Bandim

How tragic. How dreadful. How convenient. Bandim’s lips curled in a vicious smile. His father was dead. His brother was dead.

Bandim had never been happier.

For the past day, he had played the grieving brother and son. He had donned the white of grief, pretended to enjoy the comfort and succor of others’ tears and condolences. Yes, it was a shock. Yes, it was a tragedy. News of the death of the emperor was expected, for Braslen had been ill for some time. But Mantos’s sudden passing had cut the population to its core. It was the subject of talk at every meal and on every street corner.

To the outside world, Bandim wore a mask of pain. But to his military advisers, he wore a face of determination. Already his plans were in motion, ships sailing for the weakest links in Metakalan defenses: the unfortified port towns on the southern coast. There had been some protest against the practice. It wasn’t the Masvam way. Masvams had only fought armies for hundreds of cycles, said the wizened advisers. Masvams did not build their empire on dishonor and the targeting of innocents.

Those advisers had been quickly dispatched, replaced by those loyal to Bandim and Dorai. It was a practice Bandim spread through his whole court, even down to the servants. Lovers of the Light, out. True believers in the Dark, in.

Everything is coming together, Bandim thought, just as Johrann said.

There was one problem, however.

His mother.

Bandim’s soft-soled shoes were silent on the steps as he ascended Grieving Tower. It was so-called because the consorts of emperors, upon the deaths of their husbands, locked themselves in its midst, shrouded in grief. Such was the tradition. One had flung herself from the topmost window, but it wouldn’t happen again. That empress had loved her husband. Love matches were uncommon. Marriages to empresses or emperor consorts were decided long before the younglings gendered. Love did not drive alliances and expand borders.

Snorting, Bandim continued the long climb, two hundred and fifty steps, spiraling up and up and up. As far as anyone knew—including his brother, including his father—Empress Phen lost her wits, addled by the guilt of nearly killing her hatchling. Saved only by the intervention of a mysterious temple novice, Mantos had lived, and Phen’s spirit had died. At least, that was the story.

That novice had been Johrann Maa. The magic used was Dark, and the cost was dear. Phen had sacrificed herself for her son, but now, her work was for nothing. I will have what is mine, Bandim thought. I will have my right.

Climbing the last round of the staircase, Bandim’s thoughts grew bitter. Of course, his mother did what she felt she had to do. Mantos was the first hatched. Mantos was the heir. And what of Bandim? Cast aside, not good enough. Never good enough... Every muscle in his body tightened. She could have let nature take its course. She could have let Mantos die. She could have let Bandim’s fate unfurl as it was meant to: to fulfil his purpose. To become the emperor.

But she didn’t. Since Bandim discovered the truth from Johrann, many cycles before, all affection for his mother ceased. But he knew something she did not. Truth burned within him. Not only would Johrann deliver him the empire, but she would deliver him the power of the goddess, too. He would be the goddess incarnate. And it wouldn’t matter that his mother did not love him as much as his brother. Everyone would love him, as their goddess, the one who would save them all.

When he reached the final twist, Bandim stopped. He faced a window. Warm night air drifted through, and the three moons hung low. This was the topmost window. The window one empress had thrown herself from. Bandim’s lips curled. Perhaps today, there would be a second.

With that, Bandim continued his journey.

Now that Johrann’s spell was finally broken, twenty-one cycles since it was cast, Mantos’s life was no longer saved. At last, he was dead. His body lay in state beside their father’s, ready for ritual burning on the temple pyre. Once again, Bandim snorted. They should have been burned already, their ashes scattered to the wind. But as beloved as both were, the ceremony was postponed to allow for sufficient grief. The emperor and his heir were to be given up in flames to Nunako, the Goddess of Light, on Midsummer’s Eve.

Midsummer’s Eve was never a normal day for the fools of the Light. But this cycle, something more brought a snarl to Bandim’s face. He reached for the brass latch on his mother’s chamber door—locked from the outside, not within. He wrenched back the bolt. This cycle, Midsummer’s Eve was also the Lunar Awakening, a supposed gift from the goddess Nunako. All three moons would fall into line, one behind the other, and all prayers would be answered.

Moons and wishes and prayers, a conduit to a false god... Ha! That was not the true nature of the so-called awakening. As soon as he was on the throne, Bandim would purge the blasphemy, and return the world to the truth of Dorai. Dorai would live within him, be him, and he would be her, just as it was written.

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Bandim thrust open the chamber door. The smash dissipated. In its place was rustling—skirts on crisp rushes. A pair of golden eyes flashed in the gloom. Bandim smirked.

‘Hello, Mother.’

Phen crept from the shadows like a cautious animal. Her arms were tight against her flat chest, her dress hanging in rags from her bony frame. Glinting in the scant candlelight, her eyes languished in dark circles. They were the same bright yellow as his own, undiminished even after twenty-one cycles in solitude.

‘Bandim.’ The word rattled from her throat as her bony claws reached to him. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

His tone should have been warm. It should have been welcoming, supportive, a mother and son reunited after many cycles apart. But it wasn’t. It was cold as a Vhaun wind and bit at the exposed skin of Phen’s throat.

