Toshtta Yew stepped forward into the glare, her dark armour catching the first burn of daylight where the City’s false sky had been sundered. The steel rose besague affixed to her right shoulder gleamed in the brilliance. She scarcely blinked beneath her lacquered visor, her body bristling with the tangling vines that escaped from her flesh, sprawling beneath the worn maile that she wore. The day star’s warmth seeped into the plant-like stems that crept around her body and escaped her armour. She let out a low breath of relief. For the first time, she felt the light of the stars upon her.

  It was the Rose of Thorns’ ancient weaponry—Nesta Barshaum—that had shattered Acetyn’s canopy. Under Lady Bhaeryn’s command, these cannons had roared, cracking the bone sky and letting the day star pierce through. Once, the design of such relics had slumbered with the Toshtta’s mother-creator, the Rose of Thorns. Now, they were brought forth from the renewed industry of Cruiros to taste war again, serving Bee’s vow of liberation. Toshtta Yew could not help but feel fierce pride at the thought. She had grown from that same lineage, bud as fruit from the Rose of Thorns herself and tended to maturity by her Flowerbedside Companions. If these cannons had once shaken the world, then she—her mother’s daughter—would help do it anew.

  Behind her, the black and gold banners of Lady Bhaeryn fluttered in the sudden gust of heated wind. Many of her fellow freaks, vat-born or pale, had to shield themselves from the punishing light, their skin or exoskeletons scorching in the day star’s rays. But for Toshtta, who carried the gene seed of living vines and moss within her flesh, the light was a benediction. A gentle, soothing tide.

  She strode forward, stepping over broken shell plates and shattered arcs of metallic bone. The vines creeping around her arms and torso reacted, drinking in the energy of the real sun. It was a sensation she had never imagined. Yet here she was, crowned in the brutal glare of this revelatory new horizon.

  Her thoughts turned to the Lady Hash and her azure-and-sable forces. In the earliest days of this alliance, Toshtta Yew had expected betrayal. It was near inevitable, she had believed, that the moment advantage presented itself, the Lady Hash would plunge a blade of betrayal into Bee’s cause. But as the battles raged, day upon day, the azure and sable had fought with the same brutal tenacity as the black and gold, never once wavering, never once sneering at the battered ranks that clung to Bee’s cause.

  So, when the order finally came to break this stalemate—to rise from the City’s labyrinthine depths to the upper surface of Acetyn and march upon the Pate Gardens’ skull keeps directly—it was the Lady Hash who stood to confirm her unwavering commitment. Together, their armies had ascended through the labyrinth of corridors, braved the siege in the living halls, and finally shattered the City’s rooftop. This was their moment, the grand push to seize a palace at the City’s crown.

  The searing sunlight no longer felt like an intrusion but a sign of promise. Toshtta raised her gaze once more, and the rose at her shoulder glinted in the blazing glare. In her mind’s eye, she could almost see the moment when Bee—her Lady, her living vow—would rise to the Pate Gardens. They would tear down the skull keeps and confront the Pilgrim. Challenge the Immortal’s wards. Forge a new future from the wreckage of the old.

  And it was with that hope that she emerged into the light, true.

  Commands from the Lady had become few and far between and mostly issued forth, conveyed by Jhedothar and the Eidolon. However, on this day, by the Lady Bhaeryn’s decree, the Knights Consort were to secure the surface of Acetyn in advance of the approaching army. Yet, of their number, only a scant few could face the daylight. Toshtta Yew and Jhedothar the Lance, already tested by the fierce sun, now found themselves joined by Cartaxa—his pale body and compound eyes shielded by the protective suit furnished by the enigmatic Slashex. The rest would await nightfall when the day-star’s punishing fire no longer threatened to sear flesh to ash.

  Toshtta could see that it was a painful reminder to the Eidolon of her limitations. She had yearned to lead the vanguard herself. Yet, her mechanical shell rewoven with layers of living tissue had not yet grown robust enough to withstand direct sunlight. Her presence in the gloom of the City’s depths had always been a testament to her unstoppable might. But here, under this new, blinding sky, she was vulnerable. Vashante spoke little of her frustration, but her silence told all. She could not join them, which burned a fresh resentment in her shining, electronic eyes.

  And while the legendary might of the Eidolon, Dame Vashante Tens, remained below, forced to endure the wait, it would be upon Toshtta, Jhedothar, and Cartaxa to make safe the crossing. Thus, they forged ahead onto the ashen ridges of Acetyn’s upper crust.

  A landscape of rusted spires, charred bone outcroppings, and yawning crevices greeted them. The City’s living structure was subdued here, a scorched wasteland where only the most resilient matter protruded—towering arcs of calcified spine and half-melted metallic bulks. The day star’s relentless glare lit every fissure, every coil of dust that danced in the acrid wind.

