I prayed to Hugensen, god of visions and truth, for insight. I received only the howling of the chill wind and the sense that I was watched.

I knelt before his totem, head bowed. Snow fell from the blank oblivion of a gray sky and clung to me. I'd been kneeling for a while and was putting off the moment I had to rise. My knees didn't like me anymore.

Hugensen's totem was just outside of the city, next to the river Iskar, ringed by pale aspen trees. I never visited the Lord of Truth, since I never had a need to. My life was simple. I knew exactly who I was, what I wanted, and how I would likely die. Today, though, for the first time in my life, I prayed for answers.

The silence of the gods had eaten away at my faith year by year. I still believed, of course, how could one deny them? But I no longer expected them to be active participants in my life. And so be it. I didn't care, didn't need them, didn't even deserve them.

But just this one time… I wanted something.

I ground my teeth together. In my head, I ran through the limited information available to me. Emrik was dead, that was a fact. I’d never seen a man more dead than he, and I’d seen —and made— a lot of bodies in my time.

That Islana had killed him, though, was not yet a fact. Some people certainly believed it, but not I. I would find her. If others found her first, then I would go to her, and I would demand the truth.

Boots crunched in the snow behind me. I shot up to my feet, invisible knives cutting at my knees, and spun around.

A giant stood only a few paces away. Far too close, a reminder that my hearing wasn’t what it used to be. I was a large man but Leotin was larger. He crossed his arms, a slight smile playing across his lips. “You’re getting old.”

I grunted. “I was distracted.”

“Distractions are a sign that you’re getting old.”

“You’re not far behind me,” I said.

“No, I fear not.” Leotin took another step toward me. “What are you doing here, Sigmund?”

“Praying to a god I’ve ignored my whole life,” I said, “and hoping he doesn’t hold a grudge. Yourself?”

“I’m here to stop you from doing anything stupid.”

I stared at him. Like me, he was no great beauty, his nose long since flattened, his face a mess of scar tissue. His ears were puffy and swollen, and when he spoke you could count his missing teeth. I said, “And why would I do anything stupid?”

Leotin looked over his shoulder, then came even closer. “I’ve heard the news, Sigmund. Just about everyone has. And I know that…” he stopped himself, frowned. Trying to figure out how much to say, maybe.

There were only three people in the world who knew about my affair with Islana. She was one-third, I was another, and then there was Leotin. He wasn’t supposed to know. I’d never told him, and we’d never spoken about it, but somehow, over the years, by virtue of him knowing me better than I knew myself, he’d figured it out. A silent secret that had lasted fifteen years. And now here we were, on the verge of finally giving voice to it.

“Say it.” I held out a hand and caught a snowflake, letting it dissolve in my palm.

“Sigmund…”

“You may as well. It hardly matters now.”

“It still matters,” Leotin hissed. “More than ever, maybe.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll say it. I’m in love with her. She’s in love with me.” Well, maybe. That last point was a difficult subject, but now was hardly the time to get into that. “We’ve been having an affair for years. Fifteen years, to be specific. And it’s possible that Lukan is my son.” I paused. “No, I shouldn't have told you that last part. But it feels good to be honest. Once you start…”

Leotin's hands were balled into fists. “You might have just gotten me killed.”

I waved a hand, dismissive. “I didn’t say anything, and you didn’t hear anything.”

We were silent for a moment. I’d angered him, I could see that. His jaw was clenched and a vein was throbbing in his temple. We were close to exchanging blows. We’d done so many times throughout our friendship, for one reason or another.

“So,” I eventually said. “You came here to, what, make sure I wasn’t going after her? That I wasn’t about to fall on my own sword?”

“Something like that. I don’t know what you might do. I just figured I ought to be there. With you, that is.”

“Sweet of you, Leotin.” I stepped away from the shrine, my back turned to Hugensen. Fuck him, he’d never done anything for me.

“So?”

“So what?”

Leotin was losing his patience. “What are you going to do?”

