Bits of dust fell from the ceiling. It was dark anyway, so Elfri kept her eyes shut and listened. Strained to hear beyond the shaking earth and the groaning of her underground hideaway, currently stuffed with more civilians than mobsmen. Some of the folk had nowhere else to go. Most were too afraid to try. It wasn’t like the government would do anything for them. Even in crisis, they just wanted their factories run. The people had rebelled, and no wonder, but Elfri had convinced many of them to put down their clubs and metal bars and join her men. They needed order, just not the government’s.
Someone whispered to her left, and Elfri held up a hand, silencing them. The monster had never come this close to the boardinghouse before, but . . . yes, the footsteps were finally moving away. South. Toward the Innerchord. But that place had already been demolished, hadn’t it?
She had to see for herself.
“Stay put,” she ordered, her voice carrying in the stiff silence of the room. “Snuffs, Rufus, with me.”
The mobsmen fell in line behind her, and the crowd parted to allow them into the maze that led back to ground level. The earth still trembled rhythmically, but it softened with each beat.
“Sherig,” Rufus said. She didn’t think a single man here remembered her real name. They’d used the nickname even before her husband, Grim Rig, died. She didn’t mind. “Let me go first.”
“Take your chivalry and shove it between your legs, Rufus,” Elfri snapped, and she pushed her way to the concrete stairs.
The night sky seemed so bright compared to that dark basement, even with the extinguished lamps hanging outside the buildings of what used to be a busy street. She could even see a few stars; the drastic decline of working factories had cleared some of the haze that perpetually loomed over the city like an umbrella. But stars didn’t matter.
She could see the monster’s shadow, even from here. It took shape against strips of clouds highlighted by the numen’s natural glow. The curve of its wings and the top of its head. It wasn’t knocking buildings down this time, wasn’t roaring or throwing a fit. Pat had said Kazen had been killed. Then why was the monster the grafters called Kolosos still here?
Elfri slipped into the boardinghouse, where yet more terrified citizens took up space, many pressed to windows to watch the numen trudge across the city. Elfri took to the stairs, her men close behind her. She climbed until her thighs ached, and opened the door to the roof with a smack of her large fist. This high up, she could see the monster to his shoulder blades, moving with a strange calmness toward the Innerchord.
Snuffs scoffed. “There’re still lights on the wall. Even now, they won’t let anyone escape.”
Soldiers had been running through the city, demanding men join the army. If so much as a child slipped past the four-story wall, he’d be labeled and charged as a deserter.
They sickened her. All of them. She was recruiting her own men, preparing the Riggers for whatever the future held. But none of them would wear the blue uniform.
Elfri squinted. What are you doing?
She had to get closer.
“Get the horses,” she ordered.
“The army will see—” Rufus began to object, but one sharp look from Elfri silenced him. He nodded and hurried back down the stairs.
Gold.
That’s what the enormous fire bull had collected. She recognized the precious metal that had been stripped from the remnants of the cathedral, Degrata, and Lily Tower scattered among other bits and chunks piled in the open space in front of the demolished Innerchord. Elfri watched from atop the library. She wasn’t alone; a smattering of other brave souls had climbed to watch Kazen’s rogue beast. Elfri thought she saw a few soldiers below, but it was too dark to be sure. Maybe they’d finally figured out it was futile to stand around shooting cannonballs at a walking volcano.
Kolosos bent and extended a massive hand, pressing it into the pile of gold. It hissed and squealed loud enough that, even from this distance, Elfri needed to cover her ears.
A man on the far corner of the roof gasped. He had a telescope held to his eye.
Elfri made her way to him, grateful for her size in a way she never had been as a girl. She tapped him firmly on the shoulder. “Give that to me.”
He eyed her. “But—”
Elfri snatched the telescope and shoved him aside, where her ever-faithful Riggers caught him.
Pressing her eye to the telescope, Elfri centered it on the monster as soon as it straightened. Move, you blundering—
And it did, revealing its creation. Was that a . . . plate? A platform of gold? But why—
Then the screaming started.
Elfri nearly dropped the telescope, and despite herself, sweat pooled in her palms and under her arms. She set her jaw and stiffened her shoulders—she hadn’t shown fear once during all of this, and she would not relent to it now. Everything would fall apart the moment she showed fear. Her men, her efforts to keep the civilians alive, her sanity.
But the monster didn’t seem to notice them on the roof. Its focus was elsewhere. Moving swiftly for its size, it whipped out its fiery arms and grabbed someone in its now-blackened claws. The person screamed and screamed, but the monster didn’t crush or burn him, merely dropped him onto the plate. And waited.
Elfri held her breath. By the time she needed to gasp for air, the man on the plate simply walked off it. No screams, no hesitation. He didn’t even run.
What on earth? She passed the telescope to Snuffs and squinted.
The monster lashed out at someone new, and another volley of screams filled the air. The soldiers did nothing. The scarlets did nothing.
And it was about time somebody did.
Sandis glared at the uniformed men guarding Triumvir Var’s back door. Two of them, with Helderschmidt rifles slung at their sides and short swords at their hips. One ignored her. The other glared right back.
They were everywhere, at every door and in the yard. Now that Kolosos had returned, the powers that be were keeping a close eye on all the vessels.
From what Sandis could see from her distant vantage point, he was not recklessly destroying the city as Kazen had done.
