Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,131

entered the Lyceum and did not look back.

• • •

In the Lyceum, in the receiving hall known as the Rose Room, Simon sat listening to the governing body of Invictus known as the Council of Five, wondering how long it would take them to realize they were being spied upon.

He glanced at the glossy cherrywood doors, beyond which Jessamyn crouched, eavesdropping. Her movements had been too clumsy to go entirely unnoticed; Simon had heard her foot scuff the floor. Like the rest of them, she was no doubt on edge due to the constant eerie light teeming in the sky. There were no true nights anymore; even the darkest hours were painted silver.

Simon looked back at the Five, but they were ignorant to her presence, which faintly disgusted him. They were meant to be assassins of the highest order, and yet they could not hear one of their own students shuffling outside their door.

One of the Five, a pale, sinewy woman named Vezdal, leaned over the council table with a glare.

“So you see, Simon, we cannot delay any longer,” she said urgently. “Each moment that creeps by could be our last. You’ve seen the sky. I refuse to watch angels die and the Empire collapse because we did not act.”

“‘He has chosen me to guard His works,’” said one of the other Five, Mirzet, a brown-skinned woman lined with age and yet still supposedly a viper with a sword. “‘He has chosen me to receive His glory.’ So says the Invictus oath. He has chosen. Not they. Our loyalty must remain to the Emperor.”

“And yet the oath also says, ‘I am the guardian of His story,’” said another of the Five, his voice smooth and even. His name was Kalan, a tall, bull-shouldered man. “One could argue that His story is the story of the angels—the Empire, the entire race, not only one angel—and that we are not properly guarding it if we let it end, whether or not that means betraying the Emperor.”

Mirzet scoffed, pushed her chair roughly back from the table, and stalked away to one of the windows. It was the only one open in the room, admitting a spear of Ostia’s eerie blue light.

Kalan turned to Simon and spoke again. “Jessamyn’s reports tell us he shuts himself up in the girl’s rooms for hours at a time. She hears her screams, and she sees the Emperor emerge afterward, harried and crazed, but still the girl resists him. Is this accurate, Simon?”

Simon watched the man coldly. “It is.”

“And Ostia grows every day. Ravikant suspects it will soon open wide enough that the fabric of the empirium there will rupture, and the cruciata will spill right into the streets of our city. Isn’t that right?”

“If you are trying to steer me toward betraying my lord and Emperor, you will fail,” Simon said, his voice low and even. He rose from his chair. “It was a mistake for me to come here. It was an even larger mistake for you to call this meeting. I will give you one chance to persuade me that you have said these things in error due to fear and a misguided interpretation of the Invictus oath. If you fail to persuade me, I will bring the Emperor here tonight and have you slain on your steps.”

Kalan’s eyes blazed, his hands flat on the tabletop. “His mind is elsewhere, Simon. You know this. You see it yourself every day. All of us do. This obsession with traveling to the past and reuniting with his lost love… It has ruined him. If he were himself, if his mind were what it once was, he would have broken the Ferracora girl long ago. But he has not, and monsters encroach upon us from sea and sky. We must act. She must seal the Gate, and now Ostia too, or else it is death for all of us.”

Simon waited, half his attention on the tense council.

The other half listened for Jessamyn.

“Admiral Ravikant is already at work,” Kalan went on, sounding more confident now. He thought his argument was working. “He has assembled his strongest lieutenants. They believe that the combined strength of their minds will be enough to destroy him. But in order to do this, we will need your help.”

Suddenly, Vezdal shot up from the table and hurried for the doors. She kicked them, and they flew open wide, knocking Jessamyn to the floor.

The girl jumped to her feet just as Vezdal lunged, a long, slim