“Maybe she did kill him,” I said slowly, my mind working hard, “it’s not impossible. But now I’m starting to think, what if she didn’t?” I took a step toward Leotin, a fire lighting inside me. “Whoever killed Emrik absolutely destroyed him. They took out his heart. Supposedly, they even took a bite out of it. That’s not Islana.” The more I spoke, the hotter that fire became. “She wouldn’t be so careless, so brutal, so savage. And you should’ve seen Emrik. There was something on him. A sort of…mucus. And an eye.” I shook my head. “It makes no sense.”

“You’re right,” Leotin snapped, “it makes no sense.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. I knew how I sounded. Desperate, mad. Maybe I was at least one of those things. Even still, there was no explaining the black mucus or the eye.

Another round of silence, until Leotin said, “There’s something else. The coronation is going to be held tonight. You need to be there. You’re still the First Blade, don’t forget.”

There was no forgetting that burden.

I walked away from the shrine, toward Havlin. We weren’t far outside of the city walls. Clouds of gray smoke drifted up into the icy sky. Gray into gray. The snow like stars scattering on a frigid wind.

#

Lukan sat on the ashen throne, comically small and childlike on the seat of great men. He wore armor tailored for his tiny body, and his father's crown was perched upon his head, dangerously close to slipping off. They'd have to refashion it in order to fit him. To his credit, though, he’d already mastered the contemptuous, arrogant expression of a veteran ruler. His eyes —blue, like my own— were slightly narrowed. His hair —crow black, just as mine had been before it had started to gray— was an unruly mess. He was sneering, and I'll admit, it was Emrik's sneer, but that might have just been learned.

I stood to Lukan's right, a hand resting on the pommel of my sword. Magoran, hunched over and wheezing, stood to the king's left. The Howling Hall was filled with nobles, the heads of important families, famed warriors, and the richest men and women in the empire. Hundreds of them, so tightly crammed together that the heat radiating off of their bodies filled the hall with a sickly, feverish heat.

I shifted from one foot to the other, my eyes finding Keterlyn’s. She was off to the side, draped in a black cloak, her golden hair spilling over her shoulders. She cocked an eyebrow in my direction. I didn’t know her well, but I knew she’d been at least somewhat close to Islana. I’d need to talk to her soon.

There was a smaller throne next to Lukan. Empty, but it should’ve seated Islana. Islana, who might be anywhere, hiding in the city, maybe, or fleeing into the countryside. Or maybe even beneath me, deep below the palace. The Black Floor was what they called the bottom-most level of the dungeons. I’d been down there before, once, just out of curiosity. I’d sworn then that I’d never go back.

Magoran, leaning on his gnarled staff, limped forward. He threw back his hood, his one working eye, a brilliant green, sweeping out across the crowd. The other, milky and blind, stared off vacantly into the distance.

“Welcome, lords and ladies of the Jaranir empire,” the old man croaked. His voice was a breathless rasp, yet still carried throughout the hall. “King Emrik…is dead.”

The crowd was silent. The wind howled, its cry amplified by the construction of the hall, which was curved, with a ceiling that bent and twisted naturally like ocean waves. Magoran let the silence drag out, and next to me, Lukan shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

“Bring out the crows,” Magoran hissed.

Behind the old man, several priests advanced, holding cages filled with carrion birds. They fluttered their wings and cocked their heads in order to appraise the crowd with oily eyes. Every crow was a lost soul, too good for an eternity of hanging from the Screaming Tree, not good enough to ascend to Renhar.

More priests filed out from behind Magoran, holding small knives. Magoran raised his staff, said, “We bless these souls and assure their ascent.”

The cage doors opened. The grasping hands of priests pulled shrieking crows out into the light, held them tight as knives pierced their throats. Their wings beat frantically, their bodies convulsed, and their blood drenched the wooden boards. The birds were dropped, discarded.

“May their souls find the way,” Magoran said, and the whole hall echoed these words, my voice counted among them. If any of those souls found their way to blessed Renhar, then dying was a gift.

