by Sarah Hawke
I wondered distantly if Sharela would have made the same choice. For the last several years she had dressed me almost every day, especially when Master Kristoff had anything interesting planned. Ripe faeyn females were so valuable they almost always displayed their tattoo-free stomachs, and I was tempted to reconsider my choice just to make a point. But the bottom line was I that I liked my appearance, and it was strangely satisfying to make the decision for myself even if the end result was the same.
I granted myself another five minutes to finish a last piece of fruit before I reopened the door. The Praetorian was still waiting outside.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“His Supreme Majesty wishes to meet you in the Cartarium,” she replied. “Please, follow me.”
We wound through several more corridors and two flights of stairs before we reached the palace’s uppermost level. A massive, wall-length window provided a startling view of Sanctum. The Aetherium, the Grand Temple of Veshar, the Legion Citadel—they were all visible from here, along with dozens of other important buildings. By decree of Lucian’s father, Rikus, no structure in the city could rise higher than the palace, and after seeing this I could understand why.
Across from the window was another silver-plated door, and the Praetorian gestured inside. “The Emperor will be along shortly.”
I nodded and crept forward. The chamber was completely dark at first, but the glowstone sconces lit up once I actually stepped inside. The walls were covered in paintings and sculptures, at least half of which predated the Empire by centuries, but the floor itself was completely devoid of furniture. The stone tiles were painted, however, and after a few moments I realized it wasn’t just another mural or random pattern—it was an enormous map of Calhara.
The scale was truly staggering. Landmarks, cities, towns, even villages…everything was there, down to the smallest detail. But the longer I studied it, the more I realized that some of those details weren’t accurate. The provincial borders were completely missing…
“For almost twenty years, this room served as my father’s ever-growing harem,” the Emperor’s tenor voice echoed across the chamber. “He brought in slaves from every region in the world. Crell and Solarian, Yamatan and Talishite, human and elf…he was never particularly discerning. If the gods consider variety a vice, then my father is surely rotting in the blackest part of the Void.”
I glanced back over my shoulder as Lucian strode through the doorway. His crimson cape billowed behind him, and he had donned his sleeveless leather breastplate and matching greaves. Out of pure reflex, I dropped to a knee and lowered my head. Slaves weren’t even supposed to look upon him, let alone make any sort of eye contact.
“I ordered the renovation even before my official coronation,” Lucian went on. “It took the laborers almost four months to complete construction, and the Artificers needed another two to add the final touches. But the results speak for themselves, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I…” I stumbled in an attempt to find my voice. The serenity I’d found in the bath just minutes earlier evaporated the instant I saw him. “It is quite magnificent, Your Majesty.”
He grunted softly. “Few of my slaves have ever seen the Cartarium. Fewer still understand its purpose. But I suspect you might be the exception.”
I remained silent as he paced around me. I had no idea what to say or how to react. Back in Master Kristoff’s mansion, I’d planned out a dozen different strategies for approaching this conversation. As intimidating as the Emperor was, I had managed just fine with other powerful men like the Grand Dukes. But now that I was actually here, I felt completely unprepared. Lucian was one of the youngest members of the Imperial Court, yet he projected an aura of power unlike anything I’d ever experienced…
“That was a question, in case I was unclear,” Lucian said mildly. “Do you understand what this is?”
I swept my eyes across the floor. “It is a map of the Empire, Your Majesty.”
“A child could have told me that much. Surely you can do better.” He approached close enough to me that I could see his boots, and I could feel the weight of his glare upon me when I didn’t respond. “I’m disappointed, Elara. A mutual friend said you possessed remarkable inner strength, and in my experience she is rarely mistaken.”
I swallowed and bit down on my lower lip. He couldn’t have offered me a stronger cue, and this was my chance to take it.
“You have spoken with Lady Karethys,” I whispered as I slowly tilted my chin upwards. It was a testament to the power of my avenari training that forcing myself to make eye contact was so difficult. But when I did, Lucian merely smiled and offered me his hand.
“She told me all about your ‘negotiations’ with Duke Darkstone in the Vale,” he said, slipping his fingers into mine. “She also told me the truth about you—a truth I had already suspected for some time.”
“Your Majesty?”
His smile widened. “Kneeling is a sign of submission…but our kind should never submit to anyone. Rise.”
After releasing a final calming breath, I slowly rose to my feet. His hand was incredibly warm, and I was certain he could feel me trembling.
“Most slaves who dare look upon their Emperor are punished,” Lucian said. “But as I said, our kind can never be slaves. Not to the Covenant, not to Empire, and especially not to the Aether. We are Unbound—our will is made reality.”
I was tempted to continue feigning ignorance. I was even more tempted to outright deny him. But resistance was obviously pointless. If he planned to turn me over to the Covenant, he didn’t need my confession to do it. He was their chosen avatar.
“She told me about you,” I whispered. “Not directly, but I overheard her speaking with my…erm…handler.”
“You mean the Faedari operative posing as the bodyguard of one of the Grand Dukes,” Lucian said. “Yes, I know all about Larric as well. Karethys is quite fond of him, and she doesn’t express that sentiment towards many humans. Particularly males.”
