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used it to suggest that the newest among them might harbor such a power, that it might be the reason they had no family, no home, and could not be trusted.
    â€œYou’ll see in time,” was Fo’s soft reply. “Tomorrow, I expect you at the Spine’s Keep. You have a lot to learn, Ayae. It may be that you are no more than a copper healer, but I doubt that. A Quor’lo does not brave Samuel Orlan’s shop for the cheapest of coin.”
    Turning, he stalked away, and for a moment, Ayae wanted to call out to him, to demand an explanation of his last words, but her attention was drawn to the bar that Fo’s hands had curled around. There, dented with a strength she did not have—did not know anyone to have—was the perfect impression of his fingers.

 
    THE CITY BENEATH

    As I grew older, none of the symbols I was taught as a child retained meaning. After death, the talismans of a god neither contained truth or moral lesson, neither comforted or protected. Instead, they became objects, relics that counted the existence of seventy-eight beings of divinity. Seventy-eight corpses.
    â€”Qian, The Godless

 
    1.
    Â 
    In the morning sun’s light, Mireea smoldered. From the edges of the Spine, from the closed yards of carpenters and smiths, from the empty mills, from the wide cobbled roads of industry that flourished so much before the markets had closed and left them silent and boarded up, mist rose. It was as if, buried deep within his tomb, Ger’s corpse had caught alight, and the flames were rising. It was a morbid thought and the exiled Baron of Kein tried to shake it off as he followed Sergeant Illaan Alahn and his squad of Mireean Guards along the street. The thought had too much potency this morning—especially with the charm-laced man, Zaifyr, beside him.
    They were headed toward the graveyard outside the city on Heast’s orders. As light began to flare in the morning, the Captain of the Spine, his hand held over his thigh where metal and flesh were welded painfully together, said, “With its throat cut and half its face burned away, it’ll be hard for whoever is controlling it to keep it upright. Whoever is possessing it has to draw from his or herself and lend it a little life so that it can function, and the worse condition that it is in, the more that is required to keep it alive.”
    â€œWhy won’t whoever’s in control just have dumped it?” Queila Meina asked.
    â€œIt takes time. You have to withdraw every little bit of yourself, or you’ll risk losing a part.”
    â€œPart?”
    â€œYour voice, your ability to move your left hand,” Zaifyr explained quietly. “Think of all the things you do. You have to pull each conscious awareness out, one by one.”
    â€œYou know a lot,” Essa muttered, thick hand scratching his stubble. “Ain’t no one curious to how a man learns this kind of thing?”
    Bueralan was, but he waited and watched as the other man shrugged. “Same way your captain does, I’d imagine,” he said.
    â€œFifteen years ago,” Heast answered, “I watched a witch in Faaisha possess a child that had died during the night. The body had been sold to her in the morning, a trade she was well known for among the poor. The noble who I was employed by at the time wanted to know what his rival was doing, and so he employed her. She had me walk half a mile with that thing in my grasp, listening to it—to her—whisper to me the entire time as I knocked, pretending to look for its parents. Finally, I begged with the lady of the rival house to look after the child while I went to work for the day. The next morning, I collected the child and the information. That witch was buried deep in the corpse for another day, getting herself out.” He looked intently at the man in half-burned clothing. “I remember that right?”
    â€œYou were there?” Queila