For the hereditary prince has less cause and less necessity to offend; hence it happens that he will be more loved; and unless extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him; and in the antiquity and duration of his rule the memories and motives that make for change are lost, for one change always leaves the toothing for another.

— UNKNOWN TEXT, UNKNOWN AUTHOR

I'D NEVER BEEN ON A SHIP BEFORE.

I watched the waves of cerulean crash against the sides of the incoming fleet with a tumultuous amount of gleeful anticipation. The centurions’ bodies had been discovered in the wee hours of the morning, and I had hidden away when suspicion had been cast on us.

Of the two days Delphine had mentioned, one had been spent in jail and the other extinguishing the resting Republica legionaries, but with the large amount of Princeblood troops on the deck of the Imperial vessels—their golden armor gleaming under the sun—I doubted that resistance would warrant any large actions.

Hopefully.

They came swiftly and orderly, their steps on the planks light as a feather and as airy as the Duchess’ voice. There was a collective beat, when the Republica citizens recognized the armor and a silence was hung in the air—a thick, tense knot of a thing—resembling the sound of a noose being tied to the gallows; the first sight of a familiar head on a pike.

Then the first stone was thrown.

“Imperia!”

A vaguely hoarse shout, and then it was chaos.

Crates were thrown to the floor and goods were shattered as citizens ran and shouted, most whipping their heads around their surroundings to look for the first step, the first order.

The ships’ anchors were dropped and a group of the soldiers marched on, an order shouted by a familiar voice.

“Cannons!”

Cannons?

Metal cylinders slid out of the sides of the ship, aiming it at the ships but not firing, as planks conjoined the Republica vessels and soldiers marched on the ships already docked, the Republica sailors being thrown overboard as Azareth’s famous harbors were steadily overthrown.

In the chaos, a woman in a yellow dress disembarked from the largest ship, a golden peacock embroidered on the waving flag as Delphine waved at me. “Yoohoo! Seraphina!”

Mercy and Alexandros were behind me as we stepped out from behind the crates we were technically hiding behind, and I waved back. “Delphine!”

I met her halfway in the harbor, some of the Princeblood circling broadly around us as we smiled at each other.

“I got made Grand Duchess,” I informed her brightly. “The centurions—at least the important ones—manning the city are all dead, the Cohorts that were supposed to here by today have been dispersed for a while, and yeah, that’s it.”

Delphine’s smile grew wider.

“Well, then, I suppose congratulations are in order, Your Highness. After we take over this city, of course.”

“Of course.” I let my eyes wander over the bloodbath around me as the Princeblood dealt with those who resisted. The ships were slowly conquered, and the formerly lazy Harbor City woke from its morning slumber and burned alight. There were shouts and there was blood shed, as bodies were thrown in the water—

It was just like what I had Thought.

But louder.

The screams were much, much louder.

“Imperia.” I heard the insult whispered as I walked in a shelter of Princeblood guards, and, I had to admit, it didn’t feel as good in my mouth as applause did. Was it the opposite—a storytime parallel, from my first step in the Colosseum to the road I walked today?

“Are you alright?” whispered Xandros, quietly.

I didn’t answer.

“You guys can go,” I said, lightly. “I can defend myself.”

Their stony faces didn’t twitch, as one of them spoke.

“We follow orders, Your Imperial Highness. We—”

“Get out,” I continued pleasantly, eyes roving over the people on the street. “Please.”

“I recommend following that direction when she’s still being nice, man,” Alexandros said, stepping in front of me. Mercy was already behind me, ready to get violent at a moment’s notice.

“We’re in public,” I admonished Xandros, putting on an amiable smile as I laid a hand on his shoulder. I met the Princeblood’s eyes. “Move. Backwards. I can defend myself. I won’t repeat myself a third time.”

They all did stiff bows and moved backwards, removing the circle around me and reforming a line behind me.

My Ability pricked on the right side. Knife. The offending projectile sailed out from a window, and the Princeblood tensed, leaping to take the blade for me, but I snatched it out of the air and took the momentum to twirl around their falling bodies.

