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

Twenty-Seven

Sephara

Empyria, the Imperium

12th of Otanus

Though the empty shell of her father's estate held nothing but unwanted memories for her, Sephara forced herself to move back in five days after visiting Iana and Kesa. From what Dexion had said before she'd left him, the estate would be hers for however long it took the Caetoran to decide to seize all the properties of the nobles he'd executed in Traian's.

More than just the estates of Janus's recent victims, there were also the power vacuums caused by the killing of three Corajus. The Caetoran had announced his intent to elevate new noble houses once the Iron Wolf's insurrection was put down, so until then, the Reigns of Denjin, Asineo, and Quendinther would be headless and their properties left to fester. She supposed Akerdia and the Howling Tower—the seats of her father and uncle respectively—would also be passed onto whichever of the Caetoran's lackeys pleased him most. She just hoped Kesa and Iana were able to reach the Howling Tower and steal away the remnants of her uncle's army before the Caetoran got to them.

Sephara hadn't expected her father's body to be released for burial, and she wasn't disappointed to learn the Caetoran had hoarded all the corpses, to do away with as he pleased. Valerian he'd left strung up in Traian's for the rest of day after the execution, headless and gutless. It had been taken down only because duels were scheduled to be held there and, apparently, Janus had decided on another use for it. Where it and the rest of his victims were now, she didn't know. She didn't want to know, not after seeing the perverse joy Khian had taken in the act of public butchery.

For those first few days after leaving the Heavens' Paramours and coming home, she'd amused herself with visions of how she'd kill Khian if she ever had him at her mercy. Then she'd considered what she'd do to Janus, and how inhumanely she'd display his carcass after she tore him apart. After that, she'd imagined herself ripping through the screaming crowd who'd cheered her father's death. It had made her smile to picture herself standing at the peak of the Empyrian Tower as the city burnt to ash and bone beneath her. She'd suffocate on the fumes as they rose to crown her, and that would be that. Peace, of a sort.

Once she'd satiated herself with daydreams of death and suffering, she forced herself to confront what had happened, and her part in it. I will hold you responsible for everything that follows.

Her father's death was her fault. He'd warned her of this when she'd convinced him to reveal what she'd learned to Endarion. She hadn't listened, because she'd thought herself and her family invincible, thought her uncle too sensible to launch their rebellion prematurely, thought the Caetoran too cautious to target her father directly.

Between them, she, Kaeso, and Endarion had inadvertently conspired to condemn their family patriarch to the worst of deaths.

At some point, she stumbled across a small stock of expensive wine in her father's office. She'd reached for a bottle, then frozen in childish fear. What if her father stormed in and found her stealing his favourite vintages? A hysterical laugh bubbled out of her, followed quickly by the kind of sobbing she hadn't indulged in for years. She downed that first bottle just because she could, because her father wasn't there to reprimand her. The second bottle was because she kept thinking of Valerian and wished he would burst in and scold her. The ones that followed were purely to sink her into blessed oblivion.

She awoke untold hours later, face down in the office, a puddle of watery vomit cooling against her cheek, her clothes soaked in wine. Her head was spinning and her damaged ear still pounded, sounding like the baying crowds in Traian's all over again, the echo trapped in her skull to repeat endlessly. She clamped her hands over her head, pushed herself into a sitting position, and held still until the worst of the nausea passed.

In all her twenty-two years, she'd never been drunk before, never been despairing enough to wish for such insensibility. As blissful as the empty unconsciousness had been, she resented her pitiful condition now. Her father would be disappointed in her. He'd look down his nose at her and scoff, then ask her why his death had upset her so greatly.

And why had it? Truly, she didn't know. She and her father had never been close, and she viewed herself as the 'spare' child, the one only kept around so she could protect his heir. Her ten years back in Akerdia, training for this role, had kept her from forging a bond with her father, and the time she'd spent in the capital over the last few months had been dedicated to fulfilling her uncle's task. Only recently Valerian had shown glimmers of affection, had looked upon her as a father should, had told her he was proud of her.

