Seth Haddon’s third novel, RECLAIMED, will be releasing worldwide on October 9, 2024. It features Haddon’s first transmasc protagonist, along with magic, danger, hope, love and two very adorable lesbians. Pre-orders are live and the first printing is likely to sell out so don’t wait to reserve your copy of this rare gem today in print or digital, wherever books are sold.
Chapter One
The thing about the astral sea—that nebulous, elusive, maddening plane of existence just beyond the veil—was that no one really knew anything about it. Not in any way that was tangible. Or provable. And this meant, if one was a bit of a desperate or eccentric fellow, that one could dedicate one’s whole life to answering this question: what the fuck even is the astral sea?
Discovering the nature of the astral sea had been the first exquisite obsession Saba Vasili had dedicated himself to. But the next thing he’d wanted—desperately—was to become a paragon.
In a country like Zvensia which lauded excellence in everything, exceptional people were elevated to the rank of paragon. Exalted and feted, you would be raised out of mortality, made something different by the ritual. All you had to do was be the best.
From the outside this seemed very formulaic and very achievable, but apparently it was not as straightforward as Saba Vasili had expected. You had to be the best and also not be anything but of pure Zvensian blood—no Rezwyn mother, no Uslethian great-grand-uncle, and certainly in no part grubby refugee from the vanquished state of Kerinsk.
At the top of Zvensian society sat the Grand Council, run by judges. Each city had their own judge-led Triad, and beneath that came the paragons. Nearly every vocation in Zvensian society had a paragon rank for all to aspire to. A long time in the past, paragons were elected by the community—and marked as special through masks, which confirmed rank and field. But the creation of the Triad had changed things, and now they were the ones who chose individuals to receive the paragon rank. The masks produced for each uniform now differed in material, shape, and expression for each vocation.
Saba used to think he could become a paragon too. He used to dream of it, crave it the way others might lust for food or flesh. He had wanted the title, the prestige, the relative safety that came with it, and the elaborate metal mask—two of which stared at him now.
Two paragon sentinels—people charged with enforcing Zvensia’s multitude of laws—loomed over him.
Sentinels were paragons not of the mind but of the body. The soldiers and fighters and sentries of Byrengrad City, all of them were paragons of their kind. After years of training or otherwise excelling in their careers, they were awarded paragon status for exceptionality.
Though how exceptional could you be, really, when there were hundreds of sentinels in this city?
No. Sentinel was, in Saba’s mind, the weakest class of the paragons, if only because of their sheer number. But sages—the paragon rank given to scholars—were rarer. Despite everything, despite where he was and what he looked like and where he came from, Saba still wanted it.
And now you’ll never be one.
The damp, windowless stone jail cell was lit only by a weak torchlight. The light flickered over the brushed bronze of the masks, and the waltzing ebb and flow of the shadows made Saba feel like he was staring into a firepit, growing hypnotized by the embers.
Traditionally, sentinel masks were beaten into uncanny and terrifying shapes. One of those staring at him sported a twisted scowl, deep frown lines, and a gaping eye-slit to stare through. Saba tried in vain to squint through the dark and pick out the true human expression sitting behind the eternal fury of the mask.
Another part of him didn’t want to know. What if the sentinel’s real expression was worse?
He stared so long at those masks he couldn’t be sure he didn’t conjure them from the shadows himself, a symptom of a weak and broken mind. The Triad, those lower judges appointed by Zvensia’s Grand Council who ruled Byrengrad City, had left him locked up here for—how long? Wasn’t it feasible he was imagining these visitors?
Stop it, idiot. You’re panicking.
Some last scrap of reasoning remaining secure in Saba’s mind stepped forward to take control. It wrenched back his despairing mind, wrangling the anxious instinct back down. Saba felt emotion grow distant as he steadied his breathing and met the ever-watchful gaze of the two sentinels once more.
“Anything more you have to say for yourself?” one of the sentinels asked.
Saba blinked rapidly against the dark. The words were spat at him, and after a rush of shock—no, Saba’s imagination had not conjured these masks—he straightened himself in his chair. All at once he felt the ache in every part of his body, the bruises up his arm, the open weeping wounds on his wrists from the cuffs. Ten hours earlier, his arms had been cuffed behind the chair’s back; now his shoulders throbbed in protest. Disuse had made his hips ache. His tender tailbone pulsed.
