The Gods of Vice

by Devin Madson

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Devin Madson

  Excerpt from The Grave at Storm’s End copyright © 2016 by Devin Madson

  Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

  Cover illustration by Gregory Titus

  Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Map by Charis Loke

  Author photograph by Leah Ladson

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Orbit eBook and Print on Demand Edition: August 2020

  Originally published in 2013

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  ISBN: 978-0-316-53632-5 (ebook), 978-0-316-53687-5 (print on demand)

  E3-20200516-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Character List

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Hana

  Chapter 2: Endymion

  Chapter 3: Darius

  Chapter 4: Hana

  Chapter 5: Darius

  Chapter 6: Endymion

  Chapter 7: Hana

  Chapter 8: Darius

  Chapter 9: Endymion

  Chapter 10: Hana

  Chapter 11: Darius

  Chapter 12: Endymion

  Chapter 13: Hana

  Chapter 14: Darius

  Chapter 15: Endymion

  Chapter 16: Hana

  Chapter 17: Darius

  Chapter 18: Endymion

  Chapter 19: Darius

  Chapter 20: Hana

  Chapter 21: Darius

  Chapter 22: Endymion

  Chapter 23: Hana

  Chapter 24: Endymion

  Acknowledgements

  Discover More

  Extras

  Meet the Author

  A Preview of The Grave at Storm’s End

  Also by Devin Madson

  For my loving husband.

  You are my best friend. You are my rock.

  Thank you for being there every step of the way along this mad journey.

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  Character List

  Ts’ai

  Honour Is Wealth.

  Emperor Kin Ts’ai—Emperor of Kisia

  General Hade Ryoji—Master of the Imperial Guard

  General Rini—General of the Rising Army

  General Jikuko—General of the Rising Army

  Father Kokoro—Court priest

  Master Kenji—Imperial physician

  Raijin—Kin’s brindle horse

  Otako

  We Conquer. You Bleed.

  Emperor Lan Otako—Deceased. Eldest son

  Emperor Tianto Otako—Deceased. Youngest son

  Empress Li—Deceased. Mother to Hana and Takehiko

  Emperor Katashi Otako, “Monarch”—Only son of Emperor Tianto

  Hacho—Katashi’s bow

  Lady Hana Otako, “Regent”—Only living daughter of Emperor Lan

  Tili—Lady Hana’s maid

  Shin Metai—A Pike and Lady Hana’s protector

  Wen—A Pike and healer

  Pike Captains—Captain Tan, Captain Chalpo, Captain Roni

  The Traitor Generals—General Manshin, General Roi, General Tikita

  Laroth

  Sight Without Seeing

  Lord Nyraek Laroth—Deceased. Fifth Count of Esvar

  “Malice” “Whoreson” Laroth—Illegitimate son of Nyraek Laroth

  Lord Darius Laroth—Legitimate heir of Nyraek Laroth. Sixth Count of Esvar

  Lord Takehiko Otako, “Endymion”—Illegitimate son of Nyraek Laroth

  Kaze—Endymion’s horse

  Vices

  Vice Without Virtue

  Lady Kimiko Otako, “Adversity”—Katashi’s twin sister

  Avarice—Once employed on the Laroth estate

  Hope—Once Lord Arata Toi, heir to the Duke of Syan, now a Vice

  Vices—Spite, Conceit, Ire, Folly, Apostasy, Parsimony, Pride, and Rancour

  The greatest fight is the fight within

  Against the nature of man

  Against self

  Against the god that lives inside us all

  Chapter 1

  Hana

  I had woken disoriented from many bad dreams before, but never to a stomach intent on spilling my horror onto the matting floor. Tili sang and shushed my cries, patting my back as I purged darkness from my stomach. And it felt like darkness, like a horror and a disgust so deep I might never smile again.

  Slowly, the warmth of the sun began to touch my skin, and I didn’t just hear her song; I felt it. It was like waking from another layer of dream, trembling and ill.

  “It’s going to be all right, my lady,” Tili said as she rubbed my back. She had draped blankets over me at some point, the weight of them on my shoulders comforting. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  Outside, birds went on singing. A bee buzzed onto the late-blooming jasmine coiled around the balcony railing. I could not recall my room at Koi having had a balcony, but the smell sent a wistful blade deep into my soul. Tears came next, and Tili held me to her, her weight and her warmth even more comforting than the blankets, and when at last I could cry no more, I finally felt alive. Exhausted, broken, but alive.

  “No one seems to know what happened,” Tili said, fussing around while I picked at some thinly sliced fruit. “But everyone who was in the room has suffered like this, and some…”

  She stopped. Her fussing got fussier.

  “Dead?” I said, my first word, but it felt appropriate. For a while there, death would have been a relief.

