The King Rail carriage jolted as it tore towards East Kowloon. Yutai sat with his elbows resting on his knees, trying to clear his mind. Beside him sat two Kingmakers on either side, and in front of them stood their team leader, one hand hooked into the overhead rail while the other held a holopad close to her face.

  All four Kingmakers were fully equipped for the grand assignment. Their coats hung heavy with gadgets in their pockets, packed bags rested at their feet, weapons hanging off their backs.

  It was Yutai’s first deployment outside Keung’s detachment in nearly two annui-cycles. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like being paired with other Kingmakers.

  And I definitely forgot what it feels like to work with a female Kingmaker, he said as he glanced up at Legate Su Chen. Of all the girls in the tower, I’m glad we got her.

  Su had always struck him as different for a woman of her rank. Before becoming a Kingmaker, Yutai had assumed the men and women of the tower were close, mingling freely or disappearing into back rooms for brief, scandalous encounters beyond the captains’ and generals’ watch. It fit almost perfectly with Kingmaker reputations.

  But the reality was almost the opposite. Most female Kingmakers kept a deliberate distance from the men, while the men, in turn, regarded the women as highly reserved and rigid in their formalities and rarely tested those boundaries. Outside of classes, segregation was simply the norm.

  But for whatever reason, Su had never bothered with that culture. In fact, she had been one of the first senior Kingmakers to approach him when he was still a fresh Aux-Centurion, showing him around the tower without condescension. His thoughts of her then were the same now; soft spoken, but towering and imposing. She truly cut a formidable figure. Her muscular frame filled out the sleeves of her trench coat even more than Praefect Wing’s did. Despite being nearly a decade his senior, Su’s vigour and vitality could easily place her a decade younger than she really was.

  I’m not going to let her down.

  Seated to Yutai’s right was Tribune Sze Wang, the team’s heavy. Of the four, he carried the most equipment. Duffel bags and hard cases crowded his boots, while bundled racks of rifles were slung together along the bench beside him. Resting across his lap was a long chrome barrel, one piece of a weapon too large to transport intact.

  The role suited him. Though not a Southerner, Sze was built like Ushi, and like him and a handful of others in the Tower, was authorised to operate class-G heavy artillery. Weapons that Kingmakers like Yutai never saw outside schematics and theoretical exercises. The barrel on Sze’s lap belonged to one such weapon. A massive turret that had to be transported in pieces and assembled on site.

  That was the part about Sze that Yutai respected the most. He wasn’t just some brute. He understood every machine he carried. How to build them, break them, then rebuild them again under fire. He was a superb engineer.

  Can’t think of a better Kingmaker to wage a one-man war against the estate.

  To Yutai’s left sat Praefect Wing Sun, the team’s tech specialist. Lanky and withdrawn, he had his eyes closed, breathing slow and measured. Yutai knew he was on probation.

  Last annui-cycle, just one week after a brutal written exam, Sun had cracked under suspense and hacked into the Kingmaker databases just to check whether he’d passed. It was reckless, but not unimpressive. The Tower traced the breach within minutes, yet the fact he’d slipped into one of Kowloon’s most secure systems at all had earned him as much scrutiny as recognition.

  Yutai suspected that was why Sun was here. This regicide wasn’t any reward, it was a test. To see whether he could put the very skills that had landed him in trouble to use, this time under real pressure. If Sun proved himself tonight, this might be his way back into favour, and possibly a new path to Tribune.

  Then there was Yutai himself. The unceremonious replacement for Yuet Li, who was a distinguished Kingmaker in his own right. He’d spent the entire journey feeling like the weak link in the team, and he was done indulging that thought.

  Shehui Yutai. Top scorer of his centurion cohort. Four Medals of Excellence from Operation Searchlight, enough to put me on General Denzhen’s radar and land me on an elite unit tasked with hunting the Yang. Faced the Ibilis directly and lived to tell it…

  …But got captured by him as well.

  Yutai moved to thinking about something else before his own thoughts ruined his mood.

  The King Rail shrieked as it ground to a halt, the sudden deceleration snapping the three seated Kingmakers to attention. They exchanged quick looks before Yutai lifted his gaze to Su Chen, who was still absorbed in her notes.

  ‘Goddamned estate…’ Su muttered as she closed her holopad and slipped it into her trench coat. She crouched, hauled up her duffel, and slung it over her shoulder. ‘We’re here. Get ready.’

  Yutai rose with the others and swung his backpack around his shoulders. The sound of bags being lifted, belts tightening and weapon checks filled the empty carriage. He glanced through the window above his seat. All he could see was a dark brick wall.

  Just as planned, the carriage had stopped several kilometres short of Kambaland City’s docking port, suspended in the narrow, musty, and inaccessible gap between two eastern groundscrapers, a place reserved for the King rail tracks.

  Su stepped to the door and pressed the release. It slid open, and a rush of cold air tore through the compartment, snapping the skirts of her trench coat. She looked at her wrist.

  ‘4:68. We’re a bit early. I hope everyone remembers what to do?’

  ‘Yessir,’ the three replied in unison.

  Sze, the heavy, stepped to the left of Su and peered down the doorway. Curious, Yutai moved to Su’s right and did the same.

