Free Lamentation by Ken Scholes Page A

could open his mouth and explain to her why he couldn’t go with her. He wished he could tell her about the bolt of electricity that passed through him when he realized the truth.
    Sethbert destroyed Windwir.
    Neb hadn’t really killed his father—Sethbert had. And it changed everything.
    Because of that, he couldn’t leave with her now.
    Because of that, he had to go back and kill Sethbert.
    Petronus
    As the sun rose behind him in a birdless sky, Petronus crested the ridge and looked down on the Desolation of Windwir.
    Nothing could have prepared him for it. He’d crested this ridge hundreds of times, riding out and back on various assignments for the Order. Certainly he’d known this time that he wouldn’t see the familiar sights. The large ships at the docks, low in the water with cargo bound for the Entrolusian Delta. The wide, high stone walls that encircled the various quarters that made up the world’s greatest city. The spires of the cathedrals and of the Great Library, colors waving in the morning breeze. The houses and shops outside the city gates, nestled up against the walls like calves against their mother.
    Petronus slid from the saddle and let his horse tend itself. He stood, shaking, studying the scene that unfolded before him.
    He’d known better than to expect any of these things, but he’d thought surely there’d be something familiar to him here.
    There was not.
    The charred ruins were scattered across the field, and there was no clear delineation where the wreckage of the city stopped and the wreckage of the outlying areas began. Flecked with impact craters and mounds of black rubble, the landscape stretched out and away, ending abruptly at the river’s edge. It was bordered by hills to the west and south, and Petronus could see the smoke and flags of the Gypsy camp nestled between foothills.
    There was no sign of the Entrolusian camp, but knowing Sethbert, it was hidden away, within reach but not easy reach. A man seldom fell far afield of his father, and from everything he’d heard, Sethbert was every bit as paranoid and problematic as the man who’d raised him and trained him up into his current role. Petronus had once had Aubert removed from the Papal Residence under the watchful eyes of the Gray Guard for threatening the Pope’s hospitality staff after accusing them of some kind of treachery or another.
    Of course, the same theory would apply to Rudolfo. He’d known the father well enough. Jakob was a fair albeit ruthless man who ruled his Ninefold Forest Houses with a blend of Androfrancine sensibility and Snsih. uncompromising attention to the Rites of Kin-Clave. He hadn’t balked at putting heretics on Tormentor’s Row . . . but neither had he been willing to allow the Order access to those prisoners.
    Petronus suspected that Rudolfo was made of similar stuff as his father, too. He’d been a boy when Petronus had set into motion his transition out of power. But soon after, Jakob died and that boy was forced to early manhood, taking up the turban of his fallen father. The old man had heard a bit here or there, most notably that he’d stood with the Freehold of the Emerald Coasts in their decision to embargo the City States when they announced their annexation of the Gulf of Shylar and its free cities. Rudolfo had earned a reputation as a brilliant strategist and a competent swordsman during the skirmishes that followed.
    He gathered what little he knew about both men and stored it away for future use.
    Even now, he told himself, in the face of this devastation, you’re scheming and plotting, old man. But why? He’d needed to see for himself that it was gone. He couldn’t wait for the birds or the other messengers—no one’s description, written or spoken, would’ve been good enough. He needed to see it himself.
    Beyond that, what did it matter? There were two kings on the field, both having kin-clave with the fallen city. And both men were competent—albeit