by Callie Bates
“Who’s out there?” I ask.
None of them answer. Horatius is leaning his head out the window, trying to spot our pursuit. The officer sitting next to him pulls a club from the floor; the one sitting beside me produces the pistol he keeps fondling. I smell gunpowder as he loads the pan.
“No weapons,” Horatius barks, leaning back in from the window. “The emperor-apparent has declared a cease-fire.”
“As if that dolt knows what to do against these Idaean filth!” the officer exclaims.
“Hold your tongue!” Horatius says. “That is the emperor-apparent you’re insulting. Do you want to be demoted?”
I feel the officer, stiff with anger, glance at me and away.
So Leontius’s cease-fire—and his regency—are not popular among the imperial guard. Perhaps not among the entire court. It doesn’t surprise me, but still unease tightens the back of my neck.
“The ‘Idaean filth’ are just as worthy of full citizenship as you are,” I say quietly.
“They attack us!” the officer bursts out. “You—they—attack their own masters! You—they—you whine about your rights when you live in the most prosperous empire in the world!”
Horatius leans forward. “Marcos, that is enough, or you will be disciplined for speaking out of turn.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“I would be interested in seeing your argument for why secondary citizens should not enjoy the rights of full citizenship,” I say. Horatius isn’t going to discipline me. “I can’t imagine it occupies any solid moral ground.”
“Lord Jahan…” the captain-general says.
“Another time.” I gesture to the window. “Tell me who’s out there.”
Horatius is silent, and I think he isn’t going to answer. The lights have finally faded into the distance, along with the shouting. Then he says, “A mob of one stripe or another. There’s a man called Felix Tzemines who keeps shouting about the magnificence of the Glorious Republic. It’ll be his crowd rioting. We’ve had to put them down with any means possible.”
“You mean violence,” I say flatly. It’s been days since I saw Felix. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me, but there’s a sick lurch in my stomach all the same.
“For the greater good of Ida and her citizens. Yes, I have had men shot. I have had them beaten. But it was my only recourse. I would never take action against any Paladisan, unless I were left with no choice.”
“You could choose to listen to their demands.”
“The demands of rabble, Lord Jahan? Why should I do that?”
I don’t answer. Is this what he’s said to Leontius, too? Is this how they all justify themselves, those men sitting up at Aexione?
Is this what Lees thinks? He’s summoned me, and I came, docile as a cow, thinking only about our friendship. But I don’t know what Leontius really believes. He certainly didn’t want anything to do with me when I tried to ally with him. Maybe he’ll attempt a truce, but he could equally have me thrown in irons. I think of how Augustus and Phaedra threatened him. Maybe he’ll punish me, to demonstrate his own strength.
I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.
* * *
—
WE REACH AEXIONE deep in the night. A faint, smokelike cloud clings to the crown of Mount Angelos. The town lies quiet, but inside the Grand Court torches are burning. The window muddies their light. Men shout outside. The coach stops with a hard rocking motion. It shivers as if someone’s pushing bodily into it. The officers exchange glances, but Horatius’s face just stays hard as flint. Does he know something we don’t? I feel too hot. Panicked. Even before the door is flung open, I know we’re not going to face a warm welcome.
Horatius clambers out before I can see anything but the glare of lanterns. Voices rumble. “—think you’re doing—”
One of the officers pulls out his pistol. I edge forward, trying to push myself out of the coach, but Horatius blocks the door. He stands on the flagstones, his hands held up. “I was acting on Prince Leontius’s orders! The emperor-apparent, I should—”
“Leontius Saranon is not your sovereign!” The speaker strikes Horatius across the face, and the old, battle-hardened general stumbles backward, into me.
I ease around him, blinking in the light. “If Leontius isn’t the sovereign, then who is?”
But the words dry up in my mouth. A practical thicket of witch hunters and imperial guards surround us, weapons bristling. Bells ring and stones hum. In spite of myself, I take a step back. But they’ve surrounded the coach. There’s no way out.
