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TEN ARROWS OF IRON

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ASHES OF THE SUN

Book One of Burningblade & Silvereye

by

Django Wexler

Long ago, a magical war destroyed an empire, and a new one was built in its ashes. But still the old grudges simmer, and two siblings will fight on opposite sides to save their world in the start of Django Wexler’s new epic fantasy trilogy.

Gyre hasn’t seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order. Now, twelve years after her disappearance, Gyre’s sole focus is revenge, and he’s willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order.

Chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his lost sister. But she isn’t who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order’s cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood can keep them from splitting the world in two.

Prologue

Gyre and Maya were playing ghouls and heroes. Gyre had to be the ghoul, of course. Maya would never tolerate being anything less than a hero.

Summer was in full flower, and the sun was alone in a pale blue sky, with only a few wisps of cloud at the horizon. They’d already had the dramatic sword fight, and Gyre had been defeated with appropriate hissing and choking. Now he lay on his back, dead, and Maya had planted one foot on his stomach, hands on her hips in a heroic pose.

“… an’ now I’m queen,”

she shouted at the top of her lungs. “An’ there’ll be peace an’ justice an’ all, an’ everyone’s got to do what I say. Stupid Billem Crump an’ his stupid brothers have to help Mom dig the new well, an’ there’s going to be apple pudding every day with dinner. An’ my brother Gyre can have some,”

she added generously, “even if he never beat a ghoul all by himself.”

“If we had apple pudding every day, you’d get sick of it,”

Gyre said.

“Would not.”

“Would too. And anyway, queens are for barbarians. We have senators and consuls.”

“You shut up. You’re dead.”

She pressed down on Gyre’s stomach, and he let out an oof. At five, Maya was heavier than she looked, plump and broad-shouldered, with their mother’s light brown skin and curly crimson hair. Everyone said Gyre, darker and black-haired, took after their father.

“I’ll be consul, then,”

Maya said. “Everyone still has to do what I say forever an’ ever.”

“You only get to be consul for a year,”

Gyre said.

“That’s practically forever,”

Maya argued. “An’—”

She stopped, and a moment later vanished from his field of vision. Gyre sat up, brushing dirt and dried vulpi dung off his back. All around him, yearling vulpi snuffled over the rocky ground, looking for tender green shoots. Yearlings were Gyre’s favorite age for vulpi, soft-furred and playful, before they grew into bristly, irritable layers and then huge, sedentary terminals. They didn’t take much watching as long as the gate to the pasture was closed, which was why he had time to fool around.

Even so, Gyre had a guilty moment while he made a quick count of the herd. He relaxed when he came up with the requisite thirty-three. He was eight and a half years old and had never lost one of his father’s vulpi, not even the time when the fence had washed out in the rain and six of them had made a break for it.

“Gyre!”

Maya shouted. “Gyre, it’s a centarch! He’s riding a warbird!”

She was standing at the fence with her feet on the second rail, leaning as far over as she could. “Gyre, you have to come see!”

“It can’t be a centarch.”

Gyre hurried to the fence, absentmindedly grabbing the back of Maya’s dress with one hand in case she leaned too far over. Maya was reckless, and often sick to boot, spending months with fevers and racking coughs. Keeping his sister out of misadventures was as much a part of his daily chores as tending vulpi. But her excitement was infectious, and he found himself leaning forward to get a better view of the cloud of dust coming down the main road. It was moving awfully quickly.

“It was too a centarch!”

Maya said breathlessly. “I saw him an’ all. He had white armor an’ a blaster an’ a hackem!”

“Haken,”

Gyre corrected. The legendary bladeless sword, weapon of the centarchs of the Twilight Order. “What would a centarch be doing here?”

“Maybe he’s come to arrest Billem Crump for being an ass an’ all. Dad said he was going to go to law with him if he kept picking those apples.”

Gyre pulled his sister back. “Centarchs don’t arrest people for stealing apples.”

“They arrest people who’ve got”—she lowered her voice to a stage whisper—“dhak.”

The word, with its connotations of filth, infestation, and immorality, was inappropriate in polite conversation. If Gyre’s mother had heard Maya saying it, she’d have gotten a smack on the ear. “Maybe Billem Crump’s got ghoul dhak in his shed and the centarch is going to drag him away!”

Gyre watched the dust cloud with something less than his sister’s wide-eyed wonder. He still didn’t believe it was a centarch, and if it was, he wasn’t sure how to feel about having one of the Order’s champions on their farm. He’d caught on to the hard expression his father and the other farmers wore when the subject came up. Everyone knew the Order kept the people safe from plaguespawn. But…

Nothing else, just the significant “but.”

