Chapter 40

40

Cero

Cero circled the cratered, smoking city of Serra thrice before landing. Even from the updrafts, the stench of death curdled the air.

He should have landed an hour before, but Aiz awaited him and Cero didn't relish telling her that the Martial crown prince had escaped.

Quil Farrar had been nothing like Cero expected. Aiz had described a soft, gentle boy, docile and naive as a pampered pup.

She'd never excelled at reading people. The Quil Farrar who tore through the side of the Tel Ilessi's tent with murder in his eyes was a man vibrating with wrath and starved for vengeance. Nothing gentle about him. The same went for his Jaduna companion.

Just as well. It would take a sharp blade and cunning mind to sunder Aiz from Mother Div.

It wasn't a thought Cero expected to have. Especially about the girl he'd loved since he understood what love was. But then, nothing in the past year had gone the way he'd thought it would.

The day Aiz returned to the capital, Cero's heart was riven in two: joy at seeing her, dismay that she'd returned to the wretchedness of Kegar. After the miracle of her victory over Tiral, Cero wondered if the stories she'd believed as a child had been true. Perhaps he was the fool for not having faith when everyone around him bled the Nine Sacred Tales.

But a few days after Tiral's death, Noa had come to Cero's quarters at the Aerie.

"There are four slaughtered children in Dafra slum," she'd whispered, as if terrified that the murderer, whoever it was, would kill her, too. "And something is wrong with Aiz…"

Soon, there were more dead children. Their deaths always corresponded with an especially spectacular display of Aiz's power. The windstorm she'd unleashed in Mehbahn. The highborn Hawk assassins she'd crushed a month after returning to Kegar.

For months, neither Cero nor Noa made the connection. And then, one day, they did.

It took them weeks to broach the subject with Aiz. They needn't have tiptoed around it.

Mother Div honors the children by choosing them as sacrifices , she'd said. Do not diminish their martyrdom simply because you do not understand.

What tripe. Those poor children didn't choose to die. Mother Div—or whatever it was that fed Aiz power—inflicted it on them.

As Cero landed at Serra's central airfield—a former market square—he pondered leaving for good. He had Loha. He spoke fluent Ankanese. His magic could take him wherever he wished to go.

Then he caught sight of Aiz approaching and his chest twisted at her small shoulders held so rigidly, like she was a puppet with strings forever taut. That's why you don't go , he thought irritably. Because you're stupidly still hoping you can save her from whatever she's become.

Could he save himself? Doubtful. He'd designed massive, troop-bearing aircraft for Aiz, created Loha weapons unlike anything the Kegari had used before, and streamlined the building of the Sails. He helped draw up an attack plan based on everything Aiz had learned from Quil. He hadn't dropped the bombs, but he might as well have.

He was as responsible as Aiz for every dead Martial. He was guilty. They all were, everyone who'd been too shocked or scared or cowardly to tell Aiz that her campaign of terror had to end.

"Triarch Ghaz's troops have the Empress's compound surrounded and a prison cell ready," Aiz said as she approached. He shelved any thoughts of telling her about Quil—she'd be in a better mood after the Empress's capture.

"Better be a lot of guards," Cero muttered. Helene Aquilla held off an army of Karkauns almost entirely alone. She wasn't Empress of the Martials for nothing.

"We don't need guards." Aiz straightened, and Cero wished to the Spires that her confidence had come to her because of anything other than the demon she'd linked herself to. "Mother Div is with us, and our cause is righteous. Remember why we are here, Cero. Not to cause suffering, but to save our people. To take them home. If the Empress had cooperated, none of this would have been necessary."

Surely someone who loves her people with such passion is redeemable. Almost the moment he thought it, Cero scoffed. "For the people" was a blood-soaked shield brandished by tyrants everywhere.

Aiz was no different.

Cero felt a chill. Mother Div must be near. She never showed herself around Cero, but the creature's fascination with him felt like the probing flicker of a serpent's tongue. He suppressed a shudder.

"Right," he said. "Let's get this over with."

Triarch Ghaz—who Cero trusted about as much as a broken compass—awaited them at the pilots' barracks. Within an hour, the three of them watched as the Triarch's troops surged into the Empress's compound.

Cero almost hoped the woman wouldn't be there. The more he'd learned about her, the more he'd come to respect someone who had lost everything and survived anyway.

Alas, Triarch Ghaz confirmed that the Empress was within. Aiz tore the roof off her compound, shredded the outer walls with her wind, and still, the Empress fought Triarch Ghaz's soldiers. Would have won, too, for she was cunning and preternaturally skilled at predicting her opponent's next move.

But she wasn't Aiz. The Tel Ilessi eventually pinned the woman to the floor with her wind, and the Triarch's soldiers clapped heavy iron manacles on her hands and feet, relieving her of her weapons.

Aiz gave a speech to the assembled soldiers—something stirring, no doubt. Cero didn't listen.

Instead, he watched the Empress—sagging between two guards, seemingly defeated. He almost missed the way her mouth quirked behind the mass of silver-blond hair in her face. Not quite a smile. It was too quick. But not far off.

Cero considered informing Aiz that this woman was far more dangerous than any of them were prepared for.

Perhaps if she still had been Aiz, he'd have told her. But as he watched her yank the Empress's head back and hiss something into her ear, Cero realized the girl he'd grown up with, the one he'd loved—she was gone. Not dead, perhaps. But in a deep, dark well, asleep. Cero did not know how to wake her.

But he knew of one person who might.