  The drop below was a black void. Thirty-four levels up, there was no ground to see. Yutai wondered if anyone who fell would get caught in a tangle of pipework or reach the bottom.

  Su had knelt beside him. In her lap was a compact, gun-shaped device. She cocked it back once, then stood and aimed it through the open carriage doors. Her gaze tracked upward, fixing on a point high on the brickwork opposite them.

  She exhaled and fired.

  A projectile thundered out the gun and tore upward, a dark rope trailing behind it, whipping up and down as it dispensed out. Yutai heard it striking the wall with a distant crack, brick chips sprinkling down past the doorway as the distinct sound of drilling began echoing from above afterwards.

  ‘The bricks are brittle in these parts of Kowloon,’ Su said. ‘Don’t put all your faith in the anchor. If we fall, try to land on the top of the carriage.’

  The sound of drilling stopped and silence followed.

  Su detached the rope from the launcher and gave it a sharp tug to test the hold. Satisfied, she stowed the gun inside her duffel and reached inside her coat, pulling out four metal clips. She fastened all three to the rope, attached the frontmost clip to a loop at her waist, and passed the rope back to the others.

  Sze connected his clip first, then Wing, and at the rope’s end, Yutai. All four had the rope tethered to their waist.

  Su glanced back at them. ‘Good. You remember the formation. Watch your footing, everything here’s damp. Make sure your boots are chalked.’

  All three lifted a foot and dragged a finger along the sole. Grit scraped back rough and dry. ‘I’m good,’ Yutai said.

  ‘Same,’ Sze replied.

  ‘Ready,’ Wing added.

  ‘Fine,’ Su said. ‘Visors on. Follow me.’

  She stepped to the edge, tapped the side of her peaked cap, and a thin white beam flared along the rim of her visor. Gripping the rope at her waist, she jumped.

  Yutai watched her dark silhouette swing towards the wall, her visor light sweeping wide across the mildewed brick as she landed. She steadied herself, extended her legs, and planted her boots. Suspended sideways over the drop, she began walking up, one careful step at a time, cool white light illuminating her vertical ascent.

  Once Su had climbed high enough to clear space, Sze moved to the edge and switched on his visor light. He was loaded down with gear: three duffels slung over his left shoulder, two over his right, stacked hard cases strapped across his back, and the massive chrome barrel secured on top of it all.

  When he jumped, the carriage rocked violently. A heavy impact echoed as he hit the wall. Then, unhurried and controlled, Sze began walking up the bricks, pulling the rope with each step, as if the weight on his back meant nothing. This guy’s crazy.

  Wing followed soon after, carrying only a small backpack. He stepped to the edge, tapped the side of his peaked cap, and looked up once. After a ten-second pause, he exhaled and jumped, striking the wall with a thud before steadying himself against the bricks.

  As soon as he disappeared above, it was Yutai’s turn.

  He rolled his shoulders to settle his pack, stepped to the edge, and switched on his visor. Looking up, he caught sight of the backs of Wing, Sze, and Su, steadily climbing up the wall.

  Light be with me.

  He took four steps back, gripped the rope with his right hand, burst into a short run, and leapt through the doorway. The brick wall surged towards him.

  Yutai flung his left hand out and splayed his knees as he slammed into the wall. His boots skidded once before biting, gloved palm smacking wet stone as his other hand locked around the rope at his waist to keep himself pinned on the line.

  He drew a steadying breath and pushed his hand off the wall to stand upright. The moment he straightened and clamped both hands around the rope, his boots slipped.

  His body went rigid as he gripped the rope, but friction was gone. He skidded down uncontrollably.

  KTCH.

  The clip on the right side of his waist bit into the line and stopped the fall dead. The sudden jolt wrenched him sideways, spinning him left before he slammed into the wall, rebounded, then struck it again. He clung to the rope, muscles screaming as he fought the swing, until he finally managed to pin himself back against the bricks.

  ‘Who was that?!’ Su’s voice rang down from above.

  Yutai sucked in a breath and looked up. Sharp beams from Wing’s and Sze’s visor lights cut through the dark and burned into his eyes. He scrambled to get his boots back on the wall, pressed himself upright, and raised an arm to shield the glare.

  ‘I’m fine!’ he called back. ‘I’m fine. Just slipped.’

  ‘It’s okay, we’re still good on time, just take this nice and slowly,’ Su said from the top as the lights came off him and the three above resumed their steady ascent.

  Yutai slowly stood up horizontally against the wall, and then slowly stepped upwards. He’d slipped so far down that the underside of the King rail carriage now loomed above him.

  After Yutai caught up to the rest of the Kingmakers, they continued their ascent behind one another, Su leading the way. He kept his movement steady under the slicked, mossy, ancient brickwork.

  Su reached a window at last, prised it open, and slipped inside. She helped Sze through next, though there was little she could do beyond unhooking a single bag from his shoulder as he hauled himself in. Once inside, Sze turned and lifted Wing through. Watching it all from below, Yutai imagined their team’s techie was lighter than one of Sze’s bags.

  Finally, Sze reached out and pulled Yutai through the window with a firm grip around his hand.

  ‘Good work, boys,’ Su said as Yutai brushed the dust from his trench coat.