And because Saba was scared and furious and relatively sure he was going to die, he looked the sentinel in the eye, clicked his tongue, and cocked his head to say, “Whoops?”
One sentinel broke from their place and punched Saba squarely on the jaw.
Crack.
Saba’s head whipped back from the force. He made a sound like a dying animal—pathetic—and spent a good few seconds catching his breath as dull, deep pain pulsed along his jawbone. A referred ache started up near his temple, and he tasted salt and metal in his mouth. Bastard had split his lip. Saba’s heart fluttered manically in his chest as fear flooded his veins; he wanted to scream. He wanted to go wild and thrash around like a dog, to bite and snap should they get close to him. But he couldn’t let that urge out.
He laughed instead, tongue perched on his canine.
If he didn’t let the wound hurt, then it wouldn’t. If he didn’t let himself be scared, then he wouldn’t be. His mother’s voice rose vividly in his memory: You must always keep your head high, little sun.
He flashed his most dazzling smile and imagined the blood squeezing out between his teeth. Saba craned his neck to the other side, exposing his unmarked cheek. “Give me another one—a proper one—for penance.”
The sentinel’s hand curled into a fist once more. His voice shook with fury. “Don’t you dare be so foul. Hundreds are dead because of your machine.”
Then a new voice said, “Leave us.”
Saba’s eyes flashed to a third sentinel who stood, only half-visible, like an apparition, leaning against the far wall. Saba’s stomach dropped. He knew that voice.
Maksid had come to see him.
Why did it have to be him?
The other sentinel glanced back over his shoulder, hand still curled up for a punch. “Sir, he’s dangerous.”
“Thank you.” Maksid peeled himself off the wall. He walked closer to Saba, so close Saba could see the familiar green of his eyes through the eye slits of the mask. The disdain, too, was unfortunately familiar. “I’m well aware.”
The moment elongated. Saba stared at the sentinel, who stared back at him. And panic gave way to a more primordial type of fear—something fetid in Saba’s gut, something old. An involuntary shiver rushed up Saba’s spine.
The first two sentinels lingered momentarily then stepped back, giving space for the other sentinel to fill. On their way out, the three sentinels exchanged a few words.
To whatever was said, Maksid gave a nod of approval.
Saba intently watched the others leave, and when the door opened, he imagined his soul slipping out and escaping. The faint sliver of light was so beautiful Saba felt drunk from seeing it, as if he had been shrouded in shadow his whole life and was now seeing the molten beauty of daylight for the first time.
Then the door slammed closed.
Blinking in the dark, Saba came back to himself and his anger. He spit blood onto the floor and sneered up at the remaining sentinel.
“What?” Saba hissed.
The sentinel sighed deeply, as if this whole thing was just a matter of great inconvenience, and not—
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
But the other sentinel had already reminded him of the truth: hundreds were dead because of the mechanism he’d built.
Saba raised his chin, forcing these thoughts to the back of his mind. “More ashamed than ever to have me as your brother?”
That had the desired effect. Maksid flinched violently, like Saba had knifed him in the gut. He turned back to Saba slowly, practically vibrating with rage, because beneath that mask, beneath all the trappings of his paragon status, Maksid shared the same heritage as Saba.
Of course, he shared more than that. He had the same pink-tinged skin, brown freckles, and shock of auburn hair. Maksid had managed to glean more height from their late father, but Saba still came up to his chin. They shared the same build—an excess of lank, as if every limb had been stretched and wrung out. Maksid at least could hide this ungraceful paucity beneath the heavy layers of sentinel garb. Saba, on the other hand, really couldn’t escape it; what muscle he had was thin and sinewy, laid over his gangly limbs in long stretches. Now, covered in muck, underfed, and stinking, he must have looked like a starving street mutt.
Saba had at least won out with his face. Their late mother had a fine bone structure, with prominent cheekbones and a relatively wide jaw. Those same bones sat well in Saba’s face, but they poked severely through Maksid’s with an angry bite, as if the skin had been pulled too taut.
Which was perhaps the reason his brother had been so desperate to earn that sentinel mask.
