It took weeks for the fallout from the Ikeda raid to settle.

  Initially, it was seen as somewhat of a debacle. Although the 238th had accomplished their goal, nearly a fifth of them lay dead on the estate grounds. Among their number were some of the most promising recruits—such as Prodigy—along with several of the Vitrian volunteers, who were much more important to those in power.

  While such casualties were not unheard of among the Auxilia as a whole, they were usually slanted toward the weak and inexperienced. To lose so many qualified soldiers in a single engagement was an embarrassment. So it was no surprise that the first headlines read:

  Centre’s Final Blow? Slaughter in Ashad-Vitri!

  Opinion turned five days later with the Governor’s first press conference. Williams had wisely kept his head down in those early days, taking neither credit nor blame until events aligned to provide him a narrative he could control.

  The complete dismantlement of the Bones of Ashad.

  Following Centre’s capture—and the trove of documents and confessions that were taken—the Watch and Auxilia killed or arrested hundreds of additional seditionists and collaborators across the breadth of Ashad. Such successful raids, Williams explained to the press, were made possible by the sacrifices of those lost during the ‘Ikeda Incident’.

  The 238th were martyrs in the truest sense, men and women who had willingly given their lives to secure the peace of Ashad. Or so the Governor told it, and the media repeated.

  Alarion found it hard to truly hate Williams. Yes, the Governor had refused to send the garrison to their aid—even after being warned about the False Heart—but he was merely the instrument of the refusal, not the cause. Any Vitrian in his position would have made the same decision, because the rot was at the heart of their culture. Blaming Williams, or any of them, was like shouting at individual drops of rain for causing a flood.

  But that didn’t mean Alarion had to like the man.

  “It is grim, I know. It will be over soon, Orphan,” Williams said quietly from the seat beside him. “This sort of thing gets easier with time.”

  “Should it?” Alarion asked, failing to keep the bite out of his voice.

  “Probably not,” the Governor conceded. “But it will, regardless.”

  The two of them stood in positions of honor on a high stage erected in front of the Governor’s palace. It had been built for the 238th’s Show of Arms, a celebratory affair marking the beginning of something new. Instead, it marked the headstone of that idealism.

  At least they’d had the good sense to take down the decorations, though little bits of colored paper still flitted about the courtyard as well-drilled soldiers draped one flag after another across cedar caskets. They were flags of red, white, and black, a warped octagon with three slivers cut out. An Imperial flag.

  Alarion’s jaw tightened.

  These were dead Ashadi, draped in the colors of the nation that had conquered them, enslaved them, and sent them to die. Even in death, they were being used—put on parade with the rest of their comrades and weighed down with honors before the cameras. Williams’ earlier speech about unity and sacrifice would be rebroadcast to half the world—another feather in his cap. Alarion’s own would reach just as far, and the twin documents in his pockets felt heavy as lead as a result.

  One was the speech Williams had prepared for him. It was short and succinct, full of flowery language that said almost nothing. It praised the resilience of Ashad and the strength of its people, but never once by name. They were subjects, and Ashad was the province. The speech was safe, inoffensive, and empty. He couldn’t read it.

  The other was a rambling mess containing every thought that had been boiling within him for the better part of a week, if not his entire life. In it, he called the Vitrians butchers and cowards for their failure to act, laying the dead of the 238th at their feet. He wrote about the cover-up of Shae-Yomag and the truth of the Trinity. He called them bastards, slavers, and liars. He couldn’t read that one either. They’d censor his words in the press and then hang him for his temerity.

  In truth, Alarion had no idea what to say. What was he supposed to tell the 238th? Or Ashad?

  Or those flag-draped coffins.

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  None of it was his fault, yet all of it felt like his responsibility. It was unfair, bordering on cruel, but the world was what it was. Elena had died cowering behind a husband she loved and feared. Sierra had died, caught between her obligation to her family and her ambition to save his life by bringing him into the fold. His mother had died forgotten and alone a thousand miles from home. Nothing was fair, and none of it felt right.

  It was the world that was wrong.

  Distorted.

  “Orphan,” Williams urged, drawing his attention back to reality.

  The ceremony was finished, and all eyes were on Alarion as he stepped up to the podium. A microphone waited for him there, filling the courtyard with a gentle hum as his breath washed over it.

  For a moment, he said nothing. Alarion reached for his left pocket, then stopped. He couldn’t read that. He just couldn’t.

  Familiar faces spread out before him. Kali stood with his back to Alarion, his steely gaze watching the ranks for any sign of disorder. Bergman stood at attention, his left sleeve pinned in place, his spirits high as ever despite the crippling injury. Witch was there, for once without her enormous hat, and Archer lingered almost unnoticed at the rear of the column.