Xandros and Mercy kept them from hitting the ground, the former by awkwardly holding out an arm and the latter by folding the guards into an elegant embrace.

“Are you alright?” I asked them, smiling.

There was anger underneath their placid expressions—and annoyance.

Why I was pissing them off, I didn’t know, but I looked in the window the knife had come from and saw a little girl.

She was angry.

Now that I looked at the blade, it was a fisherman’s knife—serrated at the ends, more for gutting fish than killing Imperials. I could’ve thrown it back, landed it in the girl’s eye, rendering her permanently blind—but that was a survival instinct. If it was in the Cage, I would’ve done it without a second thought. Now, though?

There was no one to hide from and everyone to chase.

Mercy’s rough-callused hands found the blade I was studying, peeling it from my grasp uncharacteristically gently.

“Where do I need to go?” I asked her evenly, my voice low from the spectators.

A beat.

“Wherever you want to,” she replied. Her eyes were firm. “I will follow.”

I sighed, at that, exhaling a breath I didn’t know I was holding and hardening a voice I didn’t know I was softening. “We'll go to Delphine's house, whichever one she commandeered.”

My two minions inclined their heads, and with that I turned to the Princeblood guards, who were still on the ground. I stretched out my two hands to the guards nearest to me, without lowering myself to the ground.

They accepted them, albeit begrudgingly, and the rest of them pulled themselves to the ground.

This wasn’t a kindness, but the people watching from their windows didn’t know that.

Soft, they would think.

We wanted them to move against us.

So we would crush them.

With more public gestures of weakness and strength, more invitations, the reality of us taking over the city would sink in within the day.

And there would be unrest.

They would come just where I wanted them we needed them.

The Republic was too orderly for rocks, I thought, or wasting food. I wasn’t thrown a knife again, but if looks could kill I’d have been brutally maimed, murdered, and fed to the crows a hundred steps ago.

From what I knew, the praetor Cecilia was the Patrician of Azareth, and since she was away, the Cohorts she left behind were in charge of the day-to-day governance of the Harbor City. Her trusted centurions had been appointed to various positions, all of them having the duty to patrol the walls personally—the inns and the people had spoken of a soldier’s pride and honor, and despicable Imperials with their machinations.

I wouldn’t pretend that I didn’t know the truth: the Republic was a brittle tree. If we managed to conquer it, it would not bend, it would break.

Its citizens were far too proud to be absorbed into the Empire, and we—the Throne, the seat itself—wouldn’t be able to handle the waves and waves of rebellions that would follow the war finishing.

I had reason to suspect that when the dust settled, when—not if—we won, Greta would offer what she gave them to begin with: a protectorate.

The war was a hammer. A stick.

Their leaders had refused to take the carrot, and their people had been given the stick.

But their people hadn’t even known the carrot existed—they hadn’t been aware, that their patricians had been given the option of signing a protectorate. From the information I’d gathered, all their people had been told was that the Cassia patrician had tried to assassinate the Emperor, diplomatic talks had failed due to the Imperials, and a war had been declared.

When this war was won, the only thing the Empire could do aside from using the Republicas’ alliance with the Forsaken, was bleed the land dry—and even then, when the land was dry, you couldn’t get rid of a country the way you could a person. You couldn’t get rid of a country of people who hated you for exploiting their resources.

The Republic had their honor and pride.

But how would you break a country’s honor?

The answer was that you couldn’t.

Shame couldn’t drive away patriotism—well, patriotism wasn’t the problem here, blind patriotism was. Being proud of your country while being blind to its faults—patriotism, at the end of the day, would get you nowhere if you weren’t willing to see the flaws in your country and take a step towards changing it.

But was it hypocritical, to inform them that their country was corrupt and rotting, when the Empire was the very same?

Likely.

“Greta would find a way.”

That was what I had been repeating to myself, but I saw the options in front of me.

Her giving the Republic the protectorate offer after the war without sufficiently pressuring them before it, would make them unappreciative. They would see it as a coward’s way out, and if Greta let them keep their way of governing everything would happen all over again.