Pettiness aside, the two of them were Kerish through and through. Only Maksid had wrapped himself so well beneath his cowl he had yet to be found out. Damn familial bonds—the sentinels were more important to Maksid than Saba now.
Maksid crossed his arms. He moved closer to Saba, whose chair had been pushed flush against the stone wall. “I really can’t stand your attitude.”
“My attitude? You’re the one who can’t bear the burden of admitting you’re related to me. What is it, exactly, that makes you so ashamed anyway? Our heritage?”
“Stop it.”
“So that certainly plays a part. Or maybe you’re ashamed of what I am. Would it have been easier if I’d stayed your little sister, or were we already too far gone by that point? What about now? Do you think what’s happened has ruined our chance at reconciliation?”
Maksid slammed his hands onto the wall above Saba’s head. Saba jumped.
White dust and grime flittered down, snowing over Saba’s hair in the tense silence.
Maksid panted heavily. “For fuck’s sake, you little shit,” he spat. His voice was misshapen, warped beneath the mask. It echoed gruffly. “I’m trying to help you.”
Saba ground his teeth together. Heat pushed behind his eyes. Absolutely not. He was not going to cry. It was too late for that anyway—the damage had been done. Crying would only make his brother angrier.
Maksid shifted. He stepped away so he was no longer bearing down over Saba. In fact, he lowered himself, bringing that maelstrom expression in his eyes close to Saba’s face, who stared at the mask and his brother beyond it.
Maksid reached out to put a hand on Saba’s shoulder. It took every bit of restraint in Saba not to flinch.
“Why did you have to open the astral sea?” Maksid asked quietly.
Saba’s stomach dropped. “Why are you so sure it was me?”
“There’s no one else with your knowledge,” Maksid said, like this justified his betrayal of assumptions.
The sweetness in his voice irked Saba.
Maksid took his hand away, stood, and shrugged as if all of this was done and dusted—like Saba’s fate was sealed, his guilt carved into every part of this material plane.
“A small massacre,” Saba murmured with a disbelieving laugh. “A fun morning for Saba Vasili?”
Maksid turned around. He muttered something, but it was lost and muffled beneath the mask. Saba half expected Maksid to give up, to walk out that door—but then the sentinel whirled around.
“Listen to me. We don’t have much time, so save your act and listen. Your machine ripped—” he cut himself off, eyes rolling back and forth in his skull as he searched for a better word. “The event ripped a giant hole in Byrengrad, little brother. A lot of people died. Important people. Someone must be accountable for it.”
Important people. Saba couldn’t help but laugh at that. Important people—that’s what Maksid’s anger was about—not the hundreds caught up in the explosion but the one or two important enough for the Triad to care about.
Maksid kicked one of the chair legs, narrowly missing Saba’s shin. The force cracked it, and the world tilted as the chair fell, scraping against the stone wall. Saba swallowed a scream as Maksid grabbed him by the shirt, shouting, “Stop fucking laughing!”
Saba fell quiet. He was frozen beneath Maksid’s gaze, shaking from the shock of the fall and the anger.
Maksid’s breath echoed dully behind the mask. He glanced back at the door and positioned Saba and the remains of the chair against the wall for balance. Then he dropped into a squat. “Kers died. A lot of them lived in Loefka Ward.”
“I know.”
“A judge too.”
Saba inhaled. Shit.
Maksid gave the final blow with, “And a Rezwyn ambassador.”
Saba’s stomach dropped out of him. Fear in its purest form crept into his throat and curled up there in a big lump. Maksid met his eyes, and Saba knew they both felt it. They had both borne the weight of Rezwyn overreach, the legacy of imperialism that had destroyed their native country.
Saba hated the way his voice shook when he asked, “According to protocol, their emperor will send an official from Doskor to demand compensation from Zvensia, then?”
Maksid nodded. “He’s already here.”
An official. A Rezwyn agent. A little rat bastard come to punish Saba for this after what the Rezwyns did to his homeland of Kerinsk? After what they did to so many countries and peoples and cultures?
How dare the Rezwyn Empire have the gall to step in and berate him for any kind of violence?
But fear was in him too.
Maksid sensed Saba’s thoughts. He looked down at him pointedly. “Sabina. Please, don’t antagonize this man.”
Sabina? No. Fuck that.
