And I stand here today chained and broken, above the place they claim as Heaven; and beseeched the Gods to take me.

They held me in their hands and breathed life into me.

‘Child,’ they said. ‘You are far too heavy. Your sins chain you to the ground. You cannot fly here.’

'Are the gates open to only those with wings?' I asked, and they answered.

‘Leave behind your heart, and your stained soul,’ they said, ‘and you will have wings.’

I did not know what to say, and so they kissed me.

‘Farewell,’ they said, and let me plummet downwards, into the abyss.

And I lay here today, chained and broken and dying—Forsaken by the Gods, in the place they condemn as Hell.

—PROMETHEUS GAVE US THE HUMAN SOUL, PIECE OF VISAVAN LITERATURE

DAMOKLES ANTHINON, the current Duke of Boreas, stood over a text. It was a book bound with cracking leather, tied together with loose but deft knots instead of neat stitches—the pages were yellowed and curved but strangely shaped, and the Duke (from the young, ripe age of when he’d learned how to read all the tomes in the Athenaeum of Boreas) had suspected that it’d originally been a scroll.

He could speak about a lot of things—how the world of academia in the Empire was usually minimized to the fields of history, religious study, and other sciences instead of technological innovation, for one; the need for academic institutions to become more integrated into non-scholarly pathways, for another; but it was arguably all useless knowledge.

Arguably.

The Duke looked at the book in front of him.

The Myth of the First Emperor and Speculations, it said. The author of it was unknown, but much mystery shrouded them. Damokles had heard theories about how Speculations was written by the same person as An Allegory—he didn’t take out of the equation, per se (you could never really take anything out of the equation when it came to Imperial history), but since the timeframes of each were unknown, theories could only rely on estimates.

Παν. Pan.

It was an incomplete word (not even a word, technically a prefix): an incomplete name, leftovers from history.

If you thought Myth, your mind would drift to Pandora, of course. Πανδώρα. Or πανάκεια, panacea, if you relied on sound and ignored the first letter. Παν itself came from πας—pas, ‘whole’—so it wouldn’t be so farfetched that it could mean something related. All-seeing, all-encompassing—Παν was used in all of them. He had his own theories, of course: Speculations covered, true to its name, previous speculations as well as unusual rumors about the First Emperor themselves.

(It was written strangely, Damokles had thought when he’d first read it. As if the person had firsthand contact with the First Emperor.)

All-knowing.

His theory of their name being Pantognóstis—παντογνώστης—still remained. Was it even their name or Ability name? If—

“Your Excellency.”

The Wraith cut in.

“What?” Damokles’ voice adopted a flat tone at being interrupted. He hadn’t even opened the damn book yet, for Gods’ sake.

The Captain of the Winterdeath hesitated.

“They’re still at it. The letters—they keep coming in.”

Damokles pressed his lips together.

“And you’re sure you sent away the messenger.”

The other looked uneasy.

“I tried, sir, but one of them just said my rank wasn’t high enough to go against the word of the Marquessate...whatever that means.”

Damokles’ lips twisted.

“Well, look who’s wising up,” the scholar muttered, pushing his glasses up against his nose. “They really are jittery. As if it isn’t their fault their own heads are on the line.” The Duke looked up from the book and up at the ceiling. Murals of the Anemoi—and Boreas himself, with Calais and Zetes as well as Cleopatra and Chione, carved in ice and frightening mosaic.

It was cold inside—but wasn’t it always?

“What about the investigation into Victoria? Has the Rhianite keepers’ stances changed?”

The silence before the answer was answer enough, Damokles thought.

“Victoria is only one state under the High King’s command, apparently,” said the Wraith with an obvious scowl. “With every letter, they come up with a new excuse. The last time we wrote, they said since the situation was already over, we shouldn’t be complaining. Fucking pissants.”

They looked like they wanted to spit against the ground, but it was too expensive to soil.

“Even when we said that a member of the Imperial family was dead because of them…” they clutched their spear tight, as they hesitated to ask something. “Your letter was strongly worded, Your Excellency, but with all due respect...why aren’t we doing anything else?”

