The light blinks off and I slump back in my chair, sighing deeply. Roc comes over.

“Not bad,” he says. “Maybe you won’t be as crappy a president as I expected.”

I don’t even have the energy to punch him for that comment. Public speaking takes a lot out of you. Just another thing I’ll have to get used to. “Any word from the generals?”

“I got a note that said two more have left and taken their troops with them.”

“What?” I say, my fists clenching.

“Just kidding,” Roc says, chuckling to himself. Now I do find it in me to punch him in the gut, soft enough that he’ll keep his breath but hard enough to tell him what I thought of his joke. “Ow! Okay, okay, the note said they’ve briefed their soldiers and that they’re ready. It also said the other generals are marching their armies to the border tunnels. Looks like they’re going to try to stop the moon and star dweller armies before they can get here.”

In other words, everything’s a huge mess, and I’m the one who caused it.

~~~

The day is half gone and the anticipation is killing me. The non-military citizens are hiding inside their beautiful flats and apartments and homes, peeking out their windows as we pass through the streets.

I’m at the head of one of the platoons from the portion of the army that I still command, marching toward one of the border tunnels that leads to the Moon Realm. General Marx is by my side in the back of a truck. We received a comm from the moon dwellers that they’re transporting several of their own platoons through this tunnel.

Evidently the enemy generals intercepted that comm, because even before we reach the cavern wall, I can hear the whisper-roar of a large crowd. When we round a bend with our force of at least five thousand soldiers strong, we see an ocean of darkness, standing stock still and going silent when they spot us.

The deserters have cast off the red uniforms that the army behind me wears, and replaced them with black clothes, as dark as oil.

Presumably on a command from one of their generals, they raise their guns, pointing them right at us. All around me, not needing a command from Marx or me, our soldiers mirror the enemy’s movements, clicking and shouldering their weapons. Maybe I should’ve ridden in the back like Marx suggested. No, that’s what my father would’ve done; or worse, he would’ve stayed in his palace fortress, safe while his men and women died for him.

If anyone must die, I’ll die with them.

A voice bellows from the black swarm, amplified by a bullhorn. “President Nailin. Before we kill each other, may I have a word?”

Even distorted by the electronic ting of the amplification device, the voice is recognizable. General Aboud.

Marx hands me a bullhorn. I raise it to my lips. “The time for talking is past. You have abandoned your posts, committed treason against your own people, your own government. Stand down or face the consequences.”

Before Aboud can respond, there’s a shout from further back, somewhere near the cavern wall, where a massive inter-Realm shipping tunnel sinks into the rock like a huge, black eye. “They’re coming!” More shouts, loud and wicked and almost excited, but even they’re not loud enough to drown out the echoes from the tunnel. Drumbeats. No, not drumbeats—feet marching in unison, spilling out of the tunnel mouth.

The Lower Realms have arrived.

~~~

There’s a flash of red fire and more screams. An explosion rocks the city, sending shards of black and red through the air amidst a thick fog of gray smoke.

A grenade. The moon and star dwellers are coming in firing.

Shots ring out and at first they’re distant, like Aboud’s soldiers are firing into the tunnel, but then they’re closer. A dozen soldiers cry out around us, the air spotted with tiny pink clouds. And then the cracks of weapons exploding are so loud it’s like they’re in my ears, as our force returns fire. Black-clothed soldiers fall, but are quickly replaced by the next line, illuminated by flashes of orange explosions from the muzzles of their weapons.

Marx pulls me off the truck, behind a shield of metal and rubber. My head is buzzing; I can’t hear properly. My heart is racing and I realize I’m clutching my own gun to my chest with two hands. I’ve fought plenty of times, but not like this. Not when I’m just one speck of dust in a mountain of dirt. Not when the enemy might kill me even if they’re not aiming at me.

I take a deep breath as Marx sticks his gun out the side of the vehicle and shoots. He doesn’t even look, just pulls the trigger, again and again and again, until his gun starts clicking. He withdraws his hand, pops out the spent cartridge, reloads.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he says. His voice sounds muffled, like he’s speaking underwater. He doesn’t wait for my response, just rolls to the side and starts shooting again, like it’s as simple as going out back to take a leak.

What am I doing? I’m no soldier. I know how to shoot, yeah, because my father made me spend hours on the range, but not when the enemy is a black wall, individual people as indiscernible from each other as a single ant atop an anthill.

This might not be what I wanted or what I expected—what did I expect, exactly?—but it’s what I made. So now I have to live with it, whether I like it or not.

Gritting my teeth, I roll to the side opposite from Marx and start shooting.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Adele

Every last instinct is urging me to run-run-run as far away from that voice as possible.

I run right at it, leaving my cart behind, and staying on my toes to ensure my approach is soundless. Down the hall past empty offices to the other side of the room, my feet carry me toward him.

Even as the voice gets louder, I wonder what I’m going to do when I reach him. Will I barge in, attack him, try to kill him on the spot? Presumably he has some form of security that will stop me. But I could try. Killing Lecter would end the war pretty quickly, and quickly is exactly what we need.

I slow my pace as the voice becomes softer and clearer, the sound slipping through a crack in a door to a corner conference room. There’s frosted glass on both inner sides so I can’t see a damn thing, but I can hear every word.

“We can’t find them, sir,” says a new voice. “It’s like they disappeared into the sand.”

“That’s the best excuse you have to offer me?” Lecter says, his voice rising once more. “That the desert dwellers have sunk into the sand?”

I creep close, right up to the door, stay to the left of the hinges, in case it opens. I might get lucky and have the chance to hide behind it.

“No, I’m just saying—”

“You’re just saying that you’ve failed to destroy the savages. Do you know what that means?” Lecter again, his tone once more full of the calmness he displayed during last evening’s announcement.

“Yes,” the man says.

“Do you?”

“It means they’re still out there?” the man says, like it’s a question.

“Wrong!” Lecter scoffs.

“They’re not still out there?”

“You idiot, of course they’re still out there, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that the people—my people—know that we’ve won, that we’ve done what we set out to do. Cleansed the earth so we can start over. What citizen of this good city is going to agree to ride out into the desert to be a part of the next city we construct if there are savages still running around somewhere?”

I’m pretty sure Lecter isn’t expecting an answer, but the man says, “No one.”