EPILOGUE
I COME TO SLOWLY, SHEDDING THE HAZY DREGS OF A DREAMLESS SLUMBER. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. Above me, a familiar ceiling comes into focus.
How many times over the years must I have woken up in The Paragon’s infirmary? Dozens? Hundreds?
As it tends to happen, I don’t remember how I got here. My memory is hazy, soft-edged. Tender, if such a thing was even possible. Movement beside the bed catches my eye.
Ludwig Schloss, my mentor, my protector, the Supreme Strategos of the Republic of Widesight, sits in a chair just a few feet away.
“How are you feeling?” he asks gently, concern threading through every word.
“Like a pod crashed on top of me.”
His smile is warm. Affectionate. It soothes some of the discomfort I felt upon gaining consciousness. “You were in pretty bad shape when we broke you out.”
Broke you out.
And suddenly, it all comes rushing back.
Zephyr Kaelthorn’s lies. His plot to use me to find the equipment only to keep it for himself and his filthy rebel faction.
As if that wasn’t enough, he captured me.
Tortured me. Until all I knew was pain, pain, pain.
My last memory of that dark, dank cell is of Zephyr’s silhouette, looming on the other side of the bars, the glint of a blade lifted in silent threat . . . right before Ludwig came for me.
Hate sears through my veins, hot and electric. I turn my attention back to my mentor. “Thank you, Supreme, for coming to get me.”
He reaches across the sterile sheets and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze. “My sweet girl, of course I came for you. I’d never leave you with those savages. I only wish I’d gotten there sooner.”
He shouldn’t have needed to. It was my own fault to get captured, on top of having failed the mission.
“Did you get them?”
His expression dims. “No. They escaped during the extraction.”
“We need to find them.” The words were out before I had half a mind to stop them.
Him. I need to find him.
The man who played me, used me, and then cut me into pieces until all I knew was pain at the edge of his blade.
Zephyr Kaelthorn.
Ludwig’s lip twitches, curving into a smile that’s anything but kind. I know it well, and the venom in it resonates with the cold, hollow music playing in my chest.
“Indeed,” he says, leaning back in his chair. One thick, greying eyebrow arches. “What do you say, Centurion Lachlan? Ready for your next assignment?”
I don’t even bother uttering the word out loud. He knows I am.
This time, it’s not a mere matter of justice, or hunting the rebels and punishing them for the hate and pain they bring to the world. No need for Ludwig to use veiled threats or rewards.
This time, the hunt has a name and a surname, and it burns with something that’s much, much colder than ice.
Revenge.