Geoffrey—

That intolerable asshat of a High King—

Damokles sighed. “We can’t afford to,” he replied, voice quieting. “Apparently our investigations into the Victorian side of the Platin Bandit have been taken as inaction in the current war. Look at the Williamses now, trying to sway us—they’re so worried that their head’s going to be on the chopping block, they’ve forgotten the fact they were silent when my mothers died.” The man’s hand curled into an uncharacteristically vehement fist. “‘Bury the hatchet’?” he murmured, voice a whisper. “Who remembers longer, the tree or the axe?”

A long silence.

“Deny all of their requests,” the Duke continued, the sharp edge now gone. “And send a letter to that new Duke of Inevita—Lazarus, his name was?—about the fact that they’re trying to pull over on him.” A pause. “And the Empress, too—but I’ll write that one personally.”

(The Duke couldn’t say that he agreed completely with the way that the Empress was doing things, but at least now some of the nobility were showing their true colors—for the second time.)

He wasn’t above asking the Empress to not go overboard on the nobility-culling bit, but he had been a bit more inactive than usual. The Rhianite bandits were gone, but platin trade hadn’t resumed because of the war. Ever since the Library of Alexandria had burned down, Anthinon’s academicians weren’t giving the Duke a break: do something, the letters kept saying. Make the Athenaeum into an academic institution. We need Analysts to continue their education.

Damokles reached forward for the book, tucking it under his arm as he turned his back on the others. He’d be back to Iraklidis and his war stratagems again if the Empress called on Boreas again, he thought to himself as he nodded for the Wraith to follow him out. Even though the Stronghold itself would be one of the last to fall to the Republic—it being in the north and all—now Boreas needed to worry about two countries.

Flames flickered in winter braziers as the scholar-duke exited the library with the sole copy of one of the most important Before texts in the Empire.

“So what do you want?”

That had been the first thing that he’d said, and I’d laughed.

“I should be asking you that question, I’d think,” I remarked idly. “I volunteered to help you all with the Union to save my own neck. Cecilia sure as Tartarus isn’t going to let me go near the border—” here was the perfect opportunity to insert a badly worded joke: ‘sure as Tartarus wouldn’t let me go to Tartarus,’ but I benevolently abstained “—so what do you want me to do?”

Julian’s eyes narrowed. “You were the one who made the choice.”

“Choices, choices, choices.” I waved a hand. “There aren’t very many. On one hand, I need to reveal enough information about my country in order to stay alive and useful; and on the other hand I need to withhold just enough information to win my country this war and not get branded an irredeemable traitor.”

I made a sympathetic expression—not too sarcastic to be offensive, but with as much genuine empathy as I could muster (which, admittedly, wasn’t much).

“I can see your dilemma here—really, I do—and you’ve been very generous in not torturing me so far, I’ll give you that. But I promised something, and I will deliver. I can’t swear to the Gods on that, but there’s no war-winning secrets in my head that I can just magically tell you.” I was (kind of?) honest.

The Consul leaned back.

“You’re right, Sera,” he admitted. “We have been very generous so far.” Well, that sounds ominous, I thought as he leaned forward. “All this goodwill?” Julian asked, a bit of that threatening glint in his eye, “the tea, food, opulence? Far from me to break this first, but buildings built on unsteady foundations will inevitably collapse. Unless you give us something to work with, Sera, we’ll be forced to treat you like the prisoner you are.”

(He used my name two times. He was trying to make this personal, use previous bias against me. I had an idea that he was doing it deliberately for me to notice—because, Tartarus, who wouldn’t?—but this was, honestly speaking, quite a bit underhanded after our previous conversation. I wasn’t really one to talk, though.)

But ‘forced’? Really? And using a prison cell and torture as a threat?

I couldn’t really laugh in his face, but he knew I wanted to. The damned praetor was trying to sound me out: if it wasn’t physical threats that worked, it would be mental attrition. And they didn’t have time for mental attrition, or psychological warfare, or whichever name people had for it. Julian was looking for the quickest, and most effective way for me to ‘break.’

Was it my pride? My love for my family and my subordinates? My past?

Whatever he’d find, he’d use.

