CHAPTER

27

Maroto’s thighs burned. His Gate-healed knee decided this was as good a time as any to act back up, and now it felt like he was grinding broken glass in there with every step. The stitch in his side hurt as bad as a wound in need of sutures. His spear arm felt ready to fall off, and that was an improvement on the one carrying the witch’s birdcage. He was literally sweating blood. His face felt like salt crystals were embedded under the shredded skin. Oh, and he’d really liked that eye, too. Had certainly preferred it to a numb hole, the absence of sensation in that area even more frightening than pain would’ve been.

Yet for all that, Maroto had never felt better as he led the hundred-odd remaining Chainites back into Othean. Forget bugs, he was a born-again egghead from this day forward! That witch had given him the good shit, no joke. Here at last was a high that didn’t deaden his senses from the pain that was his due, but gave him the strength to bear it, and take on even more. Give the creepy-crawlers their credit, though: if he hadn’t spent the last couple decades chasing the centipede and building up a lordly tolerance he’d probably already be dead—whatever alien venom that Tothan’s quilled helm had injected him with gave him the red sweats and didn’t play too nice with the nervous system, either, but his hands were steady enough for killing, and whose heart didn’t race during a battle? Obviously the day was young and the witch seemed to think it was only a matter of time before the toxins melted his brain out through his nose, but you could say that about anything, couldn’t you? It was all a matter of time, and then you were dead.

Scrambling up the rubble of the inner wall, he paused at the top of the heap. His bloodied volunteers panted past him, dropping down into the street below and continuing their mad flight to the supposed safety of the wall at the middle of Othean. Fennec had hitched a ride with one of Ji-hyeon’s sisters on her giant sloth or whatever it was, directing the reunited-but-routed Cobalt Company through the trap-laden western city, but here at the rear of the retreating army Maroto wasn’t without new friends. Nemi huffed her way up the debris to join him, Indsorith beside her, and back in the slums Ji-hyeon and Sullen and the rest of the remaining Cobalt cavalry covered their retreat.

It looked like thankless work from up here, with the massive northern regiment pouring into the outer wall after them, and mobs of Tothans from the first force still lurking about the narrow alleys. The only unexpected boon was that most of that first Tothan army was currently swarming the Autumn Palace, overrunning the empty castle complex that was built into the inner wall just south of here. Lupitera’s theory must have been right—the Tothans were trying to capture the Immaculate Empress and her court, mistakenly thinking she was here thanks to Maroto’s bad but believable intelligence. As he peered at the terraced balconies and exposed stairways teeming with beetle-shelled bastards on their way back down to street level, he imagined they must have figured out the castle was uninhabited. Which meant they were about to come charging back up here at the obvious fleeing targets, and when they reached this breach any Cobalts not safely on the other side would be trapped in the slums between the two walls.

Maroto felt his Charity swell at the prospect of making his last stand, here and now. Watching Hoartrap gird himself in a cockroach colossus and march out to meet the Tothans had shredded some secret chords deep in Maroto’s breast—the Touch was the most selfish creature Maroto had ever met, but here at the end he’d sacrificed himself to save his friends, and in truly epic fashion. Whether or not the old warlock had intended it to be his final charge there seemed little doubt he was dead now, dead or worse—the Vex Assembly had endlessly grilled Maroto about Hoartrap, their interest in the wizard unrivaled in its intensity. While none of the creeps had volunteered what exactly it was about the Touch they found so abhorrent it was obvious from their attitude they couldn’t wait to get him in their pruny clutches—Maroto had assumed it was just a typical sorcerous rivalry, magic-users being a catty bunch. Watching one of the ancient priests fly its squid-dragon smack into the middle of Hoartrap’s titan and bring the giant down, he supposed they had finally caught up with him.

A tough act to follow, that, but Maroto was a consummate professional, the closer’s closer, and if Hoartrap the Touch had gone down getting the Cobalts this far, well, Maroto would go down getting them the rest of the way. And within sight of the Temple of Pentacles where Kang-ho had apparently bought it, too. This was the stuff of legends, right here: the Fifth Villain joining the Third and the First in a noble death outside the Autumn Palace. Total fucking classic.

