CHAPTER 9

Movement

There are many middling Grievar who blame others for their failures. These Grievar are blind to their own weakness. They cannot see their failures as faults of their own, and so they are forever confined to mediocrity.

Passage One, Ninety-Ninth Precept of the Combat Codes

Murray whisked Cego out of his barracks just as dawn broke, hooding himself and Cego with thick cloaks to shield against the cutting sheets of rain.

They’d spent the entirety of the last month cooped up in his barracks, and Murray wanted Cego to see the city from the ground before the Trials, which were just one week away.

Murray’s barracks were located on the east side of the Capital, on the edge of Karsh, a small Grievar-designated district whose inhabitants were mostly Desovian immigrants. Most of the Desovians in the Capital were secluded in the dregs of the city; living elsewhere, they would face the bigotry of proud Ezonians. The immigrants were hated because Desovi was one of Ezo’s rival nations, another powerhouse of Grievar might that controlled much of the world’s resources.

Over the past century, the two nations had gone head-to-head in numerous bouts. The disputes were fiercest over an area rich in elemental deposits along the Adar ridge, aptly called the Auralite Spine. The borders of the mountainous region had shifted between Desovi, Kiroth, and Ezo numerous times, each nation wresting control from another and then conceding land again as the strength of its current Grievar champions ebbed and waned.

Nearly two decades ago, Murray could remember winning a chunk of the Spine for Ezo in a grueling fight against Drogo Myrat, one of Desovi’s best fighters at the time. Murray had returned home to the Capital to the blast of a thousand horns, the citizenry cheering him on as he was paraded down the central artery.

Since he’d left the service, Murray had taken residence in Karsh to escape the fanfare of the city. Though it was considered the dregs, Murray enjoyed living among the immigrant population. He’d come to realize the Desovians here were no different from him. They’d come to Ezo during a time of relative prosperity, seeking a better life for themselves and their children. They were following their path.

A curly-haired lady sitting under the awning of her house smiled at the two as they passed by. She used a pumice to rhythmically grind away at the contents of a large clay pot set in front of her.

A thin balding man lifted a gate to a shotgun building. The man flashed a wide smile at Murray as he passed. “Mighty Murray, bright morn!” the man yelled in a thick Desovian accent as he waved enthusiastically through the rain.

“Bright morn to you, Santil,” Murray said, nodding back. The morning was anything but bright, yet Santil always managed to have a wide smile on his face.

The two continued through the neighborhood, passing shops and homes that were just waking up. The familiar smell of baked sponge bread wafted to his nose. The Desovians only cooked the delicacy once every month, rationing out small portions of the bread every day to their hungry families.

Murray looked down at Cego, who also sniffed at the yeasty aroma in the air.

The kid saw everything with fresh eyes. Even in Murray’s drab barracks, Cego had observed each object with fascination, inquiring about the simplest items, like his sizzler or the shelf of tattered books in his room. The kid had even started to pick up Jadean, peppering Masa and Tachi about the meaning of various words in the foreign language. Murray wasn’t surprised Cego was such a natural fighting talent, the way he constantly sought new knowledge.

Two Desovian kids, a few years younger than Cego, fell across their path, play-fighting in the rain outside their house. Cego stopped abruptly, his shoulders tensing in anticipation.

One of the kids tossed the other to the muddy ground. The other boy, likely his brother, quickly pushed away and sprang back to his feet, laughing.

Cego watched the boys with wide eyes. “Brothers… fighting.”

“Yeah. That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Murray responded. “We’re born to fight. With our enemies, friends, even brothers and sisters. Now things are complicated, too much darkin’ politiks.”

“I know,” Cego responded. “I have brothers.”

Murray nearly stopped in his tracks. After restraining himself from asking Cego about his past for the last month, here he was, finally getting something straight from the kid’s mouth without even a push.

“Yeah?” Murray tried to respond calmly. “Bet fighting your brothers helped you get better.”

Cego appeared thoughtful for a moment, raindrops hanging from the brim of his hood. “It did.”

“How many did you have?” Murray asked.

“One older, one younger,” Cego said.

“Bet you’re missin’ them now,” Murray said.

“Sometimes,” Cego said quietly.

Murray left it at that as the two continued to trudge through the muddy streets. When it came to dredging up his own past, Murray could only handle so much before he needed the next drink. A little bit at a time would do with Cego.