  He took in their surroundings properly now. They were standing in a long-abandoned apartment. Bare concrete walls were streaked with old water stains, and the air carried the sour smell of damp dust and rotting fungus.

  ‘We wait here for five minutes,’ Su continued. ‘After that, phase one begins. We split up and move to our assigned positions. The next time we meet, the target will be eliminated and we’ll be back in this room.’ She paused, her gaze settling on each of them. ‘May the Light see us through.’

  Mingchi sat in his study, leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. Sound filled his head, sounds no one else could hear. His people trampling one another to death. His people crying out for food. His Kuishi firing into crowds of demonstrators.

  Then his mind layered another voice over the noise: the Emperor shouting, calling him dongfa’shu, threatening death and ruin over his district to silence him. To strangle Chin Xiao De before it could ever rise. The same way Mingchi had strangled—

  He opened his eyes. Faint footsteps sounded outside the study. The door opened, and he flinched upright to find Jozef standing there, frowning, a sheet of paper hanging stiffly at his side.

  ‘Sir, you must read this.’

  Jozef strode towards the desk and dropped the letter on its busy surface. Mingchi stared at it for a moment, then glanced up at Jozef.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘One of the Kuishi found it. It was pinned to one of the doors by the lower lifts.’

  Mingchi snatched it from the table’s surface and read it.

  “Darkness spare you, whelp. Shirker of Light, false revolutionary, you.

  We pity you more than we resent you.

  Your execution of Gajan revealed you wish to terrify our people once more, deceive us with threat, no different from any other who stood where you did.

  Do not dare compare your deeds to the prophecies Dong set forth for the East. You are no figure worthy of standing within any vision he foresaw, not even in the shadows cast by its Light.

  We offered you friendship, alliance, to battle a common adversary and fulfil our prophet’s message. Yet, what did you do instead? Twisting our good intentions as if we are gearing for another bombing? We Yangs of Pik spit on those who desecrated our cause with mass murder in the core districts. We’ve done our part to condemn the heathens among us. Yet we do not have enough water left on our tongues to spit upon you for attempting to bind us to the same filth and cast the same judgment.

  When the tyrant Kings come for you – and by the Light’s grace, they will – we will stand aside and do nothing.

  Had you accepted our letter instead of publicly executing one of ours, you would have held the strength of a hundred Yangs, with the eyes and ears of a thousand more. Instead, you will have nothing. And when you die – and you most certainly will – you will see nothing, for your soul is destined for Darkness.

  And as your spirit stumbles through the black for eternity, it is Gaochi you will find. The infinite companionship you deserve.

  May this warning of regicide stretch your final hours into slow, agonising pain.

  The Yang.”

  Lord Mingchi’s hands trembled as he lowered the letter. When he looked up, he found the same dread reflected in Jozef’s face.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Mingchi said. ‘I need to make a call.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘My people. The Kuishi won’t be enough. I need my people ready to defend me.’

  Jozef hesitated. ‘You mean to summon the Pik minutemen? You believe a civilian militia will answer?’

  ‘It won’t be me calling, Jozef. It’ll be Chin Xiao De.’

  Yutai stood on the eightieth floor, balanced at the edge of a sheer drop with no railing. Behind him stretched a street long since shuttered and abandoned, its shopfronts swallowed by shadows and decay. Pik lay stripped and hollow, starved not only of food but of movement, of life. Mingchi has truly destroyed what’s left of this city, Yutai thought. This regicide is a massive service for Pik’s people. We’ll save you.

  He peered over the edge. Far below, the thick pipe loomed on the forty-fifth floor, exactly where the simulations had placed it. It spanned the ten-metre gap encircling Mingchi’s estate building. Where it met the wall, a square tarp clung to the concrete.

  He had been watching the building for twenty minutes now. Long enough to memorise its rhythms. Shadows drifted behind lit windows. Kuishi moved in and out of balconies holding rifles, unaware of what was to come.

  Yutai knew Sze was already deep in the maintenance tunnels below the building, laying the groundwork for his assault. Wing should’ve also been in position by now in the estate’s lower control rooms, waiting. Somewhere above, Su would be watching the clock.

  Soon, she’d give the signal.

  Yutai glanced at his holocommunicator for the time.

  Light, guide and protect me. Grant me the strength to overcome my adversaries. Give me what I need to protect my family, and Kowloon, Yutai prayed.

  His wrist buzzed. His holocommunicator flashed blue. It’s time.

  He crouched and gave the spring rope latched to his ankle a final pull, testing its tension. Then he adjusted his cap, pressing it firmly into place. Finally, he made sure the straps of his backpack were tight around his shoulders.

  He stood up, closed his eyes, spread his arms, and let himself fall forward.

  The world tipped.

  Cold air tore past him as he fell, weightless, his body folding smoothly into the dive on instinct alone. His coat snapped and flared as he angled his shoulders, tucking just enough to keep his core tight and controlled.

  The spring rope went taut.

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  But there was no snap or jerk. The spring decelerated his fall, draining momentum from the descent. Yutai rotated midair, spinning gracefully upright, sighting the pipe as it came up to meet him.