“Come on,” Indsorith panted as she passed Maroto, sliding down the mound of debris into the city of West Othean. “They’re almost on top of us.”

“They are on top of us,” said Nemi, pointing back at where a massive furry thing with lampreylike mouths on the ends of its many sinuous limbs crested an unbroken section of the outer wall. If the first Tothan army had arrived with giant monsters like that they would have taken the Autumn Palace in hours, not weeks. “Time to run, Captain Maroto—you owe me your life, and etiquette dictates you return the favor.”

“I figured as much,” he said, euphoric at the prospect of more mortification. “I’ll hold this hole as long as I can while you make your getaway. Can you take this spear back to my nephew, though? Not much chance of my delivering it to—”

“Absolutely not!” huffed the witch. “I did not buy your life so that you could simply throw it away again.”

“Wait, what?” Maroto couldn’t figure this girl out. “You said the poison in my face is going to kill me, right? So why not help everyone get away with a gallant last stand?”

“I said it will probably prove terminal,” said Nemi, stepping on her tiptoes to examine the oozing pincushion of his face. “But my egg slowed it enough that you have a little time, at least, and you will not squander those priceless minutes on empty dramatics. You will carry Zeetatrice to safety, because even after doubling my own dose I’m not fit enough to run with her—if you die she dies, and if she dies I die.”

“Oooooh,” said Maroto, nodding his floaty head as he watched one of the enormous mouth-legged monsters leap from the outer wall onto a nearby tenement roof, shattering tiles but not falling through. It moved fast over the rooftops, straight toward them … “Oh! Run!”

Nemi was already moving, though, catching up with Indsorith on the cobblestones below. Maroto slipped his way down after them, the blindfolded cockatrice hissing at him as the cage swung every which way, more Cobalts cresting the stile of rubble behind him and joining the exodus into West Othean. The crowd was fleeing up the eastern boulevard, and crossing a wider avenue that led a mere six blocks down to the Autumn Palace’s majestic inner gate he saw the Tothan soldiers come charging out to catch them.

Behind the clacking soldiers, another of the eight-legged monsters dropped over the top of the wall, crashing through the gabled roof of a temple … and then exploding out of its double doors, the fall not having slowed it in the slightest. Rearing on its hind legs, its leathery white bulk stretched as high as the second story of the castle, and from each of its six wavering, ring-mouthed limbs issued discordant, trumpeting wails. Maroto wasn’t sure what that might mean, exactly, but he didn’t think it was surrendering. After that, he caught up with Nemi and Indsorith in no time.

Ji-hyeon whirled her steed around, its tail snapping the legs out from under a horse demon, her sword slicing through a Tothan’s helm. Sullen, meanwhile, clung to the saddle horn and tried not to throw up or be thrown off. When they’d been working with the other mounted Cobalts in the narrow streets between the two walls he’d been able to contribute something, using the spear he’d found to modest success. Now that Ji-hyeon had ordered everyone to flee, however, he was worse than useless, probably blocking her view as he bounced in front of her on the saddle.

After they had galloped up the ruins of the inner wall and dropped down into Othean he had hoped they might be able to slow their pace a little. On the contrary, the wider avenues let them ride faster than ever, and every jostle on the saddle made Sullen feel like he was being stabbed anew in his leaky stomach. With half a Tothan army already overrunning the city around them and a far larger regiment coming in at their heels, their fastest might not be fast enough. They tore through the metropolis that went from completely deserted on one block to choked with enemies on the next, rounding corners so fast their steed slid across the wet cobblestones, bumping into the handsome stone buildings and breaking through the occasional fence. The deeper they penetrated into the sprawling neighborhoods the less frequently they encountered the rest of the Cobalts, though he didn’t know whether this was Ji-hyeon’s design to lead the enemy away or if they were simply lost in the biggest city on the Star … a place chock-full of deadly traps, apparently.

“Sullen!” They had just overtaken another Tothan throng when Ji-hyeon tapped his thigh with the arm she kept wrapped around his waist. The one holding on to the reins. “Take these—I need to read the map!”

“Uh, sure.” Sullen did, fully expecting the animal to throw them both as soon as he touched the leather leads. It didn’t, but without Ji-hyeon’s arm around him he felt even more likely to slide over its scaled side. When her hand didn’t return even as the empty avenue they sped down split into a fork, he said, “Uh, Ji-hyeon?”