She remembered how he'd mouthed I love you, daughter as she'd been escorted out of the prison beneath the Tower. How he'd forbidden her from interfering in his death because he didn't want her harmed. How he'd met her eyes in the moments before his end, and even then refused her help.

Yes, that was why she was upset; despite it all, he was her father and he'd loved her in his own way.

Using his desk as leverage, she hauled herself to her feet. Resolved now to clean herself up and see what she could salvage for her family, she blinked her vision clear and moved towards the office door with the intent of submitting herself to a cold shower. After, she'd need to decide what to do. Perhaps try to contact her uncle, who by now would know of Valerian's arrest. Endarion might not yet know his brother was dead, so maybe she could try to get word to him.

There was also the matter of Rexan Sudarium. Since his sudden appearance several weeks ago, she'd heard nothing from him beyond receiving her Fensidium dagger in his drop-box. She hadn't expected to, though, because she had no new information to offer. She hadn't yet had the chance to get closer to Dexion, not in the lead-up to Valerian's execution.

But maybe Sudarium's former agent, Novissa, had something to give Sephara? The idea assailed her suddenly, and only because she remembered Novissa had been with the Fensidium, placed in Empyria to glean information for Sudarium, as Sephara now did.

She drifted through her father's hollow hallways in search of the possessions she knew the woman had left Valerian. Most of it had already been carted off to her father's estate in Akerdia, but she knew he'd held a few boxes back, to skim through at his leisure. He wouldn't have the chance to do that now, she considered with a pang.

The leftovers consisted of several stacked crates of books, pushed to the corner of a spare room on the second floor, just down the hallway from her father's bedroom. She paused outside the bedroom, the door shut against her, and for an indulgent moment imagined Valerian on the other side, alive, ready to berate her for her needless pacing at such a late hour.

She shrugged the notion off and blinked away stinging tears, then continued to the end of the hall. The crates remained where they'd first been deposited, blanketed now by a layer of dust disturbed only from when she'd hidden the two daggers—Novissa's and the Caesidi dagger she'd stolen from the Praevin archives—having wedged them between two of the books Novissa had left Valerian as soon as she'd arrived here earlier that day. After she and Lexia had discovered Novissa's dagger belonged to the Fensidium order, she'd decided it was of no further use and left it here with the rest of the dead woman's belongings. She pulled it from its sheath and skimmed her finger over the warning her great-aunt had left Endarion: the immortals killed me carved into the handle. Immortals, plural. Yet Sephara, for all her investigating, had only discovered one: Dexion, the Arisen.

Seeing the dagger reminded her of her own, now sheathed at her hip. She knew having it there was a risk, but she wanted it to hand, just in case.

She plucked up the first book her hand landed on and flicked through the pages.

Her time in the Grand Imperial Library had inspired a healthy wariness of thick, aged tomes. Most of what Novissa had left her father seemed to be histories of the Imperium and its Reigns, including the entire ten-book saga, Imperium: A History of Swords and Thrones, penned by the nation's founder, Canisius Thurinus. Sephara scoffed at the sight of the leather-bound beasts; the hidden compartment she'd found all the Caesidi's incriminating documents in had been secreted behind these books in Nazhira's office. Their presence here now was, to her hungover mind, a mockery. Even worse, when she remembered her father had slipped those incriminating documents themselves within these tomes, lest someone happen across them in his belongings. She considered removing the papers, maybe even destroying them so they couldn't be tied to her, but eventually set the books aside. Her father wouldn't get the chance to publicly release those documents at a time of his choosing. Not anymore. It hardly seemed to matter now.

She paused when she came across a book deep within the top crate. It had the bent spine and creased pages of a well-read favourite. The gilt of the title had faded, but she just made out the words Arisen and Sudarium.

