Page 3

The tailor is disappointed when I tell him I want pants and a shirt similar to the one I’m wearing instead of a dress. To quote him, it’s been so long since he’s had the opportunity to create something truly magical.

But whatever. I just want a shirt that’s like a t-shirt and pants that aren’t so tight they’ll restrict my movements but not so baggy that they’ll drag on the ground since I’m short. He has to take some measurements for me.

Frederick returned to help the shepherds with the animals, leaving me alone with the tailor—which I’m fine with, because after my measurements are taken, I ask him to make me another set, but bigger.

“Bigger?” The tailor’s eyebrows are as high as they can be on his forehead. The man is in his forties, wearing a ridiculous outfit I would never be caught dead in: feathers and pin-stripe patterns, all brightly-dyed. “How big?”

“You know Frederick? Bigger than that.”

“Why would you need—forgive me, my lady, it is not my place to question your desires,” he quickly says, catching himself. “Now, when you say bigger than Frederick, do you mean bigger as in—” He reaches in front of him and draws a fake belly in the air. “—or taller?”

“Taller. And wider, too.”

I help the tailor with the measurements for Invictis to the best of my capabilities. I’ve never told the asshole to sit still while I measure exactly how big he is, but even if these clothes don’t end up fitting him well, they’ll still fit him better than the ones I took from Frederick’s house.

The tailor tells me he’s got nothing else to work on right now, so he’ll have the clothes ready in a few days. Oh, and for Laconia’s savior and new high empress, they are free of charge.

Not going to complain about that.

After I finish with the tailor, I go searching for Frederick’s dad. There are a few questions I want to ask him, but I have to be careful in how I say everything, otherwise he’ll spill the beans to Frederick and maybe even the whole city. Obviously, that would be bad.

Fred is in the library beneath the conclave’s chambers, where he usually spends his time, his nose in a dusty book. Small candelabras illuminate the long, narrow library and all the rows of full bookcases. He’s in the back, near where the door to Laconia’s undercroft is—although the etching in the stone has been once more covered by a bookcase.

The only reason I feel comfortable enough to sit across from him at the table is the fact that he’s alone in here.

Fred looks much like his son, only older. He’s gained a bit of weight so he’s not a walking skeleton anymore, and he doesn’t have that mad glint in his eyes, the one he got while stuck in Acadia’s dungeon for years upon years, kept alive by Krotas’s—my mom’s—magic. The same brown hair, the same honey-colored eyes, only with a few more wrinkles and gray strands.

He doesn’t notice me right away. He keeps his nose buried in that book. The thing that finally gets his attention is a cough from me, and he practically jumps out of his skin when he realizes he’s not alone.

“Oh, my.” He nearly falls off the bench, and once he’s righted himself, he places a hand over his heart. “My lady, forgive me, but you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to. I thought you heard me.”

“When I’m reading, I can easily tune out the world,” Fred tells me with a slight smile. “It’s quite useful when the world around you is nothing but chaos. What can I do for you, High Empress Rey?”

I wave that off. “Just Rey.”

“Okay. What can I do for you, High Empress Just Rey?”

I stare at him, wondering if he’s trying to be funny, but the way Fred stares back at me, I can tell he’s completely serious. Whatever. Moving on. “I, uh, was hoping to pick your brain on a few things.”

“Ah.” Fred lifts a hand to his head and runs that hand through his hair. “I would be delighted to give you my, uh, brain—although I would prefer to be done using it. Can it wait some years?”

He thinks… oh, Jesus, he thinks I literally want to pick his brain. Like, take his brain out of his skull and pick at it. In what world—no. I have to remember where I am, and these people clearly don’t have the same sayings we do back home.

Although this is my home now. I need to remember that.

“I mean I want to ask you a few questions,” I speak slowly, careful in my choice of words so Fred would understand me and not get the wrong idea again.

“Oh, wonderful. I do love answering questions.” He closes the book he was nose-deep in moments before and pushes it aside, and then he folds his hands atop the table and leans forward, expectant.

Wow. Okay. Um… what to ask first?

I decide to begin by asking about Invictis: “Have you found anything about Invictis and where he came from?”

“It, my lady, it,” Fred corrects me, not for the first time. However, he hasn’t seen the dick that Invictis is currently sporting, so it’s got to be easier for him to call him an it . “And, no, I have not. It seems any mention of Invictis was scrubbed from this library a long time ago. I only know what your mother told me.”

And she probably only knew that much because of the shared memories empresses leave each other—all of which I already have in my head. Hell, I even met the very first high empress, the woman who basically founded Laconia.

The one who used all of her power to separate Invictis and lock him away, and in doing so also separated herself, knowing that a miracle would need to take place before anyone could hope to defeat him.

Fred studies me. “I do find it odd, however, that you keep referring to Invictis as a he, as if you believe it is a person and not a weapon.”

After that vision I had, I don’t think he’s a person or a weapon. I think he’s a fucking god, but I’m not going to tell Fred that. Instead, I say, “He has emotions. Had, I mean. He’d get angry, jealous, snippy… sometimes even comforting.”

“Invictis was manipulating you.”

“I know. I know that, but… those emotions felt real to me. I think there’s more to the story than him just being a weapon. Where did he come from? Why was he so powerful? When I spoke to the first high empress—” I told Fred all about the encounter, and he was amazed at every single thing I learned.

All of Laconia’s history, everything that’s been forgotten to the sands of time; it changes everything.

“The city was already standing by the time she stepped foot here, built eons ago,” Fred says. “Perhaps by Invictis. There were no people until more came ashore, as if Invictis had already decimated the kingdom. Perhaps it’s some sort of cyclical wheel of nature, and we are simply at its end.”

“Wheels don’t end.”

“No, they continue to spin, but they spin anew. Perhaps, when the first high empress separated Invictis, she cracked the wheel, so to speak. Perhaps her intervention changed everything, so that Invictis could never have anticipated you. You are the daughter of an empress and a man from another world. That in itself shows just how unique you truly are.”

I look down. “My world didn’t have magic. My dad was just a man.”