A Lover's Redemption: The Misrule, #4

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1

LESAU RISING

Randall Soulier, vice president of Ailan and a man with bloody promotion on his mind, stormed into his superior’s office. The door shuddered on its hinges as the heavy boots of his 13th legionnaires stamped in his wake. There was a struggle, brief and fierce. Two guards died. A third would soon wish for the same fate.

The cold, clinical detachment Randall had felt under the streets of the Bridged Quarter of Tye was gone. Rose Franklin, his mother, was dead by his hand. Ray Franklin, his half-brother, was locked up in the old cells, waiting on Randall’s displeasure. And now he, Randall Soulier, got to deal with Bethina Laudanum permanently. The president of Ailan had taken too many liberties, robbed him of too much respect, upended his past. This was Randall’s time. His future. He could rewrite his family history from this point on.

Who’s that? A woman’s voice.

She’s here. Near the window. His breath caught in his throat. Deep in the rash of fear and excitement that clouded his mind was a quiet whisper: Am I really going to do this?

Sir? Captain James Brennan, Randall’s second in command, his pocket thug and chief enforcer, offered him a syringe. A bead of purple fluid bulged out of the needle point. Brennan’s forehead was grooved with a deep V-shape. His thinking look. His worried look. An ugly look. At least it ruined the similarity between Brennan and his sister. For that, Randall was thankful. It helped preserve the ferocious memories of nubile young Lena, of her long limbs tangled in Randall’s lust-soaked bedsheets. The memories soured. Lena was dead. Murdered yards from Randall’s home while the sheets were still warm.

Brennan’s flat gaze was fixed on Randall, the syringe quivering in his hand. What do you see when you see me, Brennan? Your sister? Do you see her in my bed, or murdered by that excuse of a woman, the Famulus?

The purple bead of liquid burst. It hit the wooden floor, breaking Brennan’s gaze and putting a slouch in the man’s spine. Even a man as emotionally ruined as Brennan would find the death of a little sister hard to take. That, Randall decided, was a problem for later. He laid a hand on his captain’s arm and pushed the syringe away. Not the drugs. I’ll deal with Bethina myself. The answer to the questioning whisper in his head, it seemed, was: Yes, I am going to do this.

The president was illuminated by the smaller of the two moons. The other was obscured by Bethina’s Folly Tree — a tree on a balcony at the top of a skyscraper. She’d claimed it was a representation of what should and shouldn’t be. For Randall, it would serve a different purpose. A frown flitted across Bethina’s face as she crossed her legs. It was an oddly prim mannerism from her. Oh, it’s you, she said, placing a sheaf of papers into the red leather binder on her lap.

Just following orders, ma’am. I came within the hour, as you requested.

One of the president’s fingers drifted up to pull at the mole on the end of her nose. Her eyes cut left, took in Brennan’s lifeless face, the freshly chipped tooth of the legionnaire beside him. I don’t think you⁠—

The door slammed open and two dogs barrelled in from the balcony. The Folly Tree strained against the gusting wind. The office was filled with flat-eared growls. Shots rang out. One animal collapsed in a whimpering heap as the second launched itself at the chip-toothed legionnaire. The man stumbled and fell. Hands beat at the dog. Grabbed lumps of fur. The thunder of automatic fire skewered the animal and hurled it into a corner. The legionnaire clawed at his throat, gurgling, choking on his own blood. His colleagues ignored him. Randall stepped over the man, careful not to get his shoes messy.

Oh my. Bethina clutched the binder to her chest, a shield of red leather and old paper. Randall, I really don’t think you⁠—

Her words choked off into a gurgling squeak as he wrenched her off the sofa. His fingers clamped round her neck. He squeezed the skin under her jaw. It felt like velvet, just like he had imagined. The binder fell. Loose pages see-sawed in the air. Her nails scratched across his hands, carving criss-crossed lines into his tendons.

Squeeze.

Harder.

Tighter.

The angle of her jaw rammed into his knuckles. The Folly Tree thrashed at the sky, its leaves gold in the moonlight. Whirlpools of grey clouds spun beneath the stars. The burning sensation built in his forearms. Bethina’s struggling weakened as his fingertips numbed.

Stop. Her words leaked past blue lips. You don’t under⁠—

Shut up. He dragged up every slight, threat and insult, no matter how big or small, no matter from whom or about what. The thump of her heels was fading. He grit his teeth. A bone in her throat snapped and her hands slipped off his wrists, thudding to the floor.

