Jaysynn tumbled over in his sleep and woke up with a start.

He was on the grass, outside, loose dirt at his fingertips.  A man was there.  The moon cast little light, but it lit up the gravestones, and it turned the beads of sweat on the man’s forehead into drops of silver light.

Jaysynn was quickly on his feet.  He knew he was in the graveyard, and he knew that this man, Governor Vac, had taken him here.

“Relax,” Vac said.  His voice was quiet and full of phlegm that mixed his natural tone with a soft growl.  “I just went to a lot of trouble to dig you up.  I’m not the least interested in burying you again.”

“Dig me up?” said Jaysynn.  He was on guard, but lowered his hands.

Vac looked up, and his eyes glowed in the soft midnight light.  “I went through with the plan,” he said.  “Now I’m going to throw this coffin back in here and cover it up again, and you’re going to leave this castle and never step foot in it again.”  He nodded.  “Do a good work in Thyrion.”

“If I do, you’ll have a friend there.”

“Fine,” said Vac.  “But let’s not stand around chatting about it—I don’t want to attract any attention.  Just go, and when you’re away from the castle grounds, check your shirt pocket.  There’ll be a note in there that will tell you everything you need to know.  Now get the hell out of here.”

Jaysynn stood there, looking for last words, but Vac dragged the coffin back into the hole and, with his back turned toward Jaysynn, scraped loose dirt over the top of it with his shovel.

Jaysynn tapped him on the shoulder, but he went on working.  He walked around in front and patted him on the side of the arm.  Vac looked up, clutching at his shovel, to see Jaysynn extending an arm.  They shook hands, and Jaysynn left him to his work.

 *     *     *

When Jaysynn found light enough to read by, spilling out of the windows of one of the finer homes in the Old District, he pulled from his pocket a key and a piece of paper with an address written on it.  He recognized the street name from his earlier travels in the city, and it only took him a little wandering back and forth to find the place.

It was in a block of buildings on the edge of the industrial district.  The neighborhood was in shambles: much of the industrial district, once driven by generators and magic machinery, was obliterated in the Cataclysm.  But this building stood among a number of warehouses.  Many of them were damaged, and some bowed down to the ground.

The one Vac had sent him to was in the best shape of any of them.  Corrugated steel siding and a sturdy front door.  The key fit, and Jaysynn opened the door.

There was no light inside, but it felt like bare walls and an open floor, with maybe some furniture or boxes stacked along the far wall.

A flit of movement.  Not an animal.  There was a person inside.  Maybe another would-be assassin.  Jaysynn backed out of the light of the doorway to conceal himself and began feeling around the unpainted drywall, hoping to run into something he could use as a weapon.

Across the room a match head exploded into light, and soon an antique oil lamp was burning brightly, driving out the shadows where Jaysynn tried to hide, and lifting the veil of darkness that hid the other person in the room.

Her hair was long and blonde.  The curve of her cheeks was gentle, and her eyes were bright, although one of them was black and blue.

“Just the sight of you heals all the trouble of the day,” Jaysynn said.

“I’m afraid I’m not much to look at,” said Kyrie, turning her eyes down and the bruised side of her face away.

“Did Vac do that?” Jaysynn said.  He punched his palm.  “I’ll give him a piece of my mind,” he said.  “I’ll…” but he trailed off.  The taste of anger was in his mouth, but it dawned on him that Vac was a friend, and that he might never see him again.  There was no benefit at all in getting angry.

“Well, anyway,” he said, “Vac pushed me off the shore and set me sailing.”

“How’s that?”

“I had to make a decision I wasn’t ready to make.  So I paid him a visit so he could force me into making it.  We’re going back to Thyrion.”

“Jaysynn,” said Kyrie, shaking her head, “you could be killed.”

“I’m already dead,” he said.  “Now it’s time to rise up.”

“I don’t understand.”

Jaysynn laid his hands on Kyrie’s shoulders.  “Listen, somebody has got to worry about the problems in this world.  Somebody has to set things right again in Thyrion.  And I figure, why not the Emperor?”

Kyrie wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest.