Not only was Sudarium the head of the Fensidium and the man Novissa had served, he'd also been the author of the books in the Grand Imperial Library that had led her and Lexia to the answers they'd sought. Though she hadn't asked, she was certain Sudarium had seeded his own texts throughout the Library deliberately. To find one of his books within Novissa's stash couldn't be a coincidence, especially with Novissa having served as one of his agents.

This one seemed to be a historical overview of the Arisen Theocracies, a period of history an immortal like Sudarium might've been around to witness. A small strand of ribbon within the binding acted as a bookmark, and Sephara opened eagerly to the marked page, towards the end of the book.

Skiron Koinos, known after his ascension as Godking Skiron, was the last of the Arisen theocrats, and the ruler responsible for the downfall of the Arisen Theocracies. The empire he inherited was already too vast for stability, and the common populace were by then beginning to grow tired of the wanton cruelty and unrivalled selfishness of their divine monarchs.

At first, it seemed Skiron would redeem the tarnished legacies of his bloodthirsty predecessors. He came to the throne mature and optimistic, immortal at the relatively late age of twenty-eight, and one of his earliest acts was believed to be the abolition of the slavery his ancestors had thrived on. For a time, the Theocracy flourished, and Skiron earned himself a reputation as one of the most beloved rulers in the continent's recent history.

Then came the attempt on his life, and the paranoid creation of the Caesidi. Believing his people had turned against him, he embarked on a campaign of massacre and inquisition, reversing his earlier acts and encouraging the oppression of the common population by his favoured elite. What had started as a promising reign became, by a wide margin, the bloodiest and most depraved of all the Arisen Godkings.

The end, when it came, was inevitable. The people, frustrated by 2,000 years of cruelty and bloodlust, turned against those they had previously believed to be divine. Godking Skiron was torn from his palace and dismembered at the base of the Empyrian Tower, his body left on display as a warning to any immortals who might think to take his place.

Sephara flicked back through the previous pages, finding similar profiles on other, less notorious godkings. In the margins, in what she assumed was Novissa's hurried hand, small comments bloomed, all of them some variation of 'not this one'. It seemed her great-aunt had been trying to deduce which of the godkings she faced in Dexion Mendacium. That she hadn't yet marked Skiron in the negative didn't mean anything; the man's death had been well-recorded at the time, and his body had apparently been disposed of thoroughly enough to leave no doubt about his death.

From the looks of it, Novissa had ruled out all the godkings. Was it possible, then, that Dexion wasn't one of them? Could he just be an immortal who'd taken on the mantle of Arisen, to inspire loyalty in his followers? She'd never seen even a hint of the undeniable aasiurmantic power long-lived mages all possessed by virtue of their longevity, so was he immortal at all? Was he even a mage, as all immortals inevitably were? Would the answer also help her find out who commanded him?

She was about to pull out all Novissa's books in the hopes of piecing together this puzzle when she heard the front door slam open. She'd locked that, hadn't she? And she possessed the only key in the capital now her father was dead and her brother fled.

They must've taken Father's key when they arrested him.

The intruder's footsteps slapped loud and careless. Sephara crept back along the hallway and slunk down the stairs, setting her feet slowly against the stone. When she reached the first-floor landing overlooking the main hallway, she peered over the railings and saw not Caesidi black garb, but the tell-tale gold-trimmed purple of the Tyrannus family. One of the Caetoran's personal guard, then.

These fucking bastards, Sephara thought, her mind steering straight to conflict.

She didn't have a proper weapon, a fact she sluggishly remembered only after she'd leapt down the stairs and placed herself right in the intruder's eyeline, her lingering drunkenness warping her senses and robbing her of all logic. The soldier, a young woman around her age but far larger, met Sephara's narrowed glare with wide eyes, but recovered quickly. Before Sephara could fumble with the Fensidium dagger at her hip, the woman ripped free her side-sword and surged forward.

