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Liraz was uneasy "What if Jora but the Halcyon Sea in all directions She liked flying over the sea--the vastness, the clean and ashless air, the quiet But she did not care for their destination

"What could he know?" said Akiva "But even if he does, there may never be another chance like this"

There may never come another chance to stand face-to-face with their father and end his brutal life Liraz had never even seen Joram up close Now she would, and he would bleed "I know," she said, and left it at that Any protest she ht make would sound like fear--of Jora fear, like flying into a sandstorm; it shamed her, and she would never admit to it Fearless Liraz If only they knehat a lie it was She wanted to say, It’s too dangerous She wanted to convince her brothers that in Astrae--in the Tower of Conquest, no less--there would be too many factors beyond their control Better we vanish now, she thought, and undercut Joram froh she didn’t voice her fears and was certain she didn’t show them, Hazael drew a little closer to her side and said, "Joram probably just wants to use our illustrious brother to his own ends To fight the rebels? Who better than Beast’s Bane? Especially with all focus on this mad Stelian conquest"

Liraz said, "Or it’s to do with the mad Stelian conquest Akiva is Jora off to the side, lost in thought, but he heard "I’m no link I know no more of Stelians than anyone"

"But you have their eyes," she said "That usted "Could he think I’d play eine that I’m his creature?"

"Let’s hope so," said Liraz, her voice sharp "Because the alternative is that he suspects you"

Akiva was silent a long , "You don’t have to be part of this Either of you--"

"Damn you, Akiva," she snapped "I am part of it"

"Me, too," said Hazael

"I don’t want to put you in danger," said Akiva "I can kill hi, he could have no idea what I’et to hiet out," Liraz finished for himent "What, die and be done? How very easy for you" With Liraz, er, but in this case the eer With what they had set in iment to return to and the illusion of a life She would be outcast, traitor to the Empire, and she knew she didn’t have it in her to build a movement behind her Akiva could; he was Beast’s Bane And Hazael Everyone loved Hazael But as she? No one even liked her but these two, and she soht that was only habit

"I don’t want to die, Lir," Akiva said softly

She couldn’t tell if heto We’re going with you, and any dying is going to be done at the other end of our swords"

Hazael backed her up, and on Akiva’s face, gratitude vied with the e of as his "death wish" look She rehed and smiled, when in spite of the violence of their lives he had been a full person, with a full range of emotion He had never had Hazael’s sunshine demeanor--who did?--but he had been alive Once upon a tiirl who had done this to her proud, beautiful brother How one away to find that… creature… and coain Creature It sounded ugly, but Liraz didn’t kno to think of the girl: Madrigal, Karou, chimaera, huust she felt for Karou, not anynation Incredulity A man like Akiva crosses worlds to find you, infiltrates the enemy capital just to dance with you, bends heaven and hell to avenge your death, saves your comrade and kin frout-punched, diminished, carved hollow?

Liraz didn’t know exactly what Karou had said to Akiva this last time, but she knew that it had not been kind, and as the three of the what she would say to her in the unlikely event that they ever found the way to pass the tiht

"There" Akiva saw it first, and pointed The Sword

In its golden age, Astrae had been known as the City of a Hundred Spires One for each of the godstars, the spires had been slender towers of i toward the heavens They had been crystal, so the stor prisht over the rooftops below

That city had been destroyed in the Warlord’s uprising a thousand years ago This was the new Astrae, built by Jorah he had tried to restore the dead city of his ancestors, that had been raised by the lost arts of i, this by slaves The spires weren’t even half as tall as their precursors, and they weren’t fluid upthrusts of crystal as the old had been, but were glass, seaether by steel and iron Of them all, the Tower of Conquest stood tallest, its silhouette shaped like a sword--the Sword--e reflected the fire of the setting sun, as it did now

Blood and endings, Liraz thought, seeing that great blade rising red from the distant cliffs An apt symbol indeed

She disliked Astrae; she always had There was an atmosphere of strain and subtle fear, a culture of whispers and spies How right Melliel had been, calling it a "spider’s web"--even down to the dangling dead displayed to all co they saw on reaching the city Beside the fourteen guards there hung another, older corpse that she took for the unfortunate sentry fro by their ankles, wings dragging open and catching every breeze to send the in circles like broken dolls Their criuess She had an impulse to scorch a black handprint into the wood of the support post and burn the gibbet out of existence Night was falling; blue fire would lick the darkening sky, full of dreams and visions Not yet, she told herself

Soon