Wolves of Empire [EPIC DARK FANTASY] [Book One Complete]

Four

Endarion

Empyria, the Imperium

22nd of Tabus

The Empyrian Tower, a sky-piercing colossus, dominated the city's north. On an overcast day, the clouds consumed its peak, and the Palace District with it. Made wholly of flawless white stone, it looked, from a distance, like the misshapen, bleached bone of some mythical monster, too straight to be natural, but too absurdly huge to be anything else. The entire rest of the city resembled a child's model crouching in its shadow, even the largest estates in the Exalt District reduced to pitiful specks. If ever there existed a testament to the insurmountable smallness of humanity, it was this immortal spire.

Endarion thought it shouldn't exist. It was too tall, too tapering, too heavy not to buckle under its own weight. The immortal Novhar—humanity's creator-race—had constructed it tens of thousands of years ago and, despite millennia of war, despite the Cataclysm that had almost ended the world, despite the extinction of the Novhar themselves, it still stubbornly stood.

Suspended above the Caetoran's palace at the very top, beyond mortal reach, hung the Surrekan engine that powered it all and kept it upright, pinned to the very sky itself. The engine, pulsing soft yellow within the cloud cover like a weak second sun, had apparently been carved from pure magical energy by superhuman hands. It was a skill no one alive had any possibility of mastering with the Novhar millennia dead.

Jutting from the Tower's base, fuelling the Imperium as the engine fuelled the structure itself, curled the Prodessium, the name for both the building and the senate hosted within. Endarion and Daria passed through the building's opulent entrance archway, which leapt a full fifty feet overhead.

Squads of blue-clad Praevin posted as guards tracked them, and Endarion supressed the urge to scowl after calling to mind his brief conversation with Dexion a few days ago.

"Remember," he said, glancing at Daria, "We are strong, and they can't break us."

Daria nodded, holding herself with awkward pride. The restrictive formal uniform—a stiffened Boratorren-blue greatcoat over a stylised boiled leather vest meant to evoke armour, family crest proud and central—made her look as stilted as he felt. They both wore their regis cullo, the royal hood donned by all members of the nobility to such formal events, draped over the backs of their shoulders. He'd opted today to wear his leg brace, because it wouldn't do to limp into his first public appearance in four years.

The Prodessium's ceiling surged skywards, rounded into a narrow dome at its crown. The audience seating, bare benches arranged in tiered wedges, circled a strip of a stage. At the far end, breaking the circle, sat a replica of the Invictum Throne, half the size of the real chair and cushioned for the frail imperial arse cheeks. Behind this loomed two triumphant statues, both tall as two men: Canisius Thurinus and Marcus Traian, co-founders of the Imperium. Like the statues adorning the Path of Triumph, the founders had been immortalised in vainglorious poses, weapons they'd likely never wielded in life raised high in victory.

The punishing weight of a thousand pairs of eyes flattened them as they entered. Endarion swept his gaze across the ranks, searching for familiar faces but presented instead with a sea of strangers. It rankled to be gawked at as if this was a theatre and he the day's entertainment.

The seating was divided into seven, for each of the Imperium's Reigns. He made for Denjin's section and took his place beside his brother in the front row, lowering himself onto the flat marble bench with a stifled groan. Daria shuffled in next to him. Valerian spared them both a quick look, his narrowed brows speaking of his irritation of their lateness, though he said nothing.

Endarion glanced around the hall again, a scowl prickling at his mouth when his eyes landed on Dobran Tyrannus, the Caetoran's brother and Arch-General of Adhistabor. Dobran was a powerfully built man with impeccably styled dark hair. He was composed and regal, clean-shaven like most Imperial noblemen. His entire aspect radiated aristocratic refinement, and he resembled Endarion and Valerian enough to mark them as cousins.

There was no one in the Imperium Endarion despised more.

Anger constricted his chest when Dobran gestured towards him, sniped something, and earned a collective chuckle from the sycophants surrounding him. A black haze darkened Endarion's vision and reality folded inwards. He froze like a man caught in a cavalry charge and might've lashed out at nothing had Daria not grabbed his sleeve.