The tree branches on the balcony stilled. The plaintive wail of sirens rose and fell in the distance. North, a plume of red-tinted smoke drifted into the night, staining the sky above the dead city of Tye. Still straddling the woman, the air rattled out of Randall’s lungs. How long had he been holding his breath? It felt like all his life. Get a rope.

As the Unsung legionnaires set to work, Randall helped himself to a drink. Cheap crap that curdled on his tongue but was wet and alcoholic. He picked up the antique phone receiver from her desk.

Hello?

Wait. Let her stew.

Beth? Is that you?

Let her sweat.

Bethina, are you⁠—

Field-Marshal Chester, he said.

There was a hissing intake of breath through the receiver.

I do hope you’re feeling better, Randall lied. Such an unfortunate incident with that gas canister in your apartment. Someone could have died.

Someone did die, you bastard.

Accidents happen, Chester.

Accidents? she screamed down the phone.

Randall’s foot squelched in something red. Blood from the chipped-toothed legionnaire was pooling under the desk, mixing with the dog’s. The pulse in the man’s neck fluttered weakly. One of his colleagues knelt by him, medi-kit ready. Randall waved him away. Yes, Chester. Accidents. His irritation was growing: with Brennan for his brooding silence, with the legionnaire for bleeding on his shoe, with Chester for still being alive.

You— Not screaming now, just furious and hateful.

"No, you, Chester. Not me. You. You need to discharge yourself from your sickbed and come to the president’s private office immediately."

How dare you talk to me like— What? Beth’s office? What’s wrong? Is she OK?

A chair clattered to the balcony floor outside. Two feet swung centimetres above that floor. One had lost a shoe; it was hiding under the chair. A long shadow clung to those feet, stretching into the night. The wind picked up. The tree branches swayed their lament. The shadow hanging across the flagstones rocked with them, in time with the spittle-mouthed, bug-eyed pendulum dangling from the Folly Tree.

It appears that our president’s past has caught up with her, Randall said. The guilt must have been too much. We were too late. Her dogs were mad, killed one of my men. A red bubble burst in the dying legionnaire’s mouth as he finally choked to death. We had to shoot the filthy animals.

Randall? Chester’s voice was cut with panic.

He let the moment linger and took a swig of the alcohol. It burnt all the way to his toes. Bethina Laudanum has committed suicide. I am now president.

2

REMEMBERING ROSE

As the chopper juddered into the air, the river fog curled back around the statues of the Stone Bridge. Piece by piece, the sculptures disappeared — a leg here, an arm there, the fingers clutching a scroll, an upraised sword. The fog suffocated the long dead kings and queens of Ailan, turning them into disembodied ghosts. They became something out of the stories Stann Taille had once told around the Hallowtide fires of Tear, though none of the stories he had ever told could rival the horror of what he’d just witnessed. Rose Franklin is dead, Stann muttered. Killed by her eldest son. Doesn’t get much more wrong that that, does it?

The rattling of the chopper was the only reply.

Beneath him, a handful of stone crowns and tiaras poked out of the grey mist. An expanse of flat sky stretched away from him, flickering orange, yellow and gold, lit by the burning city below. Stann knuckled away a tear. He’d refused to grieve when the news had come that his son had been shot for deserting his unit in a war zone. That would have meant Donarth really was dead. Worse, that he’d let his friends down. But Rose Franklin? She’d been a good woman — headstrong, determined and fierce. A woman who had lived what she believed. She’d put herself on the line despite knowing the risks. She’d refused to cower behind the suits and skirts who lied to all the spineless wonders who ‘just wanted to get along in life’, those people who traded uncomfortable truths for a shot at shelter. But even in her darkest nightmares, Rose could never have envisaged a fate like this.

The helicopter lurched, cracking Stann’s head against a window. He grabbed a pair of headphones. C’mon, Skovsky. You forget to take the handbrake off this thing?

A voice crackled back at him. You forget what funny means? That joke’s even older than we are.

Stann shifted his leg into a more comfortable position. The trek through the tunnels under Tye had taken its toll. The mangled flesh of his thigh was sending throbbing waves of pain up his spine.

His headphones hissed. What happened back there?

The usual when you mix guns and a grudge.

Shooting and dying?

Too much of both, Stann replied. The chopper jumped. Try and avoid the pot holes, OK?

