Chapter 10: Victory Day

The capital square held a hundred thousand people, and every one of them was facing the dais.

Banners hung from the white towers, and brass bands played on three sides.

On the stone platform in the center, under a canopy of pale gold, the Empress sat in her plain chair.

Beside her, on a velvet stand, lay the great medal.

It was a thick gold disc as wide as a man's palm, with a lump of clear gold crystal set in its heart.

"The Flame of Sere Station," Wystan murmured at Linus's elbow. "The Duke pulled it out of the wreck himself, they say. Proof that he was there."

"Proof that he was where?"

"At the center of the fire."

Linus said nothing.

He stood in the Marshal's shadow in a borrowed black coat, with his bare wrist on show.

Across the platform, Duke Cormac Lorne stood in white and gold, smiling at the crowd.

He raised one hand, and a hundred thousand voices cheered.

"Citizens of Kessar," the Empress said.

Her thin voice carried to the back of the square through the amplifiers.

"Seven years ago, the Marshal of our armies lay dying in a burning ship."

The crowd went quiet.

"A man ran into the fire and carried him out. He asked for nothing. Today we ask that he accept this."

The Duke bowed his head with great humility.

"Marshal Roark," the Empress said. "Pin it."

Ambrose stepped forward.

He took the medal from its velvet stand. His right hand was steady. His left, in its black glove, was beginning to glow.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Drone Who Claimed the Marshal from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.