"Please don't," she whispered.

He shook his head.

Valerian, seeing the exchange, leaned inwards. Whatever he'd been about to say was lost as the Caetoran made his entrance.

Janus Tyrannus was, for the leader of the continent's second-largest nation, unimpressive. At fifty-five, he was stooped and sallow-skinned. His padded greatcoat only partially concealed his wraith-like frame, and his grey hair was cropped close to his skull in a futile attempt at hiding its thinness. Despite being his brother's elder by ten years, Janus looked old enough to be Dobran's father.

Striding behind the Caetoran, his antithesis in every way, entered Dobran's son, Khian. Tall and composed, muscled and square-jawed, he embodied the classical Imperial soldier. His perfect white teeth flashed brightly in a face darkened by his half-Castrian heritage, and his unlined, unscarred skin glowed with the sort of vitality only enjoyed by the young and untested. Though it chafed Endarion to admit it, Khian evoked the heroic statues behind the Invictum Throne.

Endarion had once believed himself equal to such heroes, when he'd been in his prime; he didn't doubt Khian nursed similar opinions of himself. Give the young man twenty years, a few bloody campaigns, a couple of month's brutal torture, and Khian's aristocratic countenance would crumble.

People broke easily. Even those accustomed to pain, like Endarion.

The Caetoran claimed his throne as Khian bowed at his feet.

When Janus projected his voice across the hall's expanse, it magnified the reedy weakness a hundredfold. "I hereby elevate Khian Tyrannus temporarily to the position of Warmaster." Without fanfare, he motioned his nephew to stand. Khian did so with a grin and puffed chest, as if his elevation physically bolstered him.

As quick as that, Novissa was replaced and forgotten.

Naming a new Warmaster was the Caetoran's prerogative, but there usually existed more ceremony to the event, more of an opportunity for dissenters to publicise their opinions. Not that the Caetoran would ever allow for true dissent.

"Now that formality is out of the way, the purpose of this Prodessium can be addressed," Janus continued. "By now, you are all aware that our valued former Warmaster, Novissa Boratorren, has been assassinated by an envoy of the Baltanos of Drasken."

Valerian leaned in to whisper in Endarion's ear. "I have conferred with the other Corajus, and none of us were made aware of the presence of the envoy. I doubt anyone but the Caetoran and Mendacium were."

Endarion frowned at his brother. As one of the Imperium's seven Corajus—and the Caetoran's cousin, no less—Valerian should've been present at any meeting with foreign envoys. Given the Imperium had, for the last three years, been engaged in hostilities with the Drasken Empire over their province of Kalduran—with the Baltanos himself leading the enemy defence—the matter should've been of national importance. An envoy in the capital could herald a negotiation, an end to the pointless scuffling. That no one had been informed was significant.

Also significant: the fact Valerian only told him now, in a covert whisper, rather than three days ago when he'd come to Endarion's estate, where they might've spoken freely. No doubt his brother had no desire for Endarion to chase this lead, and had waited until it was too late to speak out.

Before anyone could comment on Janus's words, the Caetoran grasped the arms of his throne with gnarled hands and ploughed on. "Because our armies will, in the coming months, be fielded back into Kalduran, the envoy wished to convey the Baltanos's hopes for a cessation to the fighting. I expressed a wish to continue our campaigns, contrary to the enemies' will. When it became clear the envoy would make no progress, he disappeared. A few days later, Warmaster Boratorren is killed, and the Baltanos's man confesses.

"We will, of course, meet with the Baltanos and let him speak in his defence. However, war is the likely answer and we must prepare for it." A pause for dramatic effect, to let everyone consider Janus's bold, brave words. "I would like to put forth the option of officially declaring war on the Drasken province of Kalduran, where the Baltanos reigns. If the rest of Drasken wishes to challenge us as well, they are welcome to." He cast bloodshot eyes across the Prodessium. "It would be our duty, not just to seek vengeance for the murder of one of our own, but to pursue Imperial glory by expanding our power beyond our established borders. We could regain the supremacy of the United Empire of Adhistabor, as is our inherited right." The old man stopped to take a breath. "All in favour?"