They moved beyond Karsh into the Capital’s central sector. The Courthouse’s domed roof came into view over the tightly packed tops of dilapidated buildings.

Some of the buildings were completely torn apart—eroded by weather and time and never fixed. The servicers didn’t come this way for repairs; there weren’t any bits in dressing up the dregs. The Daimyo Governance would rather concentrate on creating new, high-profile projects like Albright Stadium. The bit-rich had already bought out front-row tickets at the newly renovated arena. Meanwhile, Murray could literally see through the crumbling wall of a building here in the dregs, where a lady was hopelessly attempting to hang her clothes to dry.

The two turned onto a street with a series of banners hung across it, water streaking the slick surfaces. Lifelike visages peered down at them—Grievar, each with their name boldly scrawled across a banner. Kal Yang. Raymol Tarsis. Tullen Thurgood.

Cego stopped and stared at the last banner, which was bigger than the rest and displayed a square-jawed man with fiery red hair, a gleaming belt hung across his muscled frame. Even within the image, the man’s blazing eyes seemed to pierce the sheets of grey rain.

“Artemis Halberd.” Cego whispered the name.

“They insist on hanging banners of the entire Knight team on streets across the Capital,” Murray muttered. “Never saw how it did any good to have citizens staring up at my ugly mug every morning, though.”

“Is he really as good as they say?” Cego asked.

“Halberd?” Murray looked at the banner above them. “Yeah. Only one Artemis Halberd is born every few generations. He may be the best in recorded Grievar history. Undefeated to date, hasn’t even been darkin’ challenged in the Circle. He graduated from the Lyceum just when I was on my way out, though, never got a chance to fight alongside him.”

“If Artemis is so good, why do I keep hearing you say Ezo is falling behind the other nations when you speak with Masa and Tachi?” Cego asked.

Murray shook his head. The kid was always listening, even about darkin’ politiks. “Knight team is pretty much restin’ on Halberd’s shoulders at this point. But one Grievar can only do so much. Even Halberd needs to rest between fights, recover, take time to study opponents and learn new techniques. And that’s when the other Knights need to step up. Come on, kid, let’s keep moving.”

As they approached the Courthouse, the sky continued to darken and the rain fell even harder. Cego peered from beneath his hood to survey the folk around them. Clumps of them hid in the shadows under the eaves of the surrounding buildings to shield themselves from the rain, and some attempted to keep warm by small bonfires.

Other folk stood openly in the elements, seemingly oblivious to the world around them. They were disoriented, stumbling around, shouting incoherently against the wind.

One lady with gnarled hair blocked their path, unaware they were standing right in front of her. She held a small metallic cylinder up to her eyeball and pressed the button on the back. A short blast of yellowlight pulsed from the cylinder directly into her eye. The lady fell back into the mud, her eyes rolling back into her head and her face going slack before an eerie grin spread across it.

“Cleavers,” Murray explained dryly to Cego as they continued past the lady. “Those addicted to photocleaving—when you send a pulse of spectral light into your eye that feels like a real spectral swarm.” The high only lasted about thirty minutes, and then the user would need another blast. Murray shook his head. Somewhere out there, Daimyo were making a bit-fortune off the mass of addicts in this city. “Not far from the stims Governance is pushing on our Knights… even some Lyceum students lately,” Murray said. “All the stuff is darkin’ addictive, just to get ahead to the next moment, forgetting everything about our past.”

“Isn’t it against the Codes?” Cego asked. “A Grievar needs neither tools nor technologies to enhance their physical prowess.”

“You might have noticed the Codes isn’t something too many are still holdin’ to.” Murray grimaced, though he was impressed at how the kid had taken to their nightly lessons.

The two continued through the wreckage of the dregs until they arrived at the very center of the city.

A sprawling domed building with a dirt yard rose above the surrounding dregs—the Courthouse. The Courthouse’s marble dome had originally been a brilliant white. The grand set of stairs leading to the glimmering steel Courthouse doors had once been magnificent, symbols of the path to PublicJustice. Go through those doors, and no matter who you were, you had a chance to get justice.

Now the Courthouse façade was dull and streaked with darkness like the rest of the surrounding dregs. Half the stairs had completely eroded, and rust covered the great steel doors. More of the destitute congregated in front of the Courthouse steps.

“What are those folk waiting for?” Cego asked.