Even though the Empire’s rebellions had been sufficiently quashed, there would come another day, another fight, another reign.

You’re thinking too much.

I liked to think that the thought lasted longer than it actually did, that my paranoia lost to so-called rationality.

It didn’t.

I stepped into the patrician’s manor Delphine had commandeered, arriving to people snapping to attention and bowing accordingly.

I was led to the main parlor, where I was told the Duchess was taking her tea.

She looked up from her cup—which I had no doubt was relocated from the cupboard behind her—and smiled. Her fan was nowhere in sight, so the lower half of her face was in view, painted lips curling at a wryer angle than I’d liked as she gazed at the dominos she’d undoubtedly set up.

“You know now,” she noted. “Well, that makes things easier.”

“I would ask how, if I didn’t know you were going to answer evasively,” I replied, seating myself across from her with a grin.

“See, you know me so well now, dear Grand Duchess,” returned the other, extending a gloved hand out towards the dominoes. She placed a finger on the first one, wriggling it back and forth tantalizing close to the rest of the line. “But,” Delphine continued, “if you must know, it’s your shoulders.” She nodded towards mine.

I looked at them. I’d always had good posture, with my etiquette training. I let an incredulous smile rest on my lips as I raised my eyebrows.

“Come on. Don’t make me ask ‘what about them?’, dear Duchess.”

The other giggled.

“There’s a heavier weight on them,” she responded, before leaning forward conspiratorially while lowering her voice to a whisper. “Like you’re carrying the world.”

I let my eyes drift to hers, and it was surprisingly hard to keep my blinks steady.

She knows a lot of things she doesn’t, this one, mused my Ability.

I bit back a yeah, no shit.

I leaned forward as well, a strange impulse as there was no spoken challenge.

“Then I must be stronger than Atlas,” I replied, stage whispering.

The Duchess didn’t pull back either, her lips laughing right from their position centimeters away from mine. The air wasn’t thick with tension, like I expected it to be—she withdrew like we were two friends sharing a joke, and the silence was comfortable.

She was strangely like Josephine, I thought. Good at putting people at ease.

Dangerous.

“It might’ve been a mistake, giving free rein to Anaxeres,” said the woman, cheerfully, returning to her original position. “He’s— how do you say this kindly? An absolute lunatic. And not the good kind. Or maybe half the good kind, who knows.” She sipped her tea. “You should write him and ask him how he’s doing.”

My gut told me to listen to her.

But obviously trusting her would be a mistake.

I smiled. “I will,” I promised. I nodded towards the dominoes. “I’d have thought one of them would’ve fallen by now, though.”

Delphine giggled. “They have. I was just waiting for you to do the honors, dear Grand Duchess.” She gestured towards the tiles offhandedly, but interest glimmered in her gaze. “Please.”

I stared at the first one in front of me. These dominoes were different from the first ones, onyx wood marked with pale ink. They were arranged intricately, standing to attention like a line of neat soldiers in a spiral. I reached out towards the one that caught my eye, and rested my finger on the top of it.

With a light, unassuming push, the first one fell.

It was brisk, the rest of the dominoes falling. They collided and tilted, a cacophony of clinking against the table resounding in the silence.

The smile spoke volumes, as the Duchess wordlessly leaned forward and plucked the first domino with one hand and used the other to peel mine open. The tile landed on my palm tauntingly.

I masked it with my fingers once again.

Cyrus thought he was fairly articulate, but he had no idea how he’d just taken over a city.

It was probably because he was the one with the Godly Ability.

Perhaps that had helped, just a bit.

“Bellum.”

The Halgroves’ fief was near here, a bit west of Bellum. He’d been in Bellum, a refuge for a Dayhept or two before clambering across the border and seeking refuge in Notus, homeless, penniless, and powerless. But he was back now, Prince and arguably not powerless.

He would burn his family’s legacy to the ground and pillage it before shitting on his ancestor’s graves.

The thought helped him as he finished signing off on that last piece of paperwork.

The capital looked just like he remembered, Marianus thought. It just felt different. Like it was being balanced on the tip of a blade and the knife had already drawn blood but the city hadn’t collapsed to the floor just yet.