“Left? Left!” she said, and Sullen gave the reins a little tug in that direction. The big animal didn’t seem to acknowledge it, so he pulled harder … but instead of taking the left-hand path its long head whipped around, yanking the reins out of his hands as it slid to a stop just in front of the intersection. “Sullen!”

“Damn,” he said, leaning forward and reaching for the dangling reins as the animal huffed at him. He didn’t puke and his guts didn’t fall out, though both felt like distinct possibilities as he snatched at them. When he finally caught the straps and straightened back up he that saw that the animal hadn’t just taken offense at his inexperienced steering—a huge grey shape came careening down the left-hand path, its many limbs pushing off along both the walls of the alley and the street below. It was maybe a bit like a naked mammoth, only with sharp-toothed trunks instead of legs, and twice as many limbs at that, but Sullen didn’t get a really good look since he was already yanking the reins in the other direction and kicking their mount’s flanks for all he was worth.

Now it was Ji-hyeon’s turn to cling to him as their steed took off down the right-hand street. Terra-cotta tiles rained down around them, and glancing up Sullen saw that the pursuing monster had taken a shortcut over the tops of the buildings separating the two avenues. It kept time with them on the edge of the roofs, its mouths trilling in turn as they loped even faster, overtaking their quarry. Ji-hyeon began tugging at Sullen’s hair and desperately scratching at his arms, shouting at him to stop, stop, but even if that had seemed like a sane idea he didn’t know how.

Up ahead the avenue opened into a plaza, and through the screen of rain he saw the monster leap down to intercept them, its thick limbs tearing up the cobblestones as it landed, spinning around to meet them … and then vanishing as the wide square evaporated into blinding light and blistering heat, a thick fog enveloping them as the rain boiled away.

“Yeah,” Sullen said when his ears stopped ringing and he realized Ji-hyeon had been asking if he was all right. Their mount had stopped, the hot avenue still obscured in steam but what he could see of the buildings around them spattered with grey and black daubs of gore. “So … back there I guess you meant my other left, huh?”

Before she could answer, figures began to materialize in the misty ruins of the plaza. Black-shelled figures drawn to the explosion, moving toward them with weapons lowered. Pulling the reins hard to the left to turn them back around, Sullen muttered, “Gonna take that for a yes.”

Othean’s innermost wall towered over the central market district streets, only a dozen blocks away now. Which made it all the more disappointing that when Maroto wheezed around the final bend and came out into the field of stalls between him and safety he found that the Tothans had cut them off. Well, maybe some or even most of the Cobalts had made it to the gatehouse in time, but not all of them, to guess from the torn-up corpses in blue tabards strewn about the market square. As the hundreds of hollow soldiers and their green-eyed cavalry rushed forward to cut down Maroto and the rest of the stragglers, he passed the cockatrice cage back to Nemi and took up his nephew’s spear in both hands. No clever words came to mind so he let the silence stand; better no last words at all than something daft. Besides, this Flintland spear would do the talking for both of them.

Somewhere behind them in the city the first explosion went off, punctuating his stoic silence, and now he was grinning despite how much it hurt his face. Or maybe because of it; everything was getting mixed up in his venom-cooked brain. Skip a night’s sleep in favor of hours and hours of brutal combat against monsters straight out of a stinghound’s nightmare and life begins to feel a little dreamlike. Point was, that blast meant the Immaculates’ trap was going off, and every last one of these Tothan freaks was going to die a nasty death. As were Maroto and the rest of the Cobalts here on the wrong side of the central wall, yes, but sometimes that’s just how the song ends.

Not always, though.

The rain thickened above the charging Tothans, and then the first three lines were hit with the deluge of arrows that had arced over the wall. Most of them collapsed, especially the infantry, but a bunch of the horsey monstrosities stayed upright despite all the shafts sticking out of them. The volley was a nice gesture, even if it wasn’t enough to save them from the rest of the charging legion, but then Maroto saw the unthinkable go down—way over there on the far corner of the market square the portcullis had risen up in the gatehouse, and now rider after rider came streaming out to hit the remaining Tothans from behind. It wasn’t just any cavalry, either, but Raniputri dragoons, their lances lowered and shields high.