Would sir like an umbrella in his drink, too?

Just a pilot that can fly in a straight line.

They’re the ones that get you killed, Skovsky said. You want a pilot that can duck and barrel roll. They’re the ones that keep you alive.

The chopper slid out of the clouds. Twinkling lights blanketed the city beneath Stann: skyscrapers tipped with flashing red dots, lines of viridescent green and ground-bound stars of white. The colours stopped abruptly at the murky black line that was the River Tenns. It separated Effrea from its northern neighbour, Tye. The latter, a city gutted in the Silk Revolution some forty-odd years ago, was burning again. The quiet that had hung over it like a shroud for almost half a century was shredded. Stann could have sworn he could hear the giant beams of wood popping and crackling, as buildings collapsed in on themselves. His stomach dropped. Whether that was Skovsky Senior wrestling with the chopper, Rose’s fate or the thought of Ray Franklin and the others trying to escape that inferno, he wasn’t sure.

The thrum of the chopper’s engine changed. Where we going? Stann asked.

I’m to take you back to the Morgen Towers.

Those cursed tin boxes stuck out in the South Sea? Not a chance. I know why they were deserted. I met one of the survivors way back when.

Captain Namoor?

Yup. He’s still afraid of bread knives. Take me to where Axeford used to be, I know the area. I can hide in the Weeping Woods. The giant distillers’ barrel will do for a while, he thought. Rest up, let the leg recover and maybe have a rummage around and see what the distillers left behind. Maybe some spirits to help the healing, maybe even some guns to help the hurting.

Can’t do that, Stann. I got orders.

From who?

Rose Franklin herself.

She’s dead. The chopper didn’t waver. Skovsky was an old man, but he’d served and lost a child over what may as well have been a political typo. He was the type of old man who performed better under stress than when the stakes were low. Randall Soulier killed her, Stann continued. I got a feeling he wants the president’s job a little too much.

Never liked him. The headphones and noise of the rotors stripped the emotion out of Skovsky’s voice. It was all the more menacing for it. Never cared much for people who’ve bought or bribed their way to power. They’re almost as bad as them that inherited it.

Stann kept quiet and let his silence do the questioning for him.

Guess we’d better stop him then. Skovsky’s voice hissed in Stann’s headphones. You sure it was wise to let your grandson and the others stay?

Stann’s eyes, sniper’s eyes, strained to see through the mist choking the Stone Bridge. It was the size of his hand now. The bridge connected Effrea, the capital of Ailan, and the spreading inferno that was cremating Tye. As the wail and flash of police cars and army vehicles arrived at the Effrea end of the bridge, Stann imagined he could see three tiny figures racing into the streets: Ray, Dr Stella Swann and her husband, Dan.

They’re all grown-ups. Can do what they want, I reckon. And that Dr Swann’s got bigger balls than most men I know. They’ll be OK. You’d better be OK, Ray, he added to himself. You’re the only family I got left.

3

REMEMBERING THE PAST

Ray Franklin flattened himself into the alley wall. The smell of stale piss and damp brick filled his nose. To one side, the warmth of Stella Swann’s arm pressed into his; to the other, the feverish shivering of her husband’s.

We need to get Dan help, Stella whispered.

A blue light cut through the darkness of the alley, glancing off Stella’s face. She was drawn and haggard. The last twenty-four hours had aged her by the same number of years.

Shouts echoed from the River Tenns:

Seal the area.

Get on the bridge.

Search the houses.

Get off the bridge.

Stay here.

Go there.

Do this.

Do that.

The rumble of fire trucks vibrated through Ray’s feet. The clank of steel and thud of boots hitting the ground turned the commands into garbled noise. The echoes blended, twisted, feeding back on themselves. They merged with the chaos in his brain. The crack of steel became the endless retort of the shot that had killed his mother.

He screwed his eyes shut. Rose was dead. His mother. It felt like the end of the world.

Blue light filtered through the pink skin of his eyelids. His mind’s eye saw home: the village of Tear and the ruined building his mother had grown up in. Its thatched roof was burnt and patchy. The handle of a water pump was rusted solid, the green paint chipped and flecked with white. Ray felt a hand slip into his as a voice slipped into his mind, Rose’s voice.

The end of the world? his mother said. "It isn’t a single event. Nor is it one death, no matter how much that life means. The end of the world will be insidious and quiet. Things and people will slowly be taken away from us. One at a time, we’ll lose our rights. Some will be reclassified as privileges, other as subversive.

