“I daresay you are madder than Mr. Silver could ever have lived to be! What nonsense is this, Bandor? Having you bring me here? To a nowhere slice of rail used not more than thrice a year, and that nearest occasion, by my reckoning, being no closer than three entire months away!”

  Selluss Farlief hugged his arms tight to his ashen chest, as if he could trap what little warmth remained before the wind tore it away. The ridge howled like a wounded beast, each gust a reminder of how far they were from anything resembling safety. He tried; tried desperately, not to replay the chain of idiotic decisions that had delivered him to this cliff-edge of madness.

  Where were they? At the terminal edge of sanity itself. Beyond the last gentle humps of Jyckson’s Slit amongst the merciless fangs of Verilia’s Crown. Selluss knew the slit well. Nothing lived out here. Nothing except the tracks, and the things that hunted along them.

  “We will be ravaged by mountain lira out here, for sure!”

  Bandor Rian only grinned, his green-and-orange striped fur rippling in the wind, his expression far too delighted for a creature with no weapon and no sense. “Do those walking birds scare you so?”

  What a question! Selluss dared a longing glance back down the slope to where his peddlecraft lay abandoned. No, sacrificed. Doomed to be lost forever where no juc of any right mind would ever think to find it.

  “Of course I am afraid. There are reasons our ancestors built these rail lines out here, so far from the comforts of the Grove. It’s because they knew no raiders would ever be so stupid as to be out here to threaten them.”

  “Precisely.” Bandor chuckled, his hands resting comfortably over that striped abdomen. “So why would the inspector ever think to come looking for you out here?”

  A very unconvincing point. “Better he would be to find me than the beaks of those birds! I should have gone to him! I should have pled my innocence at his feet!”

Bandor did not appear to be listening. “My friends will be here soon. Maybe then we can get you to shut up and stop being so damn gloomy.”

  Selluss turned away before panic could choke him. He walked ten paces, sat on the cold rock, and pressed his palms to his eyes. What have I done?

  Twenty whole minutes dragged by before the unlikely sound of Bandor’s honesty echoed off the mountains.

  It started like a distant thrum and quaver, slowly, slowly rising to a chug, chug, chug and swoosh. A train. An actual train navigating the depths of the slit.

Selluss spun his wide, unbelieving shock on the son of the village baker. “You promise we will be safe?”

  Bandor’s eyes were bluer than they had any right to be. “Oh, I guarantee it.” For a moment the train came into sight as it cut between the dips of the ranges. Soon, Selluss knew, it would ascend this very ridge he stood upon, and Bandor’s words might ring true.

  Or, he realised with sudden dread, the opposite could be equally likely. It hadn’t occurred to him until this very radical moment that there could have been any chance of Bandor being more right than mad. So, if his delusions were in fact based on truth, could he not as easily be all the madder for being right?

  He wanted to flee then. He wanted his legs to take him as quickly back down that slope to his poor peddlecraft as he could possibly move them. They didn’t so much as twitch. The traitorous limbs had become mere blocks of cinder beneath him, pinning him to the scene and the judgement of that train.

  The distant chug grew louder, a relentless heartbeat pounding through the valley’s bones.

  Selluss’ eyes flicked to Bandor, searching for any sign of reassurance, but found only that unsettling calm. The boy’s grin stretched wider, as if daring fate itself.

  “Do try to smile politely,” Bandor whispered to his well-pricked ears. “It is only the Lord General of all of Greydeep aboard that locomotive. You know the one. Baelin Toro, the old chum of the Emperor of Rhylis.” He stopped for a second as if to think it over. “Or is it he is the Emperor’s worst enemy? I never can remember. Certainly one of the closest in his circles, anyway.”

  The baker’s son’s hand came through to tussle his frozen mane. “I hope I mentioned that to you earlier, my friend. Oh, I didn’t. My bad, Selluss. Sorry, I will make it clearer for you now. Lord General Baelin Toro has been travelling all the way from Shy Springs in the heart of Greydeep Forest. He’s come all the way past Waterstone and skirted the edges of the Crown to come and talk to you. I do hope I’ve given you enough time to prepare for him because, oh look, there his train goes now. Do you see it, there at the bottom of the ridge, coming up to meet us?”