  “Yes, my lady, but let’s not think about that. You are safe and you are well and that is all that matters.”

  Her words owned a brittle cheeriness, her smile as fragile as glass. “Tili, tell me what happened. Please,” I added when she pursed her lips and would not speak. “I need to know.”

  “Lord Otako—Emperor Katashi, I mean, holds the city now. He’s taken the oath and everyone has to kneel before him and swear loyalty to their new emperor and”—Having begun to speak, she seemed unable to stop, words spilling from her like bile had spilled from me—“if they refuse, they are being… being executed, and anyone who had a position with Emperor Kin is being executed, and the imperial guards who didn’t escape are all dead, and most of the servants who came from Mei’lian, and… and…” Grief overtook her, tears choking her words. She rubbed her eyes with t
he sleeve of her robe. “I’m sorry, my lady, I did not mean to tell you until you were feeling better, I—”

  “Kin?”

  I could remember the fury and the blade and the flash of hurt in his dark eyes but not much else. Had he been in that room with me? Had Katashi caught him?

  Tili looked down and shook her head, sending fear thundering through my numb veins. “I’m sorry, my lady, but I don’t know. He seems to have just…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “… disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Hush, we should not talk so in case someone is listening, my lady. I do not want to… be thought a traitor and…” She pressed her sleeve to her eyes and stayed there silently shaking.

  Disappeared. Perhaps I had something to thank Malice for after all.

  I gripped Tili’s arm. “It’s going to be all right,” I said, repeating her words back to her. “I will not let him hurt you.” I let her cry as she had let me cry. Most of the servants who had travelled with us from Mei’lian had been known to her, some of the guards too. She might have exaggerated the number of deaths in her distress, but there were still many lives to fear for.

  “What of Minister Laroth?” I said. “What happened to him?”

  I had been in his room. Shin had been there. A strange young man too, tied to the divan. All I had wanted to do was get out of the castle, and then he had given me Malice’s blood.

  “I… I hear he hasn’t woken, my lady.” Tili sniffed. “But there are some men in black robes who are caring for him. Everyone says they are Vices.” She whispered the last word with the horror and awe that seemed to follow the Vices everywhere, but to me they were familiar faces.

  Almost I told Tili not to worry about them either, but while my ability to protect her from Katashi needed no explanation, I had not the energy to explain Malice.

  I nibbled a few individual pomegranate arils and stared at the table while Tili went back to fussing. I appeared to have a lot more robes than before, and she seemed intent on refolding them all.

  Kin had disappeared. Katashi had taken the oath. Darius was asleep, while Malice and his Vices were stalking about. And tucked away in this pretty room, I was as inconsequential as the breeze. I crunched a few more arils and tapped the table. I needed to see Katashi.

  “I will wash and dress,” I said. My body ached at the very thought, but I had to see the new world for myself. I had fallen asleep and everything had changed.

  “Are you sure, my lady? You still look very pale and you’ve hardly eaten anything. Emperor Katashi said I was to look after you and make sure no one troubled you and—”

  “I’m fine, Tili, I promise. Just tired, but… not the sort of tired sleep can fix. Will you choose something for me to wear?”

  With a nod, she walked away along the line of chests while I finished what I could stomach of my meal. “Blue, my lady?” She held up a lovely light-blue and white robe, edged in dark blue waves. It was pretty but cut low at the back of the neck and not one of mine.

  “No, one of the ones you altered for me.”

  Tili hadn’t a smile to lose, but her gaze slid toward the door. “As they were gifts from the Usurper, they have been taken away and replaced with… and unfortunately, my lady, I haven’t been able… there just hasn’t been time to—”

  She sucked a panicked breath, and I leapt up from my mat to take her hands, leaving the pretty robe to fall unheeded on the floor. “Tili, Tili, it’s all right; you cannot think I would be mad at you for that. I understand, you’re afraid, and if my cousin is making a nuisance of himself, then I can’t but—”

  “A nuisance? My lady, poor Ilo got executed just for having been born in Ts’ai, he is—”

  Again, she looked at the door. Her hands shook.

  “Surely there must have been more to it than that,” I said.

  “No! Ilo would never hurt a fly. I… I was born in Ts’ai, my lady. I lived there all my life until I moved to Mei’lian and took work at the palace. The only reason my head is not out there with theirs is because I am your maid.”

  Beneath the sound of her shuddering breath, there was nothing but the patter of footsteps, some chatter, and even a distant laugh—the sounds of a castle in which nothing had changed. And yet Tili trembled all over like an aspen leaf in a storm.

  “Tili,” I said. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Three days, my lady.”

  “Three days? I—” I bent and grabbed the robe off the floor. “I have to see Katashi. Here, I don’t suppose there is a robe with less of a come-fuck-me neckline, is there?”