“Waiting their turn for processing,” Murray said. “They’ve got grievances to file. Maybe their home’s been bulldozed to plant a new buying center, maybe there’s been a theft or murder too insignificant for the Enforcers to get involved. If they’re heard, they’ll be assigned a defender to represent them in the courts and a Grievar to represent them in the Circle. One who will fight for their justice.”

Murray didn’t tell Cego the rest of the story—the truth. The fact that PublicJustice was a darkin’ lie, a veil the Daimyo Governance put up to keep the masses in check. These folk wouldn’t find any justice behind the steel doors of the Courthouse. Those who didn’t have a bribe on hand or a connection on the inside would be turned back to the streets with some Governance script telling them they’d have their justice at a future date, if they lived to see it.

Murray looked down at Cego, who was staring at the Courthouse steps with those wide eyes.

The kid didn’t deserve Murray’s truth.

High Commander Albion Jonquil Memnon briskly walked the corridors of the Citadel. He moved with a determined, long stride. Though far past his prime, Memnon was the epitome of a Grievar—tall, thick, and weathered from combat. Out of habit, he wore his second skin, the formfitting shirt that was still glistening from training this morning. He often didn’t bother to switch into his more formal commander’s uniform.

Memnon didn’t slow as he jogged down the Knight Tower’s spiral staircase, the same stairs he’d descended every day since he’d become high commander nearly a decade ago.

Though Memnon no longer fought in the Circle, as he had during his Knight service, he was meticulous with the upkeep of his body. Even on the busiest of days, he trained every morning. He was known to jump into the sparring sessions of his much younger Knights, both to ensure they were sharp and to test himself. He often left the bouts bruised and panting, though he never succumbed to the weariness until he was alone.

Memnon could show no weakness, not to his subordinates within the Citadel, nor to foreign nations that would seek to diminish Ezo’s influence.

“Mornin’, High Commander.” A Grunt cook bowed his head low as Memnon passed the kitchen and servicer’s quarters. His stomach grumbled as he smelled something savory on the sizzler, but he didn’t slow his pace down the stairs.

Rain battered the windows on each floor as he descended. Memnon thought about his Knights running drills up Kalabasas Hill, their clothes soaked and boots soggy.

The Knight Tower was located at the center of the Citadel’s walls, a cylindrical beacon that rose above the surrounding structures. The Tower served both as the living quarters of the Knights as well as the command center for all of the Capital’s Grievar.

Memnon passed two of his newer cadets in the corridor, freshly graduated from the Lyceum. Both stood at attention and raised their arms in salute, followed with the cry of “O Toh!” Even for formalities like this, Memnon did not stop. He nodded as he passed but kept his brisk pace toward the Citadel’s command center on the ground floor.

Memnon couldn’t stop moving.

When he stopped, some Kirothian or Desovian commander kept moving, strategizing and improving their program, getting ahead in the arms race. When Memnon stopped, he failed his Knights, who were training at this very moment in one of the many combat centers in the building. When Memnon stopped, he let down all the citizens of Ezo—those who depended on his team winning to ensure they had food, shelter, medtech, or any other comforts in life. Though the nation’s other cities had their own Knight teams, they were inferior and couldn’t be depended on in the big international bouts, the fights with the highest stakes.

The only times Memnon slowed down were to sleep or to peer from the window of his room at the top floor of the Tower. Even then, gazing over the Citadel’s grounds, Memnon’s mind was racing. When his hard yellow eyes swept over each of the storied branches of the Citadel, he could only dwell on problems.

PublicJustice, led by Dakar Pugilio, was in dire need of talent and leadership. Despite being an old friend from service, Pugilio had become nearly uncontrollable, spending more time drinking than managing his team. The Lyceum, headed by the ancient Commander Aon Farstead, had grown old in its customs and training methods. And the newest branch of the Citadel, the Scouts, was far too young and brash under the leadership of Callen Albright. Even Memnon’s own domain, the Knights, had fallen in standing over the last decade, in a constant struggle to keep up with other nations. Memnon knew that without Artemis Halberd anchoring the team, they’d have become second runners to Kiroth long ago.

Memnon turned a corner and walked through a pair of sliding doors into the command center. The room was round, built in the exact dimensions of a Circle, ten meters in diameter. Shield windows looked out at the Citadel’s grounds in every direction.

