The people had packed themselves shoulder to shoulder, a sea of tricorns, soot-stained caps, and shawls pulled high to hide expressions. Hawkers who would normally be shouting about roasted sweet potatoes or miracle salves were silent, their carts abandoned or turned into makeshift barricades to control the flow of bodies. A single drum beat—low, steady, deliberate—punctuated the restless shifting of boots and the frightened whispers.

  Diya and Rohan pushed through the crowd; Prisha and her personal retinue of security guards, twenty or so well armed men, in tow. The sun seemed to have felt the tension in the air, and snuck down behind the skyline, leaving the crowd lit harshly by the emerald glow of blackblood lanterns.

  A palpable sense of panic gripped those gathered. Diya couldn’t remember the last time that an emergency assembly had been called, a growing sense of unease filled her stomach.

  At the far end of the square, a raised platform of oxidized iron loomed above the crowd. Smoke from leaning chimneys drifted lazily in front of it.

  And then he appeared, flanked by guards with flintlocks at their hips, the man whose voice would soon pour into every ear. His fur coat was the color of fresh-spilled wine, his bald head gleaming, and his facial hair meticulously shaped so that each edge was sharp as a saber. He rested one hand on the rail of the dais, surveying the crowd with the measured calm of a man inspecting his property.

  The drumbeat stopped.

  The silence that followed felt like the moment between pulling a trigger and hearing the shot. Arjun let the quiet stretch until it became unbearable, until every cough and shuffle in the crowd seemed deafening. Then, with a voice smooth as oiled brass, he began.

  “People of Ghanesha,” he said, his words rolling out over the square like a slow tide, “you’ve been told that your Council serves you. That they keep your bellies full, goods affordable, your children safe. And yet… here you stand. Hungry. Shivering. Breathing air so thick with smoke you choke on it in your sleep.”

  A murmur moved through the crowd, quick and low.

  “I did not call you here to reaffirm what you already know. I called you here because despite my best efforts to right this ship, my comrades have undermined my every attempt. These three who claim to speak for you have bled this township for their own gain. Peacock Prisha—” he paused just long enough for heads to turn toward her in the crowd, “would have you believe the Ribcage’s refineries are your lifeline. In truth, they are her empire. She is bleeding our sacred elephant dry and has the audacity to call it a gift.”

  Prisha’s jaw tightened, but she did not speak.

  “Daljit, the noble scholar,” Arjun continued, “sits in his tower of ledgers and maps, counting coin while the Bend goes without bread. He tells you sacrifice is necessary, while he sacrifices nothing.”

  Another ripple of voices. Diya saw people nodding in grim agreement. She was frozen like her feet had melted into the ground. It felt too similar to the worst day of her life. The day when she, just a child, was made to testify against her father in that very square. The day she watched her father hang.

  “And Saanvi—” Arjun’s voice sharpened, “the so-called guardian of Heaven’s Reach. She hoards the clean water, the medicines, the comforts of life, and doles them out like alms to the faithful. She rules by charity, but it is her hand on the spigot. Without her blessing, you drink from the gutters.”

  He stepped closer to the edge of the platform, lowering his voice so that the crowd leaned in to hear. “They would have you believe you are powerless. That your misery is the price of stability. But stability for whom? For them. For the Council. For the thieves who have made themselves your masters. No longer will we bury our head in the sands of isolationism. That benefits only the few. A new era of foreign engagement will see our township prosper. To the benefit of all, not just the few.”

  Now he raised his voice, letting it swell over the square. “It ends tonight. No more parasites feeding on the work of honest Ghaneshans. No more councils hiding behind tradition while the township rots. I will tear out the rot and build something new—something worthy of this great elephant we call home.”

  He spread his arms wide, a gesture of ownership and promise in one. “Stand with me, and together we will see a Ghanesha where no man, woman, or child is crushed beneath the heel of greed. Stand with me, and we will take back what is ours!”

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  The crowd erupted. Not in unison, but in pockets of shouts, clapping, and cries. Some still stood silent, eyes darting between the platform and the armed guards along the square’s edge.

  The noise from the crowd was still swelling when Prisha broke from the throng, her guards forming a tight wedge around her as she strode toward the dais.

  “Enough of this poisonous speech!” she bellowed, voice cutting clean through the din. “You’re no savior, Arjun. You’re nothing more than a brooding viper, here to sink your fangs into the township’s throat.”

  Gasps rippled through the mass of bodies. Arjun’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes sharpened to razors.

  “You should choose your metaphors more carefully, Prisha,” he said, almost gently. “Some vipers are venomous. Others… simply crush the life out of their prey.”

  His hand moved in a blur.

