by Morgan Rice
She didn’t succeed. Ceres saw a large, scarred man turn on her, raising up to his full height.
“What do you think you’re doing? Give me that! Scrawny little brat, I’ll kill you!”
He took a step forward, and Ceres couldn’t hold herself in place. She sprang in between the girl and her would-be attacker, hands up ready to fight.
“Leave her alone,” Ceres said.
“I’ll do what I want,” the thug said. Ceres saw him look her up and down. “To her, and you.”
Ceres felt anger rising in her. Energy rose in its wake, flooding through her. Her opponent charged at her, but she was already moving. She sidestepped the thug’s rush, leaving her foot out to trip him. As he went down, she was already on him, the chain that connected her shackles wrapping tight around his throat. She heard him make a gurgling sound as she strangled him, before he fell still.
She could have kept going. She could have choked him until he died, or pulled until his neck snapped. It would have been the kind of message the rest of the hold would understand. Instead, Ceres let go, kicking the man’s unconscious body away.
She saw several of the hold’s other denizens descend on him to rob him. Ceres held back her disgust and went back to her spot instead. The girl was there, obviously not wanting to move too far away from her. Even so, she looked frightened, as though expecting Ceres to lash out at her at any moment.
“It’s all right,” Ceres said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Ceres.”
The girl took a moment to consider that, and Ceres guessed that she was trying to work out all the ways the conversation could go. “I’m Eike.”
Ceres held out a small piece of bread to her, and Eike took it, staring at it for a moment before biting down hungrily. She looked up at Ceres, as though waiting for what it would cost her. Ceres gestured to the patch of deck beside her.
“You can sit down if you like,” Ceres said.
“Do I have to?” Eike asked.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”
The girl snorted. “I know that’s not true here.”
Even so, she sat down. She watched Ceres with obvious curiosity.
“Is it true that you fought in the Stade?” she asked eventually.
Ceres nodded. “That’s right.”
“Is it true that you killed your master, too?” Eike asked. Apparently the rumors had made their way here, too. “They say that’s why you’re here.”
“I killed a slaver who tried to capture me, and who had a knife to my friend’s throat,” Ceres said.
Eike stared back.
“I am here because my family joined the rebellion,” she said. “When the soldiers came, they took all of us. Now”—she choked back a sob—“I’m the only one left.”
Ceres put an arm around her. She felt Eike tense like an animal ready to run, and that just made her feel worse for her. No one that young should be stuck somewhere like this. Ceres didn’t want to think about what they would do to the girl on the Isle of Prisoners.
She didn’t want to think about what they would do to her, either. The Isle had an evil reputation as a place of torturers and cruel deaths, oubliettes and mass cages. Once there, there was almost no coming back, certainly not for anyone like her. A quick death in the Stade would have been better, Ceres decided. Far better.
“If you want to sleep, I could keep watch,” Eike offered.
Ceres looked over to her. She guessed that the girl was looking for a way to make herself useful so that Ceres wouldn’t abandon her. Ceres wouldn’t do that, but in this place, it would be hard to convince her that anyone was capable of acting out of altruism. Besides, she was currently so exhausted that the idea of being able to sleep meant almost as much as freedom would have.
“I’d like that,” Ceres admitted. “Wake me if there’s trouble.”
“There’s always trouble,” Eike said. “But I’ll wake you up if anyone comes close.”
It seemed bizarre to Ceres to be trusting her safety to this girl, but the exhaustion of her day overcame her, and before she could think twice, the rocking was already lulling her heavy eyes to sleep.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lucious was in a mood to celebrate. He threw back a goblet of wine too fast, raising it in a mocking toast to thin air as it burned in his throat.
“To vanquished irritants!”
He tossed the goblet casually at a servant, and the man scrambled to catch it, probably terrified that Lucious would have him beaten if he let it hit the floor. Lucious resolved to have him beaten later anyway, just to keep the man on his toes.
He made his way in the direction of the throne room. Ordinarily, he found the business of the court boring, but perhaps today it would turn to more of a party atmosphere. The problem was dealt with, and soon it would be the Festival of the Moon, one of the biggest festivals in Delos’s calendar. Normally, that meant days of feasting and parties, presents and enjoyment. The feasts at the castle were always a lavish affair.
Lucious was halfway to the throne room when he saw the older woman arguing with the guards.
“But Lady Stephania promised me! I was the one who gave her Ceres!”
Lucious stepped across to the argument, looking the woman over. To him, she looked nondescript and worn, not worth his interest. Only Ceres’s name caught his attention.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“She wants to speak to Lady Stephania,” one of the guards said.
“I’m owed,” the woman said. She held up a pouch, clutched so tightly Lucious could see her knuckles sticking out. “She gave me money for what I knew about Ceres, but now that it’s let her get rid of my daughter—”
“Your daughter?” Lucious said. Despite the wine, that got through. “You’re Ceres’s mother?”
“I am.” The woman seemed to remember herself enough to curtsy. “Marita, my lord. I provided the information that let them take Ceres.”