  And Lily. He hadn’t expected to see the dark-haired Vitrian again once they left Ilvan-Trai—given her reassignment—but apparently she’d been right on their heels. Mixed in among the civilian observers, she looked his way a few times but refused to meet his eyes. He’d never been good at reading her, and he was even worse now.

  Did she hate him for what had happened to Bergman? Or was she still angry at him for what he’d said back at Ilvan-Trai? Either way, she’d been avoiding his attempts at a one-on-one conversation for days.

  Behind him, Williams cleared his throat, but it didn’t help. Alarion was fully aware that he needed to speak; he could see the awkward glances ahead of him, the general unease as his silence continued to stretch.

  “Just tell them what you are feeling,” Nessa said.

  Alarion looked down to see her staring up at him from the foot of the stage, her expression a mixture of concern and annoyance. They’d talked over his options leading up to the ceremony—several times in fact—and her advice had always been the same. He didn’t need a treatise full of his grievances against the Vitrians any more than he needed to recite Williams’ propaganda.

  It was always better when he spoke from the heart.

  “This did not need to happen.” A quiet murmur accompanied his words, and Alarion felt the heat of Williams’ glare burning into his back.

  “These men, women, even children should still be alive,” he continued. “What happened last week was inexcusable.”

  “Orphan,” Williams warned, just loud enough for Alarion to hear.

  “There is something wrong with our world. I do not know what, or how, or why, but I think most of us feel it. It is what creates men like Centre, men who view the lives of others as a currency to be spent toward their goals. Our comrades should not be dead, because men like Centre should not exist. But so long as they do, we will spend our lives—and theirs.”

  The Governor was all smiles as he approached the podium, “Spoken straight from the-

  “But so long as you follow me, martyrs, I give you my word,” Alarion told them, his voice steeled with resolve. “We will find that distortion, and we will cut it out.”

  “Enough,” Williams hissed, though Alarion had already finished.

  The young man gave a final salute to his command, then turned and marched through the stage’s crimson backdrop and down the stairs hidden behind it. Williams was already doing his best to twist Alarion’s words into something patriotic, but Alarion didn’t care. He’d said what he needed to in a way that still toed the line. The Governor would be angry, but he could stay that way for all Alarion cared.

  Alarion’s boots clicked against the stone steps as he made his way toward the palace. Much as he longed to be done with the day’s events, it was only hours before the Governor’s ball. He needed space, an opportunity to recharge and steady his resolve, lest some smirking Vitrian say the wrong thing and get what they had coming to them.

  He’d only made it halfway up the enormous stairway when he heard her voice.

  “-rion!” Lily called out, half his name drowned out by the keening of ceremonial horns in the courtyard below. She had the hem of her black dress pulled up to her knees, the fabric bunched in her fists as she scampered up the stairs behind him in absurdly tall heels. She was panting and sweating, her eyes wide with a mixture of relief, annoyance and steadfast resolve. “By the Mothers, are you deaf?!”

  “No,” he said, aware of how feeble the word was as soon as it left his lips.

  Alarion didn’t know what to say to Lily, not after their last conversation. An apology was in order, obviously, but he didn’t even know where to begin.

  Somehow, he did not think ‘I am sorry that I implied you were a whore’ would go over especially well.

  “I am glad you are…” his eyes drifted past her as he spoke, a frown blooming on his lips.

  Two men were climbing the stairs behind her. Their straight-backed posture screamed military, but their crisp Vitrian suits marked them as something else entirely. The Watch. And they were watching him, their eyes never wavering even as they split on either side of Lily.

  Oblivious to their presence, Lily said. “We need to talk, Alarion. About what I said back in-”

  “Alarion Two-Thirty-Eight,” the one on the left interrupted as he produced credentials from his left pocket. “You will come with us now.”

  “Excuse you?” Lily asked on Alarion’s behalf, her tone furious at the unexpected interruption. “Alarion is a guest of th-“

  “Do not interfere with the business of the Watch, Miss Hart,” the one on the right warned. “We wish to avoid an incident; you will come with us now.”

  “The Master Sergeant-“ Anger turned to horror on Lily’s face as she saw the resignation on his. “I… I did not.”

  “I know,” Alarion reassured her as he walked to meet the men. He knew it wasn’t her; they’d never let her get within arm’s reach if she’d been the one to point the finger. “May I ask where you are taking me?”

  “To Istal Prison,” the right one answered professionally.

  “For what reason?!” Lily asked, as if it weren’t obvious to all of them.

  “To take a confession.”