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Sephara sidestepped, dogged inebriation dragging at her movements, and took a glancing blow from the sword's handle in her ribcage. She spun, tripping herself, and sprawled backwards as the Tyrannus bore down on her. By instinct, she lashed her legs out, catching her attacker's hand hard enough to dislodge the sword. It skittered across the stone floor and Sephara scrambled again for her dagger, her fingers betraying her with their unresponsiveness. The woman flew at her, driving them both to the floor with Sephara beneath, the breath punched clean from her lungs. She managed to lift her arm enough for a quick blow, her elbow connecting with the woman's face, then used her attacker's brief disorientation to reverse their positions and straddle the Tyrannus soldier.

Still struggling to heave in a breath against the spasming of her winded lungs, Sephara grappled with her opponent, latching her thighs around the woman's waist as she bucked angrily in an attempt to unseat Sephara like an untrained mount.

Sephara batted the soldier's flailing hands aside and wrapped her own around a thick, well-padded throat. Though it felt as pointless as throttling a stone, she squeezed. The woman's erratic pulse drummed through a strained length of neck muscle and into Sephara's fingertips.

Then Sephara's head slapped the floor, stunning her long enough for her opponent to flip around onto hands and knees and reclaim her side-sword. The woman's near-choking made of the simple effort a wheezing labour, buying Sephara a few precious heartbeats. Her skull thundered forcefully, emanating from the dull, useless wad of her right ear, where the soldier had managed to strike her. Panic, toxic as undiluted alcohol, fired Sephara's veins as she clambered into a crouch. She launched herself onto the woman's back, pinning her, and reached for the sword held haphazardly in the soldier's clenched fist. The woman thrashed but couldn't reach Sephara with her front pressed flat and Sephara clinging to her like an oversized flea. Instead, she hissed a curse and jolted her weight forward, dislodging Sephara from her precarious perch. Sephara slid forward, flipping smartly over the woman's head and landing in a dazed sprawl, her ringing ear and the overhead tumble combining to rob her of what slim senses remained to her.

All her years of training, banished by drink, injury, and confusion.

Sephara's teeth snapped shut against a sliver of cheek when the soldier kicked the side of her head, but she didn't feel the pain through the ringing in her damaged ear. Sustained only by adrenaline now, she lurched to her feet and ducked away from a brutal swing. Her blood was hot and metallic in her mouth, and she spat what she could into the woman's face, blinding her attacker. Her cheek sang with pain as she clenched her jaw and raised her fists, her body falling into a defensive posture by instinct alone.

Never engage in a close-quarters brawl with a stronger, larger opponent, her trainers had once instructed. She discovered why just then, when her first swing—well-aimed, not that it mattered in the end—connected with her opponent's midriff. Had the soldier been of smaller stature, the blow might've knocked her back long enough to afford Sephara an opportunity to end the fight. Instead, it succeeded in drawing Sephara into her assailant's orbit long enough for a reciprocating punch to be flung.

Though it impacted Sephara's shoulder, it proved more than sufficient in thwarting her. She half-spun as she rebounded from the stunning blow, her sense of direction further skewed. Before Sephara could think about defending herself or regaining her composure, the hilt of the soldier's short-sword crunched into her head and robbed her of consciousness.

―

The first few times she jolted awake, she thought she still sprawled drunk in her father's office. On the fourth such waking, she became lucid enough to open her eyes, and realised she was neither drunk nor collapsed on the floor at home. Her head pounded with trauma rather than wine, and she was draped over someone's shoulder, not curled in her own chilled vomit.

The shaking of the world around her knocked her aching brain about, bringing to her attention what she was sure was a painful lump on the back of her head.

That she hadn't been killed confused her. She'd assumed the Tyrannus guard was there to either murder her for her association with Valerian, or to find more evidence of his insurrection among his belongings. If Sephara had not only been spared, but taken, it suggested the woman had come for her specifically. But why? She was a bodyguard without an employer. A nobody, by her own design.