A short while later, Selluss and Bandor sat across from that very same general.

  The mountains were now moving shapes outside the windows of the small office carriage. He wasn’t a particularly tall juc, but he had a presence larger than the room. He had the dark, spotted coat of a Toro and a snout chiselled from stone. Though he wasn’t smiling, there was a sense of warmth radiating from him as he spoke. Most peculiar, though, were the words that made that conversation.

  He had started with a hearty welcoming and a formal round of introductions. The captain to his side had become a nameless face. He did, however, hear the names of the three daughters who waited quietly behind him.

  Tatem, Estara, and Nadi. All Sel’Toro’s, which was to say, adopted into the Toro family line. Two of the three were far more beautiful than any jucess Teir Grove had ever known. Rosy peach coats and big, expression full brown eyes. Tall, slender, long tailed. Chests made for mothering. They smiled with practiced grace.

  The third did not.

  The shortest stood between them, her expression a barely contained snarl. Her coarse brown mane could have vanished against tree bark. She was no blood relation to the others That much was obvious. And she did not want to be here.

  Selluss felt an unexpected kinship with her.

  Bandor had become all business on entering the train. He acted as if he had known these Toro’s his entire life, though as far as Selluss had thought he knew, the juc had never ventured north of Waterstone.

  The general offered deep thanks to the baker’s son for delivering what he called his “star guest.” It took Selluss several seconds to realise the title referred to him. Then Baelin Toro leaned forward, and the conversation shifted. Subtly at first, then with the weight of a closing trap.

  “How much do you care for your home, Mr. Farlief?”

  Selluss straightened. “It is everything to me, my lord.” He responded carefully, judging his every word, aware that any one of them might spring whatever snare lay hidden beneath this politeness.

 “So do I,” said Baelin, the ale he had thought to share sitting between them, yet untouched. “For the love of Imperial soil. Those are the words of our empire. I speak them often. As do we all. However, it must be as equally apparent to you as to I that we mock our own creed with the actions of our lives.”

  He paused, letting the accusation settle.

  “We have improved remarkably since those cancerous centuries of technological prowess that our ancestors had suffered before us. Leissius’ deindustrialization of Mars saved us from complete annihilation. Do you agree?”

  “I do, my lord.”

  Baelin Toro nodded and went on. “The climate change and Vhay almost destroyed us once. We survived only through preservation and luck. Yet what we have done for ourselves has only delayed our end. We are creatures of curiosity, Mr. Farlief. Curiosity and habit—those are our curses. It is in our blood to develop and produce. And I’m afraid while juc kind keeps tail to soil, Mars will forever be in a state of peril.”

  “It cannot be,” Selluss whispered, a shiver running through him.

  “Though it is.” Baelin shrugged. “Both empires are guilty. Ghittana and Rhylis. We are killing the very world we claim to love.” He reached down into the desk’s drawers and produced a small sheet of parchment. The gesture was slow, deliberate, as if he were revealing a blade. “Yet there is something we can do about it.” He handed the sheet forward. “I present to you the Cressen.”

  Bandor accepted the parchment warily.

The Cressen of Departure

By Decree of the Emperor of Rhylis

For the continued preservation of the Realm of Mars and the survival of all juc kind, let the following words stand as law, sworn before the Moon Gods and enforced by Imperial authority.

________________________________________

In the first days of our Empire, Leissius, Lady Mother of Indil, First Empress and Saviour, decreed that the race of juc had reached the limits of its trust. She declared that we were no longer fit custodians of this world and, by her wisdom, instituted the Imperial New Order and the deindustrialization of Mars, that life itself might yet endure.

Yet the centuries that followed have made plain the failure of restraint.

The world continues its retreat before the advance of our making.

The land sickens, the seas withdraw, and the skies bear the scars of our ambition.

Let it be acknowledged without evasion or comfort:

so long as juc kind persists upon Mars, we remain a threat to its survival.

