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down easily to authority.
    “That is the reason the Enforcers police our streets. Yet even armed soldiers on every corner cannot fully keep the fiery spirit of Callastan’s people in check.”
    “I thought the Enforcers used fear and violence to dominate the lower classes,” Cassandra noted, recalling her lessons from the Monastery.
    “There is some truth in that,” Methodis admitted, “but in this city they are a necessary evil. Without them, the streets would run red with blood.
    “And as unpopular as they are, the Order is even more so,” he continued. “When word spread that the Pontiff’s followers were coming, the ranks of the Enforcers tripled overnight as the nobles and the underworld set aside their differences and banded together against a common foe.”
    “An inspiring tale,” Cassandra said grimly, “but in the end it won’t matter. Even together, they are no match for the Pontiff and her Inquisitors. Not with the armies of the rest of the Southlands at her back.”
    “That may be true,” the old man conceded. “But for now, the mere threat of resistance has kept the Order at bay. They are gathering outside the city; their numbers growing day by day. Yet so far they have not even dared to approach our walls.”
    Cassandra was puzzled by Yasmin’s strategy. Callastan was a port city; laying siege to it was futile if the Order couldn’t control the docks.
    What is she waiting for?
    You overestimate the Pontiff’s power,
Rexol told her.
Your mind is clouded by years of indoctrination inside the Monastery walls. The Order is not what it used to be.
    “Eventually their numbers will be enough that they will attack,” Methodis said, as if he were privy to her and Rexol’s private conversation. “But fortunately that day is not here yet.”
    “I have to leave before that day comes,” Cassandra insisted.
    “Then you need all the rest you can get right now,” he said, handing her the cup.
    Knowing he was right, Cassandra drank the murky liquid down as he began rewrapping her splints. It was bitter and so thick she felt it coating her tongue and throat, but there was no denying how effective it was: By the time the doctor was finished dressing her wounds, she was fast asleep.
    “Pay attention,”
Rexol admonished her,
“it is the only way you will learn…”

L IKE ALL THE Pontiff’s senses, her olfactory awareness was acutely heightened. Even camped a mile beyond the town walls, Yasmin could still smell the foul stench of Callastan on the night breeze blowing in from the sea. With each breath the stink of docks and sewers wafted up into her nostrils, mingling with the putrid stench of the vile city’s moral corruption.
    Sitting cross-legged in the middle of her otherwise empty tent, she couldn’t help but think about how much she longed for another smell: the acrid aroma of smoke and fire as the Southlands’ greatest abomination went up in flames. The city had long been a thorn in the Order’s side, its defiance of their official proclamations teetering on the verge of open rebellion for decades.
    Nazir should have wiped this place from the map long ago.
    Now the task fell to her. Unlike her predecessor, however, the Order she ruled over was a tattered remnant of what it once had been. The attack on the Monastery had wiped out well over half their numbers. In the months since then, too many others had been lost or scattered in the hunt for the Crown and the other Talismans.
    She no longer had the numbers simply to overrun the defenses of the city, not without help. The new Purge had brought others into the fold: soldiers and mercenaries under the command of nobles who were loyal to the cause. Many—but not nearly all—of these had joined her here on the plains just outside Callastan over the past week, their tents and campfires spreading in a long, thin line that ran parallel to the city walls. Each day more soldiers arrived from the Southlands, trickling in to slowly swell the ranks of