The Autumn Republic

Tamas let a smile crack his stony visage.

“Sir?” Olem asked.

“My son. Second Minister of Adro. Strange twist of fate.”

“He doesn’t look happy about it.”

“He’s not. Not at all. He’ll keep his promise, though.” He had better, Tamas added mentally.

The soldiers had fallen in, and a hush descended on the square, quieter than the day Tamas had stood on that same balcony and announced to the crowd that the reign of Manhouch was over. Tamas let out a slow breath, blinking away the wonder, and realized that he’d now come full circle. The plans of so many years had finally come to fruition.

“Is it over, Olem?” he asked, hearing the emotion in his own voice. “Is it finally over?”

Olem didn’t answer. Ricard had raised his hands. “People of Adro! Friends! Brothers! Sisters! I’m humbled to stand before you today as your new First Minister.” The cheers lasted for several minutes before Ricard could finally speak again. “My friends, the tyranny of kings is over. The doubt and anticipation of the last eight months of tragic war is over. Today, on the last day of autumn, we have become a republic. I am proud to be here, the first among equals.

“My friends, none of this would have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of the Protector of Adro, Field Marshal Tamas, and his powder mages and soldiers. You owe them your freedom. Your lives. Your love.”

The cheers were deafening. Tamas felt a tear roll down his cheek, but he did not move to wipe it away. He kept his eyes fixed on Ricard.

“My friends! I…”

A sound reverberated across the square, cutting Ricard off and causing a stir among the gathered crowd.

“My friends,” Ricard started again.

The groaning and creaking continued, and Tamas turned to see the crowd chattering restlessly. A cloud cast a shadow over the assembled masses, and Tamas removed his hat to look about him. Where was the sound coming from?

The groaning grew in intensity, and the slightest movement caught Tamas’s eye as a creak gave way to the grinding of stone on stone.

“Scatter!” he bellowed.

Sablethorn, the mighty prison of the Iron King, tilted and wobbled like a wooden top before ponderously tipping and falling across the square. He sat upon his horse transfixed, watching it descend upon him as if reality itself had slowed. His mouth opened, and he stared for a moment before he was suddenly jerked to the side as his horse bolted, and he looked to see Olem galloping ahead, Tamas’s reins in his hands.

He twisted in his saddle to see the spire topple, the structure crumbling as it fell. Black basalt blocks the size of oxen tumbled across Elections Square. The tip of the spire smashed through the balcony and ripped through the front of the People’s Court.

Tamas jerked his reins from Olem’s hands and pulled up, whirling toward the destruction. “Taniel!”

He threw his arms up to protect his face as the dust cloud enveloped him.

CHAPTER 49

Inside, inside!” Taniel yelled, grabbing Ricard’s delegates and advisers and shoving them through the balcony door into the office. “Run!”

A female voice screamed, “Ricard!” and Taniel turned to see Adro’s First Minister gaping at the black spire as it plummeted toward him. Taniel dashed across the balcony, snatched Ricard by the shoulders, and lifted him bodily, plowing both of them through the glass of the balcony window and into the office behind it. They landed in a heap among a shower of glass. Taniel rolled them both across the floor to get farther away from the window, looking up in time to see the black stone slam through the balcony where they’d just been standing. The air erupted into a blast of plaster dust.

Taniel felt a surge of sorcery so close it tickled the back of his neck, and he threw Ricard off of him. He leapt to his feet, sword in hand, only to find Bo standing near the office fireplace with his fake leg braced, hands outstretched.

“Taniel,” Nila said. “You should move.”

Taniel looked around, then up, to find the roof above him split by the spire’s capstone, a black chunk of basalt the size of a small house suspended just above his head. Ricard was on his feet now and Taniel shoved him back, out of the way.

Bo grunted, and rolled his gloved fingers. The stone lifted and was flung out into Elections Square.

Ricard brushed himself off. “There are people down there!”

“People up here, too, and I wasn’t gonna hold that very long,” Bo said.

Ricard seemed to think better about arguing with Bo and instead called for Fell. “Is everyone safe?”

“I think so.” Adamat’s voice came out of the gloom of the dust.

“Downstairs, quickly,” Ricard said. “There will be people trapped beneath the rubble. Dear Adom, what the pit happened? Was that an accident?”

Taniel followed Ricard out into the hallway where the dust had begun to clear, and Adamat was pale as a ghost. “No,” Adamat said. “That was no accident. Brude’s other half was in Sablethorn.”