“So,” Jaysynn said, holding her, “Did Vac give you that black eye?”

“No,” she said, backing out of the embrace so they could see face to face.  “It was the skinny one.  But really they treated me well—aside from the interrogation.  They took better care of me than anyone else in the prison, I think.  And when they let me go they gave me an escort to this place and even gave me some food and supplies—a couple of these boxes are for us.  And your knife is in the top one.  They told me I was welcome to stay here for as long as I liked, but that I shouldn’t leave until I received further orders.  I guess they meant from you.”

“You got an escort!” Jaysynn said.  “All I got was this piece of paper.”  He held up the letter with the address on it.

“Well,” said Kyrie, setting the lamp on the floor and taking a step closer to him.  “I’ve got a piece of paper for you, too.”

He held out his hands, and she laid into them a wadded up note.  He unfolded it and turned around so he could read it by the light of the lamp.  It read, “I’m still here.”

And there she was, the giddy glimmer in her eye, the soft pale skin of her cheeks (now bruised), the calm and casual slope of her shoulders.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.  “I don’t know where my next steps will take me.  I still don’t know the first thing about destiny.  But I’m glad you’ll be here as I figure it out.”

Kyrie made up a bed for each of them:  no pillows, but a couple blankets laid across the plywood floor.  Wind crept in under the door, which had no threshold, and swept across the hard floor where they slept.

It was a night spent in discomfort and poverty, but it felt somehow like true rest.  They knew in their hearts that they were now slaves of their own destinies, but it felt strangely like freedom.

Vac and Jaysynn made use of their resources (power cords they tore out of the monitors and other equipment in the room) and tied up the prisoners.  They left the office to find the guards posted outside; they lay in blood that was done pumping out of their bodies.

“Oh, no,” Vac said, looking further down the hall while Jaysynn still gazed at the bodies.  He hurried to another body crumpled on the floor.  “Coonhil,” he said.  His voice dropped as he said it, and the stone halls of the Old Fort trembled with a deep, grave echo.

Jaysynn knelt by Vac and put a hand on his shoulder.

Vac was breathing deeply, and dutifully keeping his composure.  “Great things can change in the blink of an eye,” he said.  “Kings live and die.  Whole nations can rise up from nothing and crumble again into dust.  The very laws of nature may seem to turn on their heads.  But the order of life and death never changes.”

There in Coonhil’s hand was the poison dart.  Vac pulled the fingers away and held it in his own hand, admiring Coonhil’s devotion, in life and in death.

“It’s the one certainty,” Vac went on.  “Before the Cataclysm.  After.  The whole fabric is changing.  Everything is in flux.  But death still comes.”

He turned sharply on his heels and stabbed the dart into Jaysynn’s chest.

Jaysynn clutched at it.  He pulled it out and threw it across the hallway, and, rising to his feet, stepped away from the Governor.  But his ankle folded over sideways and he came tumbling down again.

Vac now stood, and though he was not a tall man, he was powerfully built, and he towered over Jaysynn now that the emperor was scrambling on the ground.

“You’re a liar,” Jaysynn said.  He tried to stare up at Vac, tried to pour hatred out of his eyes.  But he couldn’t keep them open.  “You’re a rat.”

He tried to stand again, but he flopped around on the floor, unable to tell his muscles quite what to do.  At last, he clutched at his head and at his ears.  They were ringing wildly.  But that, as with his vision and his vain attempts at movement, would soon cease.

Governor Vac stood over his prisoner.

He lifted his hand to his chin and gave it a broad stroke.  He remembered again that he needed to shave.  He remembered that Coonhil had scolded him for thinking of such a thing at a desperate time.  He closed his eyes, and a tear ran down his cheek.

He went to find some living guards.

When Vac had faced the mob, he faced nothing but a threat issued by a mass of uncertain people.  Their numbers were great, but so was their doubt, their weakness.  When Jaysynn appeared in his window earlier that night, he thought it possible that he would die.  But he was fueled by a carefully measured hope that good might come of Jaysynn’s return.  Vac was a man who knew little of fear, because his heartless logic so often ruled it out.  And he was a rare man because he could trust common sense even in the face of danger and even in the face of the unknown.