Truly, a formidable foe.

Did I feel threatened by him? I did feel some sort of threat—that was why I’d been (arguably) polite. I could’ve been deliberately disrespectful—to both of them—in order to spark something, but this wasn’t a diplomatic summit. There weren’t any Guards behind me, any prestige or status to protect me, any pre-prepared machinations or familiar faces around. One misstep, and if I wasn’t careful enough, I could get myself killed.

But there was that thing about danger.

A Daycycle of fighting for my life, killing monsters to eat and survive, making riskier and riskier plays with riskier and riskier people—it hadn’t really desensitized danger to me, as much as made it fade into the background.

It was there, but accompanied by an exhilarating familiarity.

If I could survive once, I could do it again.

It was that mindset that got people killed, but it was a familiar one.

“I am a prisoner, yes,” I said, “but trying to break me to get me to talk won’t get information out of me. In fact, it’ll just make me more of a headache trying to escape. You can shove me in a cell all you’d like, and torture’s definitely on the table judging by how heavily you’re impling it, but that’ll just mean I’m near-death and desperate when you talk to me.”

I leaned closer, stage-whispering.

“And desperate people come up with very, very creative things. Trust me, I speak from experience.”

The Consul didn’t seem to like that very much.

“You can’t manipulate me into your chosen outcome,” the Consul said. “This isn’t a discussion, this is a negotiation. Your life’s on the line here.”

I could make a very sanity-concerning remark here, but I graciously abstained (again).

“My life’s always been on the line,” I responded. “I’m trying not to die, I’ll admit. But I’m not trying to convince you not to kill me—my death won’t be very productive for anyone involved, I make clear. I’m trying to make our lives as convenient as possible. No lies, no overreacting, no dodging the question: I will try my best to help you. I’m putting my best foot forward, Consul. And you have, too, I recognize that. The question is how we’ll move forward together, yes?”

Julian raised his eyebrows.

“And I’m asking you how you’ll move forward with the Union, yes? We can’t waste our resources keeping you alive until you stumble upon something earth-shattering. In war you need to be shortsighted. People are dying—and they need to be saved now, not later. I know that if I ask you if those lives matter to you—right now, on Oath to the Gods—your answer wouldn’t match mine.”

The Consul leaned forward.

“This time, I’m asking you: save someone other than yourself. Your country has your Empress, and now we’re asking you to do something for everyone in this war.”

Ah, the emotional appeals.

“What do you want from me, specifically?” I said. “Give me something to do, we’ll talk about a reasonable deadline, and I’ll get it done.”

“You’re not one of our subordinates, Sera,” he responded. “You’re a person who has the fate of two countries in their hands.”

I paused, considering.

It’d be wise to not tire the poor, poor Consul out.

“The protectorate,” I said. “Let’s talk about how this war started.”

The food’s getting cold.

The food was getting cold.

She was asking him an obvious question, saying an obvious statement, but it didn’t feel like an obvious answer she wanted. But Julian put it forward nonetheless: “We came, and your father was killed by Cassia—who seemingly acted as an individual.”

“No,” the girl said. “You’re wrong, and both of us know it.”

Blunt.

The impulse to raise his eyebrows came back, as she leaned forward.

“Don’t you remember what I told you, that day, when we were playing Crown and you saw my father’s corpse?” she questioned mildly, blue eyes gleaming.‘“Your father’s in Greta’s pocket already,’ didn’t I say? Of course, it was at that time the two were working together, and afterward I’m sure the alliance was broken off and forgotten, but you have to see everything, dear Consul. It wasn’t Cassia—well, more specifically, it wasn’t just Cassia who killed my father. It was your father, and my sister who urged him to.”

She smiled.

“Or, should I say, bartered with him to.”

But what did they barter?

The question lay between the two.

“I would say ask your father, but I’m told he’s currently out of action,” the girl informed him. “But moving on, my sister told your father to do it. At the time, I...misunderstood,” she admitted freely, “that Greta wanted to kill all of us. Even before the attack, Father was poisoning himself, you know? Sarawolf tablets, apparently.”

