The Forsaken Prince

"Jolyon, my man," Uldren Sov whispers, "you and I are going to take the Black Garden." "Oh yeah?" Jolyon Till the Rachis, famous among Crows, sniper, scout, and teller of tales, lies full-sprawl prone at Uldren's side. The scrubbed-down length of a Supremacy…

Their departure is meant to be secret. "Nobody will turn out," he assures Jol. "We'll slip away at zenith. By the time anyone catches on, we'll be aerobraking into Meridian Bay!" "You're insufferably cocky," Jol says, "and by the time we go, the whole city…

Give Uldren Sov the chance to torment a Guardian, and he will take it faster than you can shout, "Rasputin shot the Traveler," an opinion he lobs into Guardians' minds whenever he can. He hates the Traveler's horseflies the way anyone would hate an infant…

Radiolarian fluid splashes on the sand. "I got it," Jolyon radios, breathless, "but I'm pretty sure I also got made." Confirmation arrives in a fusillade of Cabal mortar shells, smart munitions that home in on the sound of the rifle shot. Usually the Cabal…

They crawl belly-down across the Martian desert like worms. Active camouflage ponchos break up their outlines. The roaming Cabal Harvesters growl on the horizon. For the last eight hours, Jolyon has been picking off Cabal infantry with his rifle, fleeing the…

Uldren and Jolyon huddle together, shivering beneath a canopy of white tongues. The rain pours down. Uldren can't tell where it comes from, exactly—somewhere up in the green mist? But the rain falls and falls; and he and Jolyon turn their heads up to drink,…

They track the last Cabal soldier from the place of carnage, onward through the flower fields, following the dribble of black oil that escapes the wounded Legionary's pressure tourniquet. Uldren moves with cold, vicious anger. War here in the Garden. Petty,…

"Mara, I picked you flowers." The Queen's retinue parts before Uldren. Astonished eyes flicker between his face, his wounds, and the potted flowers cupped in his hands. Some of them see a madman and reach for weapons before they remember that this is Uldren…

"The heart…" Uldren considers his sister's question. After a while his memories become confused. He was running through a thorny grove, and the branches and prickles were tearing at his cheeks. Huge wet fruits slapped against his shoulders and detonated in…

When he sees Jolyon in the arsenal, the realization of his own sheer unbelievable inconsiderate disgraceful boorishness makes Uldren gasp aloud in horror. "Hey," he calls, roughly. He's not sure how to apologize. He hasn't spoken to Jolyon since they returned…

She is gone. He lives now in a state of perpetual dread. He hates the future, because he fears it—he fears its emptiness, and he cannot imagine lonely eternity without her. As he staggers down the edge of a Martian chasm, he can feel the drop calling to him,…

When at last they drag him before the Kell, he has already been transformed by weeks of abuse, weeks of beatings and forced runs and animal-pen conditions, into a happy man. The mighty Kell of Kings tells him, clearly but not concisely, what it thinks of…

She's been silent too long. The whole solar system groans with the bruises of war. Uldren lives in constant suffering, a numb, scowling pain that drives him to Ether and worse distractions. He has never felt the Light this strong. He has never known pain so…

Just a whisper, just a brush of reassurance, just a quaver: …Uldren, my rescuer… He follows the voice. The violence of his thruster burns bruises his body. Down from the tumbling corvette to the harnessed asteroid below, where shattered Servitors and the…

He has come to the realization that it no longer matters if he doesn't know what to do or if he's doing the right thing. What matters is that he wants. If he wants to find Mara and save her, if he wants to do the right thing fiercely enough, if his intentions…

The Archon he saved is named Fikrul, and he worships Uldren like a father and a god. Uldren understands, now, what brought them together. They each see a future for their broken people… a future that cannot be obtained by looking back. Fikrul tells Uldren how…

"Honorless, at the end," gasps the former Kell of Kings. "Faithless and false. Your sister's will kept us from the Great Machine, Uldren Sov. She challenged the Wolves by right of noble lineage. But you… you skulk in shadows and filth. You hide behind your…

After that, Uldren and Fikrul part ways, for a time. Fikrul goes to his bloody work, reshaping Fallen society the way a hammer reshapes a spider—and drawing certain useful elements to him. Uldren resumes his lonely search for Mara. He remembers a time long…

"Admit it! Admit that you trapped my sister in the Dreaming City!" "I did not," Illyn says. "She is not trapped, Uldren. She is dead." Uldren knows the truth now, and he wants things to be right; he wants it so fiercely that he knows nothing he does in…

They take him in with a full strike team, and one of the snipers, joining Uldren and his jailers at the extraction point, looks him full in the eyes, like he's asking a question. A tall man with a long rifle. Narrow intelligent eyes. Handsome. Is he… did…