All the fear in Saba gave way to anger. He spat, “Oh, don’t worry, Maksid, I’ll be on my best behavior. There’s nothing I love more than righteous invaders coming to admonish a victim of their own ceaseless fucking violence and murder. Really. Empire bastards. Hundreds dead are a drop in the pond for the fucking Rezwyns.”
Maksid ground his teeth and ignored most of what Saba said. “New Rezwyn emperor, new everything. And don’t call me Maksid. At least not in front of people. It’s Justice Sentinel.”
“New emperor, same history. And I’ll call you that fucking mouthful when you use my name correctly.”
Maksid at least had the decency to look down at his hands. “Saba,” he said, enunciating slowly. “I’m sorry.”
Saba tried to loosen his jaw, but it was tense with expectation. He was hit with a vision of another life. If Kerinsk hadn’t fallen to the Rezwyns, if their mother had not died, if Saba was different, if he hadn’t changed himself so completely, then his brother would never have dared speak to him like this. Not once.
Saba looked up. “So am I.”
Maksid took a breath so large it puffed out his chest. He cocked his head. Saba watched his brother’s eyes harden through the slit. Now they matched the gnarled bronze fury of his sentinel mask perfectly.
Saba tensed as Maksid said, “So then why did you open the astral sea? How could you risk everyone’s safety to satisfy your curiosity?”
One tear betrayed Saba’s resolve. It bubbled over the edge of his eye and ran in a warm rivulet down his cheek.
How fucking dare he? How dare he?
Maksid would throw an apology out one second then accuse him of negligence the next? Was it because Saba had changed his body? Had abandoned his name and every ounce of his heritage? Because Saba was capable of growth and rebirth and change, it made him heartless?
How could his brother think he could do this?
The door opened.
Maksid backed up immediately, putting space between them. Saba squinted toward the light. A silhouette filled the doorframe: tall, broad, and sturdy. Then the two previous sentinels moved to flank this newcomer.
Even before he stepped into the room, Saba could practically smell empire on him.
He was a big man, wide and stout, fat and strong, beautiful in that eerie way most Rezwyns were with that pale skin, though his lacked the translucent quality conventional to his compatriots. His hair was blond, he had faint lines set around his eyes, and he was bearded—perhaps in his mid-thirties. Well-groomed, too, Saba noted with almost admiration, keenly feeling the knots in his own hair and the grime caked under his nails.
The Rezwyn was dressed well in fine empire cloth, muscular arms near straining at the fabric, as well as a heavy wolf-fur cloak that was altogether too warm for this country. His boots were fantastic, ankle-length and embossed. He also carried a cane, on which he leaned heavily to stand.
The cane caught Saba’s eye because it was simple in design but so obviously finely made. The wood near the handle had been carved into sharp angles, but the rest of it was smooth and rounded, polished to a shine. Saba only caught a glimpse of the handle as the man approached, but he saw the head of it was carved to resemble a hare. Not a rabbit, not that soft being. A hare. A canny and feral creature that one was. What an odd choice.
“Can you understand Doskorian?” Maksid—Justice Sentinel—asked Saba.
He knew damn well Saba could, of course, but he wasn’t meant to know Saba personally at all.
You can too, Saba wanted to say. You learned from the same tutors.
But disgracing Maksid wouldn’t earn him back as an ally—and Saba found himself willing to lie for his brother.
“Of course.” Saba grinned, putting that cheerful smile on for his audience.
“Good,” Maksid said curtly before nodding back to the official. “He doesn’t speak Zvensian.”
Under his breath Saba whispered, “Of course not.”
The other sentinels—Saba didn’t know their names—brought a chair in for the newcomer. The Rezwyn ripped off his cloak before landing heavily in his seat. The chair shook a little. Without the cloak to conceal him, his width and strength were obvious.
Then, in heavily accented Zvensian, the newcomer said to Maksid, “Well, you must have poor intel.”
The Queendom of Kerinsk had once sat in the north at the border that used to mark the boundary between the Rezwyn Empire and Zvensia. It had been a relatively small country with a language not at all dissimilar to Zvensian. Kerish had the same lilt and cadence. Most of the grammar and the structure was the same.
But there were very few Rezwyns who knew either language unless they’d had cause to be there.
