The uproar from the House of Kimathi was expected, with Artyom crying out, “I will not stand for this insult!”
“But you will be judged by it,” Amir said loudly, banging the tip of his cane against the mezzanine floor. “The House of Vikandir supports the emperor’s request.”
Despite the support lost with his mother’s death, there was still some shred of loyalty amongst the Houses owed to him, even if much of it was wound through the House of Vikandir at this present time. It was enough to allow for Vanya’s own charge to be brought before the Houses, which was all that mattered.
Vanya retreated to the throne, taking his rightful place. “The Senate and the Houses will view the bodies of therionetkasbefore leaving today’s session. The bodies will then be burned by the Star Order, but their existence will not be denied. I would advise that all households search their family and their employees for vivisection scars.”
With the dead still in the chambers and an Imperial order handed down, senators and the Houses had no choice but to obey. Doing so would remove the dead faster. No matter the embalming technique used to keep them from decaying or the magician on hand to guard them, everyone knew the dead must be burned.
It was different for those of the Houses who had sat upon the Imperial throne. They knew of the traditions carried out for the Dawn Star, of the royal dead buried in the crypt beneath the palace. They still recoiled from the bodies of therionetkaswhen they saw the mess of their carved-up chests and burned forms, gazes flickering to where Vanya sat.
When Joelle walked between the coffins, she barely glanced at them, attention on Vanya rather than the dead. She said nothing, but the curve of her lips was prideful in a way Vanya had never trusted.
She’d orchestrated a Conclave of Houses, after all, conducting what he knew would be a terrible whisper campaign to steal support from his House and his hold on the Imperial throne. What she could not achieve through Nicca, she’d try through Raiah, and Vanya was viscerally glad that his daughter was elsewhere, safe in the only pair of hands he trusted.
Joelle bowed to the exact degree required for a sitting emperor, no more and no less, before taking her leave, Artyom by her side and leading her away. Only when star priests and priestess of the Star Order entered the chambers did Vanya stand from the throne, allowing them to take control of the dead. The bodies would be burned, ashes sent to finally dance amongst the stars.
He swept out of the chambers, finding Taisiya waiting for him in the hallway. She nodded a greeting, and Vanya kept to her pace rather than his as they made their way down the marble hall, guarded bypraetorialegionnaires.
“I believe it is time I reacquainted myself with the social season of the Houses,” Taisiya said.
Vanya offered his arm to her, and she curled her hand around the bend of his elbow with a surprisingly firm grip. “I thought you weren’t one for gatherings.”
“I am old, Vanya. I would have stayed in my estate with poison tasters I trust, but I suppose I will put yours to work here.”
It would mean days and nights of entertaining guests at the palace and being entertained elsewhere. Even with protections in place, with everyone looking forrionetkas, they would need to be on guard against more mundane threats.
Poison was tradition, after all.
“My household is yours to command,” Vanya said.
Taisiya tightened her grip in silent acknowledgment, a quiet force to be reckoned with, much like his mother had once been.
Three
NATHANIEL
Nathaniel Clementine’s body was a battlefield, and his mind was a graveyard of who he used to be.
The cage of his bones was like iron, teeth locked tight against words that battered against his skull. But his tongue couldn’t shape them, the oily feel of mind magic staining every thought he strung together and twisting the truth into a lie.
Exactly like what passed for his heartbeat now.
The metal in his chest was cold, icy in the way of magic, a weight he’d never forget was there and edged in agony. The potions he’d drunk in that underground horror cell had provided a healing that was anything but kind.
Nathaniel gasped for breath in the alleyway he had stumbled into, his body bracing itself against the filthy wall with one hand. His other clutched at his throat, skin there bare of a bank number, but he’d rather have that than the reminder of what he’d gone through carved into his chest.
He couldn’t say he was alive because Nathaniel wasn’t even sure he was that anymore.
A living person wouldn’t carry pink and raw vivisection scars hidden beneath a veil woven large enough to lie atop the sewn-up cuts and held in place by tiny metal hooks pierced through his skin. It had been the last thing theKlovodhad done to him before telling him to dress and then leave, the orders Nathaniel carried in his mind thick and cloying and guiding his feet ever onward through Amari.
TheKlovodhad picked apart his mind, leaving traps behind for any magician who dared go looking. Nathaniel was terrified of what would happen to whoever tried—but that was if they even knew to ask if anything was wrong.
Not that he could answer truthfully.
His hand shoved his body away from the wall, feet taking him forward without his consent. His body left the alleyway behind for the streets, the flickering orange glow of the gas lamps lighting the way to Paradis.
He tried to fight against every step his body took, but his efforts left him screaming into the void that was his mind, magic keeping his body in lockstep to theKlovod’s orders. It wasn’t Nathaniel who jangled the locked door of Scarlette’s burlesque club.
