She was covered head-to-toe in thick, black grime. Her fingers were sore, her legs bruised, and she had lost a good deal of hair to the fires, but The Jensen was alive, its Engine humming and gurgling, the whole monstrous vehicle vibrating with power. Jubal had worked hard clearing some debris from the tracks ahead. Urgal had simply lounged about, irritated not to be moving. A few times he had ventured from them and returned with a wriggling fish in his maw. Ylia smiled. At least Urgal was doing well out of the chaos.

  Jubal walked up to the driver’s cab, grinning when he saw how caked with dirt Ylia was.

  “The look suits you, Ylia.”

  Shew blew hair out of her eyes and leaned on the door of the cab.

  “You know I used to be rich?”

  The theront bellowed laughter.

  “That is what happens when Telos comes into your life.”

  She grinned. “The ‘Telos Effect’. I’m coining that as a term.”

  “I am sure it will have many takers before this adventure is through.”

  “So now we wait, I guess,” Ylia said.

  She scanned the city, looking for signs of Telos and Xheng—and hopefully Qala, too. After the waves had hit, the city had fallen strangely silent. Even the birds had fled. But now, the gulls were returning. Crows circled, squawking angrily. Muttered conversations and cries for help drifted on the wind. And of course, The Jensen chuntered and gurgled, eager to be moving. The Engine was like a cat that’d gone a long time without any love, and now she had given it a modicum of attention, it was vibrating with excitement.

  “There!” Jubal said.

  She couldn’t see what he was looking at. His theront-eyes must have been keener than hers. Or perhaps it was more to do with his training as a hunter and archer. Either way, it took a few more minutes before she saw the trio.

  A grin split Ylia’s face as Telos, Qala, and Xheng stumbled toward them. She waved and Telos waved back. She noted he had a new sword at his belt, a scimitar blade far too big for a man of Telos’s modest stature. That made her grin even wider.

  The heiress of the Qi’shathian empire was supported between the two men. Her head lolled slightly as they navigated the difficult terrain, but Ylia could see she was lucid. What shocked Ylia, however, as Qala drew nearer, was that her hair now had streaks of white in it. What have they done to her?

  Telos smiled broadly as they approached the Engine. “You found one. And got it working!”

  Ylia could tell he was impressed.

  “Well, some idiot told me we had to cross Aurelia in three days. The only way to do that is with an Engine.” Ylia turned her eyes on Qala. The heiress looked fatigued beyond anything Ylia had ever seen. “Qala…”

  “I owe you all a debt of thanks...” Qala said. She swallowed, swayed slightly. Ylia noticed she was wearing new robes, these a lavish purple, woven from rich silks and golden thread. They trailed in the muddy slush that’d coated Wylhome’s streets, but were still regal for all that. “What I would not give for a draft of Respiratory Remedy!” Qala added, her voice a little shaky, but a smile at last quirking her lips.

  They all laughed.

  Xheng was looking over his shoulder.

  “We’d best be off quickly. The Governor’s men will not be far behind.”

  “He’s right,” Telos said. “We sadly did not escape unnoticed.”

  “So now we have angered an Aurelian Governor too?” Ylia said, raising an eyebrow. “Wonderful!”

  “A murderer, thief, and conspirator,” Xheng snarled.

  “Clearly, we have a lot to catch up on,” Ylia said. She extended a hand down and pulled Qala up into the driver’s cab. She made a gesture towards the rear door of the cab. “If you would like to make your way down to one of our luxury carriages...” Qala chuckled, then surprised Ylia by throwing her arms about her with such warmth and affection Ylia felt momentarily nonplussed what to do. Then, she hugged Qala back. She felt relief washing through her. To have lost her House, her savings, and Qala—the first person who had reached out to help her after everything went wrong—would simply have been too much.

  Xheng clambered aboard next, then Telos. Jubal came last. There was not enough room for all of them, so Jubal and Xheng—who Ylia saw was bizarrely holding a bottle of wine—filed out of the back door, and into the first carriage of the Engine. Qala stayed a moment, looking at Telos.

  “You shall have to tell me how you came back from the dead, Telos.” Her eyes scanned his strange, scaled armour. “And how you came to wear the armour of the gods.”

  Telos smiled. He glanced at Ylia.

  “There is a wild tale to tell. But let’s get away first.”

  Qala nodded.

  “Then, you shall tell me all.”

  Qala departed, leaving Telos, Ylia and Urgal in the cab. The cat insisted on curling up by the warm firebox, even though he was massively in the way and in danger of catching a spark on his vibrant fur.

  Ylia sighed.

  She began to feed more Daimonsblood into the firebox—much to Urgal’s annoyance. The Engine gurgled, hissed. Steam and smoke belched from the chimney. She felt the vibrating power as the huge hulk of metal began to strain forward. She pulled a huge brake-lever and the Engine shrieked, then began to gently grind out of the station. They were moving. It did not seem real, but there it was.