At the time Maroto had been pretty sore about getting a faceful of Tothan bug juice, especially considering how it was administered, but between this and Nemi’s egg he had to fess this was one primo speedball. Indsorith rushing past him with her sword held high reminded him that it was time to make a good day even better—why just gawk at your weird fate when you could hitch up your skirt and dance with it? He glanced back at Nemi to tell her to stay behind him but forgot what he was going to say when he saw she’d sat down on top of her birdcage, tucked in her dress, and planted a saw-toothed sword between her legs. She raised a little bow up into the rain, muttered something, and after snapping the moisture off it, began to play the sword.

It sounded bad. Just, like, raw hell. But what better music to go hunting for your own? The pike-limbed demons seemed to like it even less than Maroto, the incoming pack all chattering and rearing back, their flaming green eyes guttering pink and their sideways mouths foaming, and then they wheeled away, stomping back through their own troops. Ill magic, no doubt.

Charging after Indsorith to the sound of possessed cats being exorcised, he had to laugh. When he’d made that pledge all those years ago to never raise weapons against the Crimson Queen he’d hardly expected to one day follow her into battle. Badly as he craved a slow and painful death he knew that was just the Tothan venom talking, and what he really wanted was to live out the day so he could tell Indsorith just how closely he’d stuck to his promise, even during the Battle of the Lark’s Tongue. Nothing wrong with bragging when you’d earned it.

As Maroto came into the melee after Indsorith he was struck by just how well this spear handled. He’d never been one for pointy weapons, or Flintlander tools at all, truth be told, but this was a bug of another carapace. Probably didn’t hurt that the poison in his skull was giving him more of those weird sensory hallucinations; anytime a Tothan came in from his blind side his ear would sting just like it’d been flicked by a mean old bastard, giving him just enough warning to spin around and parry or pike his enemy. Felt so good he had to howl about it, and howling felt so good he had to wonder why he didn’t do it more often.

Howl, stab, dodge. Howl, dodge, slash. Trip, howl, spit. Howl howl howl.

Then he was on the other side of the Tothans all of a sudden, staggering out into the milling Raniputri horses and bumping right into the side of a big bay. The rider looked down at him, an old dragoon whose camail-framed face boasted an even woolier lip-weasel than the antennae-mustachioed emperor centipede design of her spiked helm’s noseguard. Hey, wait a godsdamned minute …

“Good morning, Captain,” said the chevaleresse, offering him the Cobalt salute. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Level with me, Singh,” he said suspiciously, all the discordant pieces of this impossible morning finally falling into joint. “I know this time I’m not just crossfaded, I’m really, truly dead—I get that. But is this place some kind of heaven, or some kind of hell?”

“It’s just life, you old Villain,” she told him, spitting a clod of betel into the blood-tinged puddle at his feet. “Which is to say, a blend of the both. Now let us fall back behind the wall before your bugged-out brain becomes prophetic.”

“Trust.” Maroto nodded, seeing that Nemi, Indsorith, and the few remaining Cobalts and Chainites were dipping inside the portcullis. He and his fellow Villain were some of the last through the gatehouse before it shut; the final two were his nephew and Ji-hyeon, their beast carrying them under the portcullis even as it began to lower. The riders looked as frazzled as their steed as they burst from the western market into its eastern twin, the animal huffing and puffing around the busy square the way Maroto used to after climbing up a canyon wall, before he’d gotten back into shape.

“Hey, fleet riding, kiddos, how’d—” Maroto began to hail them but Sullen lurched off the side of the animal, losing his lunch before his feet even hit the ground. Ji-hyeon dismounted after him, stroking his back, and that was a bit of bonding Maroto didn’t feel like adding his avuncular touch to. Instead he let Singh lead him away through the thronged square where Cobalts shared wineskins with Chainites and Raniputri riders shared beedies with Immaculate archers. There were Flintlanders here, too, but it was clear from their relaxed bearing as much as their studded black leather armor that they hailed from Reh, the Bal-Amon coast, or some other more civilized corner of his homeland. Just about every Arm of the Star was represented in the busy piazza of East Othean, and unlike the desolate city on the other side of the wall, here every window of every building bordering the market was crowded with faces. Frightened ones.