  His boots kissed metal. Barely a sound, absorbed by bent knees and rubber-soled boots as he dropped into a crouch atop the pipe.

  In the same motion, he reached down, thumbed the release at his ankle, and the spring link shot upward in a sharp recoil, snapping back into the dark above and vanishing from sight. Silence returned at once.

  Yutai remained still for a breath, crouched on the pipe, feeling the faint vibrations of the estate thrumming through the metal beneath his boots. Below him, Pik lay quiet and starving. Ahead, Mingchi’s walls loomed close.

  He rose quickly and moved along the pipe. A crude dent marked its midpoint; he stepped over it and reached the tarp that concealed his entry point. He ripped the entire thing off its pins and laid it behind him.

  There it is, Yutai thought. The crack in the wall I’m supposed to squeeze through. Even Su doesn’t know how it ended up here, but as long as it gets me inside, Dong himself may as well placed it here for us.

  He peered through the gap, barely a palm’s width wide. Smaller than it had been in the simulations.

  Yutai shrugged off his backpack. It was compact, packed with only a handful of weapons and tools. He fed it sideways into the crack, shoving it as far through as he could before giving it a sharp kick. The bag vanished, dropping to the other side.

  He slipped out of his trench coat and pushed it through after it.

  Then he turned sideways, drew in a deep breath, and eased himself into the crack.

  The stone closed around him at once. The crack gripped his shoulders, then his ribs, rough concrete biting through fabric and into skin as he edged forward by centimetres. He kept his movements slow and deliberate, forcing his breath shallow so his chest would not expand against the walls.

  Pressure built along his spine. Something scraped hard against his shoulder blade and sent a sharp flare of pain down his arm. Yutai did not curse or gasp. He counted his breaths instead, steady and measured, letting the pain shoot across his chest without allowing it to take him.

  At last, he emerged through the darkness to the other side. Cool air brushed his face, then his body as he slipped free and dropped lightly onto the other side. He bent down.

  For a moment, he did not move. Dull pain swirled around his front and back. He listened to his pulse, controlled his breathing, and let the pain take its course before subsiding.

  He stood up and gave Su a buzz on his holocommunicator.

  Yutai waited for the sounds he knew would come soon. He stood waiting silently in the dark room.

  Commander Ke hurried towards Mingchi’s study. It had been only two hours since one of his Kuishi discovered a note from the Yang left inside the estate, a breach that still burned with shame under his watch. Now, a far more troubling revelation had arrived.

  Talk of a possible royal regicide, once dismissed as alarmist speculation after his lord’s historic speech, was no longer hypothetical.

  Commander Ke slammed his fist against Lord Mingchi’s door. At the far end of the corridor, Jozef was already running towards the study as well.

  ‘Commander!’ Jozef shouted.

  ‘You heard it too?’ Ke snapped back.

  The door swooshed open and they stumbled inside together.

  Mingchi was already at his cabinet. He got out a pistol, checked it once, then slid it into the folds of his robes.

  ‘Kingmakers!’ Commander Ke shouted. ‘My Lord, you must come with me to the throne room!’

  Jozef surged past him and grabbed Mingchi, pulling him into a fierce embrace. Mingchi held him just as tightly.

  ‘My lord, they’re here,’ Jozef cried. ‘They’re here for the regicide.’

  Ke was striding towards them when the building shuddered. A heavy explosion tore through the lower levels, the floor jolting beneath their feet. He stopped in his tracks to answer a call on his communicator. Pressing it to his ear, the commander nodded away silently.

  ‘Seal the lower levels,’ he snapped. ‘Bring every remaining Kuishi up to the main floors. There’s only one route in and out.’

  He lowered the communicator and turned back to Mingchi.

  ‘How many are there, commander?’ Mingchi asked.

  ‘Security’s counting at least fifty gangsters in the basement. Possibly more.’

  ‘And Kingmakers?’

  Ke shook his head. ‘Unknown. Sir, we need to move.’

  Mingchi paced back and forth as the sound of distant gunfire began echoing from the estate hallways, prompting all three to look out the main door. Ke quickly ran to the doorway and peeked out, hand on his gun by his hip.

  ‘I need a moment,’ Mingchi said.

  ‘We don’t have a moment!’ Ke shouted.

  Mingchi exhaled, shoved his chair aside, and stood above his desk. His fingers flew across the console.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jozef demanded.

  ‘Calling every Eastern lord and lady,’ Mingchi said. ‘Warning them a regicide is underway. If we can hold until reinforcements arrive, Chin Xiao De will survive. Dong will not allow harm to come to us, I know it!’

  He struck send. The screen flashed white.

  Jozef grabbed Mingchi’s arm and hauled him away from the desk. They had barely reached the door when another explosion rocked the building, close enough to stagger them into one another.

  Ke caught Mingchi by the arm and dragged him into the corridor.

  ‘Have the minutemen been assembled?’ Mingchi shouted as they moved, footsteps pounding through the halls.

  ‘They’re ready to die on your command,’ Ke called back.

  ‘Will the throne room hold?’

  ‘Your father made sure it would,’ Jozef said behind them, pistol raised beside his head as they ran.