The Reigns allied to the Caetoran shot to their feet: Adhistabor, Uldhen, Odynia, and Daresgar. More than half the Imperium. The other three—Denjin, Quendinther, Asineo—waited for Endarion or Valerian to decide.

Beside him, Valerian rose deliberately to his feet. As if given permission, their own allies followed, until only Endarion and Daria remained seated. As pointless as his refusal was, he couldn't vote in favour because he knew people in Kalduran, people who'd done more for him than his own dammed homeland. His own damned family, even.

Not to mention, the Drasken Empire was bigger than the Imperium. More advanced. Rich in magic. It was ruled by an oligarchy rather than a single callow old man. The Imperium's repeated forays into Kalduran were small fights, and to force the conflict onto the entirety of Drasken was stupidity of the highest order. Endarion didn't see how such a thing was feasible.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

And the United Empire of Adhistabor? For the Caetoran to suggest they endeavour to expand their borders to such an extent was ridiculous. That historical empire had spanned half the lower continent at its height, reaching as far north as the border between Kalduran and Drasken, and as far west as the modern Borrian Princedoms. Its own sheer, unsustainable size had been its downfall, more than seven hundred years ago. The Imperium had been birthed from its ashes almost four centuries later, an ambitious but foolhardy descendant.

Still, favour was unanimous. War was sanctioned.

"It's clear to me that targeting the Warmaster was a deliberate attempt to turn us against one another. It's common knowledge my family and the Boratorrens are not on friendly terms." Thin lips formed a thin smile as Janus turned his attention to Endarion and Valerian. "The Baltanos sought to internally divide us, to ignite civil conflict. He chose Novissa because it would seem to be an attack by my family on the Boratorrens.

"In other words, he would trigger a rumoured insurrection that would field arch-general against arch-general and family against family in a devastating civil war."

Endarion stiffened as the Caetoran's expression hardened to grimness. He fucking knows. He knows we're planning to topple him. How the fuck can he know?

He and Valerian had always been so careful with their planning. They monitored their allies, never spoke treason when unsure of their surroundings, never trusted anyone they couldn't easily implicate.

How had Janus found out? Unless the sickly old man merely prodded at the water, hoping something interesting would surface to vindicate his veiled accusation.

"Now, the Kaldurani have an advantage over us. Among their generals is one of ours: the turncoat, Estrid Elerius, whose traitorous bloodline was purged and whose life I mercifully spared. It seems she has used my mercy to help organise this assassination."

"Which is why I tried for years to remove her," announced Dobran, rising to his feet and speaking without permission. "She should be our priority. We can't allow her to frolic with our enemies and go unpunished. We must put her down like the rabid mongrel she's proven herself to be."

Endarion clenched his jaws hard enough to make his teeth ache.

"Let's put a price on her head," came a voice from the Reign of Uldhen's section. When Endarion glanced over, he saw the bullish features of the Arch-General of Uldhen, Byrria Dumerian.

"Not on her head. On her capture," Khian countered enthusiastically. "We can bring her back here and execute her. A noble's punishment for treason is beheading, but Elerius forfeited her exalted birth when she defected. Treason by a lowborn is sawing, impalement, quartering. Whatever the Caetoran decrees."

Endarion could envision them dragging Estrid into the city and spilling her blameless blood on Empyria's white stone. It sickened him, made him wish he could leap over the seating, take the Caetoran by his scrawny neck and crush the life from him. How glorious it would be to tear Khian's throat out, how fucking pleasing to knock Dobran over and stamp his smug face to bloody pulp.

He felt Daria's hand brush his and it tore him back to reality. His anger rolled down his throat like liquid fire as he swallowed.

Valerian had warned him the Caetoran still believed him loyal to Estrid. If he took the man's obvious bait and allowed himself to be provoked, he'd only prove Janus correct.

"There will be, in the coming days, a Generals' Conclave, where details of this impending campaign will be decided upon. However, there is one issue I would like to resolve today, before the entire Prodessium.

