“Traitor child.” My sister smiles. Zacharias is as beautiful as she was as a baby, with soft brown curls and cheeks that want a pinch. His coloring is a mix of Livia’s and Marcus’s, a glowing golden-brown, and he watches me with the pale yellow eyes of the Farrar family.

“He missed you.” Livvy settles herself into the spot I vacated. “Refused to sleep properly without Auntie Shrike to give him a cuddle. But I told him you were off doing something very important.”

I glance at her ladies-in-waiting, Merina and Coralia Farrar. They’re Marcus’s cousins—and nothing like him. They love my sister and Zacharias with a fierce protectiveness, but they do not need to be party to matters of state. Livia dismisses them, and they take the Emperor from me, escorted by a sober-faced Captain Rallius and three other Masks.

After I tell Livia everything that happened in Marinn, she rises in agitation.

“We knew the Commandant would play dirty,” she says. “The jinn attacks were meant to bring Marinn to its knees just in time for her to demand a treaty.” My sister paces the room. “Sometimes I want to leave all of this. Take Zacharias and go far away, to some warm southern land, where no one will know us. Where he can have a normal life.”

“Your people need you,” I say. “And they need him. He is the child of a Plebeian and an Illustrian, brought into this world by a Scholar. He is a symbol of hope and unity, Empress Regent. A reminder of what the Empire could be.”

“Thank the skies you’ve finally come around.” Livia smiles. “A few months ago, you wanted to throttle me for setting the Scholars free.”

“But you did it anyway,” I say. “You’re brave. And wise. You just have to be patient too.”

By the time Livia and I enter the throne room, a wood-beamed dining hall with too many cobwebs, two dozen Paters have gathered. My uncle, Jans Aquillus, is also there, and nods when I enter. He will be one of the few Livia and I can count on to stand with us.

I offer a greeting, but step back, a hand on my scim, to allow Livia to speak. For the thousandth time, I wish for my mask. Its silver reminded me of who I was. What I was capable of doing. It reminded everyone else as well. Too often, the Paters forget.

“Wine, soldier,” Livia calls to the aux at the door. He disappears and Pater Cassius snorts.

He’s a tall, slope-shouldered fellow with a thick head of gray hair and parchment-pale skin. “He’ll be hard-pressed to find it,” Cassius says.

“A by-product of war, Cassius,” Livia says. “We’re not having a garden party.”

“No, we are not.” Pater Agrippa Mettias speaks up. He is clever, blunt, and an excellent fighter—a quintessential Northman. Though only in his late twenties, he’s successfully guided his Gens since the age of sixteen.

With his deep brown skin and high cheekbones, he is also exceedingly handsome. The grizzled old Paters tease him for it, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His self-assurance makes me like him more. He’s a good ally. I would hate to lose his support.

“Keris seized Gens Mettia’s southern estates,” he says. “Declared me a traitor. Most of my family escaped—but those who did not were beheaded. She has offered my lands as a reward for the Emperor’s head. And an additional ten thousand marks for mine.”

Bleeding skies. Every assassin from Antium to Sadh will be on their way here for a bounty like that.

“I am deeply sorry for your family’s suffering, Pater,” Livia says. Perhaps I imagine it, but his face softens, ever so slightly.

“That is the cost of loyalty, Empress Regent.” Mettias glares at Pater Cassius. “I am willing to pay it, even if others are not.”

“Hear, hear,” Uncle Jans mutters, half of the Paters joining him.

“But”—Mettias fixes his flinty gaze on me—“we need a plan. Keris chips away at us bit by bit. An assassin was found on the castle grounds a week ago. And in every city she has visited, the people have proclaimed her Imperator Invictus.”

My fist tightens on my scim. Supreme Commander. It is an honorary title for an Empire’s ruler, but when bestowed by the people, it carries far more weight. Before Taius was named Emperor, the Martial clans dubbed him Imperator Invictus. When his sons vied for the throne after him, his second-born won the title—and the throne—because of his prowess on the battlefield.

“How?” Uncle Jans paces the room. “How, when she left our people to suffer and die?”

“Those in the south don’t know—or want to know—what really happened in Antium,” Livia says. “Not when she’s promising them wealth and slaves from the Tribal lands.”

A side door opens and I turn, expecting the aux with the wine. But it is Faris who hovers at the threshold.

“Shrike.” Faris is so pale that I wonder for a moment if he’s been injured. “A word.”

I step out into the hall, where Faris waits with half a platoon, three of whom are Masks.

“Something’s happened in the kitchens.” He gestures for the soldiers to stand guard and hurries down the corridor.

If an assassin has gotten in, I’ll bleeding break something. Even if the killer is dead—which he must be, or we’d be walking to the dungeons—another breach is not something the Paters will tolerate.

Four legionnaires flank the entrance to the scullery. With them is the aux Livia sent for the wine, his face an unsavory green.

“I have two more guards at the exits. Shrike . . .” Faris is at a loss, and I am suddenly unsure of what I am about to see. I shove through the doors and stop short.

For it is not a dead assassin I find, or even a live one. It is a bloodbath. A wretched stillness blights the air, and I do not need to look at the ravaged bodies to know everyone is dead. One of the faces is familiar. Merina—Livia’s lady-in-waiting and nurse to my nephew.

“Merina came down to get tea for the Empress Regent,” Faris says from behind me. “The aux you sent for wine found them.”

I clench my fists. Both Plebeians and Scholars worked in these kitchens. It was one of the places they got along just fine. All were survivors of Antium. All loyal to the Emperor.

And this is what they got for their loyalty.

“The assassin?”

“Killed himself.” Faris nods to the wall behind me. “But we know who sent him.”

I turn. Splashed across the stones in blood is a symbol that enrages and sickens me, all at once.

A K with a crown of spikes atop it.

XVII: Laia

Winter falls harsh on the Forest of Dusk. The thick evergreens protect me from the worst of the wind. They do not, however, protect me from Elias’s frosty countenance.