“Did you skip breakfast?” asked Singh as they passed one of the crowded booths that had replaced mundane merchant stalls, and catching the scent of sizzling Immaculate barbecue from the makeshift kitchen, Maroto queued up harder than he had ever queued in his life. The line moved quick enough, since none of the soldiers had to pay for the seaweed-wrapped rolls of rice, burdock, marinated beef, and fermented chili paste, but even still the usually patient chevaleresse was clearly in a rush to be off again. Maroto obliged her by only wolfing down three of the transcendentally delicious food-tubes by the side of the booth, and filled the rest of the way up on a sustained guzzle from a nearby rain barrel—nothing better than a post-fight feast, except maybe a post-fight sit, but Singh was clearly having none of the latter just yet.

“You in some kind of a crazy hurry?” he gasped, that cramp in his side no longer feeling like some welcome reminder of mortality or whatever the fuck he’d been thinking as Singh hustled him out of the market square and through a door in the side of the wall. He whined out loud at seeing another of Othean’s infinite staircases awaiting them.

“Yes,” she said, not slowing her pace. “We’re about to find out if this war can be won, and I do not intend to spend this momentous occasion skulking in a stairway.”

“Fiiiine,” he said, following after her. “What’s about to happen, exactly?”

“Didn’t Fennec tell you?” The ornamental yellow stitching on Singh’s coat-of-ten-thousand-nails made the armor shine like gold in the torchlight, her mustache even curlier than he remembered. “He told me he had.”

“The trap, right, we led the Tothans into a trap.” Maroto leaned his head against the cool stone wall. The side that wasn’t a puffy mass of crusty bandages. “Fennec’s here? He made it?”

“He’s waiting for us on the battlement,” said the chevaleresse, clomping back down the stairs to help Maroto resume his climb. “We’ll have a drink and a smoke and see just what kind of a trap these Immaculate priests have set. It had better be a good one, since you’ve led an army of monsters straight toward us.”

“A smoke and a drink,” said Maroto, smacking his lips as he put an arm around Singh and started climbing again. “Decadent. You think we can afford to kick back at a time like this?”

“We cannot afford not to, as this may well be our last opportunity,” said Singh. “I believe it is customary for the condemned to have a final smoke, and I have a pipe you can borrow.”

“Believe it or not, I got my own for a change,” said Maroto, and when they reached the landing at the top of the stairs he took it out to show her. His hands were shaking, so she packed it for him from her pouch, and then filled her own—that heinous briar monstrosity Zosia had carved her way back when. Seeing it made his heart ache for the beautiful tankard-shaped pipe she’d made him, the one he’d lost devils knew where only to have Zosia miraculously return it to him back at the Cobalt camp … where he had lost it a second time, leaving it in his tent during the big battle from which he had never returned. He cursed himself for losing the greatest gift he had ever received, and twice over at that … but then the finest briar in the world is the one in your hand, and wouldn’t you know it, this one was Cobalt-carved, too. They got their pipes good and lit before taking them back out into the weather; the rampart was mostly covered, but between the wind and the damp it was better to use the coalstick inside. When their bowls were burning bright and the delicious Oriorentine blend filled the stairwell with the familiar but long-missed scent of Kang-ho’s favorite tubq, Singh gave the requisite knocks and the guards on the other side opened the door, letting them out onto the top of the wall.

No wonder Singh had been in a hurry to get up here and get lit. From this vantage he could see clear across West Othean to the hazy line of the compromised inner wall, the bump of the Autumn Palace. Between here and there were the miles of city he’d just crossed, some quarters packed nearly as tight as the outer slums and others expansive estates of the noblesse that sprawled as wide as Raniputri castles.

Good neighborhoods and bad were now equal, however, the whole fucking place infested with Tothans. Every street looked to be clogged with black-shelled ranks, bigger monsters jumped from rooftop to rooftop, and the largest of the lot came crashing through the buildings themselves, clearing wild paths through the orderly city. The vanguard would reach this central wall within minutes, and even from up here Maroto couldn’t see far enough back to catch sight of the army’s rear. For all he knew it didn’t have one, stretching out to the Temple of Pentacles and beyond.

