Here in Bringham’s protective grip was the cage that kept women in, made them fearful, made them small. Here in his imposing figure was the barrier that kept Kwen from plenty, siphoned their lives, and starved them into ravenous hordes. The cage and the barrier weren’t different structures. They were components in the same machine, cast and forged for the same ultimate purpose.
Kwen were dangerous when it meant tightening control over Tiranish women. Tiranish women were damsels when it meant tightening control over Kwen. They were all hapless children when it meant denying them access to power—and it was that lack of power that made them helpless, made them monsters, made them subject to the benevolent Tiranishman who would save them from their deficiencies. Each gear turned tidily into its neighbor in a soul-grinding system designed to sustain the men who had named the pieces and made them so: damsel, devil, servant, wife.
Resplendent as Leon, Bringham turned to claim his role as conqueror of the darkness—and Sciona ran onto the balcony after him.
From a logical perspective, it was utterly ridiculous to rush the archmage the way she did. Sciona had never been physically powerful. She hadn’t even been able to fend off a sleep-deprived Cleon Renthorn to save her own honor, and Bringham was a far more imposing man than Renthorn the Third. But, as she locked her hands around the staff and hauled it toward her, she realized that this wasn’t about winning the physical struggle. It wasn’t even about protecting the Kwen below.
Rage had been building in Sciona since Bringham had collected her from the jail—as the archmage maintained the same protective, kindly air toward her, even as he butchered the Kwen around them. Just once, Sciona wanted to see the gentleness break. She wanted honesty from this man who claimed to care so deeply about her. Just once, she would see him unmasked.
“Sciona, stop this!” Bringham’s calm voice strained as he fought to wrest the staff back without hurting her.
“I won’t!” she hauled on the conduit with all her strength.
“I need to protect you!”
Sciona would have laughed had she not been totally focused on the struggle. The only thing he was protecting was his fantasy that he was a good person. She wouldn’t let him have it.
“Sciona!” Bringham’s voice turned to a growl, the soft exterior slipping. Grinning through bared teeth, Sciona wrapped herself around the staff, clinging like a snake with her entire upper body. “Let go!”
Victory.
Desperation cracked Bringham’s facade. For a split second, Sciona glimpsed the murderer—his green eyes feral, the lines of his face darkly twisting, lips pulled back from his teeth in rage. Void beheld void. Monster beheld monster. He slammed Sciona back into the wall so hard that stars burst before her eyes, then he threw her to the ground.
Sciona stayed where she had fallen, dazed, throbbing, but dimly satisfied. She didn’t need to see what Bringham did to the Kwen below. She heard the screams clearly enough, even through her haze. And as the howls of agony became whimpers, then fell silent, the nauseating smell of burning flesh scorched her throat. This was the reality behind Bringham’s mask, and it could not be forgiven… just as Sciona could not be forgiven.
Even Thomil, she decided, could never forgive her for what was happening now. The notion made her smile even as tears leaked from her eyes onto the cold balcony under her cheek and her vision went blurry. If nothing else, maybe the horrors of this night would help Thomil make up his mind about her final proposal. It was a slim chance, but it was a comfort as the blur grew and she slipped into unconsciousness.
Maybe she would leave her mark on Tiran yet.
Most of the corpses had been cleared from the courtyard when Bringham escorted Sciona out of his home. The servants had covered the remaining bodies in sheets so that Bringham wouldn’t have to look on what he had done—as if a few blankets could mask the choking scent of burnt flesh.
The street beyond the double gate was eerily deserted as Duris pulled up in his magical car. The armored vehicle had been cleaned since Sciona last saw it, though as one of Bringham’s servants opened the back door for her, she noted a missed spot where a smudge of blood clung to the chassis.
Duris wore a smirk that seemed to agitate Bringham more than it did Sciona.
“Well-rested, traitor?” he asked as Sciona slid into the back seat.
“All things considered, Archmage.” In honesty, Sciona should be thanking Bringham for the bang on the head. Without it, she probably wouldn’t have gotten to sleep at all.
“The streets are so quiet,” she observed as the car hummed into motion.
“Most of the Blighters have come to their senses,” Duris said with a sneer. “They know they’ll be arrested or beaten if they leave their homes. This nonsense will blow over, and life will go back to normal.”
“I wonder,” Sciona murmured as she leaned her head into the window.
“What was that, traitor?”
“Nothing.”
The Dancing Wolf—where Sciona had first gotten drinks with Thomil—was deserted, boards hastily nailed over the windows where the glass had broken. Sciona wondered if the Tiranish guards had raided the establishment for Kwen insurgents or if Tiranish citizens had vandalized the building in retaliation for the attacks on their own homes and businesses. Maybe the destroyers had been Kwen protestors who didn’t know the establishment was Kwen-owned or were simply too angry to care. Would anyone even be sure when the dust had settled?
“Pleased with yourself?” Duris asked, glancing back at Sciona.
Not about this. Maybe all this destruction had been a necessary sacrifice for the truth. Maybe that made Sciona as bad as the archmages who claimed Kwen life as a necessary sacrifice for their ends. Maybe it was as Thomil said, and actions would be weighed at Heaven’s gates without intent in the balance. Regardless, everyone in this car was headed for Hell.
“Are you happy with what you’ve done here?”
“No, Archmage,” she said softly. “Are you?”
Duris hissed and twisted in his seat as if to hurl a retort back at Sciona, but Bringham cut in.
“Eyes on the road, please, Duris. Justice is waiting ahead.”
“Yes,” Duris said with an ugly smile. “It certainly is.”
An army of guards surrounded the Main Magistry building. Hundreds of men in armor, each bearing a rifle, shield, and baton. They obviously weren’t here to contain Sciona; they were here to ensure that the trial went protected and uninterrupted. It wouldn’t matter if every Kwen in Tiran defied martial law to storm the Magistry. They wouldn’t get past that many guns.
At first glance, the number of guards seemed criminally wasteful when there was unrest to worry about all over the city. But Sciona understood: the mage responsible for the collapse of order in Tiran had to be tried and executed immediately. It was the only way for the Magistry to reassert their power and demonstrate that they still had control of the situation. Tiran could not afford to have that process interrupted, no matter how many lives and homes were lost in the interim. The stability of civilization depended on it.
Several guards broke from the perimeter line to flank the three mages as they ascended the stairs and passed beneath the Founders’ peridot eyes into the building. Inside, there were more guards, a gun at every doorway, boots patrolling every corridor.