the east. They drifted in over Monk Worm, dropped chemical bombs in Daoud’s Bend. They were from Vale Briar, ignorant of the fact that Saergaeth and his entire armada had disappeared.
The city fumed and hissed. Two war engines, left to protect Isca, erupted in sudden fire. Gargoyles exploded as gun-stones passed between tower and sky. The glowing ornate face in Maruchine’s clock tower imploded. Coped gables were blown away. Crockets fell in a heavy rain of carven stone. They broke like ice against the street. Rent pipes spewed steam in ugly patterns on avenues suddenly alive with running people.
Sena heard the Klaxons from her prone position on the other side of Isca Castle. But time had fractured. Is this the past? Is this the present? The western skies were dark. The Pplarian guns had ceased to fire. She couldn’t see a trace of battle in the clouds.
She rolled her head to the left.
On the turret roof a sprinkling of hollow metallic granules rolled sorrowfully in the wind, inches from her cheek. A bitter fume wafted from them.
There were stones missing. Great blocks displaced like knocked-out teeth.
Something had coddled her in that brilliant terrible light. Something had stroked her like a tongue, beautiful and languorous and left her in this state of dread.
Sena tried to move but could only fumble. Her vision was skewed in new indefinite ways. She could see magnetic bands across the sky. The city’s architecture looked slippery and unreal.
Her head throbbed.
In the west, nothing stirred. She looked between the battlements, past a star, through a distant galaxy and into someplace lightless and deep.
The explosion tore her eyes back, up, or down . . . completely disoriented. An orange blossom. A pinwheel. A zeppelin on fire. She watched the Byun-Ghala tip into Isca Castle. Metal screamed against stone.
Sena spun. Her limbs were weak like molten candy. Her eyes refused to blink. She was looking at the accident. The airship crunching like an accordion against the castle cliffs. She was looking at the sun.
Time stutterd.
Snow or ash dwindled beyond the windows.
People stirred. Men in red coats. Cycles of light and dark. Sena’s eyelids fluttered open just in time to catch a dark shadow flicking over the room as a sheet of melting snow fell past the glass. She heard whispers.
“The High King is dead.”
The story came to her in pieces. His airship had left the battle, racing back to Isca in an effort save his life. The details were still foggy. A hawk had brought a note stating that Caliph had needed transfusions and surgery. Stat. The Byun-Ghala had escaped granulation, only to be hit by Saergaeth’s smaller front coming from the east. That offensive had stopped quickly when it was realized that Saergaeth himself had been vaporized with the rest of his fleet. But it was too late. By the time they surrendered, the Byun-Ghala had already been hit, crippled, crushed against the castle.
Sena sat up in Caliph’s bed. A doctor in a red coat looked at her from across the room with a terrified expression. She saw the Herald on a nearby stand, read the headlines in the largest, boldest typeface available to the press. Three words covered the entire page.
HIGH KING SLAIN! And below it: BRT VANISHED LIKE FALLOW DOWN! Perhaps people will start calling the town “Burnt” even though it doesn’t rhyme, like they call Fallow Down, “Fallen Down,” like Stonehavians have always used humor to deal with crippling loss.
What? How could she think about that! How could she be distracted from the headlines proclaiming Caliph’s death? There was a low ringing like tinnitus: musicians in the grand hall, she realized, playing subtle fugues. Why was the doctor staring at her so strangely?
Sena looked through the walls of the bedroom to where the High King’s body lay surrounded by several thousand candles that melted the grand hall into a dignified but ritualistic-looking cave. Around him, tapestries hung like chthonic draperies and flowstone.
Gadriel entered the bedroom. His eyes were red and frightened, devoid of their usual brightness. He nodded to her, almost shaking, and placed several embossed envelopes on a tortoiseshell table before stepping backward, shrinking, almost creeping away.
“Condolences are pouring in,” he whispered.
Am I . . . gods, what’s happening?
“Gadriel?”
His answer to her question was tense and fearful. “You are the queen. The Council, what is left of it, called a meeting . . . last night. With the exception of General Yrisl, all of our ranking officers are . . .” He stopped.
Obviously there