LITMIR.BIZ

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turning him into a patch of shadow before the city.

      “I told you that we would come to Delos, and we have!” he called out. “I told you that we would take their city, and we will!”

      He waited until the cheer that followed died down.

      “I gave the scouts we sent back to them a message, and it is one I intend to fulfill!” This time, Irrien didn’t wait. “Every man, woman, and child of the Empire is now a slave. Any you meet without a master’s mark is there for you to catch and do with what you are strong enough to. Any who claims to have property is lying to you, and you may take it. Any who disobeys us is to be punished. Any who resists us is in rebellion, and will be treated without mercy!”

      Mercy was another of those jokes that people liked to pretend was real, Irrien had found. Why would a man allow an enemy to live unless it gained him something? The dust taught simple lessons: If you were weak, you died. If you were strong, you took what you could from the world.

      Now, Irrien intended to take everything.

      The biggest part of this was how alive he felt right then. He’d fought his way up to become First Stone, only to realize there was nowhere left to go. He’d felt himself starting to stagnate in the politics of the city, playing out the petty squabbles of the other stones to amuse himself. This, though… this promised to be so much more.

      “Ready yourselves!” he shouted to his men. “Obey my orders, and we will succeed. Fail, and you will be less than dust to me.”

      He stepped back over to the spot where the former sailor still lay, his head extended beyond the edge of the ship. He probably thought that was the extent of it. Irrien had found that they hoped things would get no worse, instead of seeing the danger and acting.

      “You could have died fighting,” he said, his great sword still lifted. “You could have died a man, rather than a pitiful sacrifice.”

      The man turned, staring up at him. “You said… you said that you didn’t believe in that.”

      Irrien shrugged. “Priests are fools, but people believe their foolishness. If it will inspire them to fight harder, who am I to object?”

      He pinned the slave in place with one boot, making sure that all those there could see it. He wanted everyone to see the moment when his conquest began.

      “I give you to death,” he called out. “You, and all who stand against us!”

      He brought his sword down, stabbing into the pitiful scum’s chest, spearing the heart. Irrien didn’t wait. He lifted it again, and for once, his headsman’s blade performed its original duty. It cleaved through the enslaved sailor’s neck cleanly. Not mercy, but pride, because the First Stone would never keep a weapon with less than a perfect edge.

      He lifted the blade with the edge still bloody.

      “Begin!”

      Horns sounded, the sky filled with fire as the catapults launched and archers shot arrows out toward their foes. Smaller ships snaked out toward their targets.

      For a moment, Irrien found himself thinking of this “Akila,” the man who had to be standing there waiting for what was to come. He wondered if his would-be foe was afraid right then.

      He should be.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Thanos knelt over the body of his brother, and for a moment or two it felt as though the world had stopped. He didn’t know what to think or feel in that moment. He didn’t know what to do next.

      He’d been expecting some sense of triumph when he finally killed Lucious, or at least some sense of relief that it was finally all over. He’d been expecting to finally feel that the people he cared about were safe.

      Instead, Thanos found grief welling up inside him, tears falling for a brother who had probably never deserved them. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that Lucious was his half-brother, and he was gone.

      He was dead, with Thanos’s dagger in his heart. Thanos could feel Lucious’s blood on his hands, and there seemed like so much of it to hold in one body. Some small part of him expected there to be something different about it all, for there to be some sign there of the madness that had gripped Lucious, or the grasping evil that had seemed to fill him. Instead, Lucious was just a silent, empty shell.

      Thanos wanted to do something then for his brother; to see him buried, or hand him to a priest at least. Even as he thought of it, though, he knew that he couldn’t. His brother’s own words meant that it was impossible.

      Felldust was invading the Empire, and if Thanos wanted to be able to do anything to help the people he cared about, he had to go now.

      He stood, collecting his sword, ready to race for the door. He took Lucious’s as well. Of all the things his brother had held close, the tools of violence had seemed like the closest. Thanos stood there with them both in his hands, surprised to find how well they matched. He was almost as surprised to find a collection of the inn’s patrons blocking his way.

      “He said you were Prince Thanos,” a bushy-bearded man said, fingering the edge of a knife. “That true?”

      “The stones will pay good money for a captive like you,” another said.

      A third nodded. “And if they don’t, the slavers will.”

      They started forward, and Thanos didn’t wait. Instead, he charged. His shoulder slammed into the nearest, knocking him back into a table. Thanos was already lashing out, cutting at the arm of the knifeman.

      Thanos heard him cry out as the blade bit into his forearm, but he was already moving, kicking the third man back into a spot where four men hadn’t stopped playing dice, even for the battle he’d just had with Lucious. One of them snarled and turned then, grabbing at the thug.

      In moments, the inn managed to do what it hadn’t when Lucious had been the one fighting: it erupted into a full-scale brawl. Men who had been content to stand by while Thanos and his brother traded sword blows now threw punches and drew knives. One grabbed for a chair, swinging it at Thanos’s head. Thanos sidestepped, hacking a lump from the wood as he redirected the swing into yet another of the patrons.

      He could have stayed to fight, but the thought of the danger Ceres might be in pushed him into a run. He’d been so sure that he could stop the invasion if he only got to Lucious, and then there would be enough time to find the truth about his parentage, discover the proof he needed, and make his way back to Delos. Now, there was no time for any of it.

      Thanos sprinted for the door. He dropped and skidded under the grabbing hands of a man who tried to stop him, scraping a shallow cut across his thigh. He ran out into the streets there…

      …straight into some of the worst dust Thanos had seen since he’d come to the city. He didn’t slow. He just jammed his twin blades into his belt, pulled up his scarf against the dust, and pushed forward as best he could.

      Behind him, Thanos could hear the sounds of men trying to follow, although how they hoped to see him well enough to catch up in this weather, he didn’t know. Thanos groped his way along like a blind man, passing a merchant who was packing away his cart, then a pair of soldiers who were cursing as they huddled in a doorway against the dust.

      “Look at that madman!” Thanos heard one of them call in Felldust’s tongue.

      “Probably hurrying to join the invasion. I hear Fourth Stone Vexa has started to send more of a fleet, while the other three are still plotting. The First Stone has stolen a march on them.”

      “Always does,” the first replied.

      Thanos was away into the dust by then though, seeking his route by the vague shapes of the buildings, watching out for the signs that hung above the streets, lit by oil lamps. There were stone carvings too, obviously intended so that the locals could find their way from the street of the carved bear to that of the knotted snakes by touch if they needed.

      Thanos didn’t know enough about the system to be able to use it, but even so, he pressed on through the dust.

      There

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