Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

Makin frowned, and still he had no answer. What answer is there?

My name for the ages? What ages? Marco Onstantos Evenaline of the House Gold had been a test, not the start, not the beginning. A test to learn from. For years Michael and those of his order had been positioning their weapons. The fires of the Builders, the poisons and the plagues. And here we were, the new men, born from ashes and cracking the world open as we played with our magic, with the toys Fexler’s kind had left us. Crack it but a little further and it would tip Michael’s hand: the ghosts of our past would rise again, bearing a final solution to all problems. And what followed me? What dogged my heels? An army of the dead, a wedge of necromancy driven after me and aimed at Vyene. A wedge big enough to split us all open. No wonder Father Merrin was blind. Our future was too bright for him. Rain fell, a cold autumn drizzle, lacking challenge. It filled my eyes. I had let the thorns hold me, taken what they offered, and lost the first of my brothers. Flesh of my flesh, his care the first duty I had set upon myself. I betrayed him and left him to die alone. And though there was no price I’d not pay to undo that wrong, even an emperor hadn’t the coin to set it right.

The palace dome, once so distant, engulfed us in its shadow. I shook off those memories, left mother, father, brother behind me in the rain.

Around the dome’s perimeter a dozen and more low entrances, slots high enough for a man on horseback, wide enough for thirty. The guards stationed themselves there as each of the Hundred arrived, their escorts breaking off to occupy the halls behind those slots. If any enemy threatened – me perhaps with my hundred thousand spears – they would sally forth to defend Congression.

Marten tapped my shoulder and pointed off west. A column of smoke rose, slanting with the wind, black smoke.

‘There are a lot of chimneys in Vyene,’ I said.

Marten swung his arm to a second column, further off, rising to join the louring cloud. I wondered if there were dead gathering at the city gates already, fresh-woken perhaps ahead of the Dead King’s advance. Even the swiftest of his main force must be a day or more away. And yet an uncommon pall of smoke hung above those distant roofs. Were the outer parts of the city aflame?

‘Maybe somebody has beaten me to it and come with an army,’ I said.

The guard stations around the palace are filled in order, the furthest from the grand entrance first. Our hundreds filed into the closest to the royal gates. It might be that the Drowned Isles delegation behind us would be the last of all the Hundred to arrive. Some have it that to be first through the Gilden Gate at Congression is to win the favour of dead emperors. The more practical suggest that it gives additional days in which to sway your fellow rulers and strengthen your faction. I say it just gives them time to grow heartily sick of the sight of you. On my previous attendance I had had to wait outside the throne room, too tainted to be admitted, and the only glimpse the Hundred had of me was of the occasional dire looks I slotted in at them through the Gilden Gate.

We dismounted. Osser Gant emerged from the carriage, then Gomst and Katherine climbed down, and Miana with William wrapped in furs against the wind. Dwarfed by the cavernous mouth of the Royal Gate we marched inside, just an honour guard of ten men in gold to guide us through. Captain Allan led them, Devers having remained outside to keep the Pope’s carcass under consideration.

The ceremonial gates stood open, monstrous things of age-blackened timbers bound with brass. It would take a hundred men to close them – if the hinges had been kept oiled. We passed through and walked the Hall of Emperors where each man stood remembered in stone, fathers, sons and grandfathers, usurpers, bastards-reclaimed-to-greatness, murderers and warlords, peace-makers, empire-builders, scientists, scholars, madmen and degenerates, all rendered as heroes, armoured, clutching the symbols of their rule. Builder-lights, a hundred bright spots on the ceiling, leading into the distance, made each statue an island in its own pool of illumination.

‘And you want to stand at the end of this line?’ Katherine spoke at my side. I hadn’t heard her draw close.

‘Orrin of Arrow wanted to,’ I said. ‘Is my ambition less worthy?’

She didn’t need to answer that.

‘Perhaps the empire requires me. Maybe I’m the only man who can save it from drowning in horror, or from burning on the bonfire of its past. Did you ever think of that? Set a thief to catch a thief, I said that to you once. Now I say set a murderer to stop black murder. Fight a fire with fire.’

‘That’s not your reason,’ she said.

‘No.’