“And now,” Magoran said once the crowd was again silent and the priests had returned to the shadows, “we gather so that we may elevate Lukan, son of Emrik, to the throne.” Magoran slammed the butt of his staff against the floor. “Does anyone here object to this? Is there anyone in this hall who will refuse to follow him? And if there are any men and women here who intend on allowing their oaths and promises to Emrik to die with him, who will refuse to renew them before Lukan, then step forward.”

Of course, no one stepped forward. There’d been a time, only mere decades in the past, when the death of a king meant that the oaths and alliances that held the empire together were dismantled, and everyone had to start again with the next ruler. A dead tradition now. Jaranir had grown in size and power dramatically since then, and the power of the king had become total. Magoran’s words were purely ceremonial, for if anyone did indeed step forward in defiance, they would die within the Howling Hall.

Magoran nodded. “Then, before all of you, and under the eyes of the gods, I pronounce Lukan king.” He spun, surprisingly quick, to face Lukan, and pointed at the boy. “My king, I ask you this: are you a blood virgin?”

Lukan slowly stood. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, “Aye, I am a blood virgin.”

Magoran wheeled back around toward the priests. “Bring him out!”

There was movement around where the priests had gathered at the back of the hall. I didn’t look. I didn’t need to— I knew what was happening and had no real wish to watch. The older I got, the harder such things became for me. I didn’t know why that was…does age make a man weak?

Two priests in crimson robes brought forward a naked man in chains. He was young, bald, and covered in scars and bruises. Prince Hasrik of Sandakov, fortuitously captured in a recent raid. Emrik had been trying to ransom him back to his kingdom but Hasirk was the fourth oldest son of Sandakov’s king and evidently, he was not considered worth the asking price. This, apparently, was the next best use for a captured prince. They dragged him before the ashen throne and let go of him. He dropped to his knees, head bowed. He was lean, bones protruding under his skin, and had likely been forced to eat Godhead mushrooms. Did that make it better or worse? His lucidity would be compromised, but also, all of this would be transformed into an even more nightmarish scene, faces and colors and sounds horrifically distorted, his own mind betraying him in the moments before his death. I’d taken such mushrooms many times before, had been a witness to divine visions as a result, and knew well how cruel such visions could sometimes be. What were the divinities showing him at that moment?

Magoran had a knife in his hand, which he offered to Lukan. Lukan stared at it for a long moment. I worried that he might refuse it. When he took it, he had an odd expression on his face, excited, maybe, or scared. Perhaps both.

I wished that he didn’t have to do it. I wished that I could do it for him. A king could not be a blood virgin, because how could a king order the deaths of others until they understood what it was like to take a life, until they knew just how it felt and what it meant? But even still, Lukan was so young, so untested and wide-eyed. No one should take the ashen throne at only twelve. I watched his face closely, unable to ignore the features that so closely resembled my own. It hurt, to see the boy who might be my own son having to go through this.

Hasrik remained on his knees, staring at the ground and breathing loudly. Lukan approached cautiously, as though Hasrik might at any moment leap up and attack. That thought compelled me to also approach, now grasping the hilt of my sword more tightly. I hoped that Hasirk would throw himself at the king so that I would be forced to strike him down instead.

“Now,” Magoran hissed.

Lukan held the knife up, as though wondering how to go about the task. Stab straight down into the head? Into the side of the throat? I fancied that I saw, in his expression, his mind desperately searching for the best way to fulfill his duty.

I was wrong. Lukan knew exactly what to do.

He grabbed a fistful of Hasrik’s hair with one hand, wrenching his face up toward the ceiling, and then with one fluid, savage gesture he hacked out the prince’s throat. Blood squirted across his royal attire, across the wooden floor, across the raven corpses. A few drops went so far as to hit me. I didn’t react.

“The king!” Magoran cried. “The king!”

“The king!” cried the crowd, and they all dropped to their knees in supplication.