Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

“Odd, that. It’s as if she never did.”

Lindet snorted. “I’m leaving, Benjamin. You will stay here, and you will protect the coast from the Dynize. When I summon you, I expect you to have your armor and I expect you to have moved past this godstone nonsense. The stones will remain unrecovered until this war is won. Do you understand?” She turned on her heel and left the tower without waiting for an answer.

Styke leaned on the battlements, feeling tired, and watched the ships anchored out past the breakers. There were transports, ships of the line, commandeered merchantmen. It was, as he’d suspected, everything that Lindet had left in this part of the country. Now they crouched in the shadow of Starlight’s guns, knowing they were the only protection against the roving Dynize fleets.

Less than a minute had passed before he heard footsteps again. They belonged to Ibana, and she joined him at the battlements immediately and glanced out to sea before fixing him with a sidelong stare. “I passed Lindet on the way up here.”

“Yeah.”

“Sister, eh?”

“Yeah.” Styke didn’t really much feel like talking about it. The conversation was going to be a long one, and very uncomfortable.

To his surprise, all Ibana said was, “That explains a lot. So what’s our plan now?”

“Lindet has left me in charge of Starlight.”

“She wants to keep an eye on you.”

“That she does.”

“So what will you do?”

“She also told me where my armor is. There’s a vault seven miles from here. I want you and the lancers to head out immediately and fetch it.”

This got Ibana’s attention. A grin slowly spread across her face, and he could see a hungry look in her eye. “We have our armor back.”

“That we do. We’re going to wait until Lindet’s been gone for three days. Then we’re going to commandeer her fleet and invade Dynize. Sound good?”

Ibana straightened, a fierce grin on her face. “With our armor? That sounds wonderful.”

I have to start with thanks to my fantastic editor, Brit Hvide, and her guiding hand throughout the process of writing this book. Sequels are always tricky, and Brit stepped in as editor on the second book in a series without losing a beat. Thanks to my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, for her continuing support. She and her colleagues at Liza Dawson Associates help make sure I can keep writing for a living, which is one of the best gifts a guy can get!

Thanks to my wife, Michele. She sees every piece of mine before anyone else, and her fingerprints are all over the Powder Mage books. I couldn’t dream of writing them without her help.

My appreciation goes out to my beta-readers, Mark Lindberg, Joshua Mulligan, Sam Baskin, Wyatt Nevins, and Peter Keep. Thanks to all the awesome staff at Orbit, who continue to help me put out great books. And finally, thanks to all of you for reading and continuing to support me! I couldn’t do it without you!