The thundering of boots near the front of the house drew Sandis’s attention from the men blocking her exit. “It’s gone! Kolosos is gone!”
Turning so quickly it hurt her ankle, Sandis ran toward the front of the house, to the kitchen, where all three triumvirs paced across expensive tiles. A map of the circular city lay open on the dining table, with different colored pins and weights strewn across it. General Istrude and Chief Esgar had left to watch the monster with their men. Oz was on the roof with his vessels, guarded by more soldiers. High Priest Dall, along with Cleric Liddell and Priestess Marisa, had been given permission to hold vigil for the local citizens, to “keep up their morale,” as Triumvir Holwig put it. But the Angelic hovered over the corner of the table, staring at the map, the lines of his face deeper than Sandis had ever seen them.
She wondered if he worried for his son at all.
Triumvir Var’s narrow gaze focused on the blue-clad messenger. “Where? Is it being followed?”
The soldier saluted. “The monster headed south, sir. Leapt the wall and crumbled part of it, but it stands. General Istrude himself is in pursuit with his company.”
Sandis’s heart thrashed in her chest. Anon. She wanted them to find him. And yet fear dug its claws into her.
Would they kill him if they found him, even after reclaiming the amarinth?
He hadn’t chosen this. None of them had. But life was often cruel and unfair—his lack of culpability might not save him.
She wished for the millionth time Rone were here. He’d know what to do.
Pushing her sentiments away, Sandis strained to focus on the conversation between the soldiers and the triumvirs.
“Who is controlling him?” Triumvir Var asked.
“None of the scouts found a summoner close to the numen.” The soldier went on to describe a massive gold disc in the Innerchord, formed by Kolosos himself.
“It placed civilians on it, sir. It squelched their will to fight completely. We’ve apprehended several of them to be questioned.”
“Where?” asked Triumvir Peterus.
“Gerech, sir. They . . . They won’t communicate with us. Not the way they should. I don’t know much; I was sent to inform you of Kolosos’s vanishing. They . . . They don’t see us. They fight against us, muttering about gold.”
Gold. Sandis’s brands itched. She scratched them. Fought the memory of Kaili laid out on that cursed table, her script ripped from her back. Of Alys, hers bottled and sold.
Why gold?
She thought she heard the whirring of the amarinth and turned to look, but of course there was nothing there.
Triumvir Var growled. “I want a full report by dawn, do you understand me? I want identification of all these people and any who weren’t apprehended. I want Kolosos’s vessel found!”
The soldier saluted and held the stance until Triumvir Var dismissed him.
Once he’d left, Triumvir Peterus said, “We should empty Gerech. Fill our ranks.”
Triumvir Var clutched the countertop. “With half-starved criminals?”
“They may not all be half-starved.”
The counter, which came from Jachim, startled Sandis. She’d forgotten he was there.
“The numen is altering Kazen’s tactics,” the scholar said, oblivious to the stress thickening the air in the room. “How interesting.”
Triumvir Var grumbled and rubbed his forehead. “You find interest in stupid things, Franz.”
“No.”
They all turned toward the Angelic, who remained hovering over the map laid out on the table. The holy man didn’t meet their eyes. “No, it is interesting. Because it means Kolosos is using strategy. It has a plan.”
A chill coursed down the length of Sandis’s body.
“Impossible,” scoffed Triumvir Peterus.
But Sandis didn’t agree. “The numina . . . they’re not merely animals. They’re . . . more. At least, some of them are.”
All eyes bore into her, and Sandis hugged herself, as though she could shield her body from the stares. It was so strange, talking openly about the occult. Once, it would have been enough of a crime for her to be thrown into the very prison they’d just mentioned.
“Ireth is, what’s the word—”
“Sentient?” Jachim supplied.
Sandis nodded. “He thinks individually. He acts on his summoner’s will because of the blood bond. No blood, no bond. Some . . . Some are not the same.” Hapshi’s gaze held no banked intelligence, and Kuracean had gone wild as soon as Kazen’s hold on it dissolved. “But Kolosos . . . I don’t think a being can have that much power and not know it. I think it’s using its vessel the same way I use Ireth.”
Jachim brightened. “And fueling its host with the energy in the amarinth.” He began sketching something.
Sandis hugged herself tighter. “But I can’t summon him completely. Not into myself. What Kolosos is doing is complete.”
Jachim shrugged. “It is a magic we don’t entirely understand, so hypothetically, anything is possible. The monster has the vessel, and it has the amarinth. An amarinth made of the combined energy of a vessel and a numen. There may be more power in it than we understand. Still, there is hope. Kolosos does not thrive here. Its vessel is growing weak. I’ve been documenting its visits, and they are getting progressively shorter. If we hold out long enough, maybe the monster will burn itself out.”
Sandis swallowed. If Kolosos burned itself out, it would be because its vessel died.
“And the country will burn with it,” Triumvir Var snapped.
Jachim slammed a fist onto one of his books. “If only I could study it.”
Sandis turned toward the Angelic. He met her eyes, then merely said, “I must pray. Alone.” And departed without a backward glance.
Triumvir Var said, “We will use what we do have. You two should rest; there will be little time for it in the coming days. We must do whatever we can to stop Kolosos. Rip up this gold plate. Find these . . . hypnotized persons. Kill its vessel—”
Sandis could not stifle the small gasp that sucked through her lips.
“—destroy the amarinth. We will use everything we have.” He passed a hard glance at Sandis. “Everything.”