  She breathed a second sigh of relief and tried to wipe the sweat from her brow but only ended up smearing more dirt around her face.

  “Well, Daimonopolis, here we come…” she muttered.

  Telos was looking at her intently.

  “You’re practically an engineer. Where did you learn to do all this?”

  “An engineer would kill you for thinking what I’ve done is any good. But it’s enough to get us moving. The Engine is not in a good way. We’re leaking fuel. But if we can get to Daimonopolis, then we might be able to get this thing repaired. Of course, in all likelihood, they will try and take it off us the moment we stop at the station. But we can try.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” Telos said, a slight smirk turning up one corner of his mouth. “You may not be an engineer, but you still know a hell of a lot about Engines.”

  Ylia turned and looked out of the cab window. The sea-battered city rolled gently past them. The first portion of their journey was very slightly uphill. Once they crested the upper city, then they would be going downhill and might be able to pick up a little speed through the woods surrounding Wylhome. From there, it would be miles of forest, farmland, and tiny towns until Daimonopolis.

  “My father,” she said, after a time. “He was an explorer, before he settled down with my mum. He had been everywhere. And he knew everything about everything.”

  She felt simultaneously a warm glow in her chest—and a knife cutting. Twenty years, and the wound was still as fresh as it ever was. Twenty years, and she could not let go. She was a woman grown now. If her father was by some miracle still alive, then she doubted he would even recognise her.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  But he wasn’t alive.

  He was dead in some dungeon somewhere.

  Falsely accused.

  Betrayed.

  She fought down the lump in her throat, the burning behind her eyes. For the love of the gods, how could she still cry? Hadn’t she cried enough? Was there no limit on human tears?

  To her surprise, Telos reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with the gesture. It was at once too intimate and too formal. She sensed he, too, did not know what to do. That made her smile wanly. Telos, who always had a plan for everything, who took the return of the gods and Daimons in his charismatic stride, had no idea what to do with a woman’s feelings.

  “What possessed you to make that deal with Beltanus?” she said, looking for distraction.

  It was Telos’s turn to sigh—and sigh deeply.

  “I don’t know. I don’t plan ahead as much as you think. I’m a thief, Ylia. I’m very good at improvising to get out of bad situations. But long terms plans aren’t exactly my forte. I needed a way to convince him to let us help Qala and wouldn’t, I don’t know, doom our species.” He’d forced a smile at that final quip, but she could tell it was fake.

  “Do you think he’d actually do it? Abandon us, I mean?”

  “I honestly don’t know. The gods… they seem like humans. Bigger, stronger humans. But they are more alien than that. Their planet is not like ours, from what I can gather. They don’t think like us. And their emotions… well, you saw.”

  Ylia nodded. Telos finally withdrew his awkward hand. He flexed his fingers, which moved easily in his scaled suit, as though it were actually a new layer of skin, a part of him.

  “We have to explain to Qala,” Ylia said.

  He nodded.

  “Yes.” A rueful smile made the boyishness of his features shine. “Not the easiest conversation in the world, is it?”

  Ylia was about to reply when Telos suddenly whipped around. His eyes held the intensity of a hawk’s as he scoured the cityscape. They were at the top of the hill now, overlooking the whole sweep of Wylhome down to the ocean, a view that the wealthy of the city had paid hand-over-fist to obtain—all for nothing, for the city was now tatters below. But Telos had clearly seen something else, something moving through the flooded streets and piles of detritus.

  “They’re coming!” he said.

  Ylia saw a blur of shadows past the cab window. Then she heard the thud of something landing atop their Engine. Telos drew his sword. Urgal leapt up to his feet, sensing the danger in their shifting emotions. He let out a deep-throated growl.

  They waited. Telos’s eyes were trained on the ceiling. Ylia heard shuffling. She grabbed the hot poker for the firebox and brandished it. It was not a conventional weapon, but a blow from superheated steel would do the job just as well as an axe or sword.

  Then a small, black object clattered into the cabin. It looked like a smooth stone.

  But Telos screamed.

  “GET IT!”

  Ylia did not know what was so dangerous about this tiny black object, but she heard the urgency in his voice. She reached down for the stone, but as she did so, the Engine began its descent, and the stone skidded away from her towards the cab.

  Directly towards the firebox.

  Telos’s eyes widened in horror.

  “No!”

  But Urgal came to the rescue, batting away the small, black object before it reached the flames. It sailed out of the open cab doorway and landed with a thump beside a building. The Engine roared onward, gaining speed.

  Then there was detonation.