"The Imperium hasn't been involved in a war since the conquest of Tharghest sixteen years ago, when only three of our armies were fielded. It would be impossible to field all seven of our armies and have them operate under their seven arch-generals. The campaign would be a mess."

The Caetoran canted his head indulgently at Khian, who took over. Clearly, this had all been rehearsed days ago, thus proving Janus had always intended to make his nephew Warmaster. "A single overall commander under whom we can place our entire might is what we propose. An arch-general elevated above all others." Khian paused and scanned the crowd. "We wish to name a Paramount-General. The first in centuries."

Fuck me, they know everything.

Paramount-General was the title he and Val agreed Daria would eventually hold after they'd toppled the Caetoran and claimed the throne. That Khian suggested it now indicated he and Janus knew even the smaller details of the Boratorren plot. A plot they'd only ever shared with their own children and most trusted allies.

Endarion surged to his feet. "You have candidates?"

"Of course," Khian shot back.

Valerian stood as well, a bulwark at Endarion's side. "Is it wise to resurrect a title as tainted as that one?"

"The title isn't tainted," Khian replied. "Only the last man to wield it."

He referred to Cnaeus Casus, the man whose unchecked ambition had torn the United Empire of Adhistabor asunder. As Paramount-General, Casus had crafted a divisive and devastating rebellion; his actions had brought down in a matter of years a nation that'd stood for more than a millennium.

The similarities between Casus and his and Valerian's plans weren't lost on Endarion.

"Which is why we must bestow this title upon the best of us," Khian continued.

Endarion retook his seat, accepting defeat. Khian, the Caetoran's own nephew, had just been awarded Novissa's title without contest. It made sense that Dobran, as the Caetoran's brother, would be named Paramount-General.

"In truth, there is only one of us who has sacrificed everything for the Imperium," Khian said. "Only one with the command skill necessary to drag the title from Casus's traitorous shadow."

After a significant pause, the young man again turned his gaze Endarion's way.

"Despite his capture on Shaeviren and his current crippled state—not to mention his absence from our recent campaigns against Kalduran—Arch-General Boratorren's history is indisputable. He conquered Tharghest, personally killing the Tharghestian royal family and subduing a generation of violent enemy warriors."

Khian listed off past actions as if they were accomplishments, but to Endarion they sounded like crimes.

"He may've been gone for four years, rumoured to be mad and unmanned, but that simply means he has more to prove."

Endarion's jaw loosened as a haze of confusion blurred his vision like tears. When the Warmaster spoke again, his words had muted. "I propose Arch-General Endarion Boratorren for the title of Paramount-General. All in favour?"

The sound of people rising was thunderous, though Endarion barely heard them over the jagged staccato of his heartbeat.

When the hall settled, perhaps eight hundred of the thousand present were standing, including Dobran. Endarion might've been pleased to have his military prowess backed by so many had Khian not proposed it in the first place.

"Majority in favour," the Caetoran announced. "Step forward, Arch-General."

He rose shakily and walked out towards the throne, his expression set even as his mind whipped into a whirlpool. Lest everyone see how hard he'd just been jolted, he needed to maintain composure.

He'd just been made the single most powerful officer in the nation, with command of seven armies—an estimated quarter million soldiers at full strength. He had control of an impending war.

Endarion lowered himself to his intact knee before the throne, grimacing as his leg brace creaked and his crippled knee smarted.

"I present to you, honoured voices of the Imperium of Adhistabor, your Paramount-General." The Caetoran hauled himself to his feet and loomed over Endarion. Loomed, like an executioner.

He understood then what had happened: he'd been given this command to fail. With so many soldiers to his name, he would surely falter, would surely make a mistake on the battlefield, or fail to control everyone under his command.

And when he did?

The Caetoran would have cause to remove him. Permanently. The way he'd failed to on Shaeviren.

―

Later that evening, after they'd returned to his empty estate, Endarion tried to smother his apprehension by raiding his office's restocked wine cabinet.

He knew Daria only accompanied him because his mood was foul and she probably feared he'd do something stupid if left alone. She sat on the other side of his desk, watching him deteriorate; he might've been ashamed had he not been well on his way to inebriation.

