Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) by Erica Lindquist, Aron Christensen Page A

engine tape. Logan plucked one of the strings and carefully slid his metallic left hand up the neck to tighten it for the seventh time in an hour. He twisted too hard and the string snapped. Second one in an hour.
    Logan put the instrument aside and took a mylon tangle of spare strings from his pocket. He had bought every one of them that he could find at Poes Nor, but his supply was dwindling swiftly. Logan unwound the broken string and replaced it, then tried to thread the other end through the tiny hole in the tuning knob. The guitar slid in his grip and Logan's fingers tightened reflexively. The wood crunched in his cybernetic grip and one of the fret bars twanged as it snapped free. Logan reached into his pocket again.
    He had to glue the fret back into place before replacing the string. Logan was tempted to glue the tuning peg into place, too, but knew that guitars didn't work that way. He examined the battle-scarred instrument as he waited for the glue to dry. Despite damage done by his cybernetics, this guitar was still an improvement over his first.
    He had been seven years old, running from another gang of bullies. Young Logan Centra had flung himself into a trash bin to hide. The reek of rot and the sharp pain of something jutting into his back were far better than the beating that awaited him if the older boys found him. Only when their rough voices and rougher words had long since retreated did Logan finally dare to haul himself out of the bin and he finally saw what had been spearing his spine – the broken neck of a guitar. Little Logan had taken the instrument home and painstakingly repaired it. The guitar never sounded quite right, but he had loved it all the same. There was no money for lessons, but Logan watched every video he could find on the mainstream. The work was even more meticulous and difficult than the repairs, but Logan learned to play.
    A cop's income was better than a schoolboy's, though not by much. Logan's second guitar had not been new, either. It came to him second-hand, already dented in places and on its fourth set of strings. But it was a good instrument and Jess had painted a falcon over the largest stain in the varnish. It wasn't perfect either, but it was beautiful.
    Logan tilted the guitar up to catch the light, inspecting the replaced fret bar. It was hard to see much. A scattering of yellow and green indicators glowed on the Blue Phoenix's sensors and antennae, but they didn't help very much. Some glue had bubbled up around the thin line of metal. Logan picked away as much of it as he could with the tip of his knife and began to play again.
     
    "Two hundred eighty-eight days of light,
    Will be desired by a night…"
     
    Panna said that the Lay of Cavain was a piece of history, a story of how Cavain had conquered the pyrads and founded an empire that lasted over ten thousand years. A long and very, very proud history to which Maeve was now the heir.
    She had never wanted it. Logan knew that much. Maeve did not particularly like being a princess, much less a queen. But Panna was right – there was no other way and no one else who could do it. After one hundred centuries, the Arcadians were used to the rulership of Cavain's raven-haired descendants. Of course, that meant many of them would go to Xartasia, too.
    With the sun gone, the night grew quickly cold and Logan's fingers were going numb. He flexed the stiff knuckles and kept playing. His voice echoed quietly through the dark and dilapidated settlement below.
    Panna said that the Lay of Cavain was about more than just history. The Arcadians believed that their rulers were literally descended from the gods. According to the song, Cavain was the son of the sun goddess, Aes, and an unknown fairy man. Their divine blood entitled House Cavainna – the Nights, a'shae – to the respect and codified admiration from all.
    Maeve was a queen. Maybe she didn't think of herself as one yet, but Logan knew she would be a great queen. She