A few moments—or maybe a few hours—later, she raised her head to take in her surroundings, found herself with her wrists and ankles chained, her body propped awkwardly on a wooden bench. The room around her was bland and rectangular, and a narrow window opposite gave her the slimmest glimpse of a night sky wreathed in clouds.

I'm in a thundership. Why?

The shaking, she realised now, was the craft's rumbling as it climbed skywards, its engine grinding away somewhere to the rear. She'd been in a thundership before, of course—the rich could afford to take them between cities and save using the Imperium's roads—yet they always seemed unstable, as if they'd drop at the slightest provocation. She'd heard the Drasken Empire and the mercenary fleets in the Karhes had refined the building of thunderships to the extent where they'd been weaponised. In its fear of magic, a fear fuelled in part by individuals like Godking Skiron, the Imperium had ensured its aasiurmantically-powered ships could only ever serve as public transport and never used to fight battles. They'd deliberately disadvantaged themselves, to Sephara's mind.

Her movement alerted the other people in the passenger compartment, and they all turned to look at her. The woman who'd snatched her sat beside her, a looming presence. Sephara's Fensidium dagger was held in one meaty fist, though the woman paid little attention to it. Four other Tyrannus guards accompanied the first, and Sephara realised how futile her struggle had been; even if she'd escaped her attacker, the others would've been waiting for her outside.

They definitely wanted her alive, then. Only sending in one woman had prevented a panic, and ensured she wasn't accidentally killed.

The reason why became slightly clearer when the hulk of the Empyrian Tower came into view.

"I'm not who you want. I'm not important," she insisted.

The bulky woman was the one who answered. "Wouldn't be so sure of that."

A spear of ice impaled her spine. Had she been discovered? Did the Caetoran know she was Sephara Boratorren, and wanted to execute her? She recalled Dexion mentioning Valerian's second child and how no one had seen any trace of her. Maybe he'd been digging into her backstory, and all the time she'd spent crafting her identity had been in vain.

She'd never been in the Empyrian Tower before. Never had reason to, playing the part of a Corajus's lowborn bodyguard. Over the months she'd spent in the city, the jutting Tower had become a static part of the scenery, a particularly demanding backdrop she'd glanced at, but never seriously pondered. On an overcast day, like this evening, low cloud cover shrouded its upper reaches. Skimming up its too-thin flank, Sephara thought, not for the first time, that such a structure shouldn't be standing. It was so tall, even the slightest breeze this high up should've toppled it. Its Surrekan engine levitating above the peak of the Palace District was all that supported it, the mystery of its functioning lost with its Novhar creators.

Most of its lower two-thirds were solid rock, meant as a stable foundation for the heights. The nobility claimed its upper portions. Above even these vaunted heights perched the palace complex itself, the Conclave Hall, and the vast sprawl of the Caetoran's private residence. It was to this last the thundership headed.

"This is a mistake," she said. Her eyes snagged on her Fensidium dagger, but she didn't fancy her chances of escape. "I'm just a bodyguard. You know, I was arrested with my employer, but Captain-General Mendacium secured my release."

The large woman scoffed. Sephara had known name-dropping Dexion would probably be futile, but it had been worth a shot.

The thundership clumsily alighted on a small wooden platform protruding from the Tower's side. Huddled between the five soldiers, Sephara shuffled out of the craft and towards the rounded mass of the Tower proper. Just as it supported the building, the Surrekan engine also cloaked the Empyrian Tower, giving it a temperate atmosphere with air no thinner or colder than it would be down at the base. Still, Sephara shivered on instinct, and shifted her shoulders up around her neck as if to fend off a brutal wind.

At this late hour, the ghostly glow of its engine illuminated the Tower, but the stone monstrosity was otherwise shrouded in darkness. She stumbled into what she took to be a side-entrance, her escort tight around her. As they steered her down the corridor, she saw other purple-clad Caetoran's Guard standing to attention, their eyes heavy on her. There was no escaping this situation, not unless she planned to cut herself free and fling herself from the Tower itself. Depending on the reason for her seizure, that might not be a bad idea.

