“All of our plans crumbled down on us as quickly as they first arose. In just one day, everything we’d dared to dream became ash in the Wind.

  For we hadn’t been as sly as we’d thought in our preparations, and without our knowledge, our husbands had become aware of what we were plotting. Perhaps we neglected our wifely duties, or gave ourselves away in our childish excitement. Who knows how they pieced it all together; I suppose it little matters anymore. But the point is that they discovered we were going into the woods frequently and for long periods of time, and they followed us without our notice, straight to our little cabin and all its incriminating contents, from preserved food and items stolen from our households, to piles of handmade trinkets such as were commonly sold at the markets, and the most revealing thing of all: our stashed money.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Farren and Ulises had become greedier in their time of hardship—more resentful of their situation—with each passing day. So it shouldn’t have been as shocking as it was to realize that, in their comings and goings from the Sun capital and their return to business with the former pirates, they’d finally decided to surrender the last of their integrity in exchange for far preferable lives as the powerful men they’d always longed to become.

  So. It was with their freshly acquired God traits that they set fire to our hut. Or perhaps Farren alone managed to muster sufficient heat to his hands; he’d have been the stronger of the two, I think. He had an…inner power, an intensity of spirit that I can’t describe. He’d have made a good servant.

  But that doesn’t matter. I believe they wanted to make it seem like we'd died accidental deaths. Maybe they were ashamed of what others would say. I don’t know. The people who knew them, and us, would probably have suspected anyway, but it shows a certain cunning morality on their part that I thought was above them, that at least they tried to pass it off as an accident. I find it funny, to be frank.

  What? Oh. Yes, sorry. I suppose I didn’t clarify: we were in there. In the cabin. They shut us inside—barred the window and door with fallen logs that they were (newly) capable of lifting, then started little fires on all four corners.

  And they left, presumably to start better lives amongst their new people. I don’t believe they even stayed to watch us burn. They must have been in a rush. Or—sometimes I humor these silly thoughts—maybe they were capable of experiencing some sort of emotional discomfort to stand there and listen to our cries. It could well have been the case for Ulises, for all I know. He didn’t hate his wife and daughter as terribly as my husband did me.

  I also like to imagine that something awful happened to them after, that they never found the prosperity they sought, or that they ended up dying in some slow and painful way.

  But, realistically, I imagine they fared well.”

  Prince Siebos was a pile of flaccid flesh and gore on the bed, but Mantis thought belatedly that it wasn’t quite enough. There remained one thing left to do to him.

  His memories were hers. The pus and infection purged, his vileness now existed solely within Mantis, safely to remain stored along with the rest of her burden. It all belonged only to her, as was right, for she would put what she’d gotten out of him to a good end. Nobody else should have him—especially not that glowing prick, who in all his right still owned what was left of the man.

  Mantis knew there was a dire need for haste, but she could not move on and leave this string loose.

  She ran to a delicately carved wooden chest above the unlit fireplace and opened it to find a set of firesteel and flint. The lamps hanging from the walls of the room were generously filled with oil, and Mantis hurried to gather them and drench the surface of the bed with the viscous substance before tearing and removing her dress and wiping down her bloody arms with its lovely, soft sheets of fabric to the best of her ability. While she was at it, she tried wiping away as much of the red cosmetic from her face as she could, and reached up for the hairpins poking into her scalp to free her short locks of wavy hair, which fell softly to tickle the nape of her neck, her cheeks and her jaw once again. She needed to make herself look as different from the person who’d walked in through the front gates of the castle as she could manage.

  It wouldn’t be long now before they came for her.

  Mantis flung the dress over the lifeless body on the bed with a quick twinge of remorse to have so greatly abused Yilenn’s fine possession, and then set the whole thing alight with a spark of the fire striker. Flames rose to engulf and consume the prince, to steal him irretrievably from his owner, and Mantis had only a brief moment to look at what she’d done before she turned and ran for the doors of the balcony.

  In only her breeches and the set of white undershift and corset she’d been wearing underneath the dress—which was now serving its last purpose as additional kindling to an already oversized fire, Mantis unlatched and pulled open the heavily adorned doors on the left-hand wall of the chamber to step into the pleasant breeze of the several stories high open space. She wasn’t looking forward to what had to come next. She didn’t think too thoroughly about it.

  Down below, the city rippled away from the temple and castle like wavelets from a pebble dropped in a puddle. The Rays extended from the siege walls and out like a skirt of frill on a dress, flamboyant and unnecessarily ample. Large front lawns peppered with compulsively well-kept flowering plants gave the view most of its bright coloring, along with the variety of materials used for tiling on roofs in an astonishing display of power and wealth. One really had to possess a great deal of both to be able to acquire such rare building materials and in such large quantities.

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  Balconies and windows jutted out from the vertical behemoth below like thorns, and Mantis made herself look down to identify an adequate point of grip. She deliberated quickly, trying to make her calculations without giving them more thought than was wise. The railing on one of the lower balconies was fine. It looked sturdy, and the height was adequate.

  It was good enough.

  Mantis reached down with all ten of her links and wrapped them securely around the cold metal bars fencing the semicircular surface that protruded from one of the lower floors. And then she jumped.