  Ylia screamed, tumbling backwards. She would have fallen out of the cab’s other doorway had not Telos grabbd her. His balance was supernatural, somehow remaining grounded when even Urgal had to scramble for purchase.

  The explosion rocked the entire Engine, lifting the wheels of the cab and front carriages. But the Engine righted itself, crashing back down to the tracks with a screech of metal on metal. Sparks erupted around them as the wheels ground inefficiently, then found purchase again. A deep rumble issued from the firebox. It was as though the Engine were alive and talking to them. Ylia knew some engineers believed the Engines really were inhabited by some kind of spirit, but that was a thought far from her mind now.

  “What was that?”

  “Some kind of bomb!” Telos replied. “We were threatened with it earlier. Long story!”

  The rear door of the driver’s cab opened and Xheng staggered in.

  “Our friend has come to play, it seems,” the captain said, a mad grin on his face. He was still clutching the bottle of wine in his hands.

  Telos nodded.

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  Xheng brandished the wine bottle.

  “Not quite what I meant,” Telos said.

  Somewhere, a bull bellowed. The roar was almost as violent as the thunder of the explosion.

  “Jubal!” they all said at once.

  “I will defend the princess,” Xheng said. “You keep this thing moving!”

  The captain disappeared. Ylia heard footsteps above them.

  “Telos!” she cried.

  A shadow blurred in through the open doorway. But Telos was already dodging to the side, avoiding the double-footed kick aimed at his chest. His speed was unbelievable. If she’d ever doubted his story of transformation at the hands of the gods, she could not doubt now. He was faster than any man should be.

  Telos brought his sword up, but his opponent was no slouch, drawing a dagger and parrying the blow, though clearly with some effort.

  The assassin leapt back. His hood fell down and Ylia saw it was the same man who had taken Qala from them. His scar was distinctive, as was the arrogant curve of his smile.

  “You!” she snarled.

  He smiled at them both, his eyes flicking between her poker and Telos’s sword.

  “Me,” he said.

  Then he was lunging toward Ylia. Telos grunted, leaping forward and intercepting the blow. But the assassin had only feinted. He redirected the path of his dagger up and then over, forcing Telos to parry high. A normal man would not have been able to manouevre such a big sword with the requisite speed to deflect the blow, but Telos now had abnormal strength.

  Ylia was no fighter, but she had seen a dozen tavern brawls in her time as an innkeeper. She knew a thing or two about distance and timing. The assassin was exceptionally skilled. In this tight space, his dagger was the better weapon over Telos’s long sword. Quicker to bring to bear and quicker to change direction. Telos’s powers would compensate somewhat, but not enough.

  Not only that, but he had identified Ylia as the weaker target, and was using her to put pressure on Telos to defend, when he should be overwhelming the assassin with attacks.

  The assassin laughed, tossing his dagger this way and that. Flicking it . Cutting the air.

  Telos lunged. It just went to show he was not yet familiar with his weapon, was used to using rapiers and daggers and other pointed weapons, for the curved scimitar did not do so well with thrusting attacks. The assassin neatly sidestepped. Gods, he was quick too. Maybe not as quick as Telos in terms of raw speed, but he seemed quicker because his timing was perfection itself.

  The assassin flicked his wrist.

  A sharp metal bolt shot out of concealment.

  It would have struck Ylia between the eyes but Telos snatched it out of the air, tossing it aside.

  The assassin’s eyes went wide.

  “You are an intriguing case,” the assassin murmured. “Where did you get that power from, hmm?”

  “Hard work and training, of course,” Telos replied.

  “Enough,” the assassin said, clearly enraged by Telos’s frivolity. “Let us end this now.”

  Telos only grinned.

  “Indeed. I think it’s over.”

  The assassin paused. Ylia saw the hairs rising on the back of his neck. He wheeled around—but it was already too late.

  The assassin had not factored Urgal into his calculations. Whether it was because he had been too intent on Telos to notice the felidae, or because Urgal had hidden from the sound of the explosion in the huge chest of bones, Ylia did not know. Either way, his eyes widened in dreadful shock as the felidae leapt from the rear of the cabin and slammed bodily into the assassin, bowling him over.

  He raised his hands and cried.

  “Koronzon! Koronzon! Deliver—”

  Light had been gathering in his palms, but whatever spell he had been attempting to work failed as Urgal sank his huge fangs into the assassin’s neck and tore. Blood, ligament, organ, muscle, all were ripped free. The assassin tried to scream but only a dreadful gurgling emerged from the opening that’d once been his neck. Gore sprayed, then trickled, then pooled. He slumped, lifeless. Urgal spat out the flesh, licked his muzzle, and let out a humming purr.

  “So much for growing up on the slopes of Wuzin,” Ylia said.

  Telos nodded soberly. Then their eyes met.

  “Qala!”