“That looks an awful lot like the end of the song to me,” confessed Maroto as they gazed out over the fallen city. The rain had stopped, and the creamy yet spicy tubq tickled his tongue as he pulled on Bang’s pipe. There was still an edge of brine to the smoke that made his eyes water. Well, his eye, anyway. “I’ll be honest, Singh, I never expected you of all people to follow Ji-hyeon through the Lark’s Tongue Gate. I would’ve put every coin I could borrow on you hightailing it out of the Witchfinder Plains, no doubt … but I’m glad you’re here.”

“You should have laid a bet, then, because that is precisely what I did—I was back in Zygnema just as fast as my pony could carry me.” Singh blew a smoke ring up into the grey sky. “I will risk my life for a just cause, or a profitable one, but you will not see me risking my soul by stepping into a Gate.”

“Huh?” Maroto looked away from the marching army, cocking his head at his old friend. “Okay, wait, I thought it was odd Fennec didn’t mention you were here. If you didn’t come through the Gate with the rest of the Cobalts, what’re you doing here?”

“I heeded the counsel of one who did, someone who’s been awaiting your return for quite some time,” said the chevaleresse, taking his arm and leading him down the ramparts. There were soldiers everywhere, the single peacock feathers of the Immaculates’ helmets and the double black plumes of the Raniputris’ wiggling like worms in the wind, but none of the troopers looked familiar to Maroto. “Granted, when she turned up on my doorstep her proposal was to sack Othean rather than save it, and that was indeed what we set out to do. While I was off enjoying our Cobalt reunion at the Witchfinder Plains my churlish children somehow managed to reunite the Raniputri Dominions, but I knew if I didn’t talk them into working together against some outer foe they would soon turn on each other. Near the end of our voyage, however, we were greeted by that same devil vulture who delivered Empress Ryuki’s messages to Ji-hyeon back at the Lark’s Tongue, and bearing an ironically similar plea: Little Heaven was indeed under attack, the fate of the Star was in peril, and all mortals should surely perish unless we came to Othean’s aid … So we did, but only arrived this morning, same as you.”

“You sailed clear up here from the Dominions to throw down on the Immaculates, but when you got here decided to help them fight an unbeatable army of monsters instead?” Maroto squinted at the figures gathered on a bastion up ahead. “You must be just as demented as I am.”

“Am I to suppose once these demons have had their way with the Isles they will seek no more victories?” Singh shook her head and her pipe in time, her bangles clinking. “I have children, Maroto, and my children have children, and someday their children will have children … but only if the Star persists. Do you understand?”

“Hmmm,” said Maroto, recognizing Fennec in the small huddle of Raniputris up ahead. “I understand that the empress offered a handsome reward to whoever came to Othean’s defense, and if the city falls your riders can get back down to the docks faster than anyone else on this Isle.”

“Well, there is that …” said Singh as they came up to the crowded bastion. “Something tells me your Azgarothian fleet also has practical motivations to complement their noble intentions, as do the seafaring Flintlanders who beat us both here. Othean is where the fate of the Star will be decided … and if we win, well, this adventure’s keeping my kids out of trouble for the time being, and I do have an inside connection to make sure my people are especially well compensated.”

“And who the devils is that, anyway, the woman who talked you into coming up here?” Maroto asked as Fennec waved them over. “Ji-hyeon? I heard that she jumped into the local Gate and went missing for a while, but did she also pop out down in the Dominions to … to …”

The woman who Fennec had been talking to turned as well, and Maroto saw that despite her Raniputri armor she was not of the Souwest Arm. She was … she was …

He dropped his pipe.

It was her. Not as he’d dreamed her, not exactly, for this vision wore armor instead of her altogether, her fit figure sheathed under brigandine. From her quirk of a smile he supposed Singh’s holding back on naming her had been upon request, to preserve the surprise. And that smile! Hard as it was to believe she was actually standing there in front of him, her smiling made this seem even more impossible than a dream.