"Arts and music will go first, they’ve always harboured the freethinkers. Then the playgrounds and parks. Soon after, we’ll lose education. Not in one chunk but in morsels that go unnoticed initially. They’ll come for the hospitals, too. Once those cuts are too deep to heal, they’ll go after clean air and drinking water.

"Facts will become flexible. Words will be put on a hit list. You can’t think things if you can’t describe them. They’ll target your work. Got a job? Can’t take holidays. Someone else will do the job if you’re not willing. This will all be sold to you as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good, that our enemy is giving up more. And the enemy will be everywhere — around every corner, behind every door, headline and transaction. The enemy will be everyone — the old, the new, the poor, the rich, the fat, the thin, the red, the blue, the men and women.

Then, when you are one of those who have lost their jobs, have no education or are crippled by preventable diseases, you’ll be warned for being an undesirable. The warning will become watching and you’ll be put on a list. Before long, the enemy in your own home will be you, without even the vocabulary to resist.

A young Ray Franklin looked up at his mother. The riot of curls that tumbled down her neck danced in the wind. She turned her brown eyes on him, eyes that had always seemed too old for her, and said, The apocalypse we should fear isn’t a tsunami, a pandemic or a digital meltdown. It’s an erosion of freedoms, the restriction of thought.

She took his hand in hers. He squeezed for all he was worth, caught between the rare joy of his mother being home and her desperate words.

The end of the world is happening, Ray. Ray. Ray⁠—

Ray? What’s happening? Ray! Are you OK? Let go of my hand, you’re hurting me. My husband needs help.

Ray’s eyes snapped open. Blue light sliced through the shadows in the alley. Stella?

She yanked her hand free. You can’t daydream now. We’ve got to get— Are you OK? The words came in rapid, nervous succession.

I’m fine. The lie was obvious.

A finger pointed at him, its nail was chipped. You— Her husband moaned, cutting off Stella’s response. She dabbed at Dan’s forehead with her sleeve. He needs help.

We can’t take him to a hospital; they’ll be looking for us there. He’d have been safer back in the Morgen Towers. You should have gone with Skovsky Senior and Stann.

Stella grunted. Stuck out in the South Sea miles from anywhere but nowhere? No thanks. And I’ve seen the medical supplies there: a couple of used plasters, three knitting needles and a bottle of surgical spirits that has probably been drunk once. We’re going to the Kickshaw⁠—

The bar we met at.

You think I’d forgotten? she asked.

No. He didn’t. He hadn’t either. That chance meeting had turned his life inside out and the knock-on effect was ripping the country apart. Nice to be important, he thought wryly.

It’s—

I know what it is, Stella.

The Resistance’s safe house?

He nodded. A rush of air from an approaching chopper battered its way through the alley. A crisp packet tumbled along the floor, bouncing off bins and bricks and knocking into Dan’s ankles. It staggered him. Ray grabbed him under the arm.

They must have meds there, Stella repeated. In the Kickshaw. For Dan.

You don’t even know what’s wrong with him.

Since when has that stopped a doctor? As Stella attempted a smile, Dan’s legs buckled. Ray pulled him upright. The pain in his back flared and he dropped Dan onto a steel dustbin. The lid clattered to the ground, spinning in ever decreasing circles.

What are you doing?

Dancing, Ray said through gritted teeth. What’s it look like?

Hey! a voice called. What are you up to? This is a restricted area.

What do we do? Stella’s eyes were wide in the gloom. Run?

No. They’ll shoot.

A radio crackled. Light flooded down the alley.

I said, what are you doing here? The voice was louder, accompanied by the heavy tread of boots on gravel. A silhouette outlined by a powerful searchlight at the mouth of the alley became a police officer. The silver buttons on his shirt gleamed, drops of frost and ice amongst the coal-black cloth. His gun was aimed at Ray’s chest. I said⁠—

Ray pulled Stella close and made to kiss her. Just trying to get some alone time with my girl.

Your girl? Stella’s head whipped round.

Yeah, you just got promoted. Ray flashed her a grin that was as forced as it was pleading.

I just got what?

Who’s that then? The officer shuffled closer. From under the close-cropped blond hair, a bead of sweat dripped onto the bridge of his nose.

This? Ray nudged Dan with his foot. Stella’s husband moaned and rolled to his knees. A line of yellow spittle trailed from his mouth. A buddy of mine who can’t hold his drink.

