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“I didn’t realize until later that they’d begged my father for mercy.

They’d sent messengers telling my father that only children and those too infirm to fight were inside.

In response, my father sent back corpses hacked into pieces.

The monastery burned. We killed whoever emerged and marched north to Ristorium, General Kacha leading while General Saxu stayed behind.

And I started seeing ghosts.” Tallu’s fingers were cold, and I wrapped my other hand around them, squeezing.

“I didn’t tell anyone. I thought I was going mad.

I’d have to be. You’d have to be mad to see the ghosts of all those your army killed, wouldn’t you? ”

“But you aren’t,” I said. “Unless I’m also mad, and although I have it on good authority from every woman in my family that I’m unreasonable and dramatic, no one has called me mad.”

Tallu smiled. “My father sent me home. I thought he must have known that something was wrong with me, but the reality was much worse. He knew that the last blood mages had cursed me.”

“What?” I rubbed hard at Tallu’s cold fingers, and he stilled me with his other hand.

“Lerolian and his order cursed me to bear the weight of the Imperium’s guilt.” He pressed a hand over his chest and shook his head before dropping his palm back to where our hands were linked.

“Why you? Why not your father?” I demanded. “Why the child, instead of the one actually responsible?”

“You’d have to ask Lerolian. They didn’t intend to link their own souls to me.

That was the accident. When I first saw him, he was as startled as I was.

” Tallu’s mouth twitched, and he gave me the ghost of a smile.

“The war alone was enough to persuade me that our cause was wrong, our purpose was wrong, but getting to know Lerolian convinced me that I had to do something about it.”

“Because he manipulated a child,” I said darkly. “By frightening a boy already grappling with the meaning of power.”

“At thirteen, were you a boy?” Tallu asked. “Or had you already learned to kill?”

I looked down at our hands. At thirteen, Yor?mu had already taught me how to silence a man before I killed him.

She’d taught me three different kinds of poison that couldn’t be tasted in drink.

At thirteen, I already knew what Eona? would have to give up so that I could get close enough to the emperor to kill him.

“I’m surprised that the ghosts didn’t convince you the path of your great-grandfather was the right one. After all, they showed you the absolute worst that could be done with magic.” I thought about how rough Lerolian looked, how that would have frightened me as a child.

“Maybe they would have, but Lerolian was kind. As kind as he could be, given what he and his order had done. And he kept the others away from me. The ones who weren’t as forgiving of me and what I had done in the war.

” Tallu’s fingers tightened again on mine.

“And he’s funny. He was full-grown, and I was a boy, but he joked with me as though we were friends. I have very few friends.”

In his endless throne room, with the titters and jokes and side-eyed glances, where he could hear every whispered insult, I doubted Tallu had even one friend.

“So that made you decide to take down the Imperium?” I still remembered the disturbed look on Tallu’s face. As friendly as he might have been, Lerolian had also haunted a child.

“My father thought he was fulfilling the prophecy given to my great-grandfather. And in doing so, he killed nations. Not just the Blood Mountains but also Forsaith. He drove Ristorium off the continent and into the floating islands. What good is this prophecy if it only leads to destruction? What good is this empire if it was built on the blood and bones of every other nation?” Tallu wet his lips.

“My first campaign was when I was no more than eight. There were once elves that lived in the western forests of the Imperium. They thought themselves imperials, the same as any other citizen. But when they tried to protect their own elder trees, descended from those in Tavornai, I watched General Saxu’s troops set fire to them and any imperial citizen that tried to protect them.

And I thought… I thought good . Now they will see the error of standing against the Imperium. ”

His voice broke. He stopped speaking.

“But the blood mages changed your mind?” I asked. “You were able to see them as people?”

“We destroyed villages. Poisoned wells. Killed all prisoners. There was a child who snuck out, and I saw her in the forest. She was so scared. She offered me her last toy to escape. If I let her go, she would give me this ragged, stuffed toy.” Tallu swallowed.

“I let her go. I thought, it’s just one child.

But how many more died because of the empire my family built?

My father was so desperate for his legacy that when the Silver Path monks said they would curse his line, he still burned them.

He wanted to crush everyone who wouldn’t submit to the Imperium, and for that, he sacrificed me and everyone else who would ever follow in his line.

He wanted a legacy more than he wanted me to thrive.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that child in the forest. Did she survive?

Why did I deserve to live more than her? ”

The bedding underneath us had warmed with our bodies. It was soft, woven by the finest threads the Imperium had to offer. And I didn’t feel any of it as I considered what Tallu had seen.

I had known my entire life that I was meant to kill an emperor. Tallu had known his entire life that he was meant to conquer the continent. And he had decided that he didn’t want it, that he would forge a better legacy than his father had pursued.

“You want to destroy the empire,” I said. I was finally beginning to believe it. I knew now what a task Tallu had taken on, and somehow, it was even more terrible than I could have imagined.

“I was cursed before the blood mages even touched me. My family’s fate is a curse. My great-grandfather’s legacy is murder.” Tallu straightened, jaw set. He inhaled sharply and said, “I will stop the Imperium. Will you help me?”

Watching him, seeing that fierce expression and knowing what it had cost him, I nodded. “I will. We are in this together now, Tallu.”

“Good.” Tallu slumped, drawing his free hand over his face. “I have been so long alone.”

“We need to find out who is building the airships and then go from there.” I frowned. “There are too many other pieces in play now.”

“It is the Imperial Court. There are always too many pieces in play.” Tallu considered our linked hands.

“The blood mages say that the generals are growing more brazen. I thought if I brought them all back to court, I could at least contain them. But they’ve been using that time to curry favor with important members of the court and rich citizens of the capital. ”

“And we also brought the council members you banished back,” I pointed out. “Why did you agree to that?”

“It was a good idea.” Tallu wrapped his fingers around mine. “It was a solid plan. Many of them have already been struggling to regain some of their power and call in debts they weren’t able to before they left.”

“And how do the generals feel about that?” I asked.

“The same as any pup who is now forced to share its food with a sibling.” Tallu’s smile was quick, and it melted something inside me.

“How many blood mages are there? I only saw Lerolian, but you keep saying ‘mages.’” I looked around the room.

“He speaks for most of them. There are… five or ten left, I think. Most have faded over time, or they traveled too far from me and lost themselves with no way back.” Tallu looked at the wall that Lerolian had walked through.

“When they travel too far, their spirits can fade—taken back to their river, reborn as a child—or they can lose themselves, going mad. I am grateful for those who have stayed with me all these years.”

“So, we wait for ghosts to tell us things we can’t see ourselves,” I said. “And we try to poke at all the people in court who want you dead or think they have nothing to lose because you killed your murderous, power-hungry father. That seems like a quick way to end up with our own poisoned food.”

“Well, it would save you an assassination,” Tallu said. “If I was already dead.”

No clock on the wall clicked to tell me the time, and the change of light only said that it was morning. “Should we face the lions? Together?”

“Thank you,” Tallu said, his voice soft. “I thought I would have to do this by myself. I thought I would have to destroy everything I was taught to love myself.”

“Oh, no.” I grinned at him. “Based on every screaming fight I’ve ever had with my sister, I am a curse who destroys everything I touch. Believe me, your empire will not survive.”