“What do you see?” my father asks.
Phaestion’s honor guard removes their helms. I look up at the aquagraphic on the sondi to view them in close-up. The first is delicately boned, has pale skin and almost-white hair, and moves with a feline sensibility. On his left breast is the silver symbol of the orca pride. Hanschen.
The second has hair of spun gold that hugs ruddy cheeks in tight curls. His body is tall, wiry, and athletic. His eyes flash a wild blue, and it seems he represses an insatiable grin even on this solemn occasion. He wears the symbol of the manta. Perdiccus of House Mughal.
The last is huge. He looks uncomfortable in the black formal suit as if his muscles were going to burst from it. His blond hair is cropped close to his skull, and his face is broad beneath pale eyes. He stalks forward, on his chest the great toothed mako. Sigurd, of course.
“My old friends all grown,” I say with disdain.
“Did you doubt they’d be here? What else?” Edric hisses.
This reminds me of sitting with Faria in the Citadel air vents listening to prisoners and answering his quizzing. A lone screamer enters view as it careens around the Wusong building. It pulls a coffin like a chariot dragging a fallen warrior behind it. The crowd hushes. Most fallen combatants are honored. This is beyond that. Edgaard is the heir of a house. That itself might warrant such ostentation. Still . . .
“Edgaard must have put up some fight,” I murmur. I note my brother’s pale face, smooth behind the glass panel of the coffin. His thick blond hair is pulled into a ponytail. He’s dressed in a black uniform of House Julii, the silver medal of the leviathan pinned to his chest.
“Edgaard is wearing the colors of House Julii.” I speak the thought aloud.
My father’s eyes turn to me like a reptile’s.
“All of them—Perdiccus, Sigurd . . . all houses swear allegiance to the Julii?”
“The remarkable speed with which your brain works astonishes me, brother,” Lavinia says, dripping sarcasm.
“All prominent families claim their heirs to be Companions now. House Leontes alone remains,” Edric says. “A few lesser vassals join us, but Edgaard was the last. Now in death, that fiend claims my boy as his.”
“What of their fealty to House Wusong?” I ask.
“Your blushing bride’s the last of the bloodline. What do you think?” Edric flicks a gnarled hand in Miranda’s direction. The emperor’s proud daughter bears the insult with feigned ignorance. She should have been Edgaard’s bride, but Old Wusong insisted that it be I who take her hand. Poor Miranda.
Phaestion, Hanschen, Perdiccus, and Sigurd carry my brother’s coffin to a bier built on the center of the platform.
“If he aligns all houses, there will be a united government, as in the days of the first emperor,” I say.
“One world under an orca flag,” Lavinia muses.
“Not the whole world. There’s an entire people who will not follow,” I add coldly.
“You mean the mongrel islanders?” Edric laughs acidly.
“Derides the man who fathered a half-breed.”
“I wasn’t born noble, either, Edmon. I’m more liberal in thinking than you suppose. But islanders count little in the game of Meridian politics.”
“Then why disparage unity of the Pantheon other than for the reason it’s not you who’s doing it?” I ask.
“If it accomplished a worthy purpose . . .” He nods.
“You hoped Edgaard would slay Sigurd and claim the glory that Phaestion plans for himself?”
“That would have been a start. At the very least, I prevented that little redhead whale shit from turning my own children to his cause.”
“Did you?” I retort. “It seems that in death, Phaestion has cloaked Edgaard in his colors, not yours.”
My father scowls, the corded veins of his neck writhing as he clenches his jaw. He knows I’m right. Edric’s political power has diminished to the point where he can’t even control the narrative of his own child’s death.
“The son you bred from high blood failed,” I say. I can’t bring myself to truly hate Edgaard, though he was complicit in Nadia’s death. He had been brainwashed. Demeaning the old man, however, and the son he loved better is the only satisfaction I have now.
“Today we honor the glorious dead!” Phaestion’s voice is amplified across the skyway. Edgaard’s coffin opens. Phaestion leans down and kisses Edgaard’s forehead with his own in the gesture of brothers. He’s not Edgaard’s brother; I am. Yet I stand so far away.
“Rest now, son of Leontes.”
Sigurd hands Phaestion a torch, and he lights the bier, which erupts in a blaze that smokes to the heavens. Edgaard Leontes joins the Elder Stars.
The loss of knowledge, the loss of joy. Faria’s right—there is nothing beyond death. Death is the ultimate waste, and this place reeks of it. I promise myself I will never take another life from this world. Though if Father has his way, either I or Phaestion will soon be burning, too.
CHAPTER 26
CANZONETTA
“Your reaction speed was point-oh-four-percent increase from standard of our last engagement,” the metallic voice of Mentor, the automaton program my father has purchased to train me for the arena, follows me as I head back to my quarters. My body is exhausted from the training session, but my mind is still on fire with the possibilities.
“Thank you, Mentor.” I’m getting better, faster, I think.
For the past several months, I’ve been cooped up on this level of the Wusong Palatial Towers. My days have been filled only with eating, sleeping, and training against the Mentor program. Over and over, repeat, repeat. My father knows that Phaestion has been training with the Arms of Agony since he was a boy. Mentor is Edric’s countermeasure. I would refuse to comply with my father’s demand that I ready myself for Combat, but the exertion keeps my body and mind sharp, and the abundance of food is a much-needed change from the meager offerings of the Wendigo.
Edric knows I’ve killed in prison to survive, but he doubts that I will do so at his command. He’s right. I have no intention of entering the arena. My desire is escape. Soon . . .
I’ve been looking for a way out since I’ve returned to Meridian, but I’ve been under heavy lock and key. Security camglobes hover through every corridor, and I’m closely guarded by my father’s men, too. I was freer in the Citadel, but if I can survive there, I can survive this. If I’m getting faster, my chances of evasion increase.