Two things to say, said the officer, whose portly frame looked to be one size too big for his uniform. First up, you got a permit for that sidearm?

Ray’s hand drifted to the revolver he’d taken from the Bridged Quarter, less obvious than the rifle that Stann had taken but still big enough to cause problems.

Second, you’re breaking curfew and are drunk in public.

That was three things. Ray went for the last two. Hoping the truth in the little lies would hide the lie in the bigger truth: off-duty legionnaires couldn’t carry weapons.

We’re out late. Illegal. I know. Just, — Ray nodded to the 10th-Legion insignia on his sleeve — we don’t get much downtime. You guys got the same problem as I understand it.

Yeah, don’t I know it. The officer lowered his weapon. We get even less now they privatised the police. That’s only part of it. Things are going from worse to worst. More hours, less money, more hoops, less time to jump through them all. This man, it seemed, wanted to talk. And do you know why we’re getting no-go areas in this city? It’s not because the force is scared to go in, we’ve got enough firepower to compete with some of the small nations on the mainland.

Maybe I should have joined you boys instead of the 10th. We got weaponry most kids would turn their noses up at. Ray forced a grin. Stella was quivering under his grip as Dan gasped for air like a drowning man.

The searchlight illuminated the officer’s grin. Behind him the lines and grooves in the bricks cast countless tiny pools of shadow on the wall. Yeah, well, the reason we’re getting no-go areas in the city is because we’ve been told not to intervene. A friend of mine reckons it’s so the crime rates in those areas will rocket. That way, when the shit really hits, we can go in proper: heavy and hard. He glanced down. Dan was clawing at his throat. Purple light glinted out from under his eyelids. What did your buddy drink?

The bar. I should get him home.

Cool. Just stay away from this area. All kinds of shit kicking off over the river. Got the fire trucks in to stop the blaze from spreading, but I got a feeling they’re gonna let Tye burn down to the ground. My friend reckons they’ll get some big-shot real-estate developer in to rebuild it and then sell it to folks like you and me.

Ray’s laugh was hoarse and forced.

The officer’s radio crackled. Stella jumped. Her eyes were wide in a face ravaged by dust and tear tracks. For the love of all the gods that never lived, grab your buddy and girl and get a shift on, son. Some hardnut called Henndrik’s on his way down and he’s proper narked. As the light drowning the alley shadows vanished, the officer holstered his weapon. Stay safe, my friend. If you get a notion to wander around with a drunk after curfew, try not to get caught. And hide that revolver of yours before you meet someone less sympathetic. With a final smile, he started back towards the commotion by the river. Promoted, Ray heard him say with a chuckle as he walked off.

Stella was on her knees, dragging Dan upright. Help me!

Ray grabbed her husband under the arms. The officer’s radio hissed at him. His pace slowed as he held it to his ear.

I said help me, Ray.

The officer looked back at them, the amused expression on his face frozen rigid.

When I give the word, get out of here. Stop at nothing and for no one till you get to the Kickshaw, Ray whispered.

But—

Just do it, Stella. For once, listen.

Say, the officer called. Which legion d’you say you were from? He approached in measured steps, hand on his side-arm. New orders. We’re to bring in anyone from the 10th. Where’s your swipe card? I need to see some ID⁠—

Run! Ray hurled himself at the officer. He wrapped his hands around the man’s thighs and drove his weight through the man’s legs. The leather holster bit into Ray’s ear. The officer’s gun arm was trapped to his side. Too close for Ray to draw his own weapon. Too noisy. A cry for help was bitten off as the man’s feet left the ground and, after a weightless moment when the officer floated in the brightness of the searchlight, Ray slammed the man into the alley floor in an explosion of dust.

Help! The officer found his voice. His cry echoed round the alley. Answering shouts sounded from the river. Calls for more light and backup. He drew in a breath to shout again. Ray headbutted him on the nose. The bone split. Warm blood sprayed into his face. The officer slumped back onto the floor, limp.

Freeze! A new voice. Hands away from the weapon. Stand up.

Ray stared into the black hole of a police revolver. Slowly, deliberately, obviously, Ray slid the fallen man’s pistol back in its holster.

Up! Slowly. The officer, wearing a muscle-hugging shirt, nodded skywards. Assaulting a police officer is a big problem. You’re heading for a whole world of hurt.

