shadow he knew almost as well as his own. The passenger he’d carried across storm and sea. The wolf who loved him.
“I…,” he sniffled, looking at the knife in his hand. “I don’t…”
“Lucius Atticus Scaeva, I am your father! Obey me!”
And you may hate him for it, gentlefriend. You may think him a weak and callow wretch. But in truth, Jonnen Corvere was just a nine-year-old boy. And Father was just another name for God in his mind.
“I’m … s-sorry,” Jonnen breathed.
And slowly,
ever so slowly,
he lowered his hand.
Free once more, Whisper struck. Eclipse fell, yelping as black fangs sank deep into her hide. Again. Again. Tears burning his eyes, Jonnen heard screaming, just beyond the edge of hearing. That hunger swelling inside him. Whisper twisted and sighed, the serpent’s coils roiling and tightening around the shadowwolf’s body. And as Jonnen watched, horrified, Eclipse began to fade.
Growing weaker.
Paler.
Thinner.
“… J-JONNEN…”
The wolf slowly diminishing.
“… C-CASSIUS…”
Until only the snake remained.
Dark enough for two.
“Lucius.”
Sobs bubbled in the boy’s throat. Horror and grief in his chest, threatening to choke him. All the world was burned and blurred by his tears as he looked up at his father’s outstretched hand. Smeared in blood. Spattered with black.
“It’s time to go home, son.”
His little shoulders sagged. The weight of it all too much. He played at being a man, but in truth, he was still only a child. Lost and tired and, without the wolf in his shadow, now desperately afraid. Whisper slipped across the space between them, into the dark puddled at his feet. Eating the fear, just as he’d eaten the wolf. Soundlessly, Jonnen dropped the dagger Butcher had given him.
“Imperator.”
Jonnen looked up the eastern stairs at the sound of the voice. Through his tears, he saw a tall Dweymeri woman, breathless and filmed with sweat. She was dressed in emerald green, lips and eyes painted black. She wore gold about her wrists and throat, but she was stripping off the adornments, tossing them down to the stables below.
“Shahiid Spiderkiller,” his father said. “You live.”
“You sound surprised, Imperator,” the woman replied, slipping off another bracelet. “If you’ve a will to leave this place, we should travel together.”
“The Red Church has failed me, Spiderkiller,” the imperator replied. “Why in your Black Goddess’s name would I bring you with me?”
“I thought perhaps I’d bring you with me,” she replied with a dark smile. “And I have failed nothing. I swore vengeance against Mia Corvere, and vengeance now I have. So if you’ve a mind to see us safely down to the speaker’s chambers, I’ll tell the tale of how I’ve killed your daughter for you.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. Head tilted. Weighing it all in his head. His flock of assassins was all but destroyed, his daughter’s bloody revenge against the Red Church all but complete. And yet, though the Ministry had failed, the imperator of Itreya wasn’t one to cast aside a perfectly good hammer simply because it had bent a single nail. One killer he might make use of yet remained among Niah’s faithful.
And so, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
The Dweymeri woman descended, shedding the last of her jewelry and taking her place at his father’s side. The shadows about them darkened, his father’s voice darker still.
“Come here, my son.”
The boy met the man’s gaze. Dark and deep as his own.
The sun shining in his sky.
The god in his eyes.
“Yes, Father,” Jonnen said.
And slowly, fearlessly, the boy took his father’s hand.
* * *
Adonai waited in silence.
The chains about his waist and ankles made it painful to kneel, so he sat at the head of the blood pool instead. Waiting for the little darkin to return and free him. The speaker could smell fresh blood in the air, feel it flowing unchecked in the levels above—young Mia’s assault was obviously going well. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slow, searching for calm. In the turns since Drusilla had learned of his treachery, he’d found very little, truth told.
When the Lady of Blades had sent emissaries to his chambers and informed him Aelius and Mercurio’s conspiracy had been uncovered, he’d been dismayed. But when he’d been told that his sister had been imprisoned, that she’d be held in captivity to assure his cooperation until after Mia Corvere was dead, Adonai had been consumed with rage.
The emissaries Drusilla had sent had been drowned in his pool. The next two, who bore one of Marielle’s severed ears on a velvet cushion, he’d torn to pieces with vitus spears. It was only