“He did?”
“About a year ago when we started this plan. Someone had to be the test subject.”
O Father…
Emre handed them both a tiny black object the size of an apple seed. “Here.”
Ruane turned it over in her claw and Lojen realized it was an earpiece, designed for a drakken’s earhole. His sister put the earpiece in. “It tingles.”
“Soon enough you’ll forget it’s there. Just remember, when inside, you don’t have to raise your voice any more than a whisper, these are Aere created and the range on these bad boys is excellent.”
Whispering was not something his sister was known for. “Gon’ be hard for you then, eh, Ru?”
“What you talking about?” she said quite loudly, illustrating his point. Lojen chuckled. “What?”
“You make sure they’re all charged?” Valeria Dunleith asked as she flowed into the room.
Emre whistled. “Who knew you cleaned up so nice?”
The bikrome wore a dark blue stola that eerily contrasted, yet oddly highlighted her pale arms, which were bare from the shoulder down. Her bracelets didn’t look out of place against the elegance of her dress. The gown hugged her hips in all the right spots, the backside poofed by layers of undertrain. A corset, almost vest-like but low cut, was tightened around her waist, revealing more of her porcelain skin. Her silver hair was coiled behind her head while thick strands hung loose at her temples in ringlets. A sheer, yet black veil covered her face from a thin golden chain at her forehead, a shining yellow gemstone just above her shielded eyes.
Valeria looked every inch the royal daughter of the Golden Throne.
Ruane grumbled under her breath about not getting to wear something nicer than the ‘rags’ she was wearing. Lojen elbowed her, but he smiled anyway, it was the first time in ages she had expressed anything other than anger.
Val straightened Emre’s tie, then held out a mask that resembled marble for him to take. “Shall we?”
“A costume party?”
“Solanine likes grandeur, Lojen. And better for us. Makes us less obvious.” Emre crooked his arm and the bikrome intertwined her hand within, laying it upon his forearm. “Although, I would assume she and the Fallen will be expecting us to make our move under such disguise. Regardless, it’s now or never.” Emre reached into his coat pocket and handed a folded piece of parchment to him. “Map of the inside of Gargantua and the compound. Some of it’s crude. Sorry, our spies did the best they could. Your father was able to get most of the engine rooms on his initial climb.”
As they left the safehouse, Lojen stopped and took one last look at his father’s body. Gripping his father’s talon, Lojen prayed. “Lead him to Your table, Zenith. May his actions in this life settle him at a seat near You in the Meadows. May his deeds be worthy of You. Let him be at peace, He Who Fathered the World. Until the end.”
In Marketside, the people—the regular ones, not the nobles invited to the party, but the miners, the shopkeepers, the vagrants—all wandered the streets with apprehension.
All knew at the drop of a coin; the city could implode upon itself on an evenfall such as this. Rebellion had dried out these people like fruit left in the sun for too long. They had to be so accustomed to the explosions, the riots, the open warfare, that it could happen at any moment. But this time, on the day their ‘benevolent’ ruler opened the gate to his home, the tension was palpable in the air.
“Remember,” Emre said, speaking in a normal voice through the radio in his earhole. “You’ll have to jump the gondola before the final building is passed. If you aren’t on the chain by then, the other ride might see you and the whole plan is ruined.”
“We aren’t stupid, humir.”
“Em, look,” Val whispered into the comm.
“What is it?” Lojen asked.
“The Arbiter’s bloody axe,” Emre breathed. “A scourge.”
“What do we do now?” Lojen backed Ruane into an alley. “This isn’t good.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, you Scurred Hatch.” Ruane put a clawed talon to the rounded protrusions above her eyes as humir did when they were dismayed by something. Or just in frustration.
Lojen craned his neck to look over the crowd. There, ahead of them was a cluster of Imperium guards about a block away from the tether. A barricade of fence and wheellock rifles. A long line of Drenth’s citizens waited to get on the gondola as the guards only allowed the people in by ones or twos. A pair of automatons hunkered across from the tether. Rounded heads with blinking orange lights.
But it was the scourge who stepped out of the recently docked gondola that drew Lojen’s attention.
This scourge was a woman of medium height and covered neck to boot in drake scale. Her dark, almost black hair was cut to her shoulders. She had a mouth that seemed in a forever pout. Her all-onyx eyes scanned the crowd as she rested her hand lightly upon a blackened blade sheathed at her hip. From where he stood, it almost looked like the blade had the outstretched wings of a bird.
“Em, it’s her.”
“I see that, Val.” There was slight panic in Emre’s voice. The scion of Drenth cursed unintelligibly in the radio. They knew this scourge and it set Lojen on edge.
“Everyone keep calm,” one of the Imperium guards said with a raised voice to the crowded nobles as the scourge watched on, scrutinizing the crowd. “We had to replace one of our gondolas due to a malfunction with the aethecite engine. Routine maintenance is all. Please have your tickets visible and we’ll get you up to the party in no time.”
“What do you think, Em?”
“A minor setback, Val. We planned for this eventuality. Maybe not necessarily a scourge right from the jump, nor her, but it’ll be fine. Ruane, you still got those charges I gave you?” The urgency in Emre’s tone told Lojen that they hadn’t expected this.
Who is this scourge?
“Of course, you think I’d lose them?”
“You need to back away slowly, don’t make a scene. If she, the scourge, notices you, it could ruin everything. We can’t let her see us. Yet.”
“Why do you think we ducked into an alleyway the moment you said something?” That was the wardkeeper buried in Lojen speaking now.
“Good,” Emre said. “We’ll come to you.”