“Augustus Saranon is the rightful emperor of Paladis!” a guard shouts.
Behind me, Horatius bursts out, “Augustus? That viper? He’s no more emperor than—”
Someone reaches past me and wrenches Horatius forward, striking his head against the flagstones. I push the assailant off, pulling the general up. Blood blackens his face. An idea hits me. Maybe if we can get back into the coach, I can compress space. I nudge him toward the door, trying to shove him back in—
“Arrest these men! Send them to the Ochuroma!”
I know that voice. I spin to face Alcibiades Doukas, cutting through the crowd with brisk authority. He smiles faintly when he sees me. “Jahan Korakides. We meet again.”
Someone jostles behind him, pushing through the guards to the front. A man in military dress, its buttons so shiny they gleam in the dark. Augustus. Clearly he hasn’t seen actual battle. He bursts out laughing when he spots me. “It is Korakides! My brother’s a greater fool than I—”
I lunge for him. Two—three—four men seize me, but I don’t need my hands to do this. I reach for the bandolier around Alcibiades’s chest, urging it to clamp around his wrists like manacles. But without the power of the font, my magic slides off. Someone socks me in the gut. I double over, gasping, my vision blurring as I take a blow to the chin.
“The opium! Now!” Alcibiades barks.
Rough hands grasp the back of my head. I try to pass through, but it doesn’t matter because more are there. A knee rams into my gut. I double over and am wrenched back. Fingers force my jaw open. I’m struggling, flailing. I haven’t drunk opium since I was a boy, since Madiya burned holes in my memory. Since I staggered, half dead, to Aunt Cyra’s door. I struggle and struggle, but the bitter liquid slides down my throat. The glass bottle clanks against my teeth. I gag. But more spills in, and more, and I’m forced to swallow or choke on it. The world is spinning. Stone presses, cool, against my cheek. I’ve fallen. I need to get up. I need to stop them. But my limbs won’t obey me. The fog is creeping through my head, irresistible—
And then, like a candle, I wink out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I wake gasping, in a feverish panic. My mouth tastes bitter. My head pounds. It feels like a feat of supreme strength to peel open my eyelids.
I’m curled on my side on a hard shelf that passes for a bed. Shackles clamp my wrists and ankles, clattering when I shift. My limbs are numb, trembling. There’s a scrap of blanket under me. Dim light shines through a barred window set high in the wall. No idea what time it is, or how much time has passed. But I don’t need anyone to tell me where I am.
The Ochuroma. Alcibiades Doukas sent me here. He knows the truth about me. Augustus and Phaedra have seized power. I’m separated from everyone I love.
I can’t stop shivering. The shackles clank faintly.
I was dreaming about Madiya. I dreamed I was a boy and she gave me the opium, but I woke up in the middle of her operation and she was taking a scissors to my head, trying to cut out the parts she didn’t like. Then I wrestled her off and looked into her face, and it was my mother. My mother, whispering, “It’s for the best. It will keep you safe. I’ll keep you safe. Shh.” Then even as I screamed at her to stop, she plunged the shears into my skull.
The sob seem
s to wrench out of me. I can’t stop it. Can’t silence myself. I curl up, hugging my knees, and the low animal sounds rip out of my throat. My face is wet. I’m shaking and my stomach cramps, folding in on itself. The taste of opium lingers in the back of my throat. I want to shove it all away, into a deep part of me, but there’s nowhere to shove it anymore, I am raw and all my secrets are exposed, even the ones Madiya hid from me. And here I am in prison, and I don’t know what’s happened to Elanna and Tullea and Rayka and Lathiel and everyone on Solivetos Hill. I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it to the cisterns, to escape the city somehow. But where would they go? Could they find a ship to take them to Eren? Or can they hold out longer against the imperial troops?
And what’s become of Leontius? What did they do to him when they seized power?
I thought I’d failed when I couldn’t maintain my lies at the imperial court. When I thought Elanna had been executed. But somehow this is worse. I am in the Ochuroma, and I feel as if I’m already broken.