  Yutai waited in silence, his ears tuned to the sound of the guard’s footsteps. As they disappeared, he moved with precision, unsheathing the dagger from his hip and creeping up behind a lone Kuishi. Within arm’s reach, Yutai swiftly clamped a hand over the guard’s mouth and drove the blade into his neck. The guard’s muffled struggles faded quickly, and Yutai gently lowered the lifeless body to the ground, ensuring no sound betrayed his location.

  ‘Wing, the hallway’s clear,’ Yutai intoned into his wrist.

  A voice fed straight into his ears through the minispeakers of his peaked cap. ‘Camera ahead. I’ll kill it. You’re close.’

  Yutai moved on, keeping to the edges of the corridor. The explosions were louder now. Gunfire echoed through the concrete. Sze was doing well. Too well, maybe. Given time, he might’ve cleared this entire tower alone.

  Yutai’s communicator buzzed. It was Wing.

  ‘What is it?’ Yutai whispered.

  ‘Hide. Now,’ Wing said. ‘Platoon inbound. Not Kuishi, but armed. Straight towards you.’

  Yutai froze. He could hear it. Boots. Many of them. Fast and closing.

  ‘I’ve got nowhere to hide,’ he hissed back.

  ‘Just make sure they don’t report you! My hands are tied.’

  He looked up.

  Dropping into a squat, he swung his bag around and drew out a compact pair of dark gloves, the seams threaded with faintly glowing filaments. Grip-locks.

  He sealed them over his palms, tightened the strap to his forearm, and thumbed the activator. The gloves tightened, plates shifting under the fabric as the servos engaged. When he closed his fist, the pressure was immediate and brutal, bone-deep strength answering his command.

  He then drew his RS6, dialling it down to its lowest setting.

  Three quick shots above. Small, neat holes punched into the ceiling.

  He moved immediately. A leap to the right wall, a kick across to the left, boots scraping as he climbed for height. He reached up, fingers biting into the holes, the enhancers locking his grip in place.

  Footsteps thundered closer.

  Yutai hauled his legs up, his core tight as iron, and flattened his backside against the ceiling just as the platoon rounded the corner beneath him, rifles raised, eyes forward.

  He did not breathe.

  He watched them run beneath him.

  These weren’t Kuishi.

  They weren’t wearing uniforms at all. They barely had any meat on them. Ordinary people clutching weapons too heavy for their hands, scraps of armour strapped to their bony heads and chests, mismatched and crude. Civilians, pressed into something they barely understood. What are the innocent doing stepping up for Mingchi?!

  They rushed past in a blur of boots and breath. Then one of them slowed.

  He stopped.

  The man glanced down at his shoe and stepped back.

  Dust clung to the red carpet. Fine grit. Fresh mortar.

  Fuck.

  The man took another step back and looked up.

  His eyes widened, horror blooming across his face as he met Yutai’s gaze.

  The Kingmaker dropped.

  The man collapsed beneath Yutai’s weight, skull striking ground in a dull, final grunt.

  Yutai turned.

  The corridor was packed. More than twenty bodies crammed into a space barely three metres wide. No Kuishi uniforms. Just frightened faces, mismatched armour, oversized guns clutched in shaking hands.

  For a heartbeat, no one moved.

  ‘K-KINGMAKER?!’

  ‘NO! STOP HIM!!’

  ‘CALL THE COMMANDE—’

  The lights died. Blackness swallowed the hall. Yutai took off the gloves.

  ‘Thirty seconds,’ Wing’s voice came through his cap.

  Deafening gunfire erupted, muzzle flashes tearing holes in the dark.

  He rushed forward.

  Brief white bursts froze the corridor in violent snapshots. Bullets shredded the air where Yutai had been a moment earlier.

  Aerial sideflip, his body rolling and threading past every projectile.

  The unstoppable force clashed with the crowds.

  A shoulder shattered. A throat crushed. A knee bent the wrong way.

  There was no room for restraint. No space to subdue.

  An arm snapped at the elbow.

  A neck folded with a wet crack.

  Yutai seized a rifle by the barrel and wrenched it sideways, dragging its owner with it. He twisted, forcing the muzzle into another man’s chest.

  BANG, a single snapshot.

  Yutai felt the spray of blood on his face.

  Someone lunged from behind. He caught the grip, pivoted, and hurled the body over his shoulder into another crossfire.

  The corridor screamed with panic and pain, gunfire stuttering and faltering as bodies fell and weapons clattered across the floor. Every moment punctuated by bursts of gunfire and light.

  Then the lights flickered back on.

  The hallway was ruined. Smoke hung thick in the air, sharp with spent energy and blood. The walls were covered with scorch marks and holes. Bodies carpeted the floor, limbs twisted, weapons scattered. A few still moved, groaning, crawling, alive but broken.

  As the sounds of gunfire rang in his ears, Yutai stepped over the bodies strewn across the carpet, his boots slick with blood.

  His gaze settled on the nearest body. A bony, middle-aged man strapped into crude tin plates, the armour hammered from scrap and wire. A battered hunting rifle lay half-loose in his lifeless grip.

  Yutai’s holocommunicator buzzed. Su.

  He tapped it open.

  ‘Yutai? Wing says you ran into resistance. Did they report you?’