Now, however, he knew that he would die.  They would not have broken into the palace just to kill Jaysynn—if they knew he was there, they would have waited for him to leave and killed him in the streets.  Logic dictated that if they were in his office, they were there for him.  They would kill Jaysynn, yes.  That was a given.  But they would make it look like Vac had been their target.  The Governor of Falcon Point would be found dead, and the word would spread.  And no one would spread the news about the other corpse found in his office, whose face would be butchered beyond recognition.  In an instant he discerned that this would be their plan.  For its simplicity, he admired it.  And fear grabbed him by the heart.

“Well, Jaysynn Kyzer,” he said, forgetting his hatred, and went on, “I hope you can save us,” forgetting his logic.

Jaysynn took a defensive stance.  He was unarmed, but held Eugenics and the Magical Society in his strong hand.  He took a step toward the nearest of the intruders—one of the two who had come through the door—and tossed the book toward his eyes.  It was a lousy tactic, almost childish.  The intruder, an expert fighter, simply lifted his hand to push the book out of his line of sight before it had time to cause any trouble.

But somehow it wasn’t quick enough.  Somehow all his skill was too slow: when his fingers touched the side of the book, Jaysynn’s foot was already at the back of it.  He had jumped up and kicked the book into the man’s head, knocking him over backward.  The other one who had come from the door swung his knife at him, but Jaysynn was quick to leap backward, out of its way.  When the man tried again, Jaysynn grabbed the arm that held the knife and used the attacker’s momentum to fling him across the room, so the three men were all on one side of Jaysynn and Vac now—instead of surrounding them—and the other man lay barely conscious near the door.

“I can take him,” said the man who had been thrown across the room, so the other two, happy to oblige, pushed him back into the fray.  They held their own knives ready and shifted from foot to foot, feeling the rhythm of the combat, ready to join in an instant.

The confident fighter swiped his knife at Jaysynn again and again, but each time Jaysynn backstepped or sidestepped faster that the assassin’s wrist could travel.  It was uncanny.  It was too easy, and Jaysynn knew it.  He began to wonder if these assassins were just toying with him.  But he could not believe that there was any humor or game in their deed.

After dodging a few strikes, Jaysynn began to counterstrike.  Each time the man attacked, Jaysynn hit him in the hand—from the top, from the bottom, with his hand, with his foot.

His movements were quick.  Quicker than the assassin’s.  Quicker than anyone’s.  Quicker than a snake’s.  They were not playing a game, he decided.  He was.  He made sport of the killer.  His counterstrikes were not a tactical combat move meant to gain him any advantage.  They were fun.  It was like a game of slap hands.  Until, accidentally, he disarmed his attacker with a chop to his knuckles.  Then the man tried to resort to punches.

Jaysynn caught him by the wrist, struck him on the elbow with his offhand, and broke his arm.  Then he tossed him behind him and faced the remaining two men.

They had stepped forward as soon as their friend had lost his weapon, but his bones were busted before they had time to reach him.

Now they tried to team up on Jaysynn, tried to come at him from opposite sides, but it was hopeless—it was not a fight they could control.  Jaysynn was at one moment striking one, and then skirmishing with the other.  At one moment in front and another behind.  At one moment kicking at the ankles and at the next leaping off their heads.

At last they turned their backs on the fight and ran toward the open window, but Jaysynn was faster.  He caught them around the ears and slammed their heads together.  They lost their balance at the blow and stumbled to the ground.

Vac came up from behind Jaysynn and the two men and, with Jaysynn’s knife, stabbed one of them in the kidney.

Jaysynn grabbed his hand, too late to save that man’s life.  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“These men are Thyrian Whispers,” Vac said.  “They’re the best of the best, and, since my guards outside are probably dead, I’ve got no way of dealing with four of them.”

Jaysynn turned around to see the other two men.  The one who had been so eager to take Jaysynn one-on-one was lying near the bookshelf, his throat slit open.  The other was rolled over with a deep wound in his lower back.

“That one’s alive,” said Vac.  “But he’ll never walk again.  I’m going to give this last one the same treatment.”