Maybe it was just him.

Probably.

He tugged on his collar. It was humid, in his aunt’s house (technically not his aunt, really, but he’d called her that for so long it felt strange calling her otherwise). Also technically not in the house because they were outside in the garden, but he digressed.

Of course, Claudia remained unperturbed, watering her gardenias. Or were those rhododendrons? He didn’t know.

The former centurion cleared his throat. “How are you finding the gardening supplies, Aunt Claudia?”

The other hummed. “Ah, you mean the watering cans or the Imperial spies? In the second case, they’re very professional. I’ve seen much worse, I assure you.”

Marianus choked on his own spit. “Excuse me?”

Immediately some form of panic clawed at him as his kind-of-aunt turned around and looked at him calmly, with that feathery smile she always wore. “What, you didn’t think I’d notice? Really, Gaius?” she asked, a strange glint to her eyes. “I grew up like you did. Although, I suppose I’m not the same person I was before.” She sighed nostalgically, gazing off at something that wasn’t there, before turning back to her gardenias.

“I can’t say I approve of the business,” she said, striking fear into Marianus’ heart, “but I won’t tell.”

The garden became a lot more oppressive. “Why?” He could only get the one word out before Claudia looked back, casually.

“I hate your uncle.” She smiled. “He’s a monster. He deserves to be burned under the pyre of this sickening country he fights for.” Humming casually under her breath as if the revelation was nothing more than a comment on the weather, the Hadrianus’ formerly prized daughter ran her fingers over the spout of her new watering can, staring off into nowhere before she was seemingly brought back to reality by Marianus’ next question.

“How?”

Claudia’s eyes flickered to Marianus. Her gaze was hollow, the same way it had always been, but instead of being fractured into pieces it was more whole than before. Her words now carried a strange amount of weight that pressured Marianus more than he’d been by the patricians he’d met, and that was saying something.

“He let me be tortured, Gaius,” she said, enunciating the words slowly. “He hesitated. He didn’t rescue me. I wasn’t his duty.” The words were light, but brittle. “I can’t tell this to Marius, of course. But Amadeus...I love him, I hate him, I fear him—sometimes it’s all three, sometimes it’s nothing, but it is there.” Claudia’s smile broke, just for a bit. “Amadeus and Marius look so alike, sometimes. I don’t know how I feel about that.”

The former centurion swallowed, slowly.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Aunt Claudia. I—” his voice broke. “I betrayed them, you, and I—”

The chains were back again.

Claudia just shook her head. “Don’t despair, Marius,” she chided, her voice firmer. “You know what your father thinks about hesitating.”

She was repeating lines, lines that made sense but didn’t, but all Marianus could feel was that ever-present guilt, that crushing burden, and it felt like he would break.

The gardening patrician’s daughter softened her voice.

“Soldiers bow, Marius. But they do not break. And kings? They bow to no one.”

The former centurion’s voice was small. “I smuggled Imperial spies through your estate to kill your husband. I—”

“Are you a king, or a soldier?” asked Claudia calmly. She still looked fragile like she always did, but her bearing was regal. “My father, the old monster, once asked me a question: ‘If I asked you to bow to me for forgiveness right now, would you?’”

Marianus looked at his aunt’s eyes.

He would.

This soul-crushing burden felt like it would drive him to do anything, he—

“There is nothing wrong with being a soldier,” said the woman. “But, during the days I was held captive, I bowed many times, and I broke.” She looked a bit sad at the last words, but the melancholy was a wisp of a thing—fleeting, but present.

The former centurion shook his head. “The— t-the explosion’s tomorrow. It’s supposed to detonate, soon, and I-I sent a letter to Marius, so he wouldn’t be n-near the explosion, b-b-but the ballistae were smuggled in with y-your watering cans b-b-because I told them I w-wanted to give you a present, and—”

“Heed my moral, Mariu—Gaius,” she corrected herself after cutting in. The praetor’s mother gazed at her son’s brother-in-arms with nothing but a lesson.

“If all men were fated to be kings, there would be no men.”