  Yutai hesitated. ‘Su… The simulations said there’d only be Kuishi in the estate.’

  ‘Yutai. Did they report you?’

  ‘These aren’t Kuishi…’

  ‘Answer me,’ Su snapped. ‘Have you been reported?’

  ‘I… No. No one reported me.’

  ‘Did you kill them all?’

  ‘Some are alive.’

  ‘Then finish it off and get to the throne room. If Mingchi is moved, the mission is over.’

  Yutai stiffened. ‘What? You want me to—’

  ‘You have your orders! Get the job done!’

  The line cut.

  Yutai looked down the corridor. He counted the bodies that still moved. Five.

  A low drone crept into his ears. I didn’t want this.

  Something flickered at the top edge of his vision. He looked up.

  The Ibilis stood regally at the end of the corridor. His grinning Zhanshi mask, haunting and eerie, body draped in his crimson hood, white breastplate bound tightly over his chest and abdomen. He stood watch like an angel taking notes.

  ‘Kill them, Yutai.’

  ‘I’m coming for you, Mogwei,’ Yutai shouted back.

  ‘You will. But you have to kill them first.’

  The drone rose. Steady. Crushing. It swallowed thought.

  Yutai clamped his hands over his ears, body folding as pain ripped through him. He tore his pistol free and fired three times at the figure.

  The rounds passed straight through.

  ‘What do you want from me?!’ he shouted.

  The figure did not answer.

  The drone surged in his ears again. Yutai doubled over, screaming as he ripped the cochlears from his ears and smashed them against the wall. Silence did not come. The ringing remained, relentless.

  Fighting through the monotonous ringing, he barely managed to look up. The Ibilis hadn’t moved an inch.

  Yutai aimed his pistol at the first moving person on the floor. Pulled the trigger. His ears could not even pick up the sound of the shots.

  Then the second. The third. The fourth. And then the last one. All muted.

  When Yutai looked back up, he was gone.

  Yutai did not wait. He broke into a sprint, boots hammering against blood-slick carpet, crushing bones beneath his feet. But as he charged down the corridor, the thudding of his boots were mute to his ears.

  He was focused on his target: the throne room’s utility box.

  ‘Lord Mingchi is here! Open the door! Open the damned door!’

  With a heavy creak, the wide double doors began its slow swing outwards. Thick slabs of reinforced wood and metal groaned through the sounds of distant gunfire. Mingchi had heard bits and pieces of the updates Commander Ke had been receiving. Kuishi channels were in chaos. An unprecedented advance from below. The Kingmakers were playing out this regicide exactly as their reputation promised.

  Mingchi was shoved inside. The moment he entered the room with Jozef and the commander, three Kuishi heaved the door shut behind them. Steel met steel with a deafening clank. The noise outside dulled at once, reduced to a low, constant roar.

  Jozef seized Mingchi’s arm and hauled him forward, dragging him across the stone floor and up the short, wide steps to the throne.

  For the first time in Mingchi’s life, the throne room felt like the bunker his father had secretly designed.

  The ceiling pressed low, reinforced with layered concrete and ribbed steel. Narrow slits of armoured glass ran high along the walls, offering no view, only light. The throne itself was bolted into a raised plinth, heavy and immovable, its back reinforced with blast plating. Every surface bore the marks of contingency. Shock braces. Emergency conduits. Sealant seams.

  Jozef and Mingchi turned as one to face the doors.

  Five Kuishi lined each wall, ten in total, weapons raised and trembling hands steadying barrels trained on the entrance. In the centre of the chamber, overturned tables and chairs had been dragged into a crude barricade. Commander Ke crouched behind it with two others, shoulders hunched, eyes locked on the door.

  The larger explosions came through as deep vibrations, felt more than heard, rattling the bones and making dust drift from the ceiling.

  ‘Do you think the other Eastern Lords are still coming?’ Mingchi asked, his voice low, almost swallowed by the hum of the bunker.

  Jozef did not look away from the door. ‘If they are,’ he said, ‘I trust these doors will hold until then. Lord Gaochi made sure they could withstand powerful blasts.’

  The room shuddered from an explosion far below. Hard.

  No one spoke.

  As dread clawed deeper into his thoughts, a bitter realisation surfaced: perhaps this was his punishment, his father’s wrath reaching him from beyond.

  But why drag Jozef into this suffering? Mingchi thought. What sin has he committed?

  Then, all of a sudden, the gunfire outside dwindled into silence.

  A few minutes passed.

  The bunker seemed to shrink around them, its reinforced walls pressing inward, the air growing stale and heavy. Mingchi’s gaze flicked from the sealed doors to Commander Ke at the centre of the room, then to Jozef. Every face had drained of colour, eyes too bright, jaws set too tight.

  The weight of entrapment settled hard in Mingchi’s chest and gut. Sweat ran down his temple and dropped off his chin.

  The absence of gunfire outside wasn’t a relief; it was a harbinger of something worse. Mingchi fought against the urge to voice the absurd hope that maybe the Kingmakers had left, but he knew that was impossible.

  Mingchi noticed it first near the tube lights lining the walls and ceiling. A faint distortion in the air, subtle at first, like heat shimmer. He frowned and narrowed his eyes. The longer he stared, the more pronounced it became.

