Soren pushed the door open wide enough to allow himself to slip through, letting it close quietly behind him. The service hallway was low-lit by a single sconce, throwing gaslight on the smooth-tiled walls and the pair of bodies sprawled on the floor. Soren stilled, automatically unholstering his pistol. He approached the bodies of the man and woman dressed in the robes of star priests, the white panels of their robes stained dark with blood. The backs of their robes were ripped from stab wounds, blood congealing around the bodies.
Soren crouched beside them, attention focused on the hallway ahead of him. He touched two gloved fingers to the throat of the nearest body, not checking for a pulse but for rigidity. Flesh gave beneath the pressure, speaking of the star priest having been murdered recently, most likely within the last hour.
He straightened, moving farther into the star temple rather than retreating outside. The safer option would’ve been to leave and come back with reinforcements, but if he didn’t know who the enemy was, he wouldn’t be able to warn Vanya. So Soren followed the sound of voices that came from the sanctuary at the center of the star temple, keeping to the shadows, pistol raised and ready to fire.
Soren slowly crept into a side chamber, his movement masked by a half-open door leading to the sanctuary. He stayed low, kneeling behind an altar set up in the center of the small space. He peered around it, taking in the people who wore the robes of star priests but who carried themselves more like mercenaries than religious servants. Some were speaking in Daijalan, others in Solarian. What he could understand made Soren’s breath catch in his throat.
“We can’t blow the charges until we know all the Houses are within the palace for the end of the Conclave. Can you ensure the star temple will be inaccessible until then?” a blond man said in heavily accented Solarian.
Soren had to bite his tongue to keep his shock choked back when he saw who came to stand by the stranger and answer his question. The woman in question stepped over a body on her way, gown clutched in slim hands to keep the hem from dragging through blood.
“I forged the emperor’s signature on a change of duty order. Thepraetorialegionnaires typically on guard duty around the star temple have been reassigned for the day. You’ll have free movement so long as you keep your robes on beyond these walls,” Alida said.
The majordomo of the royal household, one of Vanya’s closest confidants when it came to the safety of his House, calmly unclipped a large brass key from her key ring and handed it over to the stranger. The key was one Soren recognized, even from a distance.
It was the key that opened the secondary door meant to keep the crypt locked.
“You hope,” the man said, taking the key from her.
“No one questions me. They think I’m loyal. I’ve proven that fact to the emperor’s satisfaction over and over again. He suspects nothing.”
Vanya hadn’t, Soren knew with a sinking sensation in his stomach. Neither had Soren. Alida had been checked for vivisection scars time and time again, coming away as human. She had been with Vanya’s household since he was a teenager, rising from servant to majordomo, never straying from service to his House. Her steady presence had been a balm to Soren amidst the politics of the Imperial court as he came and went over the last few years, always ready with an answer to any question he had when Vanya wasn’t there to hear him.
She’d been loyal.
She’d beentrusted.
The incandescent rage that suddenly suffused him made his lungs constrict, made his skin hot. He tightened his grip on his pistol, finger pressed hard against the trigger guard. He clenched his teeth together, forcing his breathing to stay quiet and steady. Something hot and vicious unfurled in his chest, the aether a mere breath away.
It would be so easy, he knew, to reach for the power long denied him and burn everyone in the star temple to ash. But doing so would only implicate himself in the act when a warden wasn’t supposed to command starfire at all. If Vanya knew what Soren had kept from him, then Soren would be no better than Alida, and he didn’t want to be that.
A sound came from behind him, and Soren moved on instinct, twisting out of the way of the Blade that sought to slide a knife between his ribs and very nearly succeeded. The motion caused the candles and incense burners on the altar to tumble to the ground, clattering on the tiles.
Soren kicked out with one foot at the stranger’s knee, but the other man dodged out of the way with an agile twist. Shouts from the sanctuary made Soren swear, knowing he only had a moment—seconds, really—toget out.
He didn’t bother to engage in close quarters with the man who’d sneaked up on him. Instead, Soren swung his pistol around and pulled hard on the trigger. The loud sound of the bullet exiting the chamber made the shouting in the sanctuary only get louder. He’d aimed blindly, wanting to create some room to maneuver in, and while the first bullet hadn’t hit the enemy, his second punched through the man’s shoulder.
A lucky shot, but his luck ran out seconds later.
Soren was on his feet when the man Alida had been speaking with kicked the chamber door all the way open, leading with his pistol as he entered the now crowded space. Soren would’ve chanced a run for the hallway, already half turned to flee, but the bullet that cut through the air mere inches from the side of his face to embed itself in the stone wall had him freezing where he stood.
“I thought everyone in the star temple was handled?” the man snapped, staring down the barrel of his pistol with cold eyes.
Soren’s gaze didn’t stray from the pistol, not even when Alida sidled up behind the man, blanching when she saw him. “That’s Vanya’s warden. You can’t kill him, Witten.”
The barrel of the pistol was aimed directly at Soren’s head, his own uselessly aimed at nothing. “Give me one good reason why I can’t?”
“Because Joelle wants him alive.”
Soren stiffened at that statement, his gaze snapping to Alida. “Your loyalty is with the House ofKimathi? You’d betray your emperor?”
Alida raised her chin, color having returned to her face, though her lips were still pale. “My loyalty lies with the House of Laxsom. It always has.”
Soren stared at her, clenching his hand tighter around his pistol. “Rixham is a dead city.”
Something fierce and prideful filled her eyes. “Its peoplearen’t.”
“You—”