"How much of our plans do the Tyrannuses know?" Daria asked, returning his attention unwillingly to details his elevation to Paramount-General had occluded.

Endarion waved a hand. "Val doesn't seem concerned."

Not that his brother had the ability to display concern even if he did suffer such a state. As the Prodessium had wound down to a subdued close a few hours earlier, Valerian had leaned in to Endarion. "Whatever they think they know about our plans, they have no proof."

"They got their ideas from somewhere," Endarion had countered.

"We would both already be dead or in a Praevin cell is Janus found anything of any worth." Valerian had straightened then, probably not wanting to be seen openly colluding. "Let me deal with politics. You do what Aunt Novissa raised you to do and win a war."

Now, he briefly set aside his glass in favour of Novissa's dagger, discarded on his desk the day Valerian had presented it to him. Unable even now to divine its importance, he slid the pad of his forefinger along the edge, drawing blood, and examined the cut.

Though it had happened more than thirty years ago now, on the cusp of adulthood, he well remembered the first time Novissa had taken this dagger to his flesh. She'd tied him naked between two wooden poles in the centre of the training grounds back at the Howling Tower and traced his spine with the dagger's malicious tip. After, she'd had him whipped.

To inspire humility, she'd later claimed as he'd trembled through the ministrations of a surgeon sewing his back up. To show his soldiers, who'd been forced to watch, that he was as mortal as them. To teach him what it was to be beaten, to feel pain and be helpless to stop it.

Daria cleared her throat and he returned to the present. His slit fingertip leaked blood down his hand and onto the dagger he still clenched. He worried at the leather strips around the handle, trying to wipe the red away. A moment later, he pushed it aside, bored, and swiped his stained hand down his shirt.

Daria picked at the strip he'd loosened. As she pulled it free, she froze.

Wide-eyed, she offered him the dagger back. He frowned as he took it, noticing words carved into the handle, hidden before by leather he'd stained with fresh blood.

The immortals killed me.

It took him a second to grasp the meaning of the phrase, to realise they weren't a drunken hallucination.

"How?" he muttered. "Why?"

"Novissa knew she was going to be killed?" Daria suggested. "She gave you the dagger as a warning, maybe?"

His tipsy haze dissipated with the ease of a mind accustomed to drink. "She has this forged decades ago," he said. "She couldn't predict, thirty or so years before, that the current Baltanos would send his man to kill her."

"Which means his man probably didn't kill her. Not that we believed that anyway."

He considered the offending dagger. "Which means this potential war is as baseless as the sensible among us already know it to be. We'd need proof, though."

"The dagger?"

He snorted. "Everyone would say I carved the message there myself."

Daria shrugged. "We can't chase this, not if we're going to war. We need someone here, on our side, to find these 'immortals'. If there's anything to find."

"Who?" Endarion asked. Though what he really meant was: who can we trust?

"Family."

"Aside from Val, there's only Iana and Lexia," he noted, naming his one-time paramour and their illegitimate daughter. "Val's too high profile. Iana has businesses to oversee. I refuse to put Lexia in danger."

"Kaeso's returned to Empyria, hasn't he?"

"Val would never allow his son to be involved," he said. "Besides, I don't trust that boy."

Daria cupped her chin in thought. "You said Uncle Val sent Sephara to the scene of Novissa's murder. What about her?"

Endarion unconsciously mirrored his daughter's gesture. "Not a bad idea. Val thinks she's capable, and she has the training. No one outside the family knows who she is; she's a lowborn bodyguard to everyone who doesn't matter."

Then again, Endarion himself didn't really know who Sephara was. Not in any way that mattered. His niece had spent most of her life at Val's estates back in Denjin, training to protect her older brother and their family's legacy. He and Val planned to make Kaeso Caetoran when their insurrection succeeded, and Sephara had always been crucial to their plans. But, like with his own children, Endarion was guilty of overlooking the young woman; he saw a component in his plot, a blade in the armoury, rather than a relative. Much to his shame, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd even spoken to Val's daughter.

Endarion wedged his tongue into the gap in his teeth. "I think we should talk to her, at the very least."