“Make haste, Grandson.” The Regent commanded me. “My work now is the culmination of thousands of years of planning, all to decide in this briefest span of time what eternity’s shape will be. The remainder of the Nine, as well as my rival demigods, the innumerable factions below me that vie for control, and the heavens themselves will be uniting to destroy us. There is no time to spare, you must depart for Terra immediately.”

“We’ll be there.” I promised him before grabbing hold of Antonias and breaking the connection that had brought us to this vision.

I was sickened when I realized that Vespasias Flavion’s lifeless corpse was still slumped over on top of me and that my fingers were covered in chunks of brain matter and flesh. Vile.

Both Antonias and I were silent, though each of us for different reasons. For him, the vision he had just been on was revelation after revelation, meeting the ruler of humanity and learning of plots and schemes against Heaven itself.

For my part, I was more still reeling from all the death and painful destruction I had caused. There was a bitter lesson being hammered into my soul.

Advancement only turned the innocent dead from victims to sterile statistics, the death tolls too large and the stakes too high for their lives to hold the true meaning for me that they deserved.

A gladiator killed for coins, a soldier fought for his people, a god massacred because they were careless.

“What are you thinking about, Adrias?” Antonias said to me softly, taking a seat. His fused, gnarled wings retracting closer to his back.

“Terra is going to be bad.” I replied. “Really, really bad. The home world of mankind is as densely populated as Iulius, if not more so, and there are going to be a lot more powerful people involved.”

Antonias stood and then held a hand down to me. I grabbed it and he lifted me up, the gesture almost entirely symbolic.

“We’ll have six months on a ship to prepare more. This got so bad because you were our only Gold here and you had limited time to ready yourself. Mistakes were made, what will you do with them?” Antonias said.

“I’ll learn from them. Learn their lessons and do better.” I said.

I had seen what going too far with divine power cost myself and others, as well as experienced combat in the realm of minds, and even how to kill a Gold I could not burn.

Leaning down, I picked up the dead body and flung it over my shoulder before flying up through the hole Vespasias and I had punched in Iulius’s megastructures.

Antonias followed.

“Trophy?” He said, pointing at up at my shoulder as we ascended through level after level of ruined metal and stone.

I shifted the corpse’s position on my shoulder slightly.

“No.” I said. “I want to study it. No one has ever gotten the chance to dissect someone like us for obvious reasons, and you made Nero into a shrunken husk.”

“Yes, I did.” Antonias said proudly.

“How did you do it?” I said.

“This might be the strangest small talk I’ve ever had.” He replied.

I laughed and a moment later so did he.

“When Nero woke up, he was pissed, but his blood had made me strong and the draining had weakened him. We struggled, but the longer time went on and the more lifeblood I leeched from Nero, the more I… mutated.” Antonias said.

“But, like, how did you make the finishing blow? I had to use the lightning to deal with Vespasias. Did you do the same?” I asked.

“This is gross, but I vomited some kind of Infernal substance down his throat that dissolved his insides and then, ah, slurped the digested stuff back up.” My friend said.

“You’re right, that is gross.” I said, though I was more intrigued than really disgusted. As much as I wanted Medicus researchers to examine and experiment on Vespasias’s corpse, I was even more interested in having Toni and myself studied.

Golden Imperators were freaks of nature already, the barest sliver of the population of Imperators throughout all of history, but Toni and I were peculiar even beyond our Rank of the Imperator’s Path.

No Leechling Imperator had ever existed before because no Leechling Blur had ever been resurrected, and I was the only Heraklion descendant of Augustas to claim Heracles’s majesty for my own.

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“I’m going to know myself fully.” I resolved. “Every part and piece until I can’t say that my failures were for lack of preparation or knowledge.”

“Gonna stare at yourself in the mirror?” Antonias snorted.

“Shut up.” I said as we reached the sky. The devastation seen through my normal eyesight was a gut punch. Part of me was glad to soon be leaving but another part felt like I was running away from my actions.

“Where now?” My friend asked me.

“Persias.” I determined as I thought through my options. “We need to sort out our transportation, set up someone competent enough to actually deal with everything I’m leaving in my wake, and then move.”

I extended my senses, skimming past the wreckage to search out for a single Silver’s mind.

“Persias.” I thought. “It is finished.”

“Well done.” Lord Fulvion relayed back and I could tell that he did not hold even the slightest sadness for the casualties.

My lip curled.

The people I have to deal with, I thought to myself, shaking my head.

“What are your commands, my god?” Persias said.

“We need a ship ready immediately and I want a list of candidates to replace me as Governor.” I said.