  The lights behind the wavering air began to pulse. Softly. Unevenly. The glass casings creaked as they warmed.

  The room grew stifling. Heat pressed in from all sides, thick and unnatural, and a sharp chemical tang flooded the air, clawing at the back of the throat.

  ‘Jozef… Do you smell that?’ Mingchi’s voice cracked, his words trembling as cold sweat slicked his skin.

  The butler’s eyes darted to the tube lights, which began glowing brighter and brighter. Jozef’s face hardened into a deep mask of dread.

  The stench worsened. Acrid. Solvent-sharp. A warning of something far worse.

  ‘I… I’m not sure, my lord,’ Jozef said, his voice trailing off. He slowly turned to look at Mingchi. The young lord met his gaze.

  There was no panic left in him now, only resignation. A deep, bone-tired defeat. He wanted nothing more than for the noise, the waiting, the fear to finally end. He placed his arms around Jozef.

  The lights flared brighter. The Commander looked up and around. Blinding white, burning through the air, every light fixture threatened to—

  Pop.

  The air itself ignited.

  Fire tore through the room in a violent surge, consuming everything, even the oxygen in their lungs turning instantly into an inferno.

  In the hush that followed, Yutai stepped into the scorched remains of the throne room. The air hung thick with the stench of charred flesh. He knelt beside two blackened bodies, fused together in a final, desperate embrace.

  Yutai bowed his head and whispered a brief prayer.

  ‘May the people of Pik finally find peace.’

  Then he saw the hand with the silver ring.

  He grasped the arm and pulled. It snapped free with a dry crack.

  The mission was complete. The Kingmakers were back in business, destroying Kings and making them once again.

  Puyin stepped out of the lift out of the 25th level. It was only three-levels below the throne room, but the Emperor always preferred to avoid the stairs.

  A Manchukuo guard escorted him out of the lift and upon Puyin’s request, waited by the lift. Puyin’s footsteps echoed in the corridor as he approached General Denzhen’s office. Upon reaching the door, he pressed the buzzer, and the door slid open to reveal his younger brother, working away behind his cluttered desk.

  Denzhen, clad in his military attire, rose to his feet and bowed with the rigidity of formal protocol. He gestured toward the seat opposite and resumed his seat behind the desk. As Puyin sat down and adjusted his robes around him, the silence stretched taut between them.

  ‘Yes, Emperor? How may I be of assistance?’

  Puyin hesitated before speaking. ‘I have come to talk about what happened the other day.’

  ‘About what in particular?’ Denzhen prompted, his gaze finally meeting Puyin’s.

  ‘Don’t play coy, brother. You know what. I… I want to apologise.’

  ‘For what exactly?’ Denzhen’s voice hardened.

  ‘For my outburst. My behaviour was unfit for an Emperor. I shouldn’t have acted in such a manner.’

  ‘Unfitting for an emperor?’ Denzhen’s voice rose in hurt and anger. ‘It was unfit for a brother! Calling me a traitor? To accuse your own flesh and blood of a crime so vile?!’

  Puyin clutched the fabrics of his robe as he leaned forward with a frown. ‘No, no, no, you always do this Denzhen, whenever my head is down to apologise, you always act so high and mighty like it is beneath you to just accept an apology. Must I beg for your forgiveness?!’

  ‘I don’t want to hear the apologies of an Emperor! I want to hear my brother apologise! Was it Cixi’s idea to come up and apologise?’ Denzhen snapped.

  ‘Don’t you dare question my sincerity!’ Puyin sneered while jerking a finger towards Denzhen. ‘I have no obligation to even be here, yet here I am!’

  Denzhen scoffed. ‘I must be the luckiest little brother in all of Kowloon then! Thank you, Your Highness, for deigning to walk on the same ground as us lowlives!’

  In a sudden burst of fury, Puyin shot up from his chair, pushing it back so violently that it tipped over. ‘I should cut out your fucking tongue for speaking to me like that! Don’t forget, I’m not just your emperor, I’m your elder brother too!’

  ‘Oh, so now you remember you’re supposed to be my brother! Go on big brother, grab a knife and cut it out!’ Denzhen bellowed. ‘You, Emperor, have a mountain of accountability to climb! First, you refused to take the Yang seriously, resulting in the deadliest terror attack in Kowlooni history! Then you pushed Jian away and dragged him to his pathetic death. And now, an innocent Eastern Lord, a mere boy, you condemned him for what?! FOR BEING SCARED AFTER WATCHING HIS PEOPLE DIE?! You gave birth to the Yang!! You just birthed a new generation of them in Pik!’

  Puyin was frozen from the challenging words, but then, Denzhen heard his door slide open with a forceful whoosh.

  Denzhen’s eyes snapped wide.

  A Kingmaker stood in the doorway, masked in jet black, an RS6 handcannon levelled at the back of Puyin’s head.

  ‘For Chin Xiao De!’

  In that fleeting instant, Denzhen vaulted the desk without thinking. Papers and instruments scattered as he lunged forward, slamming into Puyin and dragging him down by the shoulders.

  A dull thud followed, then the thundercrack of a gunshot from the hallway.

