Page 54 of Realms of Swords and Storms (Empire of Vengeance #3)
D ust rained down on me like bitter snow, coating my tongue and filling my lungs.
I came to choking, each cough sending spikes of pain through my skull where Kalen had struck me.
For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was or why—then the cellar around me shuddered as if struck by a giant's hand, and memory returned in a flood of horror.
The first explosion. It had begun.
Screams filtered down from above, muffled by stone and earth but unmistakable in their terror. The air in the cellar was thick with dust now, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. The ropes around my wrists and ankles bit into flesh already raw from my earlier struggles.
I had minutes—maybe less—before the next explosion. And then the next. And the next. A carefully orchestrated symphony of destruction, with innocents as the unwitting audience.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the dim cellar, the dust, the blood trickling down my temple. I reached inward, toward that core of power Sirrax had helped me find—the dragon beneath my human skin, the Talfen blood that hummed in my veins even when I wore this weaker form.
"Please," I whispered to gods I wasn't sure existed.
The power answered, rising within me like a tide. Heat spread through my limbs, my skin prickling as scales began to form beneath the surface. I felt my muscles swell, bones lengthening, strength flooding my body as the transformation took hold.
The ropes that had held me helpless snapped like thread as my arms thickened, blue scales erupting through my skin in a cascade of sapphire and cobalt. My jaw extended, teeth sharpening to points, my vision clarifying until I could see every mote of dust hanging in the air around me.
I flexed my clawed hands, testing the limits of the change.
Not a full transformation—I was still recognizably humanoid, still small enough to move through the cellar without difficulty.
But strong enough. Strong enough to break free.
Strong enough, perhaps, to make some small amends for the horror I had helped create.
My gaze fell on the explosive device tucked into a corner of the cellar—one I hadn't placed, one Kalen had mentioned just before leaving me to die. Its timer ticked steadily, counting down to devastation.
I moved to it quickly, examining the mechanism with eyes better suited to darkness than my human ones had been.
Similar to the ones I'd placed, but not identical.
I traced the wires with careful claws, remembering Kalen's explanations during our planning sessions.
Cut the wrong wire, and the device would detonate immediately. But if I was right...
I severed the thin copper wire connecting the timer to the detonator, holding my breath as I waited for the device to explode in my face. Nothing happened. The timer stopped its relentless countdown, the device rendered harmless.
One down. But how many more scattered across the square? How many placed by hands that, like mine, had believed they were striking a blow for justice rather than participating in mass murder?
I shifted back to my human form, the transformation easier now that I'd broken through whatever mental barrier had been holding me back.
The ropes lay in tatters around me, useless now.
I rubbed my wrists, wincing at the raw flesh there, then moved to the stairs leading up to the wine merchant's shop and the square beyond.
The door at the top was locked, but my enhanced strength made short work of it. I burst through into the shop, finding it deserted, bottles rattling on shelves from the force of the first explosion. Through the front windows, I could see the square—or what remained of it.
The imperial records office was gone, reduced to a smoking crater and scattered rubble.
Where there had been order and celebration only minutes before, chaos now reigned.
People ran in every direction, their screams a cacophony of terror that pierced my ears even through the thick glass of the shop windows.
Some lay motionless on the cobblestones, others staggered, dazed or wounded, through the panicking crowd.
I pushed through the shop door into hell.
The air was thick with dust and smoke, carrying the copper tang of blood and the acrid smell of explosives.
A woman ran past me, her face a mask of blood from a scalp wound, eyes wild with panic.
A man sat against a wall, staring at nothing, his leg bent at an impossible angle.
Everywhere, people fled from the site of the first explosion, a human tide surging toward the south side of the square—exactly as Kalen had planned.
South side. The tax collector's office. The second explosive.
Understanding hit me like a physical blow.
The devices weren't just placed to destroy imperial buildings—they were positioned to create a killing field.
The first explosion would drive people toward the second, the second toward the third, each blast herding survivors into the path of the next detonation.