“No you’re not,” Jaysynn said, tightening his grip on Vac’s wrist.  “Regardless of their actions, these are my people, and you’re not doing anything to them without a trial.”

“That’s a great notion,” said Vac, “but for the second time, these are the best of the best.  We cannot handle four of them, all able-bodied.”

“These were nobodies,” said Jaysynn.  “I handled four of them by myself—and I’m not even a fighter.  These weren’t real Whispers.”

“Then how did they come in through the window?  And why weren’t my guards able to stop them?”

Jaysynn shook his head, slowly, considering what Vac was saying.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “But I’m telling you, these men were not trained fighters.  They were sluggish.  They were clumsy.”

Vac smiled so big his teeth showed.  “If they were sluggish then I’ve never seen a real fighter,” he said.  “Jaysynn, you were fast.  You were faster than my eyes could handle.”

Jaysynn looked again at the men in the room, living and dead, and remembered the moves they had used, remembered the motions, the way they held their knives, the way they bent at the knees.  It was all right.  It was all textbook knife fighting.  Every move had been perfect.  No overreaching.  No lack of commitment to a move.  No timidness.  No telegraphing.

“How?” Jaysynn asked, letting Vac’s hand loose.

“There was magic in this room.”  Vac rubbed his arm where Jaysynn had gripped it.

“There is no more magic,” Jaysynn said, shaking the idea off his head.  “Where would it come from?  Why would I be able to use it?”

“I can’t explain it,” Vac said, “But that’s no reason to deny it.  The world is new.”

Jaysynn scanned the books on the shelf to see if he could find anything of interest, and to see what thoughts had filled the head of the Governor of Falcon Point.  Vac’s library included a number of stark volumes of political philosophy such as The Head and the Hands, The Art of Governance, and The Chessboard Nation; books of history such as The Ancient and Medieval History of Falcon Point, Material and Magical Wealth of the World’s Great Cities, and The Spirit of the Falconers: A Detailed Sketch of How These People Respond to Tyranny; as well as a number of classic romances from the city’s distant past: The Death of Alvo, The Lais of Lemli, and Cleovalc.

Although never a great producer of art, music, or technology, Falcon Point had a rich history of adventure stories and warrior poetry.  They were a people who celebrated their own bravery, their own individualism, and their own fighting spirit.  From ancient times unto the present, they told mythic tales of the bravest of Falconers slaying dragons that came up the mountain, while they themselves crushed the armies of empires, of would-be conquerors climbing up those slopes, greedy for coal and ore.

Coonhil had been long in coming back, and Jaysynn was beginning to grow suspicious of Vac and of the plan.  He was about to say something, but spotted another book called, Eugenics and the Magical Society.  He pulled it off the shelf and turned it over in his hands.

Vac was at his desk, but could tell by the pale green cover what book Jaysynn had in his hands.  “So Thorynn’s non-select son wants to know about breeding magic men?” he said.  “Curious.”

“Not as curious as the fact that you own the book,” Jaysynn said, lifting it modestly in the air, trying to make his point.

“It’s more curious than you realize,” said Vac mysteriously. “Take a look at the title page.”

Jaysynn opened the book and saw its full title: Eugenics and the Magical Society: Let Man Select the Selects.  The name of its author was Xander Dracon.

“This isn’t the same person…” Jaysynn said.

“No,” said Vac, standing.  “It’s his grandfather.  A very different man from the Xander Dracon you know.  Unlike the younger Dracon, this one was a Select, but he did have the personality of a crowbar.  He was a scholar—a good one, and a dangerous one.”

Vac walked toward Jaysynn.  He left the sheath on the desk, but carried the Thyrion military knife with him.

“So what’s the book about?” Jaysynn asked, thumbing through its pages.  “And why do you have it?”

“It’s about the social and military benefits of genetically engineering a society in which the vast majority of people are Select.  The genetic theory behind it has been thoroughly debunked since it was written—so what the elder Dracon was proposing was not actually possible.  But I own it because the same blood that put those words on the page fifty years ago is now pumping through the veins of one of my biggest enemies.  See, I have to read fifty-year old books to figure out what my enemy is up to, because even when I’ve got his protégé in my room, pretending to be my ally, I can’t learn a thing.”