‘I…I don’t understand. How can this be?’ She grasped the front of Bandim’s robes. ‘You were a hatchling when I last saw you. How is it possible that you’re so…grown?’

At the sight of his mother’s gnarled hands, Bandim’s face twisted with disgust. He shoved her off. Phen slipped on the ancient rushes and toppled with a shriek. Her unkempt fronds spilled around her like a grey pool. When she looked at him again, her eyes were bright with fear.

‘You cannot be my son,’ she whispered. ‘My son would not treat me this way. Who are you?’

Bandim chuckled. Phen’s wretched frame tried to clamber upright. As she dragged herself towards the bedstead, every fiber of muscle flexed under her dark skin.

‘Oh, I am your son,’ Bandim said. ‘But perhaps not the son you wanted.’

‘What?’ Phen asked as she struggled to stand. ‘I wanted you both, sons or daughters. It didn’t matter. I wanted you both.’ She stilled, eyes darting. ‘Mantos,’ she breathed. ‘Where is Mantos?’

‘You see!’ Bandim spat. ‘You call for Mantos because I am not what you want. I’ve never been what you wanted!’

Phen leaned on the bedpost and jerked her head from side to side.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘I loved you both. I love you both. Exactly the same!’ Realization spread across her face, memories of so long ago filling the lines in her skin. ‘Where is Mantos?’

Bandim’s laugh was eerily light.

‘Dear Mother,’ he said, reveling in the news, ‘has no one told you?’

‘Told me what?’ Phen asked, throwing herself against Bandim’s chest. She grabbed fistfuls of his robes. ‘Told me what?’

Bandim’s laugh dissipated, but his lips lifted in a barbarous smirk.

‘I’m so glad I can give you this news myself,’ he said. ‘It might be the sweetest part of it all. Dearest Mother…’ He paused, letting the weight of the moment crush her. ‘Your beloved son is dead.’

There was a beat of absolute silence. Phen’s eyes flickered, searching for a glint of truth. When she found it, she screamed.

‘No! It can’t be. I made a deal, my life for his!’

Bandim snatched her hands, clenching them so hard she keened with pain.

‘I know the deal you made, Mother,’ Bandim growled. ‘I know what you did for him.’

He spat the final word like a curse. The bones of Phen’s wrists ground in his grip.

‘I know what you did for him,’ he repeated, each word more ragged than the last. ‘You sacrificed your life to save him. And yet you didn’t need to—because you had me.’

Phen’s eyes widened.

‘Bandim, I—’

He cut his mother off with a slap to the face. She spun across the floor. Bandim stalked towards to her, nose slits flaring as enmity consumed him.

‘No!’ he cried, clamping his hands on her withered arms. ‘Do not defend your actions! You had me. You didn’t need to save him. He was dead. He lost his life in the natural order of things, yet you chose to interfere. And not only that, you took yourself away from me! You left me with Father, who gave all his attention to Mantos—and I was left with nothing! No mother, no father, an endless string of nurses and housemasters and teachers—but no one who cared for me.’

Phen’s breath fluttered.

‘Bandim, I would have done the same for you! I did what I had to do to save my youngling. If it had been you who fell from the nest, I would still have sacrificed myself.’

‘Lies!’ Spittle foamed at the corner of Bandim’s lips. ‘You showed how little you cared for me when you gave your life for him. I could have been the emperor. I was meant to be the emperor! Fate kept me back at first but set itself to rights when that runt fell from the nest. But you destroyed my chances, all because you loved him more!’

His chest heaved. The scales and plates of his neck and shoulders pulsed and rose. Phen cowered like a wounded animal, her body trembling under his rage.

Tears tracked her cheeks, though they elicited no sympathy. Bandim kept his grip strong.

‘You’re wrong,’ Phen whispered. ‘You’re so wrong. My son, my son—’

She reached for his face, but Bandim thrust her away, fury bubbling anew.

‘Do not presume to touch me, Mother,’ he spat, the words echoing his last with exchange with Mantos. ‘I am the emperor now.’

Something changed within Phen at those words. Her yellow eyes strengthened and she regained her balance. She straightened her crooked back and drew herself to her full height, eye to eye with Bandim. Her tail twitched from side to side, the muscles flexing after an eternity of stillness.

‘And I am Empress Phen of House Yru, wife of Emperor Braslen of House Tiboli. And more importantly, I am your mother.’

Bandim’s cold chuckle echoed off the chamber walls. Phen’s courage flickered in the darkness. He would snuff her insolence out soon enough.

‘My mother, you may be,’ he said, taking a few slow steps towards her, ‘and you were wife of the emperor. You were the empress. But Father is dead. You are a widow. No empress has reigned supreme on the throne. You have no choice. I own you now, and I will do with you as I please.’

Defiance blazed in Phen’s eyes, though there was a new waver in her voice.

‘And what will you do with me?’ she asked. ‘Keep me locked up to rot in this prison?’

‘Dear, dear Mother,’ Bandim said gently. Then, without warning, his hand shot out, gripping her chin. ‘Why would I keep you here? You’re the dowager empress, after all.’

A fleeting moment of relief spread across Phen’s face. At that, Bandim locked his jaws on his prey.

‘I won’t leave you here to die.’ He brought his mouth to her ear. ‘I’m going to kill you.’