  Denzhen barely caught sight of a green trench coated figure tackling the masked Kingmaker and engaging in a desperate struggle on the ground outside the doorway. It was General Han Xi, who was sitting next door, now entangled in a fierce scuffle.

  Denzhen acted at once. He drew his RS7 handcannon and aimed towards the doorway, holding down the Emperor with his other hand.

  ‘Guard!’ Denzhen’s voice thundered, echoing through the chaos as he tried to summon the Manchukuo guard he knew should’ve accompanied the Emperor. ‘GUARD!’

  His shout went unanswered, swallowed by the chaos. Then a second gunshot cracked through the air, coming from the struggle outside.

  That was enough.

  Denzhen sprinted over Puyin and out of the office. In the corridor, Han Xi was locked in a frantic grapple with the assassin, straddling him on the floor as both men strained for control. The grey-haired general had his hands clamped around the Kingmaker’s wrists, but the assassin was stronger. The RS6 handcannon was inching closer to Han Xi’s chest.

  ‘Grab him, Denzhen!’ Han Xi shouted.

  The assassin’s eyes snapped to Denzhen.

  In one fluid motion, the Kingmaker kicked Han Xi aside. Flat on his back, he snapped the handcannon up at Denzhen. He fired.

  Denzhen twisted away just in time. The shot tore into the ceiling behind him, showering sparks and dust.

  Han Xi lunged back in, slamming into the Kingmaker’s arms and knocking the muzzle off line, but the weapon was already swinging back towards his chest.

  Denzhen did not hesitate.

  He circled them, raised his boot, and brought it crashing down onto the Kingmaker’s throat.

  The Kingmaker’s body jolted violently, his grip on the weapon released as he clutched his throat and gasped to draw breath.

  As Denzhen snatched the gun off the floor, Han Xi jumped to his feet, panic etched on his face. ‘He’s suffocating!’ he cried out.

  Denzhen’s gaze shifted down the hall to the lift, where a harrowing sight met his eyes. The Manchukuo guard that had accompanied Puyin lay slumped against the wall, lifeless, blood dripping down his throat and pooling onto the floor.

  ‘We need to get him to the infirmary! Grab his legs!’ Denzhen barked. He stooped to hoist the Kingmaker by his arms, who was still wheezing for breath.

  ‘But the Emperor, he’ll be left unprotected!’ Han Xi protested.

  ‘I’m locking down the entire tower!’ Denzhen declared. Dropping the Kingmaker’s arms, he reached for his holocommunicator and tapped its interface in a few places. Almost instantly, sirens blared from the hidden speakers in the ceiling, a panic that filled the air with emergency. Doors throughout the tower began sealing shut, a lockdown protocol snapping into place. The only exception was Denzhen’s office door, which, due to a malfunction, remained open. Simultaneously, Denzhen activated a distress signal, tying it to his office for Kingmakers to find the Emperor.

  ‘Quickly, we must head to the infirmary now!’ Denzhen urged Han Xi as they both grabbed his arms and legs and carried the Kingmaker towards the lift.

  As they stepped inside, Denzhen hastily pressed the button for the infirmary on the 10th floor. The doors began to slide shut, and through the narrowing gap, Denzhen caught a fleeting glimpse of the hallway filling up with battle-ready Kingmakers and Manchukuo guards rushing towards the offices.

  ‘What the hell is going on!? Who is this man?’ Han Xi demanded.

  The man’s face was cloaked by a black mask with two eyeholes and a larger mouth hole. He choking, sputtering foamy saliva. Without hesitation, Denzhen yanked it off, revealing a small, pale face he’d seen in the tower, though he couldn’t remember his name.

  But Han Xi sucked in a sharp breath. ‘That’s Wong Baoyan… A young Centurion from East Kowloon… How?’

  Light, one of our own! This Kingmaker coat isn’t stolen, it’s his own!

  ‘Who do you work for?!’ Denzhen barked at the choking Kingmaker. The only response was the sound of more sputtering and gurgling.

  The lift lurched to a stop. The doors slid open onto chaos.

  Kingmakers sprinted for the stairwells, racing towards the 25th floor to secure the Emperor. Others held choke points, weapons raised. Heads turned as Denzhen and Han Xi pushed through, hauling the injured Kingmaker between them. No one knew what had happened. No one had time to ask.

  Racing towards the infirmary, Denzhen and Han Xi found the doors were sealed under lockdown. Denzhen swiped his master key. The doors parted to reveal nurses and doctors already braced, weapons trained on the entrance.

  ‘Emergency,’ Denzhen barked. ‘Crushed windpipe!’

  They moved instantly. A stretcher appeared. The Kingmaker was rushed past triage and straight into surgery.

  Denzhen and Han Xi followed into the dark room.

  Five minutes later, the body lay still on the operating bed. The doctors stepped back.

  Dead.

  Denzhen’s breath hitched as he stared at the young Kingmaker’s lifeless body under the harsh surgical lights. Assassins and traitors, turncoats and terrorists, their enemies had woven themselves amongst the Kingmakers, hidden in this very tower.

  His hands trembled slightly, and he clenched them into fists to still the tremor.

  How could we let this happen?

  My brother was right.

  His fears are legitimate.

  The tower is no longer safe.