My throat is raw. I can’t sob anymore, though my damned eyes won’t stop leaking. Sweat plasters my linen shirt to my back. I was down to my shirtsleeves at Solivetos, and the cell is cold. So damned cold. If I had more opium, I could endure this—
No. I bolt upright. My head swims and the cramps knead my stomach. Bile rises in my throat. I’ve been here before: the shaking, the sweating, the nausea. Wishing for a simple tincture of laudanum to dull my mind. Even after six years, now that I’ve had a taste of it again, my body demands more.
Metal scrapes, and I startle, my heart thudding. But it’s only a bowl of runny porridge shoved through the bottom of the door. The idea of eating makes me want to vomit. Why should I try to, when I’ve failed so completely?
I fumble for the scar behind my ear. My knuckles, awkward in the manacles, bump over the ridge and I feel it as if for the first time. It’s old and knotted—not a clean cut, as if my body couldn’t bear to properly heal the wound. I reach for the memory Madiya took from me, the sight of Mother coming down those steps, the knife in her hand, the look on her face. Her calm; her composure. I’m going to save you, darling, she whispered to me, before she plunged the dagger into my head.
Perhaps it was a mercy that Madiya took those memories from us. Even if she did it for all the wrong reasons.
There’s a rattle: a key in the lock. I swing my legs down, though tremors still rack them. Two witch hunters tramp in. One steps in the porridge bowl, stumbles and curses. Porridge splatters everywhere.
“You should eat your breakfast!” he thunders at me.
A second one approaches and I control a startle. It’s Faverus. He looks drawn, almost careworn. He brushes past his companion to examine the witch stones embedded around my shelf. “Grand inquisitor said they didn’t affect him,” he mutters to his companion. “How’s that possible?”
The other witch hunter eyes me warily. “Just get him up.”
Faverus sighs and grabs at my shoulders. He won’t meet my gaze. A sheen of sweat glazes his forehead, the way I remember. He’s nervous again. “Come on, get up.”
I almost ask him what he’s so afraid of, but the other witch hunter is glaring at me. So I get up, stumbling as my numb feet hit the ground. The second witch hunter takes over, shoving me forward. I nearly go sprawling over the threshold. He yanks me up by the back of my shirt.
I shuffle down the hall, the metal clanking at my wrists and ankles. Can I break the shackles? I try to reach for a source of power, but there’s nothing. Just the humming witch stones, which seem to bounce away my attempt.
Fear pulses through me. I already knew the witch stones somehow repulse my sorcery. Perhaps, out in the open, I’m immune to the stones and bells, and even here I don’t feel any incipient madness. But perhaps the Ochuroma was designed to block a sorcerer from even using his power.
And I’m hollow from the opium. If they know about my old addiction, I have the feeling they could destroy me completely.
The witch hunters thrust me into a new chamber, empty except for a chair, a stool, and a lantern. They make a quick business of tying me to the chair. The rattle of chains is so loud I almost don’t hear the new arrival come in.
Alcibiades Doukas has the nerve to smile at me, as if we’ve met pleasantly over the gaming tables in the Gold Salon. I don’t return it. I note, with some satisfaction, that he looks exhausted. Dark marks lie under his eyes.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he says, and the others depart, Faverus sparing me a backward glance. Alcibiades takes up the stool and brings it in front of me so we sit almost eye-to-eye. It reminds me, of course, of our encounter at the palace. Only my mouth wasn’t so dry then, and I wasn’t so certain I’d lost everything.
“Break your chains,” Alcibiades says.
I glare at him. He must know I can’t obey this command.
Indeed, he smirks. “That’s the remarkable thing about the Ochuroma’s construction,” he says. “Even if one is…immune…to the stones, this place still blocks magic. I’ve been studying it for years, trying to understand how it works.”
“You must be a slow student, then,” I say hoarsely.
He laughs. “You still speak well. Better than our other prisoners. Of course, most of them are slowly going insane. But you will simply rot here, your mind intact, until Emperor Augustus and Empress Phaedra order your execution.”