Her original attacker, bored of her hampered pace, snatched her under both arms and carried her through a small hall and towards a great pair of wooden doors. The guards on either side snapped a salute, and the woman waited as the other four guards hefted the doors open to permit her.

Beyond was an office, at least twice the size of her father's own, designed with a similar taste. There were obligatory bookshelves affixed to the walls and a large Castrian summerwood desk in the centre, with a low-burning hearth awarding the place a sense of homely comfort. Had Sephara's eyes not landed on the room's only other occupant, she might've been put somewhat at ease.

Out of his customary greatcoat, Janus Tyrannus appeared even more reduced. Grey-skinned in the meek light, and skeletal in the way he hunched over his desk, he looked nothing like a ruler should. Only the reverence the guards afforded him as Sephara was deposited in the seat opposite reminded her that this was, in fact, the most powerful man in the Imperium. He was also family, but Sephara could overlook that fact in favour of thinking of him as the architect of all the ills that had befallen the Boratorrens.

The large woman placed Sephara's dagger on his desk, then retrieved a key from her pocket and set it down as well. Her father's house key, no doubt taken from him before his execution. So that was how the woman had gotten in.

"Thank you, Sergeant Ingens," Janus said, then waved his dismissal. He regarded Sephara with watery eyes but waited until her captors had retired before speaking. "I expected you to be harder to track down." Without the need to be heard across a large space, as in his public appearances, the Caetoran's voice was surprisingly soft, almost disarmingly gentle.

"I don't know what this is about, Your Majesty," Sephara replied, "but I don't think I'm who you're looking for."

Janus sat upright and frowned. His heavy brows marked him as a cousin of the Boratorrens, but he lacked any other similarities. "Are you not Silvia Barum, former bodyguard to the former Corajus of Denjin?"

She nodded, not daring to speak lest she give herself away. If he thought her Silvia Barum, then he didn't know who she truly was. She hadn't been discovered, not yet.

"Then you are exactly who I am looking for," he said. "My sources tell me you are involved with Captain-General Mendacium?"

That's what this is about. He'll want to know if I know anything about why Dexion's assassinated his allies.

"You could say that." She settled back in her seat, trying not to show her relief. The worst-case scenario, as she now saw it, was that Janus would decide she had nothing to offer him, and she'd be released.

"It appears that my beloved Captain-General has turned against me. Now, I cannot remove him from his position without solid proof, nor can I challenge him directly."

Not without exposing your own relationship with him. I wonder how well the people of the Imperium will take the news that their ruler deliberately started a war using hired assassins that he used to kill his own subordinates.

She pre-empted him. "I don't know anything."

Janus raised one eyebrow, then shook his head. "That is not where I was steering this conversation," he said. "In truth, I want nothing from you. But I can use you against him."

"I don't think so."

"Oh, but I do." Janus rose, using the desk to lever himself to standing. His stoop was more noticeable without his greatcoat. "I am told he cares for you, and brash men do such stupid things for the women they care about. Just look at the poor old Iron Wolf."

She canted her head in wordless questioning, and Janus's face creased with a genuine smile.

"Oh, you hadn't heard? The Warmaster has been in Tharghest these past weeks, since the executions at Traian's, and recently managed to capture Endarion Boratorren. He is imprisoned at the Sentinel now, undergoing the kinds of torture even I am too squeamish to watch. There will not be much left of the man by the time he is delivered to me, but that matters not. By then, we will have defeated the Kaldurani, and that traitorous bitch Elerius can be executed like Valerian was."

She clenched her jaws and bunched her hands into fists, smothering her reaction. There was no deception in the Caetoran's words, and little reason for him to lie to someone he didn't know was personally invested in the Iron Wolf.