He chuckled softly and lifted my other hand in his. He studied me for a long moment, but for one of the few times in my life I knew I wasn’t being appraised for my beauty. His eyes seemed to be looking through me rather than at me.
“Karethys told you about my abilities?” I asked softly.
“No,” Lucian said. “She doesn’t know the truth, or at least she didn’t until we last spoke. But I had my suspicions before Kristoff dispatched you into the Vale. When my spies first informed me that he was using his new avenari to gain support from the rest of the Quorum, I assumed he was plotting something. But when Arland and the Artificers and others joined him so rapidly, I knew there was more going on. Your master is a fraction as clever as he believes, and he has never been a particularly shrewd negotiator.”
“And you didn’t wish to stop him?”
“Why would I? He’s doing exactly what I want.”
My brow furrowed. “Karethys said you secretly wished to start a civil war between the provinces and destroy the Covenant in the process.”
“What I want is to save this world from the fools who control it,” Lucian said flatly. “The Covenant is the locus of their power. Without it, the Empire as we know could not exist.”
“But you’re the Emperor. You can already do anything you wish.”
“If only that were true,” he murmured. “I’m sure Gabriel taught you enough about politics to realize that no one man, not even me, can truly control the Empire. There are many factions vying for power—the gentry, the Legion, the Covenant, even the Artificers—and coalitions are only maintained by tenuous promises and even more tenuous threats of violence. I am going to change that.”
My eyes drifted back down to the map below our feet. “That’s what this is,” I whispered. “Your vision of an Empire without borders, without provinces.”
“It’s the beginning of my vision,” Lucian clarified. “Once the Covenant is destroyed and the old coalitions
crumble, there will no longer be a need for borders or provinces or Grand Dukes. We won’t even need a Legion.”
I wandered over Stormcrest on the map and glanced back up to him. “That’s why you’re doing this? To consolidate power?”
He snorted and shook his head. “You misunderstand, Elara. I am not a petty duke seeking a larger duchy. I—we—are Unbound. The Covenant preaches that we are heretics who deserve death, but we both know that’s a lie. They fear us because they cannot control us. It is a lesson repeated time and time again throughout the ages.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’ve no idea what Kristoff taught you about history, but Calhara was very different place a few centuries ago,” Lucian said as he sauntered over to the Sorthaal Highlands on the map. “The world was still recovering from the Second Godswar where Unbound channelers in Torsia rose up against their chains. The devastation was widespread and brutal. Millions died in the fighting. Entire cultures were changed forever.”
He paused and gestured down. “Your people still ruled Sorthaal, and they worshipped a long dead goddess named Anvira. But most of their channelers were Unbound. Just like the vaeyn, they were never afraid to harness the power the Aether had gifted them. Their civilization thrived while human kingdoms rose and fell across the world.”
“Until Sanctus Veshar destroyed it,” I whispered. “I have read the stories.”
“What you’ve read is almost certainly nonsense,” Lucian grumbled. “In the modern world, the power of the Aether can only be channeled by two types of people: the Unbound and those given access to the Godstone by the Covenant. Your former master is one of the Bound, as is Duke Darkstone. Their power was gifted to them by the Covenant and can be stripped away at any moment.”
I nodded slowly. “But they have no way to control us. That’s why the Inquisitors are so intent on hunting us down.”
“Precisely. It’s a simple enough truth, I know, but so many in this city refuse to see it…” He snorted softly shook his head. “The real question that no one dares ask is why the Godstone is capable of creating channelers. Where does its power come from? How can the Covenant control it so easily?”
“The stone contains the souls of the Triad,” I said. “The gods grant power to those they deem worthy.”
“Those are the words inscribed in the Levinthian and parroted by the Hierophant,” Lucian said. “The truth is more complex.”
He opened his right hand and conjured a small ball of blue flame into his palm. “What if I told you that Sanctus Veshar and his allies weren’t really gods?” he asked softly. “What if I told you that they, like many before them, were merely extremely powerful Unbound?”
“I…I don’t know,” I murmured. “Why would you believe that?”
“Because I have read books besides the Levinthian. I have studied histories beyond those contained in the library of the Paravel Divintium. The vaeyn are a source of great wisdom for those willing to listen, and they know the truth far better than any Covenant priest.”
Lucian snapped his hand shut and extinguished the flame. “In the ancient past, a handful of Unbound humans discovered that they could imbue their supplicants with a fraction of their power, allowing them to channel the Aether. Over time, these Unbound essentially became living gods. They ruled the world, and their followers slaughtered one another in their name.”
My eyes narrowed in confusion. I had never heard anything like this before, but I didn’t sense any overt deception from him. Of course that only meant he believed what he was saying. He still could have been wrong.
“Sanctus Veshar was one of those Unbound,” Lucian went on. “So were the other members of the Triad, most likely. They forged our Empire, and before they died they infused the Godstone with their power. They knew that their worshippers could use it as a leash to control all future channelers—except other Unbound. For that, they created the Covenant.”