________________________________________

Therefore, in response to this unavoidable truth, the following mandates are hereby enacted:

1.         On the Relinquishment of Claim

All juc shall surrender all rights to land, estate, and territory.

All former bonds of family, title, and imperial privilege are hereby dissolved.

Henceforth, all juc shall pledge sole fealty to this Cressen, and to the survival of life beyond the self.

2.         On the Abandonment of Mars

Mars, the birthplace of our ancestors and the cradle of our histories, shall be returned to nature entire.

It shall never again be shaped, scarred, or subjugated by juc hand.

From this moment onward, Mars is no longer ours to defile.

3.         On the Great Departure

The future of juc kind shall be carried to the stars.

Through the recovery and sanctioned use of ancient technologies, vast carriers; hereafter designated Moonships. Have been constructed and prepared.

These vessels shall bear our race upon the Journey of a Thousand Generations, across the void to the distant planetary system of Dies Solaris.

4.         On Compliance

All juc, save for a final male servicing contingent appointed by Imperial directive, shall partake in this migration.

No defiance shall be tolerated.

No exemption shall be granted.

This decree shall be enforced without exception, delay, or mercy.

________________________________________

This Cressen is not issued in cruelty, nor in conquest, but in necessity.

What we abandon today preserves all tomorrows.

For the love of Imperial soil.

Signed,

Hahn

Emperor of Rhylis

Baelin Toro

Lord General

Selluss sat staring at the words for what felt like an eternity. “Leave Mars,” he spoke at last.

  The lord general gave the simplest hint of an understanding bow in response.

  No one else in the carriage reacted. Not Bandor. Not the daughters. Not even the captain. Selluss felt suddenly, painfully alone.

  “We are to leave our homes?”

  Codd Silver flashed to mind like a warning.

  Baelin Toro smiled. Two of the daughters mirrored him, their expressions bright and expectant.

  “Are you a juc of the law, Selluss Farlief?”

  Selluss did not hesitate, “With all of my heart.”

  “Good. Then Mr. Rian indeed brought the right juc before me.”

  The teeth of said expectant trap felt all the closer to snapping shut. “What would you have of me, my lord?”

  “Sandstone.”

  The word was as familiar as his own name to Selluss. The ancestral home of the Farliefs. The castle guarding the Slit from the red death seeping from the bowl of the world.

  “I fear, my lord…” He could feel his heart beating in his skull. “Sandstone is not mine to give. My cousin, Count Wilfur Farlief, rules the White Gate. I... I have no strain of power over him.”

  “Yes, you do.” Baelin smiled knowingly. “Your father was the one meant to inherit Sandstone. Syn Farlief, I believe his name was, yes?”

  “His name was, my lord.” He could feel Bandor smirking from the seat next to him. “But he was always second in line. He had an older brother…”

  “Domelius Farlief,” Baelin finished. “I know. I served under him in my early years. Much older than your father. His son, Wilfur, fought beside me for many seasons. Older than I, even then.”

Baelin leaned back, reminiscing with a soldier’s fondness.

  “Your cousin and I spent many wintry nights bunkered together during the Darkwood Rebellion. He shared much with me. About himself, and more importantly, about his family.” He reached into another drawer and produced a second document, sliding it across the yinder tabletop. “He told me then, and I later confirmed, that his father, Domelius, was no Farlief at all.”

  Selluss snatched the parchment, eyes widening. Adoption papers. Old, brittle and undeniable.

  It couldn’t be true.

  Baelin gave him a few seconds to drown in the revelation before continuing.

  “Domelius was adopted so young that few alive remember. His colouring was close enough to pass. His marriage to another Farlief sealed the illusion. But he was not of the bloodline. Syn Farlief should have inherited Sandstone. I doubt he ever knew.”

  Selluss sat back, flabbergasted. That meant… that meant nothing. Two documents sat before him. One truth was that the castle of Sandstone belonged to him. The other stripping the same back away.

  His head spun.

  “We are here to assist you in claiming your birthright, Mr. Farlief,” Baelin said softly. “And then you must do something for us.”