The remaining three commanders of the Citadel sat at a circular table in the center of the room. Aon Farstead, Dakar Pugilio, and Callen Albright. They stood and saluted Memnon, their forearms crossed high, before returning to their seats. Memnon did not sit. As usual, he paced the circumference of the room.

“Didn’t even have time to change out of his second skin!” Dakar shouted in his boisterous manner. “Albion, you need to relax every once in a while.” The commander of PublicJustice threw his legs up onto the table, leaning back in his chair. “I’m telling you, one hour at Lady Pompei’s joint right off Central Square and that tension will be gone. I have just the girl in mind for you too. Real sweet lass…”

“Yes, because what we really need is for High Commander Memnon to relax. Perhaps we should all forgo our duties and take some time off. Why not take a jaunt to the Courtesan Houses? Perhaps then we could be more like you, Dakar, and this place would really fall apart.” Callen sneered from his seat across the table.

Dakar stood. He looked like an angry walrus as he stared down at the wiry Scout commander, his cheeks bright red above his long, drooping mustache. Though he was taller than Memnon, Dakar Pugilio had not cared for his body or mind as the high commander had. His belly sagged from beneath his tunic, displaying the distorted edges of an old flux tattoo, and his shoulders hunched from many years of torpor.

“Why don’t you stand up, worm, and I’ll show you why this place is really fallin’ apart. Because of bit-rich kids like you who don’t know how to shoot a double, walking in here on Daddy’s—”

“That’s enough. Sit down, Dakar,” Memnon said quietly as he continued to pace.

Dakar slowly sank back into his seat, muttering and staring at Callen as he did so.

“Provide me with your reports,” Memnon said. “You start, Dakar.”

Dakar attempted to straighten in his seat, but even then, he somehow looked slouched, as if his body had forgotten how to try.

“Yes, sir, Albion. Err, High Commander Memnon. Last several days, well… we won some, we lost some,” Dakar said.

“Win percentage?” Memnon asked.

“Thirty percent,” Dakar said in a low voice as he tugged at his mustache. “Let me tell you, though, some of the wins we had, they were great. Old Byron took out some hotshot merc—put the light of justice on him, all right. Just like the old days, Albion—remember Byron? How he’d always catch some poor sod off guard with that overhand right? Well, he’s still got it. He threw—”

“Stop,” Memnon said. The high commander sighed as he paced. He rubbed the long scar that ran across his eyelid and down to his square jaw. “I can’t hear more of these stories, Dakar. The only stories I need to hear are those of an improved win percentage. We need to get back to tolerable levels. Balance the weight of Justice. What do we need to do that?”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Dakar said. “We have good men on the team; it’s just that—”

Callen cut in. “That’s just the problem. He has so-called good men. They don’t need good men in PublicJustice. What they need are more killers. That’s who the companies and the Daimyo lords are hiring to represent their interests: killers. Any sane person with the bits to spend will hire the best that’s out there. Why settle for less? I’d certainly do so if it were my head on the line.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Dakar said, his face getting red again. “Some of my Grievar have served Ezo for decades. They’ve given their entire lives to follow the path. I can’t just throw them out on the street like pieces of trash.”

“What choice do we have?” Callen retorted. “It’s either get with the times and completely overhaul our team at PublicJustice or have the courts continue to rot, stinking as they have for years under your command. We’re talking about Grievar who represent Ezo, our nation, in the courts of combat. Just as High Commander Memnon only seeks the best for his Knight team, I would expect the same from PublicJustice.”

Dakar fumed. “Do you realize what you’re saying, boy? Fresh on the job and you think you already can tell me how to lead my men?”

Memnon interjected before Dakar had a chance to get too heated. “We do need to make changes, Dakar. I understand that you don’t want to put your men out of their path, but we can’t keep going with the way things are.”

“The Goliath has a one hundred percent win percentage,” Dakar said. “He’s a killer to the core. Is that what you want more of?”

“We both know the Goliath is not sustainable,” Memnon responded. “He’s uncontrollable, as likely to turn on us as he is to—”

“The Goliath is a freak,” Callen interrupted. “But Dakar might have the right idea for once. Freaks or not, all we need are wins in PublicJustice. In particular, we need wins for some big upcoming cases, like the latest in Ezo v. ArkTech Labs. Ezo’s Daimyo Prosecutors have already presented evidence against ArkTech in the courts and are likely to win arguments by end of week. Then it’s up to your Grievar to close it out, Dakar. It will all be up to one of your old, broken men, standing across the Circle from one of ArkTech’s best hired mercenaries.”

