“Why travel all the way to the ruins of Old Ashkah?” his father asked. “Why not claim the power that resides right here beneath Godsgrave?”
“The remnants in this pool will not avail you, Father,” Jonnen said. “Tric warned Mia about them. They are what is left of the Moon’s rage. The part of him that wants only to destroy. They have festered down here in the dark too long. Mia did not dare to touch them. Nor should you.”
His father’s eyes glittered in the dark. Fixed upon that liquid malevolence. His hands balled into fists. Frustration. Agitation. Calculation.
“Duomo’s map.” The imperator turned his piercing black stare upon his son. “The one Järnheim stole. Did you see it?”
Jonnen swallowed hard. He loved his father, he truly did. Admired him. Emulated him. Envied him. But more, and above all, he feared him.
“I … saw it,” the boy whispered.
“Whisper,” his father said.
The shadowviper remained silent, swaying before the pool.
“Whisper!” the imperator snapped.
The serpent slowly turned its head, hissing softly.
“… Yes, Julius…?”
“Since you struck down my daughter’s passenger, you seem made of … darker stuff.” Black eyes looked the serpent over. “Do you feel changed?”
“… I am stronger since consuming the wolf, aye. I feel it…”
“The tale is true, then? In destroying another of these … fragments…”
“… We claim that fragment for ourselves…”
The imperator looked at his son. “And my daughter has killed other darkin?”
The boy nodded. “At least one.”
“Then she is at least twice as strong as I.”
Jonnen nodded again, watching his father by the light of their lonely torch. He could see the imperator’s mind at work—the cunning and intelligence that had seen Julius Scaeva lay waste to all who opposed him. To build his throne upon a hill of his enemies’ bones. And ever the apt pupil, the boy found his mind working, too.
His father had two problems with his wayward daughter, the way Jonnen saw it. First, that Mia might lay claim to whatever power lay waiting at the Crown of the Moon. And second, that even if she failed to claim it, with two fragments of Anais inside her, she was still more powerful than their father was. If she returned to Godsgrave at truedark—as she almost surely would—he’d be unable to stand against her, either way.
The imperator looked out over the inky black, his face etched like pale stone in the arkemical light. Jonnen couldn’t quite remember ever seeing his father wearing the expression he wore now. He seemed almost … afraid.
“She showed me this for a reason,” he murmured. “This is the answer. No mere throne or title. No work of man, destined for dust and history. This is ageless. Undying.”
The imperator of all Itreya slowly nodded.
“This is the power of a god.”
“… Yours for the taking, Julius…”
“It is dangerous, Father,” Jonnen warned.
“And what have I told you, my son?” the imperator asked. “About claiming true power? Does a man need senators? Or soldiers? Or servants of the holy?”
“No,” Jonnen whispered.
“What then, does a man need?”
“Will,” the boy heard himself say. “The will to do what others will not.”
Julius Scaeva, imperator of the Itreyan Republic, stood on that screaming shoreline, looking out over that ebon pool. Stone faces mouthed their silent pleas. Stone hands caressed his skin. The godsblood rippled in anticipation.
“I have that will,” he declared.
And without another word, he stepped into the black.
“… Julius…!”
“Father!” Jonnen cried, stepping forward.
No trace of the imperator remained, save a faint ripple across the gleaming black. The pool shimmered and shifted, a strange un-light playing upon its surface. The boy felt his heart thumping in his chest, taking another step closer. The stone faces had frozen still. Aa himself seemed to be holding his breath.
“Father?” Jonnen called.
A wailing beyond the edge of hearing. A thrumming in the dark behind his eyes. Jonnen blinked hard, swayed upon his feet, clutching his temples as a black pain lanced through his skull. The stone faces opened their mouths wide, the cries rising in volume until the walls themselves seemed to tremble. Whisper curled upon himself, hissing in agony. Jonnen did the same, dropping to his knees and cutting them bloody on the faces beneath him. The reverberations seemed to shake the room, the city, the very earth itself, though all in the chamber was frozen still.
Jonnen found himself screaming along, feeling a pull like some dark gravity. He looked into the godsblood and saw it trembling, perfect, concentric circles rippling out from the spot where his father had fallen. The boy’s