1 Chapter 1

1

Goosebumps rendered Genthry’s skin rough enough to sand wood. It was summer on Kindara, but that didn’t mean it was warm. It meant the air was cool and damp, instead of dry and frozen. Residents—humans—might limit themselves to two or three layers instead of four or more. Slaves got one, if any, regardless of their origins or body type.

Condemned prisoners got nothing. Why spend the money? It wasn’t like Genthry had a lot of shame left anyway.

He propped his back up against the moist stone wall and stared out the narrow window. A rosy line on the horizon hinted at the dawn of a new day. As much as Genthry hated to admit it, the colors looked sharper than they had any other time. They were brighter, too. At least whatever powers looked over dying men made sure he would go out with something nice to look at. Sunny days were rare enough on this rock.

He took a deep breath and reflected. His life hadn’t been long, as lives went. It had still been longer than he had any right to expect, especially once he killed the man pretending to own him. He’d been born a slave, and no man would claim ownership of him when his flesh was rendered to ash. He had, by his own actions and choices, freed scores of his fellow enslaved people. He’d helped to free hundreds more. When he was born, fate consigned him to an early death as some wealthy human’s plaything or possibly in a mine somewhere. Genthry had told fate where to stick it and carved his own path. He would still die young, but he would end them as a hero.

Okay, maybe he wouldn’t go down as a hero to the Republic. It was their judges who’d passed the death sentence on him, their laws that allowed his mother to be kidnapped and sold into slavery, and their machinery that would take his life in only a few short minutes. Still, Genthry knew millions whispered his name among themselves even now, associating him with freedom. His body would die, but his name was immortal.

It wasn’t exactly a consolation, but he’d take what he could get at this point.

He stretched as best the tiny space would allow. He’d watched as other condemned men struggled on their way to the scaffold. He sympathized. Here between himself and the walls, he could admit to a certain tremor in the middle of his stomach. He didn’t want to give his guards and killers the satisfaction of seeing his fear. If death was inevitable, he wanted to chill them with his sangfroid. And if an opportunity to escape presented itself, he wanted to have the energy to seize it. He didn’t have much hope on that score, but stranger things had happened. He hadn’t lasted as long as he had without being prepared.

His cell door slid open with a creak, the scent of rust making him recoil a little. One of the few good things about being scheduled to die so soon was that he would never have to see this cursed planet again. Everything decayed here, even the jail cells.

“Genthry?” The lead guard sounded bored. He probably was. They executed something like four men a day in this dump. The guards didn’t care about their crimes, or about their causes. They just wanted to do their jobs and go home. The Republic didn’t pay them much. Genthry had overheard this one talking. He had a second job serving meals to enslaved miners, for crying out loud. He was probably exhausted. “You’re up first today.”

Genthry presented his wrists for binding. The restraints they slapped onto his wrists were different than the ones they normally used, and that only made sense. The lead content in the standard-issue manacles would be too high for the execution to be efficient. They didn’t care about the pain caused to the condemned, but they had a schedule to keep to and they needed to keep things moving.

He wondered idly if these manacles would be any easier to break than the others.

“You going to fight us, Genthry?” the leader asked with a yawn.

“Nope.” Genthry ground his teeth together. “Let’s get it over with.”

“In a rush, are you?” Another guard snorted. “That’s a new one on me.”

“Is fighting going to do me any good?”

“No.”

“Then why bother?” He shrugged as best he could. “This prison isn’t so pretty I want to keep looking at it.”

“Yeah, but it’s the last thing you’re going to see.”

“But I’ll be dead. I won’t care.” The finality of that statement made Genthry’s stomach twist, but he kept his back straight and his head high.