Jaysynn looked up and found Vac’s eyes staring hard at him.

Vac went on:  “I’ve also got a drawer in my filing cabinet that has copies of every document your grandfather Kyzer ever drafted, and every letter your mother’s parents ever wrote to each other, because Dracon isn’t my only enemy.”

Jaysynn’s eyes sharpened.  He had answered Vac’s stare with strength.  Now he answered with anger.  Not a minute ago Vac had agreed to help him; now that same man labeled him an enemy and boasted deep knowledge of Jaysynn’s bloodline, of his power over him.  Vac was calling him out for his imperfect honesty.

And soon, according to the plan that Vac had so quickly devised, a guard would burst into the room and pierce his side with a tranquilizer, cutting off all sight and sense and thought.

The governor disregarded Jaysynn’s cold stare and looked thoughtfully toward the door.  “Coonhil is running late,” he said.  “I’m going to check on him.”  He lumbered across the heavy boards of the floor and toward the exit.

But before he reached it, the heavy door flew open and two men, clad in black with faces covered, came through the door and another two through the window.  Vac staggered back toward the bookshelf, and Jaysynn stepped in front of him.

“I am your emperor,” said Jaysynn.  “This man is not your enemy.  I order you to stand down.”

The two who had come through the door looked at one another.   Their mouths were covered in black cloth masks, and it was impossible to tell which one answered:  “We see no emperor.”  The four of them drew their knives.  Their feet inched closer to Jaysynn and the governor, and their steps were silent.

“Then forget about how much you hate all the dead Kyzers and help me fight against Dracon.”

“If I believed you could stop a war, I might be tempted,” said Vac.

“I’d be lying if I said I could stop a war, but I’ve got more power to stop it than you do.”

“Or I could win the war without your help,” Vac said.  “So why don’t you stop pulling on my heart strings and just make an old-fashioned deal?”

“Fine,” said Jaysynn.  “I want Kyrie free, and I want Dracon to think I’m dead.”

Vac nodded.  “I want information.  Tell me what Dracon is up to, and I’ll consider it.”

“Consider it?”

“When last we talked,” said Vac, “you were not exactly forthcoming.  You’ll get no promises from me.  But I’m giving you a chance and that’s something.”

Jaysynn looked at Coonhil, who nodded to him, indicating he should take the offer.  Whether he should trust Coonhil’s advice that he trust Vac, he didn’t know.  Nonetheless, he pulled a chair up to Vac’s desk and the two men sat.

“Dracon is trying to rally Thyrians around their hatred of Remirion,” Jaysynn said.  “He was publicly blaming Remirion for the Cataclysm, but he knew they weren’t responsible.”

Jaysynn didn’t tell him what little he knew about Project: Godfire, but said simply that he suspected that Dracon may have had some connection to the Cataclysm.  He also made some vague comments about the size, strength, and mobility of the military, but skirted around anything too specific so as not to encourage a counter-invasion.

Vac was full of questions, but Jaysynn answered everything with some version of, “I’ve already told you everything I know.”

At last Jaysynn ended the questioning.  He stood and said, “This deal was supposed to go two ways.  Now if word is going to spread that I’ve been killed, we need people who believe it with all their heart.  So we’re going to need to come up with a plan.”

Vac walked toward Coonhil and motioned for Jaysynn to come.  The three of them gathered around the bookshelf and spoke in low voices.

“We won’t waste a minute planning,” the governor said.  “I’ll tell you exactly what we’ll do.  Coonhil, you head down the hall like you’re going to get a drink of water.  Act sneaky about it.  But then go into the little armory and get a poison dart—make sure it’s just a tranq.  Then give it to the guards outside the door and tell them to follow you in the office, to take down Jaysynn with the dart, then to carry him down to the prison.”  Vac pointed to Jaysynn.  “Later tonight I’ll have those same guards carry you down to the graveyard and drop you in a cheap casket.  I’ll order them to keep it a secret, but they won’t do it.  They are just here because this is one of the few things they can do that will earn them a meal for the day for their families.  They aren’t paid to keep secrets like that.  It’s too big a duty to ask of them.  So when I do ask, they will break their word.  Then Coonhil will drop the bug in the ears of a few of his men.  It will spread as a rumor and these guards and a couple others that see you in prison will come out of the woodwork to confirm it.  Clear?”

