Something was very wrong. Alexia stepped out of her room, into the silent hall, surrounded by anxious nima, a cloud so thick she felt like it should be hard to breathe. “Fetch Kristoph,” she said, but rather than instant obedience, the spirits only crowded closer, frightened and protective all at once.

At the opposite end of the hall, Dmitri stood guard on Vik’s door. He watched her with curiosity, but no alarm. Which meant he couldn’t feel it: the chaos he was standing at the center of.

A whirlwind of energy filled the hall—as loud and tangible to Alexia as a thunderstorm. Nima, wild and angry and energized and like nothing she’d ever experienced. In all her years as Emperor, she’d never touched anything like this.

These nima wanted nothing to do with her. Their rage hit her like needles of ice. When she told them to go away, they wouldn’t listen. Only the cloud of protective nima wrapped around her kept them from swarming.

Alexia crossed the hall to Kristoph’s door and pounded on it with her fist. Which also served to get Dmitri’s attention. Kristoph answered immediately—disheveled, but alert. “What is it, my Emperor?” he asked, looking past her to scan the hall. But his face showed nothing but confusion. He couldn’t feel it either.

No one else here was an akashic. No one else here was the Emperor.

Tōru and Roderich’s doors also swung open, almost in unison. Everyone assembled. Everyone looking around for a threat only Alexia could perceive.

A threat centered on the room in which Vivek was being held.

Alexia strode down the hall, focusing her will against the strange, twisted nima. She couldn’t drive them away—somehow, they seemed disconnected from her, from the energies of the world—but she could push her way through their stinging presence. Dmitri stepped aside without being asked, and Alexia commanded the door to open.

The quality of the silence in the hall transformed, became charged with horror, as everyone took in what waited beyond the door.

Vik was dead. No question of that. He lay spread on the floor, covered in blood. Blood was everywhere, in fact. Could that all belong to him? Could a single human body possess so much…

As shock descended on her mind, Alexia’s control slipped and the angry nima crashed against her, a sudden wall of pain.

Alexia slammed the door shut. She had to get away from this. She had to get somewhere she could breathe.

The corrupted nima didn’t follow her outside. They didn’t seem to want to get far from…

Her brother. Her brother, dead.

Kristoph had followed her outside. He hovered a cautious distance away, unsure. He hadn’t felt the nima. Probably believed she was reacting so strongly to the body. Which was horrible enough. But the nima… Something here was wrong.

It wasn’t enough that Vivek had turned against her. It wasn’t enough that he’d betrayed the family, the Empire, the trust she’d put in him. Somehow, in his final moments, he’d crafted this atrocity—this blasphemy—that Alexia couldn’t even understand.

Had he known that only she would be able to see this? Had this been a final stab at Alexia herself? A final twist of hatred, of betrayal, that he would somehow turn the nima themselves against her?

How had it come to this?

Kristoph remained quiet, waiting for her command. Time for Alexia to pull herself together. Time to be Emperor.

“This house it to be quarantined until I say otherwise.” That was the first step. “No one is to know what happened here. Not yet.”

Kristoph nodded, his face a neutral mask, but Alexia could feel the deep disturbance moving through him. She wanted to offer comfort. She wished she had something comforting to give.

“Have Tōru see to…clean up.” Her brother reduced to a body, a mess to be dealt with.

How?

They couldn’t hide this forever, of course. But they could keep it quiet a while longer. A bit of time for Alexia to come to terms before she had to deal with the questions and the politics.

Everyone in this house she trusted to keep secrets. Outside the house, the only people who knew the truth were the Dragon leaders—who had their own incentive for holding their silence, Miyōshi Shō—who had Tōru's trust, which earned them Alexia’s, and… “The marshal who brought this to our attention…”

“Miyōshi Yeijiro,” Kristoph supplied.

“Yes. I want to meet with him.”

“It’s my understanding he’s been assigned to the Golden Palace.”

Convenient, and forward-thinking of Roderich. “Then I believe it’s time to go home.”