green of his eyes, pure Hazani blood might’ve been a fair bet.
“Low suns,” Anna said, rising to offer a slight bow. She held onto the aisle’s tether as the nerash bucked to the left. “We appreciate your assistance.”
“The honor is ours entirely,” he explained. “You couldn’t imagine my joy when Brother Konrad told me of your predicament. Our tomesmen often recite tales of your involvement in the War of Ravagers and now, to behold you in your corporeal form….”
Anna looked away. “Your chapter has done considerable work for the order, as I understand it. I suppose it was a natural choice.”
He offered a meek smile, then gestured down the aisle, indicating a low table cluttered with charts and unfurled missives. A soot-stained lamp swung overhead. “Brother Konrad and I spoke with this tracker of yours,” he said, trailing Anna as she made her way along the cramped passage. “His insights were rather fresh, I must say. We had no idea how many of their architects were still inhabiting the flatlands.”
“Weigh his speech with caution,” Anna said. “He knows what men are fond of hearing.”
As they reached the table, Andriv knelt on the cushion opposite Anna’s position. He cleared his throat, shifting incessantly, caught in the clutches of sudden and bashful unease. “Lay mercy upon my words, Kuzalem, but such curiosity arises quite fiercely in me: Why have you placed faith in his words at all?”
The girl. Anna channeled that thought into a shallow nod, a delicate smoothing of her robe’s pleats. “Not even the inquisitors have managed to make his comrades speak. I would be remiss to surrender this chance.”
“As my thinking mind assumed,” Andriv replied hastily. “Forgive me.”
“Doubt is the sign of a shrewd leader, Brother Andriv. Guard your suspicion well.”
He smiled deeply, but did not meet her eyes. “My only task in your service, Knowing One, is to act as the eye that guides your blades.”
“Unfortunately, our vision stems from the tracker.”
“Of course,” Andriv said. “But his words trouble me.”
Anna tensed at the newfound edge in the brother’s voice. “Speak your mind.”
“I would not presume to doubt you, Kuzalem.”
“Speak, brother.”
Andriv’s lips trembled. He joined his hands in his lap, but could not stop himself from wringing them. “He mentioned the Starsent. The one who was Ramyi.”
Her breaths slowed and seized in her throat. Starsent. That old Kojadi title was like poison. It did not refer to a girl, but to one who could pierce the mind of a man and splay out his thoughts in a constellation. One who would bring