Saba stopped breathing. His eyes darted up to his brother’s—he needed to see his brother, Maksid, not the sentinel. He needed the comfort of another Ker to make this horror palatable. But Maksid didn’t offer his gaze. Maksid left Saba to drown.
Saba’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “You served,” he said. Primal horror snuffed all calm from Saba’s stomach. “You were a soldier in Kerinsk.”
The Rezwyn slapped his leg. And then, to add insult to injury, he said in Kerish, “Along with many, many others.”
The Rezwyn considered Saba carefully. Something about his stare made Saba shiver.
Everyone else but the two of them were in masks. Everyone else had the privilege of having their expressions safely hidden away. So this was a forced vulnerability. Everyone looked at Saba; he was cornered. He used to be smarter than this, more cautious. He never would have let himself end up alone with a Rezwyn and three sentinels who were all looking at him like he was prey.
The Rezwyn breathed deeply. He had such ease about him, such surety in his body, it was almost mesmerizing to watch. With a near dismissive gaze, he glanced at the sentinels and motioned for them to leave.
“Go on,” he said in Zvensian. “He’s in no position to harm me.”
So you think, Saba wanted to shout. Come near me and I’ll bite.
Maksid glanced down at Saba. His brother knew him too well. Worry laced his words. “Sir, I must insist.”
“Well, congratulations, Sir Paragon, you have insisted. You may go.”
Saba snorted despite himself. Guts and attitude on a Rezwyn. Funny—especially when Maksid froze. He lingered a little too long with his eyes on Saba. But everyone else retreated, and after an awkward beat, Saba showed Maksid all his teeth, like he really had gone insane.
Maksid stared back and softly shut the door behind him.
And then it was just the two of them.
Saba’s eyes had to readjust to the dark. He blinked and took stock. Maksid had left his half-broken chair propped against the back stone wall of the cell. There was nothing else save for a couple of torches glowing in evenly spaced sconces around the wall. Distantly Saba was aware someone had removed his shit bucket at some point since the last time he’d used it—likely for the Rezwyn’s benefit. So really, it truly was just the two of them, and there was nothing else in this cell to focus on but each other.
The Rezwyn sighed, that intense exhale, and Saba found himself inhaling in response. He was intimidating. Firstly, for his size, which was immense next to Saba’s stringy form. But also for that other intangible quality, something like confidence and ease and self-surety. Saba wasn’t even sure he could correctly identify it, but he felt it and wished he had it too.
“My name is Luan Zek,” the Rezwyn said. He spoke with great depth, as if his voice had been comprised of that of three other men stitched together seamlessly and stripped of discordant tones. It had a weight to it, a captivating lilt. “Official title is Special Ambassador to Zvensia for the Rezwyn Empire.”
Saba cleared his throat. He would have been surprised if Zek didn’t know who he was already. But this name, this title, belonged to him, and he would own it every chance he got. Even now.
“Saba Vasili. Scholar and wrongfully accused mass murderer.”
Zek didn’t immediately reply, and Saba suddenly disliked the silence. He sat up straighter against the wall, careful not to upend the broken chair. “Sending you all the way here . . . what wealthy Rezwyn bastard died in the accident?”
Without missing a beat, Zek replied, “The Lord of Veprak.”
Saba felt all the blood drain from his face. “Oh.”
Zek inhaled slowly and leaned forward. The wooden legs of his chair creaked, sounding to Saba like the cawing of crows drawn out and distended.
Zek made sure they were looking at one another before he spoke. “I am here to understand who or what is responsible for the death of Krezmir Doric, Lord of Veprak. My hosts, the Triad of Byrengrad City, on behalf of Zvensia’s Grand Council, have agreed to allow this investigation. The perpetrator will be taken to Doskor to stand trial. The emperor demands compensation for the loss of his countryman.”
His countryman? One man lost? The sheer fucking nerve—but what else should one expect from a Rezwyn? Rage blinded Saba. He spat out, “And what of my countrymen?”
They came unbidden then, the shades of Kerinsk, in a mass haunting—not just the ones who died in the recent explosion, but the ones who were lost to the war. And here Saba sat in a cell, one of the last to survive. That alone was enough to carry the weight of legacy, the memory of a lost country. But he had so much more on his shoulders. Too much history. Too much expectation.