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  Toshtta strode with ease, her bristling vines stirring in the sunlight. She drew in the warmth, letting her plant-like augments glean energy from the day-star’s fierce radiance. Cartaxa trailed behind, stoic, helmeted in Slashex’s protective gear. His humanoid frame was used to the labyrinthine gloom below and the surface was a harsh unknown. The suit, thick with layered plating and filtration, weighed upon his carapace, forcing him to move in short, deliberate steps. Even so, he refused to complain—indeed, refused all extraneous words—and pressed on with the same sense of duty that had carried him through countless horrors below.

  Jhedothar the Lance brought up the rear, his centaurian lower half easily clearing broad gaps in the cracked bone fields. His newly reactivated augmentations whirred with each leap and bound. Once cursed, his hardware now seemed to pulse with life—that life a gift from the Lady Bhaeryn, herself. Even beneath his battered armour, it was plain he thrived.

  Between them, the three Knights Consort charted their route with measured care, mindful of the cunning that might lie ahead. The City’s surface was far from passive. As if reacting to their presence, bone ramparts shifted, vents exhaled plumes of scalding gas, and hidden hollows rumbled in sluggish protest. They had no illusions; they scouted for the rest of the army, clearing an approach for nightfall, ensuring that the black-bannered host and the azure-sable cohort of Lady Hash could emerge together, unharried.

  They saw the skull keeps long before they approached them.

  Massive, kilometre-tall visages of bone and cement rose upon Acetyn’s horizon, each carved into a hollow simulacrum of a gaunt face. Something that Toshtta could recognise now, having seen Bee’s own. It was almost human.

  From Toshtta’s vantage, they seemed impossibly old, built over centuries with metallic skeleton and stony silicon flesh. Even under the harsh brilliance of the day-star, there lingered a haze around them, a shimmering mirage of heat that distorted their features and gave the illusion that they were shifting, alive, brooding over the plateau.

  Atop a rise of ashen rock, Toshtta Yew and her companions stood. Jhedothar the Lance towered to her left, centaurian form poised with an almost regal grace. Cartaxa, clad in Slashex’s heavy protective gear, crouched on the other side, binocular-like augments snapped to his eye shields.

  “The way is clear,” Cartaxa reported, his voice muffled behind layers of rebreather and tinted glass. “No sign of ambush. No hidden host.”

  Jhedothar nodded, the battered plating on his chest rising and falling with a low exhale. “They did not expect us to come this way.” His voice carried a subdued pride or perhaps grim satisfaction. “The remaining forces of the old Lord of Bones have grown arrogant, lulled by their centuries unchallenged. The Pilgrim has not come forth, himself. And the others are too ill disciplined and unorganised. They will not be able to reposition in time to contest a strike here.”

  Wind howled across the ashen plains, lifting cinders in twisting coils. Above, the true sky still blazed with heavenly light. Toshtta’s vines rustled at her shoulders, feeding from the warmth even as her mind churned. Jhedothar had seized upon this plan with uncanny assurance—deploy the ancient Nesta Barshaum to blast open the skull keeps and break directly into the Pate Gardens.

  They already had the cannons; Bee had commanded them to tear down Acetyn’s canopy. The next step was straightforward enough, so Jhedothar claimed—line them up, let them breach the palace walls from the outside, and thrust a dagger straight into the heart of the Ossein Basilica.

  A dagger into the heart...

  Toshtta listened, nodding at the practicality. Yet a subtle wariness coiled in her gut. She remembered a time when she had served at Jhedothar’s behest—when he had styled himself a lord and believed Bee to be his destined consort, his tool, not his Lady. He likewise kept her Rose of Thorns imprisoned, uncaring of her eternal torment, instead coveting her throne of Ymmngorad. That dream had been torn away, crushed by the Eidolon’s intervention. He had been humbled. And now? Now, he spoke with authority again, giving directions and speaking dark designs like their commander without consulting the Lady.

  Toshtta breathed deep, exhaling slowly, vines quivering around her arms. She was not naive enough to trust wholly in his newfound humility. The memory of Jhedothar’s old ambition was not so easily erased. It might only hide beneath his bearing, waiting for the right moment to reassert itself.

  “I will lead the forward unit to confirm the staging area,” Jhedothar said, his eyes scanning the great skulls, shadowed craters of eye-sockets and labyrinthine hollows leading into the City’s highest reaches.

  Toshtta inclined her head in acknowledgement, but inwardly, she promised herself that she would watch him closely. Too much had been lost, too many had died, for her to let the moment of triumph be undone by a final betrayal. If Jhedothar saw the chance to crown himself at the expense of Bee, she would be there, at the last, to see him thwarted.

  Ahead, the skull keeps loomed, a grand fortress of bone and steel, silent for now. But the day star’s glare revealed little things—movement in the vacant eyes, the glow of hidden corridors within. This would be no easy route.

  “We advance at nightfall,” Jhedothar continued, shifting weight on his powerful hind limbs. “We’ll have the Nesta Barshaum in position by then.”

  His plan was logical. His confidence was clear. Toshtta glanced to Cartaxa, who nodded with a grim acceptance.

  “Time to come home, then,” Cartaxa said quietly to himself.