  The flintlock pistol cracked like a cannon in the still air. Prisha staggered, her shawl blooming red, knees buckling. One of her guards caught her before she hit the cobblestones, but the light was already leaking from her misty eyes.

  For a heartbeat, the crowd froze in stunned silence. Then it broke.

  A woman screamed. Someone shouted for vengeance. A man in a tricorn hurled a bottle at the dais; it shattered harmlessly against the iron rail. Armed guards surged forward to meet Prisha’s men, steel clashing, small arms barking. In seconds the orderly square dissolved into chaos.

  “Prisha!” Diya’s voice tore from her throat, raw and fierce. Mere hours before she had thought the woman her enemy, but now it was painfully clear the way things truly were.

  How could I have been so foolish! Diya thought.

  She shoved through the melee, Rohan at her side, rage rising like molten metal in her veins.

  Arjun watched her come with infuriating calm. “The Council’s dead weight was going to drag us all down,” he said. “I’ve simply cut the rope.”

  Diya lunged.

  Before her boots could hit the dais, the air around him shimmered. Metal plates unfolded from a slim pack on his back, snapping into place over his chest, shoulders, arms—a dark blossom of iron petals. A mask sealed over his face with a hiss, blue arcs of light crawling across the seams.

  Gasps rippled through the chaos, even from those still trading blows in the square.

  “What in the hell—” Rohan began.

  Arjun’s voice now came through mechanical amplifiers, resonating over the riot. “I am the future. And the future by its very nature cannot wait for the slow to catch up.”

  He launched upwards from the dais, vents in his boots and back flaring with blue fire, the sudden burst sending nearby civilians sprawling.

  Energy flared in his gauntlets. The first shot blew a crater in the cobblestones where Diya had been a heartbeat earlier, spraying stone shards into the legs of those still brawling. The second took a man clean off his feet, hurling him into a row of market stalls that went down like dominos.

  Over the din, a piercing cry cut the night. Shikra appeared, diving through the smog, her wings carving through the lantern haze. Diya leapt for the saddle as she swept past, Rohan vaulting up behind her.

  They met Arjun in the sky.

  Below them, the square boiled, fires blooming from toppled lanterns. Civilians scattered in terror, creating a vicious stampede as the masses pushed and shoved. Smoke and screaming tangled in the air.

  Shikra banked hard, talons flashing at Arjun’s armor, sparks leaping from the impact.

  “You’ve always been resourceful, Captain,” Arjun’s voice crackled over the hum of his armor. “But resourceful cannot halt the inevitable.”

  “You can still stop this madness,” Diya snapped back, pulling Shikra into a tight climb. “Look at the chaos you’ve brought upon your own citizens!”

  Arjun’s voice was steady, almost calm. “No one remembers the discomfort once the wound has healed. The pain is temporary. My new order is forever.”

  They clashed—Shikra’s beak snapping for the armor’s neck joint while Arjun spun away, gauntlets firing bursts of searing light. One grazed Diya, the heat incinerating one of her braids.

  Rohan shouted, “Keep him turning!” drawing his jezail and aiming down the sights, but a flash of blue energy from Arjun’s gauntlet blasted it from his hands, the barrel glowing molten red as it tumbled into the square below.

  “Your second is loyal,” Arjun said, swooping past. “A shame I’ll have to break him before I break you.”

  They circled, faster, tighter, until Arjun feinted low and came up under Shikra, smashing his gauntleted fist into Rohan’s chest. The impact tore him from the saddle. He hit the rooftop below with a sound Diya would hear in her nightmares.

  “ROHAN!” She cried out, eyes scanning the cloud of dust and smoke.

  The momentary distraction cost her. Arjun’s next shot caught Shikra in the flank. The great bird shrieked, wings lurching out of rhythm.

  “Revolutions are built on the bodies of those who couldn’t keep up.” Arjun preached.

  They dropped, spiraling through the smoke, crashing through the wooden awning of a stall before slamming onto the cobblestones.

  The world reeled. Through the blur, she saw civilians scattering from the impact. Boots thundered toward her. Rough hands clamped down on her arms, dragging her upright.

  Above, Arjun descended in a slow, ominous hover, the glow of his armor painting the smoke in odious blue. “Take them,” he commanded, voice like a death knell over the roar of the crowd. “The new order will welcome them… from behind bars.”

  Diya fought, teeth bared, but there were too many hands, too many blades. Shikra’s pained calls faded into the roar of a township tearing itself apart as she and Rohan were dragged into the shadows, the emerald lanterns of the square burning behind them like the eyes of a watching beast.

  She wouldn’t let him get away with this. Diya smashed her shoulder into the ribs of the nearest guard, hoping that the sheer force of her will might get her out of this situation.

  It could not.

  Something heavy and blunt blasted into the side of her skull and the world went black.