And Gyre knew, as Maya did not, what was in the locked shed off the south field. Last summer, when a plague of weevils had threatened their potatoes, Gyre’s father had taken him out there by night. They’d both equipped themselves with a double handful of bright green seeds, like hard young peas, from a half-full sack, and spent the evening planting them between the rows of potato plants. By the next afternoon, the field was full of dead weevils. Gyre had swept them up and buried them in the compost pile, proud and guilty with the shared secret.

Was that dhak? Gyre suspected it had been. Dhak was anything from the Elder times, before the war that had destroyed both ghouls and Chosen, unless the Order had approved it as safe, sanctioned arcana. But his father had assured him it was fine and that every farmer in the valley had something like it laid away. A centarch wouldn’t come after him, just for that. Would they?

“We should get back to the house,”

he told Maya. Or, he discovered, he told the empty space where Maya had been, since his sister had already jumped down from the fence, wriggled out of his grip, and set off up the path as fast as her short legs would carry her.

Gyre looked at the dust cloud. It was rounding the point of the hill now, going past the turn for the Crump farm and definitely heading their way. He wanted to run after Maya, but there were the vulpi to think of—well behaved or not, he couldn’t just leave them on their own. So he spent a few frantic minutes rounding the animals up, ignoring their affronted blats and whistles at being turned out of the pasture early. Only once they were safely back in their pen, jostling for position at the water trough, did he hurry toward the house.

The path led directly to the kitchen door, which was undoubtedly where Maya had gone. But a smaller side route led around the low, ramshackle farmhouse to the front, and Gyre went this way. He had a notion that if the visitor was anyone important, his father would banish him and his sister to their room before they got a good look. Coming in through the front door, Gyre hoped he would be able to get an idea of what was happening.

There was indeed a warbird standing in the gravel drive, looking incongruous next to their battered farm cart. Gyre had seen one of the creatures before, years ago, when they’d been in town on the day the magistrate’s guard had come through. This one seemed bigger than he remembered, its long, curving neck layered with overlapping plates of pale white armor with the iridescent shimmer of unmetal. More armor covered the warbird’s plump body. Two long, knobbly legs each had four splayed toes and a single enormous backward claw. The head, ridiculously tiny compared to the rest of the animal, was encased in segmented white plates, with its beak covered by a long, curving blade, shrouded in turn with a black velvet cloth.

It was easily twice Gyre’s height. The magistrate’s warbird hadn’t been nearly as big, he decided, and in retrospect its plumage seemed a bit ragged. It certainly hadn’t been armored in unmetal. Whoever the visitor was, he was considerably better equipped than even a county official. Maybe it is a centarch. Gyre gave the warbird a wide berth, creeping around the edge of the drive toward the front door, which stood partially open.

It led to the parlor, which the family used once a year at Midwinter. The rest of the time, the good furniture was covered by dust sheets, and life at the farm centered around the kitchen and the back door. Gyre and Maya’s room was in that part of the house, an addition that leaked when it rained. Looking into the parlor, Gyre had the feeling of being a stranger in his own home, the shrouded shapes of the sofa and end table looming and ominous.

Gyre’s father stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, with dark hair tied at the nape of his neck and skin the color of the soil he spent his time tending. Gyre could tell at once there was something wrong, just from the way his father stood. He was slumped, defeated, his eyes on the floor.

In front of him, in the middle of the parlor, stood the visitor. He was tall and thin, with short hair that gleamed purple-black in the light. He wore an unmetal breastplate and shoulder armor and carried a matching helmet under one arm. On his right hip there was an implement a bit like a capital letter T, or a sword hilt and cross guard with no blade.

It was, without question, a haken. The highest of arcana, able to manipulate the power of creation in the raw. And that made this man a centarch of the Twilight Order, since only they could use the haken. Gyre had never seen one, of course, but he recognized it from a hundred stories. With haken in hand, a centarch was unstoppable, invincible.

Now that he was confronted with one of the legendary warriors in the flesh, Gyre realized he very much wanted the man to be gone. Just go away and leave us alone, he thought. We’re not ghouls, and we haven’t got any dhak except for seeds that kill weevils. What harm can that do to anyone?

“You’re certain?”

Gyre’s father said quietly. Neither of the men had noticed Gyre yet, and he pressed himself against the sofa, desperate to hear their conversation.

“Quite certain,”

the centarch said. He had a highborn accent. “Believe me, in these matters, the Order does not make mistakes.”

“But…”

Maya screamed, and Gyre’s father started. Gyre’s mother came in through the other door, holding Maya under her arm. The girl was kicking furiously, tears running down her cheeks, and shrieking like an angry cat.

“It’s all right,”

Gyre’s father said. “Maya, please. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Yes,”

the centarch drawled. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“No!”

Maya said. “No, no, no! I don’t want to go!”

“You have to go,”

Gyre’s mother said. “You know how you get sick. They can help you.”