Dakar began to speak again but closed his mouth as Memnon flashed his eyes at him.

“Start with the worst. The two defenders on your team with the lowest win percentages this cycle. I’m sorry, Dakar, but they are out,” Memnon said. “We’ll replace them with two of Callen’s fresh recruits. Especially ahead of this ArkTech case, we need to do it. If PublicJustice takes too many more losses, Governance is likely to scrap the program completely. If that happens, Ezo’s laws will lie solely within Daimyo discretion and their courts of trickery, babbling, and bribes. We Grievar will lose our voice entirely.”

Dakar looked down at the table dejectedly.

“Callen, who have we got to spare that has experience from this cycle’s take?” Memnon asked.

“Well. To start, I’d suggest the Falcon, Sit Fanyong, who we recently acquired. He has at least two years’ experience as a Knight, and I believe he also served in the Desovian justice system for a year, as different as that is from our own,” Callen said.

Dakar looked up from the table with wide eyes. “We’re going to put a darkin’ Desovian on my team? There’s no way my boys will train with some sponge-eater!”

Memnon stared down at his old friend, his eyes suddenly blazing. “Dakar, your team will train with the Falcon, and they will do so diligently. You will make sure of it. You are Ezo’s commander of PublicJustice. Your lightpath does not mean reliving your days of glory in the Citadel, bantering with your team of old-timers. Your path means putting together the best team possible. Your path means making sure the scales of justice are balanced not just for high-profile Governance cases but for those folk who don’t have the bits to hire expensive mercenaries. And that will start with integrating Sit Fanyong into your team. We will reevaluate after the next report as to whether we need more transitions.”

Dakar looked at Memnon with his mouth slightly open. He bowed his head in concession. “O Toh, High Commander.”

Memnon continued to pace around the room, his frenetic steps matching the tempo he set in his command meetings. “On to the next. Commander Aon, are we ready for the Trials?” Memnon turned to the commander of the Lyceum, who had been silently observing the heated discussion.

Aon Farstead was ancient. Hunched over the command table, he looked diminutive, even next to Callen’s lean frame. A few remaining wisps of white hair hung from Aon’s bald, wrinkled scalp, and two massive cauliflowered ears hung by the sides of his head like Besaydian dragon fruit. Aon’s eyes no longer had the yellow tinge of a Grievar. They were milky white. He’d been blind for nearly two decades.

Aon spoke in a slow, deliberate cadence, his voice a whisper that carried the strength of over a century of wisdom. “That we are, High Commander. One year to the next, the world changes around us, but the Trials remain the same. Like a stone lodged in a stream.”

Memnon nodded respectfully at the venerated elder member of Command. “Aon, what do you see in store for this year’s Trials?”

Aon chuckled. “High Commander, I see nothing in store.” The old Grievar batted his eyelids playfully. “But I do have a strange feeling of late. The light has been stronger these past few months. I can feel its gravity tugging on these old bones of mine. I can’t remember that sort of pull since… Well, it’s been quite a while now.”

“What could it mean?” Memnon asked. “Could it be a good sign for us? Perhaps one of the Trial-takers…”

Aon’s milky eyes wandered as the hunched man took a deep breath. “The light often whispers. All Grievar can hear it if they stop to listen. Not just in the Circle or under the bright arrays. Even beyond the halls of combat, we all carry the light. Walking, sitting, sleeping, breathing; it is there, whispering to us.”

From across the room, Callen let out an audible sigh as he rolled his eyes in disdain.

“Even you can hear the light, Callen Albright, though I sense you do not believe you can.” Aon directed his voice at Callen’s seat, causing the wiry Scout commander to stiffen in his chair.

Aon continued, unperturbed. “In these recent months, the pull I’ve felt—the light is no longer whispering; it is roaring. I do not know what it saying, but I do know it is speaking to us, to the Grievar who are forever intertwined with it.”

Aon’s words quieted the room. Dakar’s face was no longer red with anger; he breathed evenly as he listened. Even Memnon had stopped pacing, pausing for a brief moment.

Callen broke the quiet. “That is all good and well, Commander Farstead, but bluntly, I don’t hear anything beyond the sound of Ezo getting crushed under our competitors. Perhaps, in your considerable age, you are hearing things?”