She came to him as he just stood there, slack-limbed, looking into her pretty ruby eyes as more explosions began popping way out in the distance; he felt the same tingling intimacy he’d experienced on Jex Toth when the Vex Assembly had gotten into his head. Only this was a welcome intrusion, and somehow so familiar he wondered if she had spent countless nights dreaming him, just as he had dreamed her … crazy as it sounded, it felt right, like this exact moment had played out a hundred times in both their hearts before finally coming to fruition. But he had to wait for the closest explosion yet to fade to give voice to his feelings, because it was so loud there was no way she could—

Choi rolled up on her toes, put her hand on the back of his neck, and gently but firmly pulled him down into a kiss. As his tongue met hers those damnably elusive dreams he could never quite remember upon waking flashed through the back of his mind, in perfect focus at last, but he had no time for them now. She tasted of granted wishes, of coconut water passing over salt-stung lips as he reached out to her across the seas with his aching heart, with some fresh kaldi notes on the end. She tasted alive, and she kissed him all the harder, her fingers exploring his hair but careful not to brush his injured scalp, her other hand finding his arm and running down it to his palm, taking hold of it as if afraid he’d fall away again as she kissed him the way he’d always wanted her to …

And then life kneed them both in the crotch, the entire bastion lurching to one side as some terrible force struck the wall. They stumbled apart, and he nicked his tongue on one of her sharp teeth. They both froze, waiting for the wall to buckle beneath their feet and send them tumbling to their deaths, but when there was no immediate catastrophe they straightened up from their panicked crouches. Had any first kiss been greeted with such dark portent?

Well, maybe his and Bang’s on that bucolic Tothan hillside just before he’d been captured by monsters, but that had been a fairly chaste peck on the cheek to accompany the wicked spanking. Thinking of Bang now made his heart ache … but not out of any irrational guilt, since they’d certainly never talked about exclusivity. No, thinking of the pretty pirate gave Maroto’s ticker a wee spasm only because he wished he could kiss her one last time, too, and if that made Maroto a dirty old man, well, he’d never claimed to be anything but.

“Oh,” said Choi, noticing something on the wet flagstones and bending down to pick it up. It was the canted bowl of the pipe Maroto had dropped, and the antler stem that had snapped off when it landed. Maybe it actually was for the best Bang wasn’t here, if only for the sake of Maroto’s buns … “This is unfortunate. I broke your pipe.”

“Oh hells no, I had the dropsies, and to be honest it was never really mine to begin with,” said Maroto, taking the pieces and stowing them back in his pouch. “And I’m beginning to think nothing’s so broke it can’t be fixed.”

“I apologize,” she said, “I am trying to stop smiling, but I cannot. You are truly here. This is no dream.”

“Never stop smiling, please!” Even looking straight at her adorable gap-toothed grin he couldn’t quite believe it was real, either. “I can’t … I mean … you’re the one who talked Singh into sailing on Othean? I hope we live long enough to hear that song!”

“It is brief enough,” said Choi in that matter-of-fact way he loved. “When the Tothans attacked I chose to risk entering a hungry mouth alone. I had paid close attention when Fennec first brought us through the Gates to Zygnema, and dared to replicate his method. I was successful. Upon passing over to the Dominions I sought out the chevaleresse, to enlist her in my campaign of vengeance against the empress. I was successful. That is the song … but … there are others I would sing you.”

A nearby blast of light lit up the fierce wildborn face he had missed so much, and it was about as good a moment as Maroto could remember having … and then over her shoulder he saw the entire western city go off like a bundle of firecrackers, the explosions rushing in toward the central wall, the horizon going black with smoke as entire estates erupted in blinding flashes, flaming debris already beginning to rain down all around them. Seeing the blasts come closer and closer, and feeling the wind rise, he knew that as tall as this wall was it wasn’t tall enough to keep out all the embers blowing in. West Othean was detonating right before his eye, but long before the final bombs went off the eastern city was also going to catch fire. The Dreaming Priests of Othean had a foolproof trap to take out the Tothans, all right—lure in the enemy armies, and then burn the whole damn capital to the ground! Fair play, if a touch shortsighted … or maybe the Immaculates had known all along that theirs was a lost cause, that at best they could deprive their inhuman enemy of a conquest.

So that was that, then. After all this time and blood and doubt Maroto had finally found the girl of his dreams, just in time to die beside her. Wasn’t that just always the fucking way?