“Clear,” said Coonhil.  “But should I have a story to tell the guards about why they are taking Jaysynn out in the middle of a peaceful conversation?”

“Right,” said Vac.  “Here’s the story:  Jaysynn is trying to cut a deal with me.  He’s trying to get Thyrion and Remirion to join peacefully, so Remirion will once again be a part of his family’s empire.  And he is offering me to be governor of the colony.  Otherwise there will be a war, and he’ll make certain I die like a dog.”

“Sounds good,” said Coonhil.

Jaysynn shuffled the plan around in his head.  He asked the governor, “And do I have your word that Kyrie and I will both go free at the end of all of this?”

“You have my word,” said Vac.

“Alright,” Jaysynn said.  “I’m in.”

“But there is one last thing I want to know,” Vac said.  He closed his eyes and blew a deep breath out of his nostrils.  “I’m prudent enough that I ought to keep this to myself,” he went on.  “But every time your mother was pregnant…I wished she would die.  I wished someone would push her down the grand staircase at the Palace.  Two Kyzers in one blow.  That’s what I wanted.  I wanted your father to be crippled by the grief of it.  So here’s what I want to know:  how can you trust me not to bury you alive, or not to hold you and the girl in the dungeon and torture you till your life is over?”

Jaysynn stared at Governor Vac.  There was a great weight on the emperor’s face.  He was filled with fear, but also with courage and all the pain that comes with it.   “I don’t trust you,” he said.  “I’d like you to think that it’s more practical to let me go than to torture me.  I’d like you to think it’s better to send me away with your blessing rather than to crush me out of hatred.”

Vac waited for him to go on.  After a moment he did.

“It’s a leap of faith,” he said.  “I just have this feeling that I’ll find another crack in the world.”

Vac swallowed Jaysynn’s reply.  “Alright.  Then I’m in, too.”

He looked Coonhil in the eye and pointed toward the door.

“Very well,” said Jaysynn.  He stepped down again from the window and sat on the stone ledge.  “But I think you’ll be disappointed in me.  I don’t know much.  About what caused the Cataclysm.  About what Dracon is planning.  About what I’m going to do about it.  But I know that I want to go back to Thyrion and try to set things right.”

“Respectfully, Mr. Kyzer, I don’t see how you’re going to do that.  My impression is that you’ve got more enemies in that city than friends.”

“Respectfully, sir, there are many loyal Thyrians who will follow me.  I am the rightful leader of that city.”

“You were,” said Vac.  “That was in another time.  See—you’re not a leader unless there are people who are willing to do what you say.  And you can’t overthrow a leader unless you’ve got some very fervent friends in high places.  I may be wrong about you—I’ve only really met you on paper—but I don’t think you have that command over people.  I don’t think anyone will give their lives for you.  I don’t think anyone will commit treason for you.”

“The streets are full of people who will follow me,” said Jaysynn.  “As far as I know, Dracon thinks I’m dead—or he suspects it.  But if word reached you that I’m still alive, it will reach him soon enough.”

Vac approached Jaysynn and pulled his desk chair around so he could face him, but he didn’t sit—he rested his hands on the back and leaned on them, looming toward Jaysynn.

“I’m afraid they already know,” he said.  “Thyrian operatives broke into Tarc’s refugee camp last night.  They killed a few guards and carved up my brother.  Chances are good they were looking for you.”

“So I want those guards that just walked out and everyone else in this city to believe that I’m dead—that you killed me.”

“That’s certainly a believable story,” Coonhil added from across the room.  Vac shot him a cold glance, but Jaysynn went on.

“Word will reach Dracon, and when it does, I’ll be able to move around much more freely when I get to Thyrion.”