Damn right he is. Stella stepped out from the shadows. She slammed the bin lid Dan had knocked to the floor on the new officer’s head. The man slid into the dust, boneless. As the shouts of the police grew louder, she said, You promote me like that again, Ray Franklin, and I’ll demote you permanently. Run.

4

REMEMBERING LENA

Captain James Brennan sat on a battered leather sofa in the president’s office and adjusted the focus on the military-issue screen. It was the same khaki version he’d been using to track Ray Franklin in the Weeping Woods not so long ago. He’d watched Ray kill the scarred man from Donia in those woods. Karil, he’d been called, before the drugs, the gwenium, had tortured him into something sub-human. Brennan was watching Ray again. There was a symmetry to it that pleased him. On the screen, Ray and Dr Swann were scampering along an alley. They were half-dragging, half-carrying her husband. Police officers were following cautiously, methodically, step by step. Brennan approved.

A message flashed up. The Unsung major, Henndrik, was on scene. That made Brennan uneasy. He knew what the man did for fun. And for the VP to trust a man like that? Brennan laced his fingers together. Counted.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Four, three, two, one.

Three, two, one.

Two, one.

One.

Half.

Breathe.

Better.

He didn’t approve of Henndrik but he could deal with it as a professional. He wasn’t sure what he felt about the VP anymore, though. Do I approve of my commander-in-chief? He should. Randall was Brennan’s superior. But his sister had died because of Randall. That troubled Brennan.

Randall was under the Folly Tree, phone clamped to his ear. Half of his face was lit by moonlight. The other half was obscured by the shadow of Laudanum’s corpse. A breeze spun it. The body swung in a loop and kicked Randall in the leg. The VP shoved the body away, his other hand, the hand that had broken the bone in the president’s throat, was clamped white-knuckle tight around the phone. What did Randall do to my little sister with those hands? Where did he put them? Brennan boxed the questions up as soon as they formed and turned his attention back to the pursuit.

Interference hissed across the screen, blurring the images in his head. The crackling line pushed the picture ahead of it. As Ray Franklin ran, the image rolled until it was split horizontally. The fugitives’ legs now seemed to tap dance on their own heads.

Brennan should tell the VP that Ray had escaped, that the man Randall Soulier hated more than he loved himself was free again. He couldn’t. The VP had slept with Brennan’s sister. Lena had been murdered because of that. Sex and death. That type of symmetry made Brennan’s own fingers twitch to squeeze and snap bones.

Booted feet came to a standstill beside him. Laudanum’s guard’s ready. The one we let live. One of the new Unsung recruits, a man with a rattish nose, pointed at the president’s desk. His voice wavered. Most people would have missed it. Brennan had a gift for spotting these things. He placed the screen back in its pouch, made sure to fasten the clasps, and placed it back, the right way round, in its correct pocket in his bag.

Everything has its place; everyone has their place.

Brennan had learnt as an adult that there were different ways of interpreting what his dad had taught him and Lena. Some interpretations were better than others.

Brennan walked around the dead dogs lying on the floor, stepped over the corpse of his colleague, the man’s chipped tooth barely visible now, and sucked in a lungful of air. The president’s office smelt of sweat and fear and blood. The smell had once terrified Brennan. It was now familiar enough to be reassuring. The guard was manacled to Laudanum’s chair. He was caught at that age where his body had started filling out but still had a soft roundness to it. It was the age that said: I lied about how old I was to sign up. His trembling said: I wish I could take that lie back. He strained against his restraints, eyes red and damp. Brennan knew that look. The guard was seconds away from soiling himself. The legions had given Brennan symmetry and balance. The 13th Legion had given him an additional outlet: questioning. Free the captive’s left hand. Get me a first aid kit.

The legionnaire struggled with the panicking man. The guard wanted the manacles off, was desperate for freedom. But not like this. This kind of freedom came at a price. The rat-nosed Unsung legionnaire, a recruit from Donia, unlocked the handcuffs after a fierce struggle and scurried off.

Moonlight glinted on Brennan’s blade as he laid it on the wood. The guard’s face, already screwed into uncomfortable folds of flesh by the tight gag, went the colour of snow.

Place one finger on the desk.

The man shook his head. It was easier to think of him as a man than a teenager. It made the questioning easier to justify. Place one finger on the desk.

The captive sobbed like only a child could.

If I have to say it again, you’ll lose a hand.

