Transportation
In the morning, Math watched as they dragged bodies into the open. It was painfully clear how many of the dead had fallen to other Idallik Knights—men and women he’d known, trained beside, laughed with.
It was just as clear how many of the living thought Math was responsible for the dead.
“He was under arrest last night, too, and look how much damage he did.” The knight wasn’t shouting, but only just. A knot of them had gathered in the courtyard, righteous and vengeful. Math had no doubt what kind of justice they thought he deserved. “He killed Captain Rabu.”
“And a good thing, too,” Captain Danvi called out from across the courtyard.
Math was relieved she’d survived—though she’d only done so because she’d fallen asleep at her desk in the Library of Legacies and missed the fighting entirely.
“Captain Rabu killed half the people lying over there,” Commander Talu said, voice clipped.
“You’ll need a better argument.” He turned away from the protestor, back to Captain Qin of Riddles, who had already shackled Math into the back of a wagon.
“Stick to the main roads. I doubt the creatures will attack again so soon, but that’s hope, not certainty. ”
Math didn’t ask why they weren’t quickening their journey: the body of the Captain of Fields lay with the other corpses.
The only other person who could cast that spell (at least as far as Math knew) was Commander Talu.
He’d left at first light and was already back with reinforcements, but Talu was stretched thin.
He was hardly going to waste time personally escorting a suspected traitor who’d thrown in with the Kaliri …
or whoever was controlling those plants.
A sharp voice rang out behind them. “Wait—please.”
Tanxi.
Math closed his eyes. He hadn’t seen her since last night. He’d hoped, selfishly, that she was asleep or occupied elsewhere, sparing them both this moment.
But there she was, limping slightly, one arm bound in a sling, dirt and dried blood staining her cloak. Her face crumpled when she saw him in chains.
“Commander—please, don’t take him like this. He hasn’t even been—”
“You should be resting, Tanxi,” Commander Talu said without turning around. “You’re letting your emotions get the better of you.”
“But he’s not—” Her voice cracked. Tanxi swallowed, struggling to get herself under control. “He’s not what you think. It wasn’t—”
Math thought she was smarter than this. She couldn’t save him. All she could do was put herself in the same cage.
Well, at least he could stop that from happening.
“Just stop,” he growled. “Don’t pretend you care. You just don’t want to feel guilty.”
That landed like a slap. She flinched.
“I was trying to protect you,” she whispered.
“Funny how you’ve never once managed that,” Math said viciously.
Tanxi’s breath hitched, but she didn’t argue. She just stood there, shattered, as the knights finished securing the wagon. Then, slowly, her expression froze, hardened, turned to stone.
She spun on her heel and stalked away.
Math slumped in relief. At least no one was going to think she’d been colluding with him now. Maybe that she was naive and too trusting, but not a traitor.
“I didn’t do this, Commander,” Math said, not for the first time. The words tasted like ash. He shifted in the cage to keep a gear bag from jabbing into his back.
Talu shot him an annoyed look. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”
Captain Qin swung into the saddle. The knights fell into formation.
Math gave the courtyard one last look. Mud and blood. The scent of smoke. Bodies were still being carried out of the maze. Most people ignored the wagon as it rattled into motion.
He had spent nearly his entire life at Isofal Cenobium.
He never thought he’d leave like this: not hailed as a hero, but hauled away like a villain.
He shut his eyes and looked away before he lost control.
The snap of reins, the nickering of horses, and the soft jerk of the wagon as it started rolling were the only goodbyes he received.
No one spoke for hours.
They stopped a few times, just long enough for someone to unlock the shackle on Math’s leg and loosen his hands so he could relieve himself—always under close guard, weapons drawn, a spear tip grazing his throat.
Math didn’t blame them. He would’ve done the same. Who wouldn’t suspect a magically trained member of the Order over a gibbering civilian when half a fortress wall came crashing down?
But there was no way that the Queens were a Kaliri plot. These creatures were older than Kaliri or Rokasmaa.
The memory of Catimus Abhigan’s face rose again—bright with mischief, fully aware. Not enthralled or dull, vacant and under magical thrall. Not afraid, but proud and exultant.
