“I thought if anyone could wake you up”—Livia offers me a handkerchief from her seat beside my bed—“it was the Emperor.”

I wipe off the baby drool and give Zacharias a kiss, carefully untangling his fingers from my jaw and swinging my legs out of the bed. Snow flurries swirl outside the mottled glass windows of my room, and the blazing fireplace does little against the chill in the air. I feel hollowed out, like someone has taken a shovel to my insides. I edge away from the feeling, focusing instead on standing up.

“Easy, Shrike.” Livia takes Zacharias from me. “Spiro Teluman carried you through the tunnels, and you’ve been in and out of consciousness for the last two days. That bite on your neck was infected. You were raving when he first got here.”

And it must have taken at least five days to get out of the tunnels. Bleeding skies. A week. I have to pull together a strike force for Antium. Convince the Paters of my plan. Make sure we’ve enough weapons and food and horses. Alert those resisting within the capital. So much to accomplish and I’ve been asleep.

“I need my scims, Empress.” My vision goes funny when I stand, and my leg aches something vicious. But I thank the skies for my healing power, for without it, I’d have died before even reaching Teluman. I limp to the dresser and pull on a clean set of fatigues. “Where’s Teluman?”

“The Paters wanted him in the dungeons, but I thought that would be poor thanks for the man who brought back our Shrike,” Livia says. “He’s with Darin and Tas at the forge. Speaking of—I’ve made young Tas a little bed in Zacharias’s room. The child doesn’t seem keen on smithing, and I thought he could be companion to the Emperor instead.”

“The Paters won’t like—”

“The Paters won’t notice. To them, he’s just a Scholar. But he’s clever and kind-hearted. He likes Zacharias. Perhaps Tas could be a friend to him.” My sister’s face clouds. “Something normal in all of this madness.”

I nod quickly, because the last thing I need is Livia again musing about running off with the Emperor to the Southern Lands. “If Tas wishes it, I have no objection.”

“Good.” Livia beams at me. “And there’s something else I wish to discuss with you.”

Dread knots my belly, because she has that look on her face. The one she’d get before challenging my father on Martial jurisprudence. The one she had before she sent me to Adisa.

“Keris named herself Empress and the Paters accepted it,” Livia says. “You could do the same.”

In my shock, it takes me a moment to find the appropriate response. “That’s—that’s treason—”

“Oh, rubbish. He’s my son, Shrike.” She looks down at Zacharias, and smiles when he babbles at her. “I would never harm him. I want what is best for him, and this life is not it. You saved thousands of Martials and Scholars. The people love you—”

“There’s more to ruling than popularity.” I hold up my hands. “I’d need to be as diplomatic as Father, as clever as Mother, and as patient as you. Can you imagine me trying to make peace between Paters? Most of the time I just want to punch them. Having to meet ambassadors and make small talk—”

“You met with the Ankanese ambassador and now we have a treaty.”

“He was a warrior, like me. Easy to talk to. I was made to fight, Livia. Not rule. In any case, the Augurs named Marcus our emperor. Zacharias is his son and the skies-chosen heir—”

“The Augurs are dead.” My sister’s lips thin, as does her patience. “Everyone knows. Keris and her allies are using it as a reason to question Zacharias’s legitimacy as Emperor.”

“Then they are fools and we will fight—”

A knock sounds on the outer chamber, and never have I been so relieved to be interrupted. An unfamiliar voice speaks.

“Empress?”

My scim is in my hand in an instant. “Who the bleeding hells is that? Where’s Far—”

Then I remember.

Loyal to the end, he had cried. The mantra of my Gens. My scars ache and the hollowed-out feeling in my chest makes sense.

“That’s Deci Veturius.” Livia looks at me like I might break, and it makes me want to snarl at her. “Faris’s replacement. Harper cleared him.”

“Empress,” Deci says again. “Forgive me. Captain Harper is here to see the Blood Shrike.”

I look around the room for an escape. The closet has a passageway. It’s guarded. But not by anyone who would dare to talk.

“She’s—ah—” Livia calls to Deci as I walk through the doorway to the closet. “She’s indisposed.”

“Very good, Empress.”

Livia scurries after me, ignoring Zacharias chewing on her knuckles. “Harper’s been worried sick.” She gives me a reproachful look. “I don’t think he’s slept since Quin came back.”

My heart twinges a little at that, fool that it is.

“Empress.” I feel for the passage entrance, and it opens silently. “If we are to solidify the loyalty of the Paters and lure over Keris’s allies, then we must win Antium for the Emperor,” I say. “I have much to do. By your leave.”

My little sister sighs, and Zacharias regards us solemnly, as if waiting to be let in on a secret.

“One day, sister,” Livia says, “you’ll have to reckon with all the things you try to hide from yourself. And the longer you wait, the more it will hurt.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But not today.”

I slip through the passageway and into the castle, which is as damp and chilly as ever, though humming with courtiers and soldiers and servants.

“It’s good to see you up and about, Shrike.” A Martial woman in a maid’s uniform smiles as she passes, a Scholar soldier at her side.

“Heard you gave Grímarr hell, sir,” he says. “I’m sorry he’s still alive, but I hope to be by your side when you kill him dead.”

All the way to Darin’s smithy, people call greetings or stop to talk to me about Antium.

“When are we taking back the capital, Shrike—”

“I knew you’d be back on your feet—”

“Heard you took down a hundred of those Karkaun thugs—”

The more people approach, the faster I walk. The people love you, Livia said. But it is the Emperor who they must love. The Emperor who they must fight for.

My injuries pain me, and it takes me longer than I anticipate to get to Darin’s smithy, a half-covered courtyard in the middle of the castle. The Scholar is stripped to his waist despite the chill, muscles rippling as he plunges a scim into the forge while Spiro Teluman works the bellows. As I step through one of the peaked archways into the courtyard, I notice a Scholar healer named Nawal watching Darin, steeling herself to approach.