Tears streaming down his face, the guard placed his finger on the wooden desk, between a thick red binder and the old phone. No. Please. Stop. I promise. Why? The gag muffled the guard’s words. It didn’t matter. Brennan could have predicted what he said. Everyone always said the same thing. Brennan knew. He had experience. Ever since his . . . ‘extraction’ (was probably the most neutral term for it) of information from a young Donian girl had got him the recommendation for this gig. That had been in the third Donian Drive for Democracy in 2099. The third time their rebellion against the Ailan government had had to be quashed. Democracy was flawed; too much choice was a weakness. Democracies bred dictatorships just as much as the other way around. Brennan had thought the shaky video that had materialised of that session was going to get him dismissed from the military, or worse. Instead, he’d been shifted to the 13th.

You move, you lose a hand. You lie, you lose a hand. You stall, you lose a hand.

Sweat pouring down his face, matting in the lone hairs that may one day become a beard, the guard placed his index finger on the table.

I’d’ve picked the little finger myself. Less important.

The man’s eyes rolled wildly. He switched fingers. Drops of sweat splashed onto the floor. The internal debate was plain on his face: which digit did he want to lose?

The little one. Good choice. Brennan placed the blade of the knife in the joint behind the nail. The distal interphalangeal joint. He’d looked it up. It wasn’t so much pride in his work as a need to rationalise what he was doing. Looking at a body as a sum of mechanical parts made it easier to do what he did. Look at me, he said. An inexplicable flash of hope lit up the guard’s face. Brennan slammed the heel of his hand onto the knife.

A gout of blood sprayed across the desk. The fingertip rolled to the floor. The guard’s back arched. His face contorted. The muffled scream was agonising, even to Brennan.

The ring finger.

No!

Your hand, then?

Sobbing, the guard placed his finger back on the desk, blood pooled around it.

Brennan’s hand whipped down.

Thud.

Middle.

Thud.

Bind the wounds, he ordered the legionnaire.

As the rattish-nosed Unsung got to work, any vestiges of resistance drained from the young man’s body. He was beaten. The policy of shoot first, ask second was brutal but it worked. Once the interviewees had lost part of themselves, the prospect of losing more became more real than any number of promises or threats could make it.

Brennan could take or leave the questioning (officially they called it whispering). But, according to his psychological profile, his emotional detachment and attention to detail made him an ideal candidate. To Brennan, it was simple. There was no conflict of interest, no moral right or wrong. Do what you’re told, obey the law and life goes on. Break the law and you pay for it. Discipline, symmetry and order had to be upheld. That was why his unease with Randall Soulier itched from the inside out.

I’m going to ask you some questions about Bethina Laudanum, Brennan said to the guard. The president is dead, but I want to know everything you know about her and her movements.

The legionnaire pulled the kid’s gag back. The lines it had cut into the his mouth gave him a leering, cartoon-demon smile.

I’m new. I don’t know anything. My fingers. I can still feel them. Why don’t they hurt? What have you done to me? I don’t know anything.

I’ll decide what you know.

Why me? Why not one of the experienced guards? Not me. Someone else. Lacky. Captain Lacky. He’s been around for ever.

Would Captain Lacky volunteer you as quickly as you volunteered him?

The guard floundered for an answer. Nobility, loyalty, camaraderie — these were fine qualities and were hammered into the psyche of potential recruits like drugs, but everything paled into insignificance next to the need to survive.

A gust of wind rushed through the room. Papers fluttered in the air, spinning and whirling down to the ground, where they soaked up the red puddles. That’ll do, Brennan, said the VP. He slid the balcony door closed with a soft thump. Beyond it, the president’s corpse was spinning dizzily in the wind.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, the young guard whimpered. Tears splashed onto the bloody bandages wrapping the stumps that had been fingers.

Lena, Brennan whispered.

What?

Lena.

Lena? Randall Soulier worried a fingernail with his thumb. Your sister? A look of irritation swept across the VP’s face, over these odd-coloured eyes that so many people found so intriguing, so beautiful. I fucked her, Brennan, that’s all. I didn’t kill her. The Famulus did that and I’ve already arranged your revenge. Is the boy ready?

Sir? Brennan’s fingers tightened around his knife. The artery in the VP’s neck was throbbing. Vulnerable. People were too vulnerable. All the holes you need to get air in and out were too close together. Evolution had protected the brain in a nice thick case of bone but put the vessels that fed it in a soft sheath of flesh. If it hadn’t been evolution and ‘someone’ had designed the body, they hadn’t thought it through very well.

