Heroes Die: A Fantasy Novel (Acts of Caine Book 1)

by Matthew Woodring Stover

While the portion of the guard’s brain that handles signal processing still struggles to assimilate the concept of the disembodied head of his king, I skip out into the service passage; I have two seconds, maybe more, before Smartguard there can use his mind for anything beyond saying, “Huh?”

“Killing’s simpler,” Caine said, with a thin laugh that tried to sound hearty. “You do it, it’s done, it’s over. A lie is like a pet—you have to take care of it, or it’ll turn on you and bite you on the ass.”

So maybe they get their wish, all those executives who put me here. Maybe there’s nothing left for me but revenge. The weight of days presses me down like I’m slowly being flattened under God’s own millstone. I slide down the wall to sit on the floor; I search within the sick emptiness in my guts, looking for my anger. If I can recover the rage that has always lived there, it’ll put enough strength back into my legs that I can get up and walk again. But I find only ashes.