  It was in the first frozen instant of her fall that she allowed herself to recall how much this hurt. She’d only ever done it a few times in her life, and there was a very valid reason for that. Her links were attached to her heart, or in some way projected from it, as if they were parasitic growths feeding on and growing from her, rather than a set of useful extremities and parts of her body. Mantis had learned to use them to her advantage in a number of ways, but there were cutting limits to what her anatomy could tolerate. This trick would be a sure and incautious way to test those demarcated lines—perhaps pass them. Mantis had never attempted this from so high up before. But it was too late to have reservations.

  At first there was a freefall that solidified the air in Mantis’s lungs and made her organs rise to her throat while the world around her blurred and lost its tangibility, and then came the abrupt sideways wrench when she came awfully close to reaching the cobblestoned ground that flung her up slightly into a bounce and then careening in the opposite direction, swinging wildly on the threads of her body like a child on a swing.

  Mantis couldn’t think. She let go and fell the remaining distance, which turned out to be significantly higher than she’d estimated, straight down and rolling onto the hard ground. It was as though needles had burst from her chest and flowed down her arms through her veins. The agony of having pulled so hard on her links could only compare to having one’s heart ripped out.

  A strangled laugh burst from her throat.

  She’d torn her clothes and skin on her left hip and upper arm. The whole surface of her body that had first made contact with the rough stone was lightly filed down, one layer deep into her flesh. But she’d be fine. Her external injuries paled next to the stabbing pain coursing through her torso and arms.

  It was an effort to get on her hands and knees, and then later onto her feet. By the time she’d managed to stand upright, her mind had cleared of its fog, and only one thought remained, simple and efficient: get away.

  Like any creature in lethal danger, Mantis took in her surroundings with a wide glance and ran for safety out of instinct. Far from the castle, far from the city, far from the Sun. Her legs moved faster than her upper body could rally, and with a pronounced slump on her spine, she scurried away from the walled mountain behind her, far enough to reach the royal gardens, where she swiftly hid amidst the greenery.

  Nobody had seen her jump from the balcony; Mantis doubted that anyone even imagined her capable of doing so. They wouldn’t have moved on to looking for her outside the castle just yet.

  The palace gardens were an artfully deliberate arrangement of sweet-smelling fruit trees, flowery bushes and shapely hedges marking a picturesque walking path for nobles to enjoy an artificial emulation of the pleasures of nature. Luckily for Mantis, they were empty at this time of the day, when the heat and glare of the Sun above was too much for even his followers to bear.

  A liveried guard came, making his rounds absentmindedly with his golden eyes lost in the distance. Mantis hid from him behind a wall of dense bushes, and when he came close enough, pushed a link through the intertwined branches of the plant to catch him by the throat. In the time it takes to blink, she broke his neck, plucked it sideways and down at a velocity that snuffed him out before a single thought could form in his mind.

  Mantis didn’t enjoy killing without a motive, but she could think of no better solution to her current circumstances.

  She carried the stranger’s body into the hedges and stripped him of his uniform. Folding up the hem of his trousers to fit her shorter legs helped, but there was little that could be done for the rest of the clothing, which hung loose on Mantis’s body, even over the garments she kept on underneath.

  It would do. She didn’t intend to be out in public for long, only just enough to collect the growing number of people under her watch, and go.

  The few servants walking around in this new and less active area of the castle grounds didn’t seem too concerned with what went on around them, and Mantis realized that the Sun must have been staying his hand, for some reason. Perhaps he intended to search for her privately first, to not make a spectacle of the situation.

  A few heads turned when she sped past unknowing clergy members and servants who were either passing through the gardens on some errand or simply enjoying a nice stroll outside, but no one addressed her. Mantis purposely kept a casual hand raised up to her mouth, fingertips resting on lips she pulled into her mouth and bit down on, as if deep in thought or confusion, with brows furrowed to better sell the act. It must have looked peculiar, surely, but Mantis chose to prioritize keeping her red lips out of sight, and hence her identity itself, hidden for a little longer. Soon enough, the Sun would know in which direction she’d gone; he’d pick the information straight out of his followers’ minds. But in order to find her in their ocean of memories, he’d need something to look out for, and a detail that stood out as much as a crimson mouth on a little, effeminate guard was the exact thing one might remark on and remember well.

  Leroh, Tem, and Fala were huddled together, pretending to work on the flooring of a blue-painted pavilion in the shape of a big flower. They’d made it close to the spire that had belonged to the prince, but turned a sharp left upon reaching their destination instead of approaching the walls or the closest gates to make themselves easier to find. They’d hidden in the vast courtyard of one of the pretty houses, chosen seemingly at random.

  It took Mantis time she couldn’t spare to find them, and when she finally did, she wanted to give them all a verbal lashing for not obeying her orders better. But they had to run and find Teela. There was simply no time for reprimands.

  “This is where my master—” Tem started to explain regardless of the fact that Mantis hadn’t asked him to do so.

  “What do we do?” Leroh cut his friend off, reaching out to touch his arm as if in apology.

  “We have to find your sister,” Mantis said, sweeping their periphery with her gaze, hoping but not expecting to spot the stubborn girl.

  “Is that her?” Fala spoke for the first time since their initial encounter.

  And it was.