The door opens without ceremony, and two guards in deep red step inside. The first is tall and broad-shouldered, his face impassive beneath a close-cropped helmet. The second is leaner, watchful, with a scar cutting through his left cheek. Their eyes sweep the cabin dismissively before settling on me.
“Cyra of the Red Market District – Lord Zevran requires your immediate presence at court,” the leaner guard commands.
I look at Astrid once again, memorizing her worried face, the safety of this small house.
I have to find Mother.
“Give me five minutes,” I tell the guards.
They nod.
I need to pack a healer’s kit, need to move – but my feet feel rooted to the floorboards.
Astrid helps me find Mother’s healing satchel, her lavender scent still clinging to the worn leather. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m walking into a trap. That whoever orchestrated her disappearance is now drawing me exactly where they want me.
If Mother is in danger … if the palace has any answers … I have to go. I have to try.
When I step outside, Astrid follows.
“I’ll watch the cottage until you come back tonight,” Astrid whispers quickly. She pulls me into a fierce hug. “Be safe, sister,” she says, using the old Daughter of the Moon farewell.
I follow the guards down our front path to the street. The Martian morning is harsh, the sky a dull rust colour veiled in the ever-present haze of industrial smoke from the forges in the distance. Our neighbourhood is a warren of small cottages pressed close together, their walls the same red-brown as the planet itself. We pass by our small herb garden, the plants struggling in the rust-coloured soil. Neighbours peer through cracked windows, curtains twitching as we pass.
A transporter ship waits at the curb, sleek and angular, its hull painted in the deep crimson of House Mars. It hovers a few inches above the packed dirt street, humming with contained power. Steam vents along its sides hiss softly, releasing pressure in rhythmic bursts.
The doors slide open, revealing a narrow interior lined with bench seating. I step up into the cabin, and as I sit, the cool metal sends a chill through me. I clutch Mother’s satchel to my chest, breathing in the lingering scent of her.
Whatever game this is … I’m pretty sure I’m now a piece on the board.
The ride to the palace isn’t long, but the uncomfortable silence in the transporter makes time crawl. The guards sit across from me, stone-faced and still. I press my back against the cold metal bench, Mother’s satchel heavy in my lap.
We pass through our neighbourhood and the outskirts of the market, then through the outer districts. Here the streets are lined with rows of domed houses, curved walls stained grey from years of forge smoke. The sky is veiled in black dust and red haze, the air so thick I can smell the smog even through the sealed transport. Children play in the narrow spaces between homes, their clothes as grey as the buildings.
Eventually the terrain shifts. The dome houses give way to wider streets, actual gardens behind iron fences. The air clears enough to see the rust-coloured sky. The ground turns from packed red dust to something closer to soil, covered in burnt orange grass and skeletal trees stripped of all colour by the harsh Martian sun. Everything here is shades of red and brown and grey – even the few surviving plants look drained of life.
The hum of the transporter’s engine vibrates through the metal bench, a steady drone that lulls me into a trance as I sink into my seat. My eyelids grow heavy. The withdrawal still pulls at me, making my skin itch, my fingers twitch against the leather of Mother’s bag.
Then, finally, I see it through the front viewport: the crimson spires of House Mars rise before us, sharp and severe against the sky. The palace is built from the same red stone as everything else on this planet, but polished smooth, its structure massive and impossibly tall.Guard towers flank the main building, and flags bearing crossed swords snap in the wind.
The palace gates groan open, two slabs of crimson steel etched with bronze in the shape of swirling solar flares. As they part, the machinery reveals itself: immense stone wheels turning in their housing, counterweights dropping with the finality of a lock engaging.
Beyond the gates, the palace sprawls in a way that makes our entire market district feel like an afterthought. The walls are blocks of deep red sandstone, each one carved to slot against the next without mortar, the kind of work that takes decades and who knows how many lives. Bronze runs through the seams like veins of old blood. I’ve seen sick children turned away from clinics for lack of coin, and here they’ve plated decorative fixtures in metal worth more than most families earn in a lifetime.
We roll through a courtyard where fountains hiss with heated water. A woman in servant’s dress hurries past with an armload of linens, and I catch her gait – an old injury, something in the hip that was never properly set. My hands ache to reach out. I grip the edge of my seat instead.
The transporter slows near a colonnade, and through the archway I glimpse an interior garden. For a moment I think I see a flash of movement – someone in blue healer’s robes? But when I lean forward to look, there’s only a gardener trimming back a vine heavy with rust-coloured flowers. Mother loved gardens. She must have walked through there every day.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” one of the guards sitting across from me says. He’s noticed me staring. “Took four generations to build this palace, and another two to perfect the defences. Mars doesn’t just breed warriors – we build like we fight. To last.”
I nod but don’t answer. The gardens look decorative until I realize how they funnel movement, how the pillars could force anyone running into narrow channels with nowhere to go. Even the beauty here has purpose.
The people we pass reinforce this. Servants move with their shoulders back and their steps synchronized, uniforms marked with small insignia I don’t recognize. A courtier glides past a window in flowingrobes, but the fabric is cut short on one side, and wouldn’t catch on anything in a fight. I’ve spent my whole life around soldiers who bleed and break, but I’ve never seen a building where even the decorations are dressed for war.
The transporter finally stops. Wide stone steps rise toward the entrance, and the guards lead me up, their boots striking the stone in perfect rhythm. At the top, massive doors stand open – dark wood reinforced with bronze that’s been worked into the shape of flames.
Crossing the threshold feels like stepping into a world I was never meant to see. The main hall stretches ahead, impossibly vast, with vaulted ceilings that disappear into shadow high above. Pillars of red stone shot through with veins of copper rise on either side, each one wide enough that three men couldn’t wrap their arms around it. Tapestries hang between them, battle scenes stitched in thread that catches the light from hanging braziers – Martian warriors standing with shields locked, protecting citizens, the red planet shown as a fortress.
The air here smells of incense and heated metal, like standing too close to a forge.