“Are they marrying each other?” I ask. “That’s disgusting.”
“They are reigning together,” he snaps, then closes his mouth. Looks at me. Smiles. “But you will never see the outside world again, so what is that to you?”
I shrug. “It’s hardly my fault if Augustus and Phaedra want to breed stupid, incestuous babies who are even greater fools than the two of them.”
Alcibiades studies me. “You have a remarkable tongue on you, for someone bound by chains.”
“I have nothing left to lose.”
“Oh,” he says, “there’s always something left to lose. Dignity. A limb.” He raises an eyebrow when I don’t flinch. “All right, then. We certainly don’t need to hurt you. I have a proposition.” Rising, he unchains me from the chair with practiced ease. “Come along.”
I shuffle after him down the corridor, even though every instinct in my body tells me to turn back, to convince him to harm me after all. They must have Elanna, though I don’t know how they’d take her off Solivetos. It’s the only explanation—they have her, and they’re going to hurt her. They know I’ll do anything to keep her safe.
Alcibiades stops in front of a door, thrusting open the wooden cover of the grille. He nods with satisfaction. “Go on, look inside.”
I lean closer to the door, my blood pounding. If they harm a single hair on El’s head…
I freeze. My eyes have finally made sense of the dimness, of the figure chained to the wall, his eyes wide, his face vacant.
I thrust myself back from the door. “Leontius isn’t a sorcerer!”
“Really?” says Alcibiades, raising an eyebrow. “Then how did he make the Naiad Fountain erupt when we arrested him? He tried to drown us.”
My mind stutters. “But he—he—”
“I thought for certain you would know this secret, Lord Jahan. Well, well. Now you do.” He leans close. “Leontius Saranon is going to die. It’s your choice how much he suffers before he does.”
I swallow hard. I’m damned if I’ll ask Alcibiades Doukas what he wants.
He sighs. “I require some information.”
I just look at him.
“The emperor’s death,” he says. “It was…sudden. Unexpected, to say the least. Who killed him?”
I blink. “Sometimes men simply die, you know. Maybe his heart was rotten.”
“Ah,” Alcibiades says, “but we both know that it’s possible to kill a man without touching him.”
I stiffen. The hairs prickle on the back of my neck. Madiya told me that the ancient theurges could perform this magic. It doesn’t mean Alcibiades knows about Madiya, and what she forced Lathiel to do.
“Or so I’ve read,” he adds charmingly, and I relax a fraction. “If you didn’t do it yourself, I suspect you know who could. Was it the prince? Did he decide he hated his father so much he must murder him?”
But I’m thinking of Firmina Triciphes, with her brilliant smile and her barely controlled sorcery and her determination to return to Aexione. I’m thinking of how she made a prison collapse. Of how Bardas argued that we must cut off the head of the state to control the body.
Would Firmina murder her own husband? Would she do it deliberately, or by accident? I just can’t picture the Idaean Rose as a murderer.
But then, I didn’t imagine she was the one who half destroyed the Frourio, either. Madiya’s been experimenting on her. Perhaps this is why she forced Lathiel to kill those convicts. Perhaps it wasn’t just to learn how to murder witch hunters.
Alcibiades is watching me, his eyebrows rising. Some of my thoughts must be visible on my face.
“Leontius wouldn’t hurt anyone,” I manage.
“Is that so?” He tilts his head, then shrugs. He snaps his fingers, and Faverus and the other witch hunter launch themselves from an alcove I hadn’t noticed. “Cut off Leontius Saranon’s right hand.”
“No!” I cry out.
Alcibiades smirks.
“No one murdered the emperor,” I say. Except I can’t stop seeing Firmina Triciphes’s composed face. She said she needed to get to Aexione before Augustus and Phaedra did. And now that I think about it, she never told me she was going to persuade the emperor to change his mind. She just said she needed to see him.
If she did kill him, is it wrong? Alakaseus Saranon would have destroyed us. But I can’t shake the revulsion coiling in my gut.