"No!" I screamed, though my voice was lost in the din of panic surrounding me. "Stop! Don't go that way!"
I pushed against the human current, fighting to move toward the tax collector's office where I had placed the second device myself. If I could reach it in time, disarm it as I had the one in the cellar...
A woman grabbed my arm as I passed, her face twisted with fear. "What's happening?" she sobbed. "What's happening?"
I had no answer for her. I tore free, still pushing toward the tax office, still screaming warnings that no one heeded.
And then the world erupted in flame and thunder again.
The blast lifted me off my feet and threw me backward like a rag doll. I hit the cobblestones hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. For a moment, I lay stunned, ears ringing, vision blurred by dust and shock.
When I could focus again, the scene before me had transformed from chaos to nightmare.
Where there had been a fleeing crowd, there was now a tangle of bodies, some moving, many still.
The tax collector's office was gone, replaced by a smoking crater.
New screams joined the chorus, higher and more desperate than before.
"My fault," I whispered, the words torn from some broken place inside me. "All my fault."
I pushed myself to my feet, swaying as dizziness threatened to topple me again. Blood trickled from a cut on my forehead, joining the stickiness from Kalen's earlier blow. My body screamed with pain from a dozen minor injuries, but I forced myself to move, to keep going.
There were still more devices. Still more lives I might save, if I could reach them in time.
I stumbled through the rubble-strewn square, trying to remember the locations Kalen had shown me on his map. The guard barracks on the north side—that would be next. Then the justice building to the east. Then the commander's residence. And finally, the reviewing stand.
Each carefully timed to catch the maximum number of fleeing civilians.
A figure suddenly loomed before me—tall, broad-shouldered, his face a mask of soot and blood. I recoiled, thinking for a moment it was Kalen returned to finish what he'd started. But no—this was Antonius, the former gladiator who had joined the resistance after I freed him from the arena.
"Tarshi?" he gasped, recognition dawning in his eyes. "You're alive!"
"The barracks," I croaked, my throat raw from dust and screaming. "North side. There's another device. We have to—"
The third explosion cut me off, the ground beneath our feet bucking like a living thing. Antonius staggered, nearly falling, as a new wave of screams rose from the north side of the square.
"Too late," I whispered, despair threatening to crush me more thoroughly than any explosion could. "Too late."
"What is happening?" Antonius demanded, gripping my shoulders, his massive hands steady despite the chaos around us. "Did you know about this? Did the resistance plan this?"
"Not the resistance," I said, the bitter truth like acid on my tongue.
"Kalen. He's Imperial. He used us. Used me.
" I looked up, meeting his eyes, seeing the horror and disbelief there.
"I helped plant the devices. He said they would target empty buildings, that warnings would be given.
That it was about making a statement, not. .. not this."
Antonius's face hardened, his hands tightening on my shoulders. For a moment, I thought he might kill me where I stood—and part of me wished he would.
"Where are the others?" he asked instead, his voice a low growl. "Where are the rest of the devices?"
"Justice building. East side. Then the commander's residence. Then the reviewing stand." The words tumbled out, each one an admission of my complicity. "They're timed. Five minutes apart. If we hurry—"
"Tarshi!"
The voice cut through the din of screams and crumbling stone—a voice I knew as well as my own heartbeat. Livia.
I turned to see her pushing through the chaos toward us, Octavia close behind her. Both were covered in dust, Livia's face streaked with what might have been tears or blood or both. Her eyes, when they found mine, held a wild desperation that pierced me more deeply than any blade.
"You're alive," she gasped, reaching us, her hand grasping my arm as if to confirm I was real. "We thought—when the wine shop exploded—"
"I got out," I said, unable to meet her gaze, unworthy of the relief I saw there. "Livia, you need to leave. Now. Get as far from the square as you can. Take Octavia and go."
"What's happening?" she demanded, her fingers digging into my arm. "Who's doing this?"