Insane? Absolutely. Mad as a sack of shrieking hyenas, but not scared. Not the slightest bit scared.
Math hunched deeper into the corner of the wagon. The ache in his wrists had faded, but the rawness in his chest hadn’t. He couldn’t stop thinking about Tanxi’s face—shocked, stricken, guilty. He hadn’t even looked at her at the end.
The horrible thing is that Tanxi thought she was protecting him. She probably really had thought she was helping. It hurt to think about her lecturing him on controlling himself only for her to turn around and go straight to the commander.
Talu hadn’t hesitated.
And that hurt more than he could admit. Talu had taught him to cast his first spell. Had trained him, scolded him, praised him. He’d never called the man “Father,” but in the deepest corners of himself, Talu had worn that label right alongside Master Wadera.
Now one of those men was dead and the other had branded him a traitor.
“There was a time I thought you’d join my section,” said Captain Qin from the driver’s seat, his voice so soft Math nearly missed it.
They’d been riding all day. The sun hung low in the sky, its amber light slicing through the tree canopy.
“There was a time I wanted that too, Captain.”
“What changed? Or was it ever in question? Some of the knights were whispering that you must have Kaliri blood in you.”
Math scowled. “I’m from Valmaki County. Everyone here has some Kaliri blood. They make sure of it every time they invade.” His throat closed up again. “But I’d never—never—betray the Order.”
“I’m not the one you’ll have to convince,” Qin said, not turning around.
Math sat straighter. A spike of emotion surged in his gut—panic, fury, dread. It made no sense. He wasn’t feeling that way—
They weren’t his emotions.
“Someone’s nearby,” Math warned the captain.
The Queens? Was he feeling the Queens? No, he didn’t think so. This didn’t feel alien the way they had. This felt all too human.
Qin didn’t answer. “I hear the regent’s people are very good at pulling the truth—”
A chain of sharp, thunderous cracks split the air.
The back of Qin’s head exploded in a burst of blood and bone.
Something slammed into the wagon’s rear wall, splintering it apart.
Horses screamed. More cracks echoed—deafening, unnatural.
The panicked team of horses bolted, tangled and bleeding, then collapsed mid-run.
The wagon lurched and crashed into their bodies, hurling Math backward into a heap of armor bags.
Knights shouted. Strange voices answered in a foreign tongue, fast and clipped. The air filled with the smell of blood and sulfurous black powder.
The ambushers were deliberate. They picked off the horses first, then calmly and efficiently reloaded before executing the knights pinned beneath the fallen beasts.
Math twisted toward the wagon’s side, scrabbling for cover, working frantically at his bindings.
The shackle on his ankle was still locked. Useless.
He’d just freed his hands when a man rounded the wagon and aimed a long wood-and-metal tube directly at Math’s face.
The man was Kaliri.
Math had never seen a Kaliri in person, but the Kaliri had been too ever-present a threat for him not to recognize the descriptions.
Talu had been right?
Math had no idea how the weapon the Kaliri was holding worked, but considering how Captain Qin had just died, he could guess. Judging by the smell, it used black powder—and Kaliri was the only country that had refused to sign the Innalova Accords forbidding the use of black-powder weapons.
Math circled a Sun spell and set the man’s coat on fire.
The Kaliri startled, probably more worried about the powder charges he carried than the flames. But instead of screaming or patting himself down, he circled his own spell.
And the fire vanished.
He’s a mage, Math thought with horror. He’s a Kaliri mage.
The man smirked, lifting the weapon again, eye aligning with the barrel.
Then a horse reared and smashed its hooves into the man’s skull.
Math would’ve promised the stallion all the carrots in the world, except he didn’t think the horse would care. The horse was already dead.
Its side had been torn open. It shouldn’t have been able to stand, let alone charge. Yet it did—glass-eyed, bleeding—and trampled the Kaliri assassin before turning on the others.
Math peered over the side of the wagon.
Fog had drifted in from the trees, pale fingers snaking through the ditches. The setting sun painted twisted shadows across the forest floor. Everything looked stretched, surreal.