“So you’re the reason I didn’t get to see her die in the Stade?” Lucious asked, letting a brief note of anger seep into his voice. That was the one part of this that still rankled. That his carefully prepared plan could be set aside, and Stephania’s could work so well instead. Everybody knew that she was just a vacuous ornament at court, but through some stroke of luck she’d succeeded.
Ceres’s mother looked frightened at that. She was right to be.
“And now you’re here for more money?” Lucious said. He shook his head. “That’s just… ungrateful.”
The woman seemed to understand the position she’d put herself in at last. “I… I’ll go.”
“Not yet,” Lucious said. He grabbed the coin pouch, ripping it from her hand and then tossing it to one of the guards.
“That’s mine!” Ceres’s mother insisted.
“It was yours,” Lucious said. “Now it is this guard’s.”
“I earned that!” the woman insisted.
Lucious snapped his fingers. “She needs to learn the price of getting above her station. Take her outside, and take everything of value she has. Then throw her in the gutter like the trash she is.”
“Yes, Prince Lucious,” the guard said.
“No!” Marita screamed as the guards grabbed her by the arms. “You can’t do this to me!”
It always amused Lucious when peasants tried to tell him what he couldn’t do. They didn’t understand how the world worked. He stood and watched as the guards dragged her outside, then called out, almost as an afterthought.
“If she resists, beat her until she learns better.”
Lucious smiled then and headed for the throne room. The others were already there, and as he’d predicted, it had something of a carnival atmosphere to it. He could see Stephania at the heart of a clique of the other noble girls, with them fawning over her as usual. The king and queen sat on their thrones while before them, nobles chattered and congratulated themselves on having dealt with the crisis. Probably half of them were busy try
ing to claim credit for the outcome.
Lucious made his way through them, and today they mostly stepped back to give him room to get through. Many of the more minor nobles bowed or nodded, giving him the acknowledgment he deserved.
“Lucious, would you like to come to a gathering we’re having for the Festival of the Moon?” one of the young noblewomen there asked as he passed. “We have a group of masked players this year who are simply delightful.”
Another cut in straightaway. “Masked players are so last year. We have tumblers brought from the far south, and perfumers who have promised clouds of scented smoke.”
“Tumblers?” the first said. “And I suppose you’ll be serving the same quails and oxen as last year as well?”
Lucious forced a smile. The truth was that he would go wherever they treated him most like the prince he was on festival night. He would probably tour from party to party until they all blended into one.
“It sounds good,” Lucious said. “I’ll think about it.”
More offers followed as he continued through the crowd.
He was almost to the front when King Claudius stood up, raising his hand for silence and instantly bringing the chattering to a halt. He stood there, and despite his age, Lucious could see the power there within him.
“Why are you all so happy?” he demanded. “Because we have gotten rid of one girl?”
“And killed the leader of the rebellion,” Lucious pointed out. “Rexus is dead. Ceres is gone. The people have no one to lead them.”
“That is true,” Queen Athena said. “The rebellion is hurt, but that does not mean that our people will settle back into their lives easily.”
“They must be pressed back,” King Claudius said, “and firmly!”
Lucious suspected that he knew where this was going. The king and queen had ordered periods of greater severity before. Lucious had never understood why it was necessary to order it. Surely, no unrest or disobedience should ever be tolerated?
“How are they to be pressed back, your majesties?” Lucious asked. He guessed that it was the question on the minds of most of those there. Well, those who weren’t preoccupied with how to host the most out of control party for the festival, at least. Stephania, for example, seemed utterly uninterested, more concerned with the attention of her coterie of noblewomen. “How much more can be done?”
Queen Athena gave him a hard look. “You don’t believe that we have a plan, Lucious?”
“I’m sure you do, my queen,” Lucious said. “I’m just eager to hear what it is. I’m sure we all are.”
More likely, everyone there wanted to know whether it would affect them. He thought back to some of the things they had tried in the past. Those with rebel sympathies had been rounded up and either killed or enslaved. Their families had been imprisoned, their homes burned. There had been harsh taxes and harsher methods of collection. It had seemed obvious to Lucious that eventually they would realize that they were bringing such measures on themselves with their defiance, but curiously, the more rebels they treated harshly, the more there seemed to be. There was no logic to it, but then, who understood how the lower orders thought?
“I have heard you all talking about the Festival of the Moon,” King Claudius said. “Well, I believe that it is appropriate that our Empire makes its rulers an offering for the festival, in reparation for all the trouble the rebellion has caused.”
“What kind of offering?” Lucious asked.
King Claudius shrugged. “Whatever we desire. From now until I decide that the people of Delos have learned the price of resistance, any noble will be able to take whatever they wish from the rest. If you want their children as slaves, they are yours. If you want their last coins, or the clothes off their backs, they will give them. They say we have taken too much from them? We will move among them and show them what it is like to have everything taken from them.”
“There will be those who resist,” Lucious pointed out.
“You sound as though you’re arguing against our command, Lucious,” Queen Athena said.