If her uncle was truly captured, he was as good as dead. Where did that leave them? Valerian and Endarion had helmed the insurrectionist plot and, though the intent had always been for herself, Kaeso, and Daria to take charge, none of them were ready for such a responsibility. The Kaldurani allies her uncle had gained would abandon their cause without him, and everything Sephara had strived for in the months since she'd taken up her uncle's task would be for nothing. Her seduction of Dexion? Pointless. Uncovering his plot and giving Endarion incentive to defect? Meaningless. Her father's death? Wasted.

"With the Boratorrens in hand, that leaves me with only a single opponent to deal with," Janus continued, oblivious to her turmoil.

A howling void opened within her chest, threatening to overwhelm her. If nothing remained for her, what could she do? Try and reunite with Kaeso and Daria, carve out an existence for themselves somewhere the Boratorrens weren't despised? Contact the Kaldurani and verify what Janus had told her? Try to seek out Sudarium?

"All I need to do is provoke Mendacium in front of witnesses and let him give me a reason to have him removed." Janus's voice became a hollow drone in the background, shed now of all softness to her distorted hearing. "If the Iron Wolf can trigger an entire rebellion for the sake of his whore, what would Mendacium be willing to do for his?"

It occurred to her, as she towed her thoughts back to reality, that the Caetoran didn't know Dexion was an Arisen. If he did, he'd not talk of provoking him so casually, or so seriously. He'd be too afraid to risk upsetting the man, far too cowed to do something as foolish as kidnap a godking's lover. And he wouldn't have insulted Dexion as he had that day at Traian's Arena.

But Khian, his own nephew, knew of Dexion's immortal nature. Had the Warmaster truly not told Janus that, not shared with him what was certainly a crucial piece of information? Why not, if they worked together? Why leave his uncle, his superior, vulnerable in his ignorance?

The thoughts gave her the clarity she needed; right now, her life was in danger. Overcome this obstacle, and then she could wallow in hopelessness as she considered the fate of her family. Survive the Caetoran, and everything else that came after.

Janus picked up her dagger and toyed with it. His fingers grazed the hilt's emblem, and he snorted. "That damned woman was too paranoid for her own good," he said with a dark chuckle. Sephara realised he'd mistaken the blade for Novissa's and referred to her now. "It took far too long to be rid of her. Even the shadowmancers had trouble striking her down."

He must've been overconfident, she assumed, to be saying such things in front of a stranger. And thoughtless, too, to fail to notice the Fensidium symbol on the dagger's pommel and not wonder at its meaning. Then again, if he didn't know Dexion was an Arisen, he'd be oblivious to the man's plans and to Novissa's place in a cabal of renegade mages.

There was far more going on than this self-centred bastard could guess at, and Sephara felt momentarily sorry for him, to be unknowingly used as a pawn in Dexion's game and yet believe he still held all the power.

"I don't suppose Valerian ever spoke of his plots with you?" Janus asked, ripping her from her thoughts. "I am now of the mind I should have tortured him before his death, pried his secrets from him. But alas, it is too late now."

She shook her head, hoping she looked sincere.

"That is a shame," Janus said. "I will have to invent some conspiracy on your behalf, to make the punishment I subject you to fitting. I cannot be seen killing my citizens without good reason."

Like Ameilia Calerus and the Elerius family?

"I haven't done anything," she affirmed.

The Caetoran shrugged, then paced around his desk, dagger still in hand. He stopped before her. "That matters not. As long as the public thinks you are a colluder, I can do what I please with you. And what I please is for your death to force Mendacium into betraying himself so that I can kill him as well." He set the dagger point against her cheek, pressing only enough to make her wince and lean away. "That does, however, mean that I must make this appear as authentic as possible. You must look like you have been tortured for information, even if you have none to give." The metal pinched the flesh beneath her left eye. "It is a great shame my nephew could not be here for this. He enjoys the spilling of blood far more than any other man I know."

He called for his guards, and before Sephara could think to put up a fight, two pairs of strong arms locked her in place against her chair, holding her helpless before the Caetoran and the blade he slashed down at her face.