Those certainties are gone now, replaced by confusion, hesitation, danger. If she can get the power back, she thinks, even for a moment, all will become clear.

If.

If.

If she can somehow get the power back.

MARTIAL LAW STILL IN FORCE

SURVIVING KEREMATHS DENOUNCE COUP FROM EXILE

By the time she gets to Caraqui, Aiah has almost talked herself out of it. Foolish, she’s decided, to leave her place in Jaspeer, foolish to run, foolish to think that the new government in Caraqui would give her a place. No Barkazils here—she will be even more a foreigner here than in Jaspeer. And Constantine will not give her anything—he did not love her—he had only used her for what she could give him, the keys to power, and could not possibly have any further interest in her.

But the police had been after her, the Plasm Authority creepers, and sooner or later they would have found something that would put her in prison. It was time to leave Jaspeer. In her mind she had already leaped a hundred borders—crossing them physically was almost an afterthought.

And once exiled, once that leap has been taken, where else is there to go?

Caraqui. Where the New City, consigned to ashes years ago, might undergo an unscheduled rebirth. Caraqui. Where her future waits. Assuming, of course, it waits anywhere.

LORDS OF THE NEW CITY BREAKS RECORDS THIRD SMASH WEEKEND FOR BIO-CHROMO

Gravity tugs at Aiah’s inner ear as the InterMet brakes, drops out of the system, comes with a hum of electromagnets to a stop at the platform. A banner splashed with red letters hangs against a bright mosaic on the back of the platform.

Welcome to Free Caraq… The last letters are obscured by the banner’s dangling upper corner, come loose and fallen across the message.