Vac nodded.  “Is there a war coming?”

“Dracon wants a war.  Whether or not he can mobilize, I don’t know.  I want to do whatever I can to stop him.”

“I don’t think you’re worth more than a bag of dirt, Mr. Kyzer,” said Vac. “I’m sure I’ve made it clear that the only thing I think you’re good for is a decoration on capital street—something I can hang from a lamppost.  What you’re proposing to me—whether you realize it or not—is that I help you defeat Dracon and put you on the throne, restoring the Kyzer Dynasty.  And though I’m sure you will promise to be a friend, and though you may be an absolute man of your word, still your descendants will draw inspiration from the heritage of Thyrion.  And from the dust I will rebuild my ancient enemy.”

“Or you can do nothing,” Jaysynn said, “and let Dracon build a new empire founded on your ultimate destruction.  Or, better yet, let’s forget about the ancient past and the distant future.  Right now, in our own time:  would you rather have war than peace?  Would you rather have your people live and rebuild, or die by their swords?”

“Did you not listen to me earlier?” Vac said angrily.  “I’ve played the game very carefully, and I’ve put this city in a position to come out on top if this Cataclysm leads to an age of wars.  If Dracon wants to fight me, he will drive his empire—your empire—into oblivion.  Even if he kills some of the people that I’m trying to save, I’ll be rid of Thyrion forever, and I’ll be rid of the Kyzers.”

“So that’s it, isn’t it?” said Jaysynn.  He nodded slightly, but kept his eyes trained on the governor.  “It’s about hatred.  It’s not about whose lives you can save.  It’s not about protecting your city or your people.  It’s not about building a better future.  It’s about your hatred of my city, and my father, and my brother.”

“I hate three hundred years of Thyrian history, since first the Kyzers reigned by force of might.”

“Well,” said Jaysynn, “what I know of you—what I’ve seen in the news—made you look like such a statue of a man.  Now I see you’re just as whipped around by emotion as any of us.”

Vac had been glaring coldly at Jaysynn, and his hand gripped the handle of the knife as rigidly as he had held the rail on the balcony when he faced the mob.  He had turned himself to stone, and now that Jaysynn called him a statue, he continued to stand like one and continued to lean forward like a boulder about to break loose and crush whoever stood below.

And he recalled coming in from the balcony trying to get down to business but then asking for a glass of water—trying to conquer his fear and his nerves but realizing at last that he was a man.  And, in his own way, he was a slightly ridiculous man.  He almost smiled, then relaxed his shoulders.

“No, I don’t have that deep well of emotion that you think I do,” he said.  “Take you, for example.  You’re coming here to save a girl.  You’re listening to your heart and risking your life for it.  Me, I don’t have that.  I’m divorced.  And whether my ex-wife and my kid are still alive after everything that’s happened, I haven’t bothered to check.  I talk like I care about the people out there, but really all I care about is doing my job.”

“And your job is to keep them safe?”

“It is,” said Vac.

Coonhil gulped.

Vac slapped his hand on the side of the desk and demanded, “What do you mean, ‘few casualties?’ Is my brother all right?”

“He is alive,” said Coonhil, scratching at his chest.

“Alive?  What does that mean?”

“He may have been the target of the attack, but his wounds are superficial.  Deliberately so, it would seem.”

Vac took a breath.  He walked to the back of his office, to the arched stone window, and looked out into the night.  There were a lot of stars in the sky—more than he’d ever seen from that office window before—but, in spite of feeling the tinge of inspiration, he was in no mood to give a soliloquy about how beautiful they were.

“If they were Thyrian special agents, why would they target him?”

Coonhil walked toward the governor, and slumped a little at the shoulders so as not to be too much taller than him.  “It could be a war of attrition.”

“No,” said Vac with a shake of the head.  “The Thyrians have always been too proud to starve out their enemies.  Even if Dracon is playing by different rules, it wouldn’t make sense.  If he wanted to conquer us, he would need to get some operational farms out of the deal.”

“Maybe he’s trying to get to you,” Coonhil added.

“What?  Emotionally?  Good luck.”