The horse wasn’t alone.
Knights were rising, one by one—some missing limbs, others with crushed torsos. Captain Qin’s face was a mask of gore, one eye rolling blindly. Still he moved, just like the others.
They attacked the Kaliri in grim silence, unflinching and methodical. Math watched one knight get shot point-blank in the chest, stagger back—then snatch the weapon and beat its wielder to death with it.
None spoke as they went about killing their murderers with great industry.
The ambush had turned into a rout.
Math’s wrists were free, but his ankle wasn’t. He could use magic to erode the links, given time—but he didn’t have time.
He glanced around for the key. In theory, the captain had it, but Captain Qin’s corpse had wandered off.
Then the sound of the fighting stopped. He didn’t hear a groan or a breath: the silence was complete.
Math sat up, heart hammering.
Bodies lay scattered everywhere: Idallik Knights, horses, Kaliri assassins. All were still and lifeless.
Something moved behind him.
He turned—and found himself face-to-face with the thing he feared most.
She hadn’t changed much since the night before. Her hair was windblown and tousled now, but her dress was still scandalously thin. Midnight eyes watched him without apology or shame. Her presence … pulled at him, like a rope knotted behind his sternum he couldn’t untie.
The grim lord Kaiataris dangled a familiar iron key from her fingertip. “Need this, fair knight?”
“Give that to me.”
She tilted her head, smiling faintly, then descended from the berm like a noblewoman trying not to dirty her hem. She handed him the key. Her brow arched at how violently he snatched it away from her.
Then she turned her back and began picking through corpses.
Math frowned. He was pretty sure he’d just been dismissed as inconsequential.
Math unlocked the shackle and scrambled out of the wagon.
He snatched up the long, thin not-a-bombard from the Kaliri agent who’d unsuccessfully tried to shoot him.
The weapon was essentially a metal tube attached to a wooden stock of the crossbow type, designed to make it more comfortable to seat against one’s shoulder.
A covered chamber filled with black powder sat at the beginning of the metal section, itself capped by a small, mirrored half dome.
Underneath the metal tube was something similar to a crossbow’s release mechanism.
Delicate whorls and patterns had been engraved into the metal to resemble smoke.
How to use it seemed obvious enough: he braced the weapon against his shoulder and aimed it at Kaiataris.
“These aren’t bandits, are they?” she asked, not bothering to look up.
“No.”
Math tightened his grip on the wooden underguard.
He didn’t put his hand on the trigger just yet—he was unsure how much force was required to set it off.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure that would work—he’d always been taught that bombards required lit fuses to ignite the black powder, and he saw nothing like that here.
Then again, bombard cannons were giant monstrosities as large as a full-grown adult lying on their side, while this was a previously unknown handheld variety.
A previously unknown but undeniably lethal variety.
Kaiataris kneeled beside Captain Qin’s body.
“Get away from him.”
She paused, turned, papers in hand. Her eyes flicked to the strange weapon. “Are you angry at me? For what possible reason?”
“That was a captain of the Idallik Order. I won’t let you desecrate his body with—whatever obscenity you’re planning.”
She tucked the pages under her arm and stood. “Shall I remind you that the obscenity I just committed was saving your life? Twice in the last day, if memory serves.”
“It’s not—” The weapon wavered. “Why would you even do that? Why would a grim lord save anyone? Let alone me?” He gazed at all the corpses littering the battlefield.
“My order is never going to believe I’m not a traitor now.
This is going to look like the Kaliri attacked to recover their agent. Were they under your orders?”
“My orders?” she scoffed. “Did I not just slay them all?”
“They worship you. You could order them to their deaths and they’d go gladly.”
“They what?” Her voice leaped to a pitch of incredulous outrage. “They worship me? Why would they worship me?”
“Because you’re a grim lord? You lot love that kind of thing!”
He didn’t understand what he was feeling, but he didn’t like it. The emotions pouring into him were raw, overwhelming: confusion, panic, disgust, wounded pride.
She studied him long and hard, then said quietly, “Then I suppose I should start with the obvious.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“What in the world is a grim lord?”