Soren flexed the fingers of one hand against the wall he used to steady himself. He was reluctant—incredibly so—to call upon starfire in the midst of Calhames where so many people could see it. Considering the state of his head, he wasn’t certain he could even reach the aether and summon its power.
He paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the star temple, tilting his head back and breathing through his mouth. The pill he’d taken was fast-acting, and he felt more aware than when he’d been trapped in that coffin. But the hit to the head he’d taken wasn’t healed in any meaningful way. Soren had worked through worse, though.
He shoved away from the wall and pitched himself up the spiral staircase, out of the dark and into the star temple. Only a few gaslights were burning, and the only sound he could hear other than his breathing was the warning siren piercing the air beyond the star temple’s walls. The crypt entrance had been left open to allow the revenants a way to leave. None of the Blades nor Alida had stayed behind. They’d be dead if that were the case.
A pity.
Soren traversed the sanctuary, poison short sword in hand, and headed for the main entrance. The doors had been thrown open and the star temple abandoned. A quick scan of his surroundings showed dark shapes moving around the palace grounds, flitting through the illumination cast by gas lamps. Soren squinted, making out broken windows in the palace up ahead. Gunfire echoed through the night, paired with the shouts ofpraetorialegionnaires and the occasional scream.
He knew he should head for the palace’s golden gates, get it locked down so the revenants couldn’t escape the grounds and make their way into Calhames proper. He should find someone who could spare a pistol so he’d have a distance weapon again. He should coordinate with a legionnaire officer because he knew there weren’t any other wardens inside Calhames to respond to the warning siren.
Soren should do many things—things a warden was bound to do by the Poison Accords—but his feet took him away from the gate and toward the palace itself.
To where he knew Vanya and Raiah would be.
He’d lost so much time already. He’d gone into the star temple in daylight, and now the sky was dark, the Leviathan constellation glimmering against the blackness. He’d missed the Conclave, missed warning Vanya about Alida.
Soren’s breath hitched as he lengthened his stride, easing into a skull-jarring run. He pressed his thumb over the button beneath the cross guards of his poison short sword three times before holding it down, then releasing it. The vibration from gears shifting within the hilt as they opened up one of the internal vials thrummed against his palm. He couldn’t see it, but he knew poison was dripping down the channel in the blade, coating the sharpened steel.
He might not have his pistols, might not be able to be in the position to safely summon starfire, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight.
Soren only hoped thepraetorialegionnaires wouldn’t mistake him for a revenant and shoot him on sight. The risk of that happening was high. He’d have to face it, though, because it was the only way for him to get inside the palace and locate Vanya and Raiah.
He cut through the gardens, sticking to shadows, steering clear of the gas lamp–lit pathways for now. Soren didn’t pass any revenants for the first few minutes. Only when he came upon the garage and the open land between him and his destination did Soren hear movement in the dark around him.
Soren went still, the warning siren fading out before rising again. In that moment of near quiet, he heard the rasping breath of the dead. He gripped the short sword with both hands, bringing it up in a ready position, gaze searching the dark.
When the shadows moved, Soren moved as well.
It was habit ingrained down to his bones ever since he was a tithe—and he couldn’t help but worry if any were even left after the attack on the Warden’s Island—to cut through the dead. The poison coating the blade of his short sword meant when the revenants were cut down and fell, theystayeddown.
Soren carved his way through a dozen revenants before he finished dispatching the ones in his immediate vicinity. Panting for breath, he ignored the throbbing in his head and turned back to the palace, wondering if running would be the better option.
A hiss of voices from inside the garage caught his attention. Soren turned and saw the side door to the garage had been cracked open, a fearful servant peering out at him.
“It’s the warden,” the woman said over her shoulder, relief palpable in her voice.
Soren headed for the garage, angling his poison short sword away from the figure in the doorway as he reached it. “How many are inside?”
“Not many. Some of the guests made it to safety, though,” she said, stepping back so Soren could enter.
Soren closed the door behind him, and a different servant set about barricading the door again. The lights in the garage were bright enough he could make out a group of people huddled around parked vehicles. Some appeared wounded, but Soren didn’t have time to give anyone aid, especially if they’d been bitten.
“What do we do?” a woman cried out. She was better dressed than anyone else, clearly a member of a House, but Soren didn’t know which one.
“Cover the low windows. Put any storage cabinets in front of them if you can. It’s too dangerous for you to try to make it to the palace gates,” Soren said as he pushed his way unsteadily through the crowd. His velocycle was somewhere in the garage. It would have the rest of his gear. He hadn’t thought to pack an extra pistol, but his explosives and poison kit would have to do.
“The gates are closed. The order came from the emperor himself through our officer’s televox,” apraetorialegionnaire informed him.
Soren swallowed dryly. “Good.”
“You’ll stay to protect us, won’t you?” the woman from before demanded.
“No.”
He ignored her cry and kept walking, the crowd of people hastily pulling away from him. He must be a sight—covered in blood and bits of revenant pieces—but Soren had never cared about that, even if other people did.
He found his velocycle parked where he’d left it. Soren leaned his poison short sword against the vehicle and set about hauling open the travel compartments, withdrawing anything that might be of aid for the fight ahead: explosives, antidotes, poison, and other tools to fight the dead.
