Chapter 25 · The Sona Outside the Wall

"They're not supposed to be here yet."

Vittal's voice cracked over the wall-walk, and that was the part that scared Rhys more than the fire on the horizon—Vittal never cracked.

"Loop nine, they hit at dawn. It's not even midnight."

"Loop's already broken." Rhys buckled the last strap on his vambrace with his teeth because his hands were shaking too hard to do it right. "Ethlin told us. The bell rang early. Everything's early now."

"Then get me numbers, Kaldane. Not philosophy."

Rhys didn't have numbers. He had a ledger shoved down the front of his jerkin that had gone from telling him who died and when to something worse, and he hadn't looked at it since the bell rang on its own three floors above his head.

He went up the north stair two at a time and found Sona already on the parapet, sword out, hair whipping loose from its braid, staring at something in the dark beyond the ditch.

She'd gone very, very still.

"Sona."

"Shut up." She didn't look at him. "Listen."

He listened. Under the horn-blasts and the running boots and somebody's dog barking itself hoarse in the yard below, there was a voice.