Chapter 17, Soto:The black citadel of Perdition was much older than the hundred years the Shoemakers had claimed it. Like many of the structures that dotted the shards, the builders and original purpose were lost in time. After all, stone lasted forever.
The world had changed since Soto wandered these halls as a child. The structure seemed less imposing, diminished. Perhaps the weight of time took the sheen off the building. Maybe it was the haze of distant memory that made the world seem brighter back then. If the structure hadn’t changed, Soto surely had.
The growing problems on the backward island of Shakopee proved a constant pain in his ass. The expedition should have been an easy one—land for the taking, on an island that had been under the Shoemaker’s thumb for generations.
Not o
