the crown and let the Emperor’s Intent flow unfettered into his.
He wasn’t wearing a crown that belonged to someone else. He was wearing the Emperor’s crown. His crown.
He was the Emperor, and even Estyr Six was subject to his will.
Distantly, he heard someone shout behind him. “No!”
The Emperor addressed his oldest and most powerful subject. “Estyr. Stop.”
He felt it work even before he saw the effects. Her Intent shook like a sheet in a stiff wind. Here, her legendary power and sensitivity as a Reader were her weaknesses; she could see that he wasn’t the Emperor she knew, she could hear a voice that sounded nothing like his, but her Reader’s senses contradicted and overrode all others.
Her power relaxed. Just for a second.
That was enough for Baldezar Kern.
Even as Teach sat up, gasping, Kern stumbled forward. The force pinning him down was suddenly, unexpectedly, gone.
As Estyr looked around for the Emperor, as her expression began to change as she realized her mistake, the Head of the Champion’s Guild had already leaped into the air.
He swung one of his maces, the near-mythical weapons that had crushed a ship with every blow during the South Sea Rebellion. It slammed into Estyr’s chest, and from the point of impact, a fiery explosion bloomed into a crimson sun.
Along with everyone else on the street, the Emperor was blinded by a wave of light and heat. He felt the explosion in his bones, felt the Intent of the buildings on either side of the street melt away as they were seared by the Champion’s fiery power. Glass shattered and paint peeled and paving-stones cracked.
There came a far-off crash as Estyr was launched into a home at the far end of the street. The house collapsed around her.
On the other side, Kern had been driven away as well, and he had landed just as hard.
Kern’s own blow had been the strongest he could produce, strong enough that it would have staggered a Great Elder. He couldn’t withstand his own power…and in the same moment, Estyr had landed a hit of her own.
Now he lay in a limp pile, his armor falling from him in smoking pieces. He was crumpled as though every bone in his body had broken.
Teach staggered over to stand next to the Emperor, trying and failing to lift Tyrfang high enough to get it in the sheath over her shoulder. “Get…inside. She…may not…be…”
A bone-curdling cry tore through the air.
The Emperor turned to see Jorin Maze-walker, Regent of the South.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
He knew the man as well as he knew himself. They had spent centuries…
…no, wait, not centuries. He had met Jorin only briefly on the Gray Island.
Why couldn’t he remember Jorin? They had fought the Great Elders together. So why didn’t he remember that?
The Emperor remembered what the man was supposed to look like, at least. Instead of his trademark wide-brimmed hat, he wore a hood, and black-lensed glasses perched on his nose.
He was screaming in apparent anguish, swinging his sword.
His sword that carried an Intent of pure death.
The nameless weapon was the prototype for Teach’s Tyrfang. Its blade was rotten, corrupting, like a septic and leprous wound. But it held terrible, ancient power. Enough to blight forests with every cut.
And now he was swinging that weapon at the Emperor. His friend. His sworn ruler.
Hideous, rotting darkness swept toward him, and he stood exposed in the center of the street. There was nothing to do, nowhere to hide, and no time to react.
The Emperor would meet his demonstration with power. He raised one hand, gathering his Intent…
Teach shoved him behind her.
She held Tyrfang before herself with both hands, pumping out all the power she could from her Vessel, screaming as darkness met darkness. Horror and bloodshed filled the air, drowning out the Intent from the crown.
Overwhelmed, Calder’s mind shut down.
His body crumbled to the stone.
Calder was shaken awake to see Cheska leaning over him.
Her hat was gone, her hair tied back, her face smeared with soot and blood. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but she was staring at him in shock.
Her expression brightened on seeing his eyes open, and she seized him by his arm, pulling him roughly to his feet. “Not the time to lie down on the job, Captain.”
Still dazed, Calder leaned on her and tried to sort through his recent memories. He remembered Estyr, and then…
He’d been powerful.
He’d been ancient.
He’d been…someone else.
Before he could organize his thoughts, a violent stench penetrated his consciousness, and he gagged. It