Zek could have slapped him for speaking like that. Shit, he could have walloped Saba with his cane without even standing up. No one would have questioned it—the walls were too thick, and what was one more bruise or laceration on a body as battered as Saba’s? But he didn’t. It was a kindness Saba shouldn’t have latched on to. He knew better than to assign layers of meaning to action or inaction; yet he almost couldn’t help it.
Especially when Zek did him the service of moving past the jab entirely, without even a verbal counterattack.
“They tell me your machine caused a lot of damage,” Zek said.
Saba glanced away. “Have you seen it yet?”
“No,” said Zek. “But I’ve been promised a tour.”
Saba met Zek’s gaze again. “I haven’t seen it either.”
Zek didn’t bother to hide his confusion which Saba found interesting. Either Zek had assumed Saba had been there, or he’d been told he had—neither of which were true. Saba had been in this cell for a full week before he even knew his charge. Since then, he’d only been given the sketchiest account of the extent of the damage.
“That surprises you, does it?” Saba asked. “I told you, I’ve been wrongfully accused.”
Zek’s face returned to that sedated expression. “You’re pleading innocent, then?”
I am innocent, Saba wanted to reiterate. I haven’t done anything.
But the longer he was kept here, the less he believed it. Still he managed to say, “Yes.”
In true Rezwyn fashion Zek made his face completely impassive. What little emotion he had shown Saba already was very likely put on. The display of true emotions, Saba recalled from his studies, was considered crass amongst the Rezwyns; Saba knew he would be quickly disarmed if he took everything Zek did and said at face value. But he was a scholar, for fuck’s sake—a smart man.
If Zek was milking him for information, Saba could do the same thing back.
“They’ve told me the ground collapsed in the ward,” Saba said, voice calm. “Not quite a sinkhole but a cavity. This was after the machine was activated, of course, so even if only a hundred or so died in that, plenty more had to fall to their deaths. They say it’s devastating, especially for the Kerish refugees who lived there. So maybe I ought to lead that tour. Show you the devastation my infernal machine has wrought amongst the remains of my people.”
Self-abasement was rarely attractive, but Saba couldn’t help it. He deserved it, he felt, even if he had not caused the incident directly. A great number of refugees from Kerinsk, a country now assimilated into the west of the Rezwyn Empire, had lived in the ward that had been destroyed. His brother’s words rattled in his skull over and over until they became his own, his own voice reminding him there was no one else. No one else had the knowledge to build the machine that had gone haywire, causing sudden devastation as it succeeded in opening a gateway to the astral sea.
But that was not entirely true. Two others knew enough about the device—Mossinne and Khajro, the scholar mechanics who had helped him build it. He didn’t know Khajro well, but he knew Moss, and she was too damn sweet for her own good. Saba would not subject her to shitting in buckets; he vowed it right then. He would keep her name from his mouth for as long as it took to make sure she was safe.
In the weeks he’d been in prison he hadn’t heard mention of either of them. This either meant they were dead or downplaying their knowledge, laying low.
Good.
Saba didn’t need company to rot with.
Zek leaned back and folded his arms. His expression was strange. Where the sentinels—even Maksid—couldn’t quite hide their disdain of him, Zek watched Saba carefully. Part of it, Saba was sure, was wariness. Saba had been accused of negligence and mass murder, of course, so that felt only natural. But there was a layered nature to Zek’s expression, and Saba couldn’t tell what the rest of the notes were. The longer Zek looked, the madder it drove him. Confusion? Interest? Disgust?
“You are not what I expected,” Zek murmured finally. His lip quirked at the side, pressing up around the blond-brown beard. It might have been a sincere look, but Saba had already promised himself not to take Zek at face value.
He strained forward against his bonds. “Why’s that? Too pretty to have committed negligent homicide?”
“Eh,” Zek said, looking Saba up and down. “So-so.”
Saba snorted, then chided himself for it. Stupid. Is that all it took to make Saba Vasili relax? One joke?
Zek said, “I’ve been told all this happened because you used illegal magic to tamper with forces beyond your station.”
Saba sighed. “I’m guessing the paragons told you that.”
“Judge Hirunz, actually.”
