Kaelen wiped his blade on the Silent King’s cloak. “They were half right,” he said. “It’s not the armor that’s mis. It’s the armor they’re wearing.”
The Brethren of the Ash had breached the outer wall—a tide of lanky, hollow-eyed figures wrapped in burnt cloaks. They moved with the jerky grace of puppets, and their swords drank light. The Citadel’s finest knights met them in the courtyard, silver and crimson, a blaze of glory that lasted three heartbeats. Then the first knight fell, his breastplate so ornate that the Brethren’s leader—a thing called the Silent King—simply reached through the decorative grille and pulled out his heart. misarmor
The Silent King turned. Its mask was smooth, white porcelain, save for two black pits for eyes. It scanned the courtyard, dismissing the fallen, the fleeing, the flailing. And then it saw Kaelen. Kaelen wiped his blade on the Silent King’s cloak