Brennan!

He blinked and automatically saluted, Sir.

Stop staring at me like that, Captain. If you’re still punch-drunk from your altercation with Franklin, I want to know. Get me an update on Franklin.

Brennan made for the door.

Leave the knife, Brennan.

And the whimpering guard screamed as he realised his salvation had just been relieved of duty.

The balcony door closed. It shut out the howls of the guard. Brennan wasn’t cruel when he worked; he was efficient. He only hurt people when he had to. Judging by what was happening on the other side of the glass in Bethina’s office, the VP was the opposite — inexperienced and clumsy, but enthusiastic. Brennan would have bet one of his own fingers that the young guard thrashing in his restraints would have preferred Brennan ‘whispering’ at him rather than the VP.

The Folly Tree creaked in the wind, weighed down by its unnatural burden. The leaves frosted with light from the office. Brennan thumbed his screen awake. Muted reds and greens spilled across his hands as he cycled through the security cameras and newsfeeds.

He squatted, waiting, watching. He maintained that position, hunkered down next to a swinging corpse, even as the pins and needles crept into his toes. He should stand to stretch the stiffness out of his legs. Brennan stayed immobile as he caught up with what was happening beyond the president’s office.

He learnt that Corporal Seth was dead. Probably killed by Franklin as he escaped. Seth, as principles went, hadn’t been worn or torn loose; he’d been born loose. There was no backstory there. Seth had been an evil, bad-tempered bastard who liked to get his hands dirty. Not many people like that around. Except Major Henndrik, of course. Brennan had thought to look into the man’s past but felt filthy just looking at him, the kind of dirt that stained you forever.

Brennan’s toes were going numb. He ignored it. Counted down from five. He’d put up with much worse. When he stood, the feeling would return. He’d told himself the same would happen when his younger self had put a bullet in former president Hamilton’s head some twenty years ago.

(In one ear and out the other, the stunned soldier who’d found them had said in his report. The kid’s hand was rock solid. His colleague had been vomiting on the floor.)

Hamilton had deserved worse for what he’d done to Brennan and the others. But Brennan had been wrong: the feeling hadn’t returned.

He continued his cycle through the cameras, the purple of the newer surveillance systems fading into the greens of night vision and the thermal cam. (What one military comedian had called rattlesnake cam.) Franklin, Dr Swann and her husband had disappeared into the maze of alleys. The new districts of Effrea had been designed as a grid so they were easy to navigate. The old parts by the river were a twisting mass of alleys, passageways and backstreets with doorways to skulk in and bins to hide behind. The chopper had lost the fugitives. The police had lost them. Brennan had lost them. He shut the screen off and stayed hunkered down, staring at the black glass.

The door slid open. The room beyond was utterly quiet.

Let’s go, Brennan, the VP said.

Maybe I was wrong about Seth, Brennan thought. Maybe there are more like him in the world — the morally absent, hiding behind suits and smiles and systems. Only, Seth’s violence was limited to those in front of him. Randall Soulier was planning to unleash hell on a nation.

The VP’s polished leather shoes ground tiny bits of stone into the stained flagstone under his feet. The kid knew nothing. That was a waste of time. He poked the corpse and Bethina spun away from him, tongue lolling from her mouth.

I was wrong.

Any news on Franklin or Seth?

Or Lena? No, sir.

5

REMEMBERING THE WAY

Stella staggered to a standstill. Bent double, curtains of hair shrouded her face. Tired. Legs hurt, she gasped.

Should have done more up-downs, Ray said, fighting to catch his own breath. Thought you had a thing for the Legions’ favourite punishment exercise.

Not helpful. Which way?

This way, I think. He nodded towards the mouth of an alley that yawned blackly at them.

You think? Her chest heaved as she sucked in air to say, Martinez told me Rose taught you to navigate by the stars.

You don’t get stars in a city, too much light pollution. All the sun-fans, drones and choppers don’t help. Neither does that.

Stella pushed herself upright, her gaze following his finger. Clouds of smoke wound their way through the rooftops and leaked into the sky. It had a sharp, acrid smell that tasted of burnt flesh. Rat? Or maybe the corpses Ray and the others had left behind: Seth and Kayle and Sebb and Seren and Dylan and Rose, his mother. There were