“Just the same, it may be wise of you to increase patrols.  Frankly I was stunned at how few guards there are in the building right now.”

Vac shook his head slightly.  His eyes were stones.  “That’s the real heart of the matter,” he said.  Then he paused.  It was unlike him to be cryptic, but he wanted to be sure to have the puzzle solved before he spoke.

He walked back to his desk and drew Jaysynn’s knife and sheath from the top drawer.

“This is the reason I’ve had so few guards these past two nights,” Vac said.  “My patrols are combing the city looking for the young emperor before he skips town.  His girlfriend is better guarded right now than I am, just in case he tries to come back for her.”  His voice was quiet, but it filled the room like a mantra.  “And Dracon’s men were looking for the same thing when they broke into my brother’s camp.  Dracon wants him dead.  I want him alive and talking.”

“If that’s true,” said Coonhil, “then they most likely learned that Jaysynn was taken here.  They struck your brother last night, and they may strike here tonight—and they may not show you the same mercy.  Let me round up some more guards.”

Vac laid the knife on the desk and touched his hand to his chin and thought for a moment.  “You know,” he said, “it’s been a few days since I’ve had a shave.”

In Vac’s presence, Coonhil made every effort at discipline and emotional restraint.  But with Vac’s indifference in the face of grave danger, he at first rolled his eyes, then lifted his arms and flailed them about.  “These men will slit your throat,” he said.  “And you’re worried about a shave?  They could come in here at any minute…”

But they were interrupted, not by a sound—for there was no sound—but by the blotting out of the stars as a figure dark as the sky filled the stone arch of the window.

“Guards,” Coonhil shouted.  He backed toward a bookshelf on one of the walls and gripped a heavy book without yet pulling it off the shelf.  His arms were narrow, but the veins were large.  His teeth were gritted behind his cheeks.

Vac, however, was calm.  He had faced the mob like a stone statue.  Now his shoulders were gentle as a pillow.  In fact, he thought it possible that his life was about to end.  But he was also filled with delight.  Jaysynn had returned.

Jaysynn stepped down into the room, but when two guards charged through the door he leapt back onto the ledge.

“Touch me and I’ll jump,” he said, “and I’ll splatter the secret knowledge of the Emperor of Thyrion across the asphalt.”

These guards were armed with the swords that the governor had bragged about, and they held the tips toward Jaysynn, but stood twenty feet away, inching their feet toward him to measure the sincerity of his threat.

Vac held up his hand.  He spoke to his guards, but his eyes never left Jaysynn’s:  “Stop where you are and lower your weapons.”  Then, to Jaysynn, “What brings you here?”

“For starters, I want Kyrie freed.”

Vac smiled.  “She’s only here to get you to talk.  Tell me what I want to know and she can walk out of here tonight.”

“Don’t start making deals just yet,” Jaysynn said.  “Not till I’m done.”

“Of course,” said Vac with a courteous “after you” movement of the hand.

Jaysynn looked at each of the guards, at Coonhil, and back to Vac.  “Do you want to save the people of your city?”

“At any cost,” said Vac.

“From the leaders of my city?” Jaysynn added.

“If that’s where this leads.”

“Well,” said Jaysynn.  “I want to save my city from their own leaders.  So we have a similar cause and a common enemy.  Are you listening?”

“I’m listening.”

“Dismiss the guards.”

Vac moved calmly and deliberately as he picked up Jaysynn’s combat knife.  With his thick fingers, he popped the button of the sheath and drew the blade, leaving the sheath on the desk.  He then walked over to one of his guards.  “Your sword,” he said.

The guard handed over his weapon and Vac carried it to the edge of the room and handed it to Coonhil.

“This will do more damage than a book any day,” the governor said.  Coonhil took the sword from him and nodded.

Vac told the guards they could go, and they left the room.

“Governor,” said Jaysynn, “I’m asking for your trust.  I came here unarmed and you’re keeping a sword and a knife against me.”

Vac glanced over his shoulder at Coonhil.  “So I am,” he said.  “You said we had a common enemy.  You didn’t say we were friends.  I’m hoping you’ll go on with your proposition just the same.”