Saba rolled his eyes so hard he could feel his skull straining. What a joke. “Whatever he says, I’m no witch. I have no magic in me. I’m just a scholar.”
Zek cocked his head to the side. “And do you specialize in machinery or in the astrok-mer or both?”
Astrok-mer was the Rezwyn term for the astral sea. And if Zek was aware of Saba’s specialization, then Saba had to wonder if his scholarly pursuits were of interest to the empire beyond the death of the Lord Doric.
For the Rezwyns, the astral sea was a rather sacred plane of being. Most of their gods resided there. For Saba, it was a source of untapped power with limitless potential. But since the Rezwyns let their so-called gods decide wars for them, Saba wouldn’t put it past Emperor Dziove to conclude Saba’s—or anyone’s—research into the astral sea a threat to the empire.
Saba also did not like Zek bringing up the idea of a mechanic being involved.
He narrowed his eyes at Zek. “A scholar of the astral sea, yes,” he began. “I study its nature. Its impact on this world. Its mythology. Relevant phenomena. For example, the magical ichor found in Uslethian gedroks and Rezwyn cajudsan flowers—does it originate in the astral sea, or is it a natural substance that merely resonates with the astral sea? That kind of thing.”
Zek simply craned forward again, squinting at Saba as if trying to read him. “Tell me more.”
Saba sighed and made some motion that would have been a shrug if his arms weren’t so roughly locked behind him.
“I theorize that the astral sea is a state of pure possibility that has manifested a consciousness. But is that the result of being worshiped by the Rezwyns as the home of the god Suoduny? In effect did the god begin to exist because we humans needed a god to implore? Because the astrok-mer is not everywhere in the world; it exists mostly over the original Rezwyn territories. Obviously it reaches as far as Usleth, but if it ever opened before—and I believe it must have—” he cut himself off as he saw Zek’s expression begin to glaze over.
One question, and you let yourself run wild.
Saba clicked his tongue and smiled brightly at Zek. “Ah, you got me rambling. Forgive me, Sir Rezwyn.”
“Your thoughts on this matter are fascinating,” Zek remarked. “Perhaps once this matter is settled, I can read some of your work.”
Saba narrowed his eyes and smiled. Anything he’d ever written had most likely been burned by Judge Hirunz by now, and in truth, he doubted the ambassador gave a single shit.
“Thank you, but I’ll honestly be surprised if I survive another night in this place,” Saba said as charmingly as he could.
Zek understood the implication immediately. He glanced toward the door. “Lot of accidents in a place like this?”
Saba bit his lip. “Yes. A lot of people are angry with me.”
Zek nodded. Then he returned his gaze to Saba. “I’m just here to find out what happened to Lord Doric, Saba Vasili. If I discover that you are responsible for his death, you’ll be extradited to Doskor for punishment.”
And without another word, Luan Zek stood. A rumble sounded in his chest, Zek grunting as he shook out some cramp in his leg, and Saba was forced to crane his neck to look up at him. At the sheer fucking size of him. Saba flushed.
Extradited to Doskor. Saba wouldn’t last. They’d kill him—they’d torture him first, then they’d put his head on a pike.
“Can you do that—just take me away?” Saba asked and cringed at the way his voice quivered.
Zek turned without answer and headed for the door. No, no—Zek already thought he was guilty. Saba couldn’t let him walk away. He threw himself against his restraints until the cuffs pressed horribly into the open wet wounds around his wrists. It stung, but it didn’t matter.
“Hey! I asked you a question!”
Zek spun back around. “Yes, I can do that. Emperor Dziove is determined to find out what happened, and Judge Hirunz is happy to oblige him. Now please behave, or I’ll have to restrain you further.”
Saba grinned and pushed forward again. He must have looked mad, straining at the bit. Fuck it. Good behavior had gotten him nowhere but a dank jail cell.
“Oh, I’ll be such a good boy for you, Sir Zek,” he spat. “And if not, you can put a leash on me. Walk me into Doskor like a dog—I’m sure the emperor would love to see a Ker on their knees.”
Zek had the gall to look amused. “What a strange man you are,” he said, voice lilting.
Then he raised that red-eyed hare to the door and knocked twice to be let out. The door opened. Zek looked back at Saba, just the once, before leaving him in the dark.