“It will be done.” Persias replied.

A thought occurred to me.

“A list of candidates that I would approve of, Fulvion. Not just ones that you like or your own wife.” I said.

“Very well.” He said begrudgingly.

“Go fetch Nero’s dried up husk of a corpse too, Toni.” I said. “Might as well grab it and see exactly what your spooky stomach acid did to his organs.”

“Don’t call it spooky stomach acid.” Antonias grumbled. “Eldritch essence of Infernal horrors is much cooler.”

I chuckled and then felt guilty for laughing at all in the aftermath. I would just have to get over the memories of bodies pulping against me as I struggled with Vespasias and how my ill-fated attempt with heavenly power had gained little in exchange for massive losses.

Would I rather feel this guilt or nothing at all?

By the time I reached the Fulvion estate, I still didn’t know the answer to that question.

Two people waited for me, Persias who bore a childlike grin of excitement at the thought of leaving with me and Pollixa who I had not expected at all.

I chose to focus on Persias who held a datapad nestled in the crook of his arm against his chest.

“Do you have results for me?” I said. Distantly, I could sense Antonias approaching with his drained carcass in tow.

“My flagship is in transit.” Persias said proudly before proffering the electronic tablet to me. “And here are some people who I think both of us will find suitable. A compromise, if you will.”

“Good.” I said, fully expecting to dislike at least half.

“I’ll do it.” Pollixa said, her violet and Bronze eyes stabbing into me.

“What?” Persias said, looking at her in surprise.

With you on that one, Fulvion. I thought.

“What?” I echoed him.

Pollixa opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by Antonias’s landing.

She grimaced after staring at my friend and then his deathly cargo and took a step back.

“You were saying?” I said.

“I want to be Governor as I said to you before.” She said.

“You’ve never asked me anything of that sort.” I said.

“Look into my head.” Pollixa said, tapping her skull with a finger.

There was a normal Bronze Imperator’s brain with one abnormality. Rather than one Silicon Daimon, Pollixa had two of the artificial intelligences grafted to her neurons.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Alsig.” I said. “You added my former Daimon to yourself.”

“I needed a new host.” Alsig said, speaking through the girl.

“I’m not making you or Pollixa or the combination of you and her into the Governor.” I said.

“Why not?” Pollixa said as if it wasn’t blindly obvious.

“For one, because none of the other Imperators are going to follow a Bronze Rank. They respect strength and only really when a knife is held to their throats.” I said to her.

“A fair point.” Persias said.

I ignored him.

“They’ll follow her and me if you tell them to.” Pollixa said confidently.

“And I’ll be gone soon and your leverage and borrowed authority will be lost.” I said. I knew all too well about the dangers of relying on someone else’s stature. In the end, you only got burned.

“It won’t.” She said.

I sighed. Was I really going to waste time debating my own lived experience with this girl?

“It won’t. We live in a modern age, Adrias. An age of surveillance and recording done by every subject and citizen with their own devices and installations. This world will remember your victory forever because the entire battle was witnessed and broadcasted. You could command Iulius’s Imperators to obey a Hetaira and they would do it.” She said.

I studied her. Them.

“The second issue,” I said. “Is that even if they will follow you two, why would I trust you the role? None of us are particularly close.”

That was an understatement. A part of me was starting to get angry as memories of Alsig’s last conversation with me before I pulled her out of my head. I worked hard to shove it down.

“You want someone to rule as you would.” Alsig said with a borrowed voice. “I’m the only person to have ever lived inside your own head, seen your deeds through your eyes.”

You might know me better than anyone else by virtue of seeing my memories, but have you ever even understood me? I thought bitterly.

I switched my focus to the datapad and scrolled through the options. They were all Silvers of various houses, chosen for perceived loyalty. I couldn’t say I liked any of them.

My eyes closed. I was tired. I was so damned tired.

Does this matter? Does any of it matter at all? You’re never coming back to this pit of vipers. I thought to myself.

“Fine.” I said to Pollixa. I tossed her the ruined signet ring, nearly bisected into two pieces.

Persias seemed like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. He was abandoning this place too for a more exciting adventure to him, I doubted he cared much at all.

“Are we leaving now?” Antonias said.

“No. I have one more person to see before I leave.” I said. One more obligation.

“The Regent commanded us to leave quickly.” He replied.

“It’ll be quick.” I promised, jumping upwards.

He followed my flight.

“Stay, Toni.” I said.

“Who are you seeing?” Antonias asked bewildered.

“Livia.” I said. Gods of Heaven above, I was exhausted.