She shook her head, almost ruefully, but her smile was bland.

“When I found out that, and all the Cyrus-Orion incidents, it appeared on the surface that she was pitting us against each other—making us kill each other, so she could get named Heir Designate. Glory Princess Greta the Great. I knew that if she wanted to, she would.”

This was leading up to something.

Progress.

Even if it felt like Seraphina was withholding something, she was talking.

“And,” Julian felt himself saying dryly. “You did something.”

Mirth glimmered at her lips.

“I always do,” she responded honestly. “Can’t help it.” The words themselves were sheepish, but there was a bitter slant to them.

Julian looked at the dishes left on the table.

“Go on,” he said.

Seraphina chuckled. “Anyway,” she continued, “to answer your question, I did do something. A very stupid something.” She looked up. “Did you wonder why, I contacted you that day at dinner?”

Rhododendron.

The smell climbed in his throat, familiar and acrid. Her eyes were like rhododendrons, Julian had thought previously. That day when they were out—when they’d ate cake and joked about their day. Blue rhododendrons. Danger. (Funnily enough, he’d felt none.)

“You wanted an ally. A partner. Protection,” he guessed. “Someone who had no choice but to defend you.”

“You had a choice,” Seraphina corrected. “And you made it.”

She was different, today.

“I Swore myself to my sister,” she continued, gaze petrifying. And she was back at it again, reading—Reading?—an invisible page in his face. It had been unnerving at first, but Julian was somewhat sure it was her Ability. She was almost inhuman sometimes, the faint warmth ebbing away and startling cold taking its place.

Swore.

Realization settled in.

“Oath.” The word clawed his way out of his throat like a curse.

“And I stand here today chained and broken, above the place they claim as Heaven; and beseeched the Gods to take me.” She was quoting something, and Julian took a second to place it.

“They held me in their hands and breathed life into me,” the Consul absentmindedly provided. “‘Child,’ they said. ‘You are far too heavy. Your sins chain you to the ground. You cannot fly here.’”

“‘Are the gates open to only those with wings?’ I asked, and they answered. ‘Leave behind your heart, and your stained soul,’ they said, ‘and you will have wings.’” Seraphina smiled. She was always smiling. “I did not know what to say, and so they kissed me. ‘Farewell,’ they said, and let me plummet downwards, into the abyss.”

An Oath.

“And I lay here today,” Julian finished, “chained and broken and dying—”

“Forsaken by the Gods,” Seraphina said, “in the place they condemn as Hell.”

A silence.

“What were the terms of the Oath?” asked Julian. “Are there loopholes to exploit?”

The returned smile was sharp and thin.

“And here it is,” said Seraphina. “The catch.”

Her blue eyes were piercing, and another realization settled in Julian’s shoulders.

“How do we know?” His voice was tight. “That you’re telling the truth?”

The Princess shrugged easily. “Easy.” She put a hand over her chest, right above her heart. “I Swear, to the Gods, that I am currently under an Oath binding myself to my sister, Greta Queenscage.” There was no thunder—no sudden storm—but the words themselves were powerful ones.

“And?” Julian pressed. “What are the terms of the Oath?”

But he already knew what she was about to say.

Seraphina shrugged again. “Like I said,” she returned. “There’s the catch. I’ve mentioned before that torturing me won’t be productive. Me withholding information? Even though it’s inevitable, it won’t be productive, either. We both hold in our hands ways to make the other’s life difficult.”

She leaned closer. “You do know how they interrogate accomplices to a crime, right?” she asked in a low voice. “‘Divide and conquer.’ They say that the other’s already thinking of turning on them, but ‘there’s still time’ to confess first. If they both keep their mouths shut, they’ll both walk away scotch free. If they both confess, both of them’ll end up in a very hard place.”

The Consul wanted to curse. “Trust,” he ended up providing. “We need trust for this to work. And it’s not going to work, so you want an Oath out of us that we’re going to keep you safe, in exchange for you telling us what you can actually tell us.”

Who would have the advantage?

It was obvious.

“You’re giving us a hard sell, Princess,” said Julian, after a while.

Seraphina’s grin was gone, a mild expression in its place. “You’re just a tough customer, Consul.”