Gyre frowned. Bouts of a strange, feverish illness had been a regular feature of Maya’s life for as long as he could remember, especially in the winter. But she’d always recovered, and by summer she was herself again. Though Mom did say this year was the worst she’d ever been. Maya hated doctors, who could never find anything wrong and prescribed bitter medicines that didn’t work.

Did Dad call the Order to help her? Gyre hadn’t heard of the Order doing anything like that, though they had access to arcana medicine far better than any doctor’s. But why would they need to take her away?

He bit his lip, watching as his mother transferred the squirming five-year-old to the centarch. The thin man donned his helmet, which made him look like a white beetle, and took Maya under his arm, lifting her easily.

“No, no, no!”

she screamed. “I don’t want to go! Mom, Dad, don’t let him take me!”

She hates doctors, Gyre told himself. She screamed her head off when she cut her hand and Dad took her to get it sewn up.

But something was wrong. The way his father stood, hands clenched into fists. His mother’s eyes, brimming with unshed tears, her hands clasped to her chest. It’s wrong. Why are they letting him take her?

Gyre stepped into the doorway, trembling, as the centarch turned to leave. Maya saw him first and screamed again.

“Gyre! Help, help, please!”

“Let her go,”

Gyre said. He wished his voice didn’t sound so small, so like a little boy’s.

“Gyre!”

Gyre’s father took a half step forward. His mother turned away, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

“Ah,”

the centarch said. “You must be the brother. Gyre, is it?”

Gyre nodded. “Put my sister down.”

“It is commendable, of course, to defend one’s family,”

the centarch said. “But I am afraid you have made a mistake. My name is Va’aht, called Va’aht Thousandcuts, a centarch of the Twilight Order.”

His free hand brushed across his haken.

“I know what you are,”

Gyre said. “Put her down.”

“If you know what I am, you know that the Order helps wherever it can. I am going to help your sister.”

“She doesn’t want to go,”

Gyre said.

“I don’t!”

Maya wailed. “I’m not sick, I’m not.”

“Children don’t get to make those decisions, I’m sad to say,”

Va’aht said. “Now, if you would stand aside?”

Hand trembling, Gyre reached for his belt. He drew his knife, the knife his father had trusted him with the day he found all the vulpi. It was a wickedly sharp single-edged blade almost four inches long. Gyre held it up in front of Va’aht, heart thumping wildly.

“Gyre!”

Gyre’s father shouted. “Drop that at once and come here!”

“I see,”

Va’aht said gravely. “Single combat, is it? Unfortunately, boy, I’m afraid I don’t have time at the moment. Once you’ve grown a bit taller, perhaps.”

The centarch turned. “If there’s—”

Gyre moved while he was looking the other way. Va’aht’s torso was armored, and Gyre’s steel blade wouldn’t even scratch the unmetal. But his legs were protected only by leather riding trousers, and Gyre swung the knife down as hard as he could into the man’s thigh. It sank to the hilt, blood welling around the wound.

Va’aht shouted in pain, and Maya screamed. Gyre’s mother was screaming too. Gyre tried to maintain his grip on the blade, pull it out for another stab, but Va’aht twisted sideways and he lost his hold. The centarch’s knee slammed into Gyre’s stomach, sending him gasping to the floor.

“Gyre!”

Gyre heard his father start forward, but Va’aht held up a warning hand. The centarch still had hold of Maya, who was staring down at her brother, too scared even to keep shrieking.

“That,”

Va’aht said through clenched teeth, “was unwise.”

“He’s just a boy,”

Gyre’s father said. “Please, I’ll answer for it, I’ll—”

“That’s Order blood, boy,”

Va’aht said, raising his voice. “The blood of the Chosen. Every drop is worth all the flesh and bone in your body. Consider that, and reflect on my mercy.”

“Mercy, sir,”

Gyre’s father said. “Please.”

Gyre heaved himself up onto his elbows.

“Let her go,”

he croaked.

Va’aht put his hand on his haken. He didn’t draw the weapon, just touched it, and crooked one finger.

Pain exploded in Gyre’s head, a line of fire from cheek to eyebrow. He was falling backward, hitting the floor shoulder-first, feeling nothing but the searing agony in his face. He mashed his hand against it, and blood squished, torn skin shifting nauseatingly under his fingers. He only realized he was screaming when he had to stop to take a breath.

Va’aht loomed above him, an outline shimmering in a haze of tears.

“You’ll live, with care, though I daresay there’ll be a scar.”

The centarch gave a humorless chuckle. “Let it be a lesson to you.”

He limped past, still carrying Maya. She screamed Gyre’s name again, but his thoughts were already fading into a fiery blur of pain. By the time his father reached his side, darkness was closing in around him.