Memnon’s brow creased. He opened his mouth to reprimand Callen’s blatant disrespect, but Aon lifted his frail hand to hold him off.

Aon smiled through his thin lips. “It is said that Grievar infants, fresh from the womb, can hear the light most ably. Infants are pure, untainted by the world around them, their eyes not yet formed to see the petty underpinnings of grown folk. Perhaps that is why I can also hear the light so clearly—my years put me closer to the end, or the beginning, and with that comes a purity that dispels all the distractions of this world. I can hear the light, Commander Callen, and it whispers no longer.”

Callen had clearly stopped listening to Aon, his eyes shifting back and forth calculatingly. “Yes, yes. That’s all great, Commander Farstead. But on the subject of strange myths, as you so often bring us in the direction of, I’d like to revisit a portion of the Trials. The Combat Codes.”

Memnon spoke up. “Callen, we discussed this during our last Command meeting and decided it’s better left as is, for this year at least.”

“Yes, I know, High Commander, but I felt the need to bring it up again. The light told me I needed to.” Callen smirked at Aon. “I just feel that of all the Trial protocol in place, the Codes are the part that is least applicable to getting Ezo where it needs to be. How does deciphering ancient Grievar texts, which really have no place in society today, have anything to do with bettering our teams? What good do some words have in making a better fighter in the Circle?”

Memnon shook his head. “Callen, I like what you bring to this team. A youthful perspective. We need that; we need to change things in order to get Ezo back to where it was. But change can’t always happen as fast as you’d like. We’re already making major overhauls. We need to take things one step at a time.”

Callen replied, “Do you think the Kirothians are taking things one step at a time, spending valuable resources having their Knights recite old, forgotten texts? No, they are providing them with the newest neurotech and training them round the clock, making them into killers. When one of Ezo’s Knights goes up against a Kirothian, he may well be able to recite some ancient text by heart, but then he’ll get ground into the dirt by a better-trained Grievar. We can only rely on the strength of Artemis Halberd for so long.”

Memnon was pacing around the room again. The Kirothians had forgone many of the Codes over a decade ago in favor of more modern training philosophies: neurostimulant cycling programs, simulation training, spectral acclimation chambers. They’d taken nearly 60 percent of the disputes against Ezo until Memnon had made the decision to start playing catch-up.

Aon seemed to sense how Callen’s calculated words played on Memnon’s paranoia. “The Combat Codes are a part of us, High Commander. Since the beginning. The Codes are as much of a Grievar’s makeup as are our fists, elbows, and knees, or our techniques that have been learned and passed down from the Ancients.”

Memnon stopped pacing again as he listened to Aon. “The Trials are an introduction, a test to those worthy Grievar who would become learned warriors within the halls of our Lyceum and, eventually, forces of justice to fight for the downtrodden in our courts or Knights to represent us in the world’s arena. Each Trial is representative of Grievar skill and character. To remove the Codes from the Trials would mean removing a piece of ourselves,” Aon said.

Memnon nodded. “Aon is right, Callen. We cannot remove the Codes from the Trials. Getting rid of them would mean reworking the whole process. They stay for now. However, I will consider giving the Codes less weight in overall scoring.”

Callen leaned back into his chair, smirking.

“Command, thank you for coming today. You are dismissed.” Memnon signaled with the Grievar Knight salute.

“O Toh,” the three commanders replied in unison, raising their arms.

Aon creaked from his seat, slowly moving toward the doorway without the aid of vision. Dakar stood and walked beside Aon. “I’m headin’ the same way you are, old friend; need a hand to get back to your classroom?”

Aon smiled as the doors slid open in front of him. “Thank you, Commander Pugilio, but no, this old Grievar can make do.”

Callen remained seated after the other two had left, looking up at Memnon with his arresting yellow eyes.

“Don’t you want to know where we are… with that other program of ours?” Callen asked.

Memnon shook his head, quieting Callen. “Do not speak of that here, Commander Albright.”

Callen nodded. “All right. Well, things are going according to plan, if you’d like to know. You’ve made the right choice for your nation.”

Memnon nodded and turned, exiting through the sliding doors.

The high commander walked briskly, his pace increasing as he distanced himself from the meeting room. He had to keep moving. The Desovians were moving, getting ahead. The Kirothians wouldn’t stop, so he couldn’t.

Memnon couldn’t stop moving or the shadows would catch up to him.