The food was getting colder.

Another silence.

“I’m not the only Consul, though,” the former praetor acquiesced, getting up from his seat. The medals on his chest tinkled. “I’ll have to consult everyone—Senate included, of course, to see if your trial can be moved up.”

Time was ticking.

The longer they hesitated, the more at risk they were of Imperial attack. And the longer the time until the trial, the more time Seraphina would have to prepare herself.

This was not a good position.

"Don't eat the food," the last Chosen of the Gods said finally. "Cold food gives you stomachaches."

Both of them left the table empty-handed, but one of them stayed with a grin.

The city of Bellum was in a tumultuous state. Ever since Cyrus’ death, it was a wonder the Galani had kept it under some form of order—but reports on said form of order had come from the Galani themselves, so there was that.

Greta couldn’t exactly trust the Imperial Snakelanders, the same way she couldn’t trust Elexis to be sent to try to ‘coax loyalty’ out of them. The Galani duchess had not experienced much love from her people in recent years, though—it had been Cyrus who had convinced them to help the Cadmi to charge Bellum as vengeance for the Eastern Fires; Cyrus who had ‘united’ them. It had been a possibility Greta had considered, but an unlikely one: to the end, Greta thought, a fighter.

What could Cyrus have been, if he hadn’t been so consumed by revenge?

Whoever he is, whispered Orion’s voice, he is family. Not a pawn.

The voices were back, damn the Gods.

“Then what do you want me to do?” the Empress murmured, eyebrows raised.

Family is family. What do you think you have to do?

The implication was great.

“They’re both loose cannons, Rion,” said Greta. “Josephine needs to take care of Timaios and the others. She also has the anti-Imp leader under her thumb, so—”

I didn’t mean Josephine.

A pause.

“That’s a gamble.”

He is many things, after all, and a gamble is one of them. But you want a guarantee that Bellum is not taken over, correct?

“Delphine has Azareth, Elexis is busy with the East, Petra with the South—Damokles would be too far, Evlogia and Tyche can’t move,” Greta stated. “So yes, I need someone on Bellum to—”

Keep the knife far away, Your Greatness.

“I thought he was family.” Her voice was dry.

See, the only bad thing about being dead is that I can’t kill you.

“You say that as if you’re actually Rion’s ghost.”

Now that hurts my feelings.

Greta turned around, away from the map table in her bedroom. She saw Orion, amber eyes and all, leaning on a pillar casually—as if he were there, as if he were real.

“If you are—and I wouldn’t bet on my own sanity—take care of Cyrus for me,” said the Empress. “I know you’ll be back, but I just wanted to say that.”

Why don’t you tell him yourself?

An innocuous question.

You’ve been ignoring him, Orion continued. His feelings are hurt, too.

Just once, Greta’s gaze strayed to the pillar opposite the archer’s, where shadows flickered and formed blue eyes. The Empress looked away.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” snapped Dionysus’ Chosen. “Get out of my head.”

It was just a suggestion. He cares.

“In some way, yes,” the other agreed, “but they all do. He’ll do something, that’s for sure.”

But you’re worried that that ‘something’ will stop the Empire.

Essentially, Greta wanted to say. But both of them already knew.

The figment of Orion spoke softer.

Trust him. He won’t stop you just yet.

And what about after? she demanded, internally. And the day after that? And the years after that?

But the answer was meaningless.

“Fine.” Greta’s severe bun was unravelling at the edges, and with it the collective sharpness of the Empress’ green gaze.

She looked like more of a tired woman, and less of the stoic First Princess, or even the steely Empress. Her robes coalesced at her feet, cape and embroidery streaming down her shoulders, but they looked much too big for her. Exhaustion was pulling at her eyelids, and dark circles marred her skin. The orphan that had run the dark streets of the Harbors, foraging for bread and scrapping with the rats, was nowhere to be found—but everywhere at once.

The woman moistened her dry, peeling lips and repeated the word.

“Fine.”

More than one card was needed to play a suit, after all.

The Empress turned her back on her ghosts.

What would Arathis Delawar make of the Empire?