***
Haven burned. Bremen could scarcely believe the extent of the devastation already. As he led the others into the now empty plaza, it was all they could do to avoid the corpses of those slain by the Faceless or trampled to death by their own terrified countrymen. Many of the bodies were foreign soldiers bearing national tabards from Tethelia to Sunoa, but others were Darenthi. They were men and women who had sworn loyalty to the Empress, and some of them had probably served with him at one time or another.
Now they were dead, and he was largely to blame. Prince Kastrius might have ordered the assault, but Bremen had orchestrated this massacre as much as anyone else. He had allowed a maniacal politician and a spoiled brat to dictate the terms of their revolution, and this was the result.
He couldn’t help but wonder when he had made his first mistake. He was a patriot, and he made no apologies for defending the sanctity of the Republic, but at some point it had gone beyond that—it had become about personal vindication and revenge. More than anything in the world, Bremen had wanted to stand in front of an army again, to know that the fate of an entire people rested in his hands. It was vanity, pure and simple. And he had succumbed to it as fully as a Sunoan harlot.
The sky rumbled with the explosions of magic up ahead, and Bremen rushed forward to peer around the corner of a building to the center of the plaza. It was almost completely empty now, save for the bodies of the dead and one white-armored figure looming menacingly over a crumpled woman.
“Zandrast’s blood,” Rook’s bodyguard swore. “She’s in trouble.”
“Stay back,” Bremen warned. “He’ll kill you if you get too close. Let me speak with him.”
Rook shook his head. “He won’t listen to you. We have to help her or—”
Just as he spoke the words, another explosion of energy rattled the plaza. A blinding flash of light crashed near the stage, and the princess’s body hurled into the scaffolding against the row of buildings on the east.
“I have to get to her,” Rook said desperately.
Bremen turned to face him, his eyes narrowing. “Can you save her?”
The Ebaran man sighed. “I don’t know. I think so.”
“Then I will get you the time you need,” Bremen said, turning around.
Thorne grabbed his arm. “Sir, you—”
“Stay here,” he ordered her, then glared at the rest of them. “All of you.”
“Oh, no, I’m not letting Nate pull this hero drek again,” Van grunted. “If you go, we all go.”
Rook placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Keep them safe. You understand me?”
The two men stared at each other for a long moment, but finally Van sighed and nodded. “Just go. No one ever listens to me anyway.”
Rook glanced to Bremen and nodded, and the general strode forward into the plaza. He had made it halfway to the prince before the other man even noticed his presence.
“General?” Kastrius stammered. “What in the void are you doing here?”
“We need to talk, my prince,” Bremen said as he moved in closer, doing his best to keep his body language unthreatening. He knew he’d only get one chance at this…
“You can call me Emperor now,” the man said, dusting off his epaulets. “Why aren’t you at the tower? Did Rook’s people come for him?”
“You should call them back, Emperor. You’ve made your point.”
Kastrius frowned. “You’re not backing out on this, are you, General? Veltar always wondered if you’d be willing to go through with it.”
“Veltar is dead,” Bremen said flatly. He was only a few feet away now.
“Dead? But how?” The Emperor shook his head and chuckled. “You killed him somehow, didn’t you? I should have known you wouldn’t let him get away with it—too much military pride in that bald skull of yours. But no matter, this is good news. It saves me the trouble of doing it myself.”
“It is over, Your Majesty. Call off the Faceless.”
Kastrius grunted. “Nothing is over, General. What are you—”
His voice cut off as he caught a flicker of movement from the side. Over by the edge of the plaza, Rook dove behind the collapsed scaffold. The Emperor immediately clenched his teeth.
“Abalor’s eye, you let him go, didn’t you?” he hissed. “Why? Didn’t your god want you to have him?”
“Because you are not the only Darenthi blood left in the country,” Bremen said, “and you are not worthy of choosing the future for our people.”
Kastrius scoffed. “So you learned about my sister and now you’re willing to turn against me, is that it? How pathetic. Is your faith in Abalor really so fickle?”
“This is not the work of any god worth serving. Abalor represents freedom, not reckless ambition.”
“That’s what freedom is, general,” the Emperor murmured. “It is power—the power to take what you want and not apologize to anyone.”
“Words of a man drunk on his own ambition,” Bremen told him. “Not the words of a sovereign.”
Bremen attacked. In one swift motion, he unsheathed his sword and swept it across the Emperor’s body. The idea was to cut the man down before he had the chance to react.
The blade never made it. Before the steel ever touched Kastrius’s skin, it dissolved into dust. Bremen clutched at the useless sword handle in his grip and locked eyes with the Emperor.
“You don’t understand, General,” Kastrius said, smiling. “If you really wanted to serve a god, all you ever needed to do was worship me. I would have let you command my armies as they swept across the world…but I guess this is better for both of us. I think I’d rather just do it myself anyway.”
The prince extended a hand, and suddenly Bremen collapsed to his knees. He gasped for air that wouldn’t come and watched in horror as his veins bubbled beneath his skin. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t do anything except stare down at the face of his killer.
The man whom he had delivered to power.
“Tell Abalor that I’ll be sending him many more traitors before this is all over,” Kastrius said. “Oh, and be sure to thank him for me.”
The Last Goddess Page 83