I frowned in thought. “To demonize us, you mean.”
“Yes. What better way to control potential rivals than to brand them as heretics? They believed the rage of the masses would keep us from ever rising up and destroying what they had created.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. This all sounded so ludicrous I didn’t even know how to respond. Still, I couldn’t deny that a part of me found it fascinating. And it did make a twisted kind of sense…
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked.
“Because I want you to understand my vision of the future,” Lucian said. “I want you to understand the ramifications. Our people are more than just innate channelers, Elara.”
He smiled and placed his hands upon my shoulders. “We are living gods—and it is long past time we reclaimed what is rightfully ours.”
Chapter Nine: Vision of the Future
I stood there in silence for several seconds, wondering if Lucian was mad or merely delusional. His words went beyond idle rumination; they were downright sacrilege. The Levinthian was crystal clear on the subject of the Aether: it was a dangerous force that could only be harnessed by those loyal to the Triad. These “Bound” channelers swore fealty to the Hierophant, and their power could be stripped at any time if they disobeyed. The Inquisitors, the Tel Bator, the nobles who dabbled in magic—they were all Bound to the Godstone, and through it the Covenant.
Master Kristoff begrudged their control. He had spoken of it often while he’d trained me, and I had no doubt that many others felt the same way. Duke Darkstone would likely have his abilities severed the instant he formerly declared the Vale’s independence, and so would every other channeler in his court. The price of dissent was so steep it had held the Empire together for generations. Part of the reason Kristoff had wanted to gather such a large army was because he knew the Quorum’s forces would be at a tremendous disadvantage without magic of their own.
Still, none of that contradicted Lucian’s story. If anything, it made his words sound even more plausible. The Covenant’s war against the Unbound was as political as it was religious, and Larric had told me that one of the reason they hated elves so much was that we were more likely to be born Unbound. That was why the rules for faeyn breeding were so stringently enforced…
“I understand it’s a lot to take in,” Lucian said into the silence. “It took me years to uncover the truth and nearly as long to accept it. Then I met Karethys and everything changed.”
I glanced back up to him. “How did the Emperor meet a vaeyn?”
“It wasn’t long after your friend Larric encountered her and was exiled from the Covenant. When I heard the reports, I knew the Inquisitors were lying and decided to investigate myself.” He chuckled softly. “She could have killed me quite easily. I had only just started to unlock my powers, and I had no idea what a shadow knight was really capable of. But thankfully she realized I was the Emperor’s son, and she suspected I would be far more useful as a hostage than a corpse. Once she learned I was Unbound…well, everything else just fell neatly into place.”
I suddenly wished Larric were here. I had the feeling he didn’t know Karethys quite as well as he thought…or at least, he didn’t know everything she’d been up to. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.
“The two of you plotted out a way to trigger a civil war,” I whispered. “And you’ve been working together ever since.”
“Not always directly, but yes,” Lucian confirmed. “The vaeyn are fearsome but not prolific. She knew they could never survive an offensive war against the combined might of the Empire. If the provinces were set against each other, however, they could do a tremendous amount of damage in a short amount of time…as you have seen first-hand.”
I nodded absently. At this point, the fall of Stormcrest seemed like a lifetime ago. I had almost been a completely different person. When I thought back to the days just after Master Kristoff had purchased me, the memories almost seemed like they belonged to someone else...
“So you fed them enough information that
could conquer most of Glorinfel,” I whispered. “You knew it would drive Master Kristoff back to Sanctum and cripple the nobility’s trust in the Legion.”
“Indeed,” he said, gesturing down to the border between Sulinor and Glorinfel. “We knew that Stormcrest was the ideal target. The Kristoff family has always had a strained relationship with the High Generals, and I suspected I could use him to create a rift between Torelius and the Grand Dukes. Still, I would be lying if I claimed I’d expected things to proceed so smoothly. I assumed the Legion would need to suffer many more defeats before Gabriel could muster the Quorum.” He grinned. “I never counted upon you.”
I wasn’t entirely sure why, but his approving gaze made me feel more vulnerable than if I’d been naked on my knees in front of him. I hugged my arms across my chest, but it didn’t help.
“How long did you expect it to take?” I asked quietly.
“A year, at least,” Lucian said. “Several seemed far more likely. The vaeyn are tremendously patient, you understand—one of the many advantages of living so long. Karethys knew I was young, and she was content to wait decades for our scheme to unfold, if necessary. We made a number of contingency plans just in case Gabriel wasn’t as malleable as we hoped.”
I thought back to Master Kristoff’s comments about Lucian’s fetish for young noblewomen and the hedonistic display I’d witnessed last night. “Children,” I whispered. “You planned to birth as many Unbound children as you could.”
He chuckled softly and clasped his hands behind his back. “Once again you impress me—though I do apologize for last night’s performance. Placing you in the stocks was necessary to keep up appearances in front of the court. Still, I hope you found the view…compelling.”
“Master Kristoff said the Covenant was worried about your offspring,” I said. “But they don’t know that you’re Unbound.”