The majority of the citizens of the City of Vermillion loved the Emperor, but these people had filtered in from the outlying towns for one reason-they were hungry. Their protest at her Emperor’s presence was subdued they knew full well he’d been invited by the princes to rule Arkaym, their continent, but they needed someone to blame for their own misery. Falling sleet was cooling their anger and they huddled against the southern wall because they had nowhere else to go. Straining her preternatural senses as far as she could, Sorcha still found no tang of the unliving among them. However, there was certainly a good crowd of them perhaps five hundred dispossessed milled about in the snow-covered square. Under the gray and altered veil of her geist-Sight, the gathering of humans below her at the Vermillion Palace’s gate smelled of nothing more than desperation and dull resignation.

But it was her duty to remain alert for both, so she closed her eyes and let her Center fall away. A riot was almost as unlikely as an unliving attack. Deacon Sorcha Faris breathed out the last smoke from her cigar, twisted the remains against the stone parapet and sighed in boredom. Or perhaps that was only wishful thinking.

Geist by philippa ballantine