  Her eyes widened, and cheeks turning pink, she gasped. “My lady!”

  I laughed at her look of mingled horror and awe. “I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t be surprised anymore that I’m hardly a lady. A less… attention-seeking neckline then, is that better?”

  “Yes, but… no. I’m afraid they all have… come-fuck-me necklines.” She squeaked at her own daring and covered her mouth with both hands as though she could push the words back in.

  For a blissful moment, there was nothing but companionable giggles, but it did not last. All too soon, the knowledge of where we were and what had happened dropped its shroud over us, and she helped me dress in silence. Having grown up on a farm, I was only used to wearing full robes on special occasions. The tunic and breeches style Tili had sewn had been as much for my own comfort as to annoy Emperor Kin. This court robe, however stunning it might look, was both too tight and too loose in all the wrong places, and its neckline that dropped below my fifth vertebra made me squirm.

  By the time Tili was finished, I might have walked right out of a court portrait.

  I hated the very sight of myself.

  “It’ll have to do,” I said as she tried and failed to make a comb stick in my short hair.

  “Shall I come with you, my lady?”

  “No, you stay.” I walked to the door and slid it open. “I’m sure someone will be able to tell me where—”

  “Lady Hana!”

  I spun around. A man in an imperial uniform had been standing outside my room, his black sash all that marked him as one of Katashi’s men, not one of Kin’s. Though I would have known him from one glance at his face. “Wen,” I said before I could think better of it and immediately thought better of it as he frowned. Captain Regent of the Vices had known Wen, not Lady Hana Otako.

  “I want to see Katashi,” I said, drawing myself up to maximum pride in an attempt to cover the mistake.

  “Cap—His Majesty is busy with his council, my lady,” he said, struggling with his own confusion in a way that might have given us something to laugh over had the situation not been so fraught and unsure. “But I can inform him that you’re feeling better and—”

  “No. I will see him now.” I walked on past Wen, sure that while he might grab my arm if he was very bold, he would not harm me.

  He was not very bold, but he did hurry to walk ahead of me as I made my way along the passage. “Lady Hana, His Majesty is meeting with his generals and would not appreciate—”

  “You know what else he would not appreciate? His cousin being forced to shout for him in the passage, making a scene. However, if you’d prefer I got his attention that way, by all means stand in my way.”

  Wen’s eyes widened and he fell back. I had shaken him off balance, but he followed as I got my bearings and made for the emperor’s apartments.

  At the sound of Katashi’s voice, my steps faltered. My heart seemed to drop right through the floor as I realised the enormity of what I was about to do. Like Wen, Katashi had only known Captain Regent, never Lady Hana.

  I rapped on the door before fear got the better of me.

  Inside, the voices halted, and letting out a gust of breath, Wen slid open the door. “Excuse me, Your Majesty,” he said, the polished words not coming easily to his tongue. “It’s Lady Hana. She is very intent on seeing you.”

  “Tell her I will see her when I am finished here
. We have important business—”

  “Then I will join you,” I said, stepping in and drawing the gaze of half a dozen men I didn’t recognise—and Katashi. He knelt at the end of a long table in the same crimson robes Kin wore, but in all other ways, he was the Captain Monarch I had first met at Nivi Fen, right down to his beautifully lopsided smile. “My dear cousin,” he said, emphasising the word as though in reproof for the secret I had kept. “I am so glad to see you are finally up and about. We have all been very concerned for your well-being.”

  In a flurry of silk and awkward coughs, the other men at the table rose and bowed, murmuring my name.

  “My thanks, Your Majesty,” I said, acknowledging them with a nod. “I am, as you see, quite well now.” I settled myself at an empty place at the table. “Do continue the meeting.”

  All eyes turned to Katashi, and with a nod to the gathered men, he said, “Family will not wait, it seems. Let us adjourn until General Manshin arrives this afternoon.”

  With many a nod and bow and murmuring of “Your Majesty,” the men once more rose from the table and headed for the door. Annoyed that he would rather send them away than let me take part, I might have protested, but Katashi’s smile had vanished beneath a thundercloud. I kept my peace and waited until the last one departed, leaving Wen to slide the door closed behind them.

  From the other end of the table, Katashi sighed. “Are you so intent on embarrassing me?” he said. “First you don’t tell me who you are so I must suffer the humiliation of having my cousin captured by the Usurper, and now you force your way into an important meeting with generals newly come to my cause. Any who believed you to be in Kin’s confidence, or his bed, have only more reason to think so now!”

  He could not have shocked me more with a slap. I leant back, fingers gripping the edge of the table. “Excuse me?”

  “Why else the desperate need to listen in on our plans?”

  Katashi gave a satisfied huff as my jaw dropped. All too well could I see why his allies might make such an assumption. “I am no spy.”