Page 128 of City of Stone and Silence

I need to find them.

There’s something we need to take care of first, I think, Silvoa says. She calls my attention to a part of the system that seems to be under attack, some external force bombarding it with Eddica energy in an attempt to gain entry.

It’s Prime, isn’t it? I say.

I’ll show you the way, Silvoa says.

I ask Hagan to help me with Soliton, making sure that the ship doesn’t leave once it finishes transferring its vast load of energy. Silvoa walks me through the process of giving the two of them authority in the system, below my own but still enough to command the ships and the angels. After Hagan flits away, I open my eyes and follow the ribbons of ghost-light Silvoa strings for me, out of the access chamber and back into the maze of the ziggurat.

This time we’re going up, ramp after ramp, and finally a tall, circular staircase, similar to the one in the Cresos stronghold. Near the very top, Silvoa directs me to a doorway. Dozens of corpses lie in front of it, guardians now reduced to empty husks without the Eddica energy that animated them. I step over the bodies and enter Prime’s inner sanctum.

It’s surprisingly bare, stone walls and floor devoid of ornament. I’d expected something more like Catoria’s throne room, but I suppose this makes more sense. Prime spends hardly any time here, in truth, roaming through the system and his corpse-bodies. All he has is a chair, a heavy, elaborately carved thing that must have come off one of the ships as a sacrifice. In it, almost lost among silken pillows, is the Prime Eddicant.

He looks much like the ghost-image he showed me in the access point. Stick-thin limbs, protruding ribs, skin the color of ash, and a few greasy hanks of white hair. His eyes aren’t bottomless voids, but simply gone, the sockets empty and scarred over. He breathes with difficulty, air rattling in his chest.

I can feel his power all around me, trying to get back into the system, trying to tear a hole in its defenses. He’s not giving up, even now. Blind as he is, he can sense my presence through Eddica, and he shifts in his cushioned throne as I approach.

“I … told you,” he says. “Eddicants are driven … to rule. We are … the same, in this.”

“We’re not,” I say. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? That everyone is like you?”

“Not everyone. Only … the superior ones.” His cracked lips twist into a smile, while his invisible power batters at the walls of a cage. “I can … help you, you know.”

“I’m sure you could.” I shake my head. “But why should I let you?”

“You don’t know … what I have suffered.” He leans forward. “I was born in a gutter, to a dying whore. When I was a boy—”

He stops, because I cut his head off. Only a trickle of thick, black blood escapes his ancient body, sizzling on my blades with a vile stench. His expression, insofar as I can tell, looks surprised.

“You know what?” I tell the corpse. “I don’t actually care. We all have sob stories, but not everyone decides they need to destroy the world.”

I find the humans of the Harbor in the ziggurat’s entrance chamber, tending to the wounded and laying out the dead.

Burned corpses are piled up around the place where they made their stand, five or six layers deep. Tartak users are still busy shoving the dead monsters aside to clear space. Our own dead are laid out in neat rows, covered by blankets or coats. Surprisingly few, all things considered, but every silent body pulls at me.

To command is to sacrifice. In all senses.

“Isoka!”

I have a moment to brace before Meroe hits me like a runaway cart, so I stagger but don’t actually fall over. She wraps her arms around me, as tight as a limpet. For a moment she presses her cheek against my chest, as though listening to my heartbeat. Then she’s kissing me, over and over, and I finally have the presence of mind to kiss her back.

“You did it,” she says, pressed tight against me. “You made it.”

“So did you.” I smile. “You said you were certain we’d succeed.”

“Obviously I was lying for your benefit,” she says. “You need a lot of reassurance, you know.”

“My strange princess.”

Someone clears his throat. Meroe, reluctantly, loosens her grip, and we pull apart to find some of the others watching. Zarun is grinning in a knowing way that makes me want to punch him—no changes there—while Thora has one arm around Jack’s shoulders and one hand over her mouth, presumably keeping her from making inappropriate remarks. Gragant and Harak look on with monastic calm, but I can’t help but notice they’re hand in hand themselves. Catoria, standing beside them, looks wistful.

“Um,” I say. “Sorry.”

“Don’t mind us,” Jack says, fighting free of Thora’s grip for a moment. “If you want to mmmmf—”

Thora raises her eyebrows and sighs.

“I take it Prime is defeated?” Gragant says.