Lucious shook his head. “Not at all, your majesties. I’m merely asking what I am permitted to do when they do fight back.”
He heard the slap of flesh on flesh as the king slammed his fist into his palm. “Crush them. Kill any who refuse to hand over what is ours. Remind them that they only own anything in this Empire through our grace. Slaughter them, enslave their families, and have their neighbors watch as you take everything they have ever owned.”
Lucious smiled at the thought of that. It was the kind of thing he’d done with Ceres’s mother, only on a scale that would encompass the whole Empire. Perhaps some would argue, perhaps some would fight, but they would only serve as examples for the others.
“I would like to lead these efforts,” Lucious said, thinking with relish of the possibilities.
Queen Athena smiled. “We thought you would, and we think you’re the perfect choice. Go out among them, Lucious. Take our guards with you, and make them properly afraid of their rulers for once.”
“With pleasure,” Lucious said, and it would be a pleasure. It wasn’t so much the thought of everything he could take from the peasants as the act of taking itself. He was sure that there would be the opportunity to show plenty of them their place in ways they would never forget. “When do you want me to begin?”
“At once,” King Claudius said. “I want this to be a Festival of the Moon that all of Delos will remember.”
“Oh, it will be,” Lucious promised. “It will be.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
When Thanos returned to Delos, there were guards on the docks—indeed, there were guards everywhere. The whole city had the feel of a place under siege, making it hard to tell the difference between the Empire’s capital and the way Haylon had been when it was under attack. He saw bones hanging in a gibbet over the water, the iron chain that held it creaking as it moved in the wind.
A part of Thanos wanted to avoid the guards. They reminded him too much of the soldiers he’d fought back on the rebels’ island. Yet he needed to play the part of the loyal prince, returning from the war, and that meant not sneaking around.
“You there,” he said to the first group he found. They appeared to be engaged in stripping a waterfront home of its contents. “What are you doing?”
“Enforcing the orders of the king,” their sergeant said. “What’s it to you?”
“I am Prince Thanos. You will stop this and escort me to the castle at once.”
He saw the guards pale at that, but they did as he commanded. Thanos looked around as they walked with him back to the castle. In the time he’d been away, it seemed that plenty had changed. He could see other groups of soldiers looting houses, while more gibbets hung on street corners. Some of the occupants were still alive. Graffiti scrawled on the walls proclaimed the cruelty of the king among the more usual comments on the fighters in the Stade. Just the thought of them had him thinking about Ceres.
By the time he reached the castle, it was hard to concentrate on anything else, but Thanos knew he had to. He had to keep up the pretense of loyalty, the illusion of being the perfect prince. One slip could mean more than his life. It might mean defeat for the rebels’ plans too. He had to find out who had ordered his death, and look for ways to help the rebels. Despite all of that, the urge to see Ceres was almost more than he could bear.
He could have gone to his old rooms and changed before heading for the throne room. Instead, Thanos strode in as he was. He wanted everyone there to see him with the dirt and blood of the conflict for Haylon on him. He wanted them to understand what had happened there. He stepped into the throne room, and heard the collective gasp from those there.
They stood in place as if frozen. Thanos walked forward between them, letting his eyes flicker left and right. He could see plenty of nobles he knew there, all looking as though they were dressed for a celebration. He spotted Cosmas in a corner, the scholar looking as though he was ma
king mental notes on everything that was happening in the room. Lucious was off to one side, in grand armor that made him look like the general of an invading army. Stephania was holding a peach, just poised to take a delicate bite out of it. At the head of the room, King Claudius sat on his throne, while Queen Athena had moved off among the nobles to talk to them.
Thanos took all that in, and he slipped through the crowds toward the throne. Once he reached the dais, he fell to one knee, bowing his head as if in shame.
“Your majesty, I regret to inform you that the expedition to retake Haylon has not been a success.”
It was an understatement. If the king knew anything about what had happened, he would know it had been a disaster. Briefly, tension clamped around Thanos. What if soldiers had escaped back to Delos? What if a dove had returned with a message? The king might already know about the part he’d played in the destruction of the Empire’s forces.
The room was silent for several seconds. In it, Thanos found his thoughts of possible discovery swept away by the need to examine the others there. Someone had sent an assassin for him. He would find out who had done that.
“Thanos?” the king said, standing. He took Thanos’s hands, drawing him up to his feet. To Thanos, it seemed like a surprisingly tender gesture, given how cruel the king usually was. “You’re alive? We heard that you were killed by the rebels on the beaches of Haylon.”
Thanos tried to listen for the nuances of that. Was the king disappointed? Had he been the one to send the Typhoon with orders to kill him?
“I was almost killed, though it wasn’t by rebels,” Thanos said. “One of our own soldiers stabbed me in the back.”
He looked around at the room as he said it. Did anyone look shocked by the revelation? Did anyone look satisfied? How many of those here could have bribed or commanded the Typhoon? The truth was that it was too many. There was almost no one there he could trust. Every smile at his return was as likely to be fake as real.