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Until here I am, Seda thought. The army had gone in first, of course, and her airship had departed Capitas only after the expedition leaders had confirmed their control of the city. Such control had come about swiftly, for there had been no resistance from the Khanaphir, and she had her own good reasons to be glad about that.

Her reasons presented to her advisers for this expedition had been lies – just as much lies as Brugan’s dissembling about why he had sent men here originally. The Engineers’ quest here was a useful sideline, one that she did not understand but was prepared to indulge.

She had come to Khanaphes for her own private reasons. She had come here seeking power.

‘It’s a woman!’

For a moment Praeda held the telescope steady, expecting the honour guard and dignitary that had disembarked from the airship to be merely some vanguard for an even greater potentate, but it was plain that this slight-framed girl who had stepped down the ramp from the gondola was the whole and purpose of what was going on. She seemed a mere slip of a Wasp-kinden female, for all that she was dressed with an elegance any Spider might envy. She was clearly precious to the Empire, though, for as well as a dozen Sentinels in the heaviest armour, and a further dozen of the Imperial Light Airborne, Praeda’s glass identified the four warriors closest to the woman as Mantis-kinden, decked out in black and gold as though they had surrendered a thousand years of heritage in exchange for Empire coin.

‘What is so remarkable about that?’ rumbled her companion.

Praeda Rakespear gave him a quizzical look, but then nodded. ‘I suppose you’ve no reason to know of the shameful way in which the Empire treats its womenfolk.’

‘She must be the Empress,’ Amnon declared. He was squinting at the far spectacle from the rooftop they had commandeered, hidden in the shadow of a row of statuary.

Praeda laughed harshly. ‘Oh, of course,’ she said sarcastically. ‘First place she’d stop, here, on her journey to the moon.’

‘Why not? The Dominion of Khanaphes has influence yet,’ Amnon said, obviously chastened but being stubborn. In his mind, no doubt, his home city did still have some shred of the power that it once had wielded, a thousand years ago and more.

From force of long habit, Praeda opened her mouth to make some scathing comment, and stopped herself when she remembered that Amnon sometimes took her vitriol to heart. Her glass was still trained on the mysterious Wasp woman, waiting for some clue as to her identity. The old First Minister was bowing to her, but then the Khanaphir bowed a great deal, even their leaders.

The Wasp woman reached out and laid a hand on the First Minister’s forehead, and Praeda’s reaction was, She’s going to kill him! because she knew that female Wasps could also use that stinging Art of theirs. The gesture was not a physical attack, but it seemed an attack nonetheless. Praeda watched the old Beetle man drop to his knees, swiftly enough for her to fear that he might not easily get up again. After a moment of uncertainty, the other Ministers present began following suit. The woman watched them with a proud air.

A proprietorial air.

‘Fire and forge,’ Praeda murmured, finding her view through the telescope suddenly quivering. ‘Amnon, I’m a fool, and I should listen to you, because you see things more clearly than I sometimes. I think you’re right. I think it’s her.’

Amnon grunted, happy at the validation, and reached for the glass. He took it clumsily, but soon had it to his eye, twisting its sections to bring the view into focus. He would never make an artificer, but he had taken surprisingly swiftly to many of Collegium’s innovations. His reverence towards the Masters of Khanaphes, pounded into him as a child, had been extended into a kindred awe of machines which Praeda, an artificer herself, found endearing and not a little gratifying.

‘If only I had a snapbow,’ Praeda breathed.

‘I had not thought you had such unfond memories of my home that you would wish to complete its ruin,