Guinevera looked around. Ever the dramatist, his florid lips quivered as he said, “This should have been our moment of triumph. But what have we won? What have we done to Spyre?”
Venera did her best to look unimpressed, though she was worried too. “Look, there’s no way to know,” she said. That was a lie: she could feel it, they all could. Something was wrong.
A captain ran up. He saluted them both, but it was almost an afterthought. “Ma’am,” he said to Venera. “It’s… they’re waiting for you. On the roof.”
A cold feeling came over her. For just a second she remembered lying on the marble floor of the Rush admiralty, bleeding from the mouth and sure she would die there alone. And then, curled around herself inside Candesce, feeling the Sun of Suns come to life, minutes to go before she was burnt alive. She’d almost lost it all. She could lose it all now.
She flipped down the little ladder attached to her saddle and climbed down. Her thighs and lower back spasmed with pain, but there was no echo from her jaw. She wouldn’t have cared if there had been. As a tremor ran through the earth, Jacoby Sarto reached to steady her. She looked him in the eye.
“If you come with me,” she said, “whose side will you be on?”
He shrugged and staggered as the ground lurched again. “I don’t think sides matter anymore,” he said.
“Then come.” They ran for the ladders.
21
All across Spyre, metal that had been without voice for a thousand years was groaning. The distant moan seemed half real to Venera, here at the world’s edge where the roar of the wind was perpetual, but it was there. Spyre was waking, trembling, and dying. Everybody knew it.
She put one hand over the other and tried to focus on the rungs above her. She could see the peaked helmets of some of Guinevera’s men up there and was pathetically glad that she wouldn’t have to face this alone.
Sarto was climbing a ladder next to hers. Even a month ago, the very idea of trusting him would have seemed insane to her. And anyway, if she were some romantic heroine and this were the sort of story that would turn out well, it would be her lover Bryce offering to go into danger at her side—not a man who until recently she would have been perfectly happy to see skewered on a pike.
“Pfah,” she said, and climbed out onto the roof.
Thick smoke crawled out of the broad square opening in the center of the roof. Ominous, it billowed up twenty feet and then was torn to ribbons by the world’s-edge hurricanes. The smoke made an undulating tapestry behind Margit, her soldiers, and their hostages.
The elevator platform had been raised six feet. It was closely ringed by council troops whose weapons were aimed at Margit and her people. Venera recognized Garth Diamandis, Moss, and little Samson Odess among the captives. All had gun muzzles pressed against their cheeks.
A young woman in a uniform stood next to Margit. With Garth’s face hovering just behind her own, Venera could be in no doubt as to who she was; she had the same high cheekbones and gray eyes as her father.
Her gaze was fixed on Margit, her face expressionless.
“Come closer, Venera,” called Margit. She held a pistol and had propped her elbow on her hip, aiming it casually upward. “Don’t be shy.”
Venera cursed under her breath. Margit had managed to corral all of her friends—no, not all. Where was Eilen? She glanced around the roof, not seeing her among the other newly freed Lirisians. Maybe she was downstairs fighting the fires; that was probably it…
Her eye was drawn despite herself to a huddled figure lying on the roof. Freed of life, Eilen was difficult to recognize; her clothes were no longer clothes but some odd drapes of cloth covering a shape whose limbs weren’t bent in any human pose. She stared straight up, her face a blank under the burnt wound in her forehead.
“Oh no…” Venera ran to her and knelt. She reached out, hesitated, then looked up at Margit.
Smoke roiled behind the former botanist of Liris. She smiled triumphantly. “Always wanted an excuse to do that,” she said. “And I’d love an excuse to do the same to these.” Her pistol waved at the prisoners behind her. “But that’s not going to happen, is it? Because you’re going to…” She seemed to lose the thread of what she was saying, staring off into the distance for a few seconds. Then, starting, she looked at Venera again and said, “Going to give me the key to Candesce.”
Venera glanced behind her. None of the army staff who knew about the key were here. Neither was Guinevera nor Pamela Anseratte. There was no one to prevent her from making such a deal.
Margit barked a surprised laugh. “Is this your solution? You thought to do a trade, did you?” Jacoby Sarto had stepped into view, paces behind Venera. Margit was sneering at him with undisguised contempt.
“That man-shaped thing might have been valuable once, but not anymore. It’s not worth the least of these fools.” She flipped up the pistol and fired; instantly hundreds of weapons rose across the roof, hammers cocking, men straining. Venera’s heart was thudding painfully in her chest; she raised a hand, lowered it slowly. Gratefully, she saw the council soldiers obey her gesture and relax slightly.
She ventured a look behind her. Jacoby Sarto was staring down at a hole in the rooftop, right between his feet. His face was dark with anger, but his shoulders were slumped in defeat. He had nothing now, and he knew it.
“Your choice is clear, oh would-be queen of Candesce,” shouted Margit over the shuddering of the wind. “You can keep your trophy, and maybe even use it again if you can evade us. Maybe these soldiers will follow you all the way to Candesce, though I doubt it. But go ahead: all you have to do is give the order and they’ll fire. I’ll be dead—and so will your friends. But you can walk away with your trinket.
“Or,” she said with relish, “you can hand it to me now. Then I’ll let your friends go—well, all save one, maybe. I need some guarantee that you won’t have us shot on our way up to the docks. But I promise I’ll let the last one go when we get there. Sacrus keeps its promises.”
Venera played for time. “And who’s going to use the key when you get to Candesce? Not you.”
Margit shrugged. “They are wise, those that made me and healed me after you…” Her brows knit as though she were trying to remember something. “You… Those that made me—yes, those ones, not this one and his former cronies,” she nodded to Sarto. “No, Sacrus underwent a… change of government… some weeks ago. People with a far better understanding of what the key represents, and who we might bargain with using it are in charge now. Their glory shall extend beyond merely cowing the principalities with some show of force from the Sun of Suns. The bargain they’ve struck… the forces they’ve struck it with… well, suffice it to say, Virga itself will be our toy when they’re done.”
An ugly suspicion was forming in Venera’s mind. “Do these forces have a name? Maybe—Artificial Nature?”
Margit shrugged again, looking pleased. “A lady doesn’t tell.” Then her expression hardened. She extended her hand. “Hand it over. Now. We have a lot to do, and you’re wasting my time.”
The rooftop trembled under Venera’s feet. Past the pall of smoke, Spyre itself shimmered like a dissolving dream.
She’d almost had the power she needed, power to take revenge against the Pilot of Slipstream for the death of her husband. Enough wealth to set herself up somewhere in independence. Maybe she was even growing past the need for vengeance. It was possible she could have stayed here with her newfound friends, maybe in the mansion of Buridan in Lesser Spyre. Such possibilities had trembled just out of reach ever since her arrival among these baroque, ancient, and inward-turned people. It had all been within her grasp.