Chapter Thirty-Eight: Marek

Exhausted recruits return to the Ravening compound. Marek finds Jeru in his room, caught pilfering sweets, and presses him about Sefa. Jeru shares a lead: an aged noble, Heilan Huz, claimed a lap girl matching Sefa, who was then kept by Sultana Vaida at Lukub’s Ivory Palace. Marek reels but clings to the hope Sefa escaped.

Marek trades information, giving Jeru a cuff link he found in the Shinawy matriarch’s wardrobe bearing an Orbanian three-sun sigil. Jeru orders Marek to prepare to travel with recruits bound for Lukub at dawn, hinting Sefa may no longer be in the palace. Marek confronts his Nizahlan identity, choosing resolve over shame.

At Fareed Mill, hundreds gather as Jeru moves to arrest Section Leader Sulor for taking bribes to hide nobles’ children by conscripting ineligible lower villagers under false names. Sulor invokes the ancient rite Fortune by Four. Jeru removes his guardsman pin, signaling a grave breach to pursue justice.

In the duel, Sulor wields a massive sword while Jeru evades, then is wounded across the chest. As Sulor moves to finish him, Jeru springs up and drives a dagger through Sulor’s throat, killing him. He salutes Marek amid a roaring crowd that celebrates the tyrant’s fall.

Despite the acclaim, Jeru looks to Sulor’s body with dread, anticipating the consequences of defying his command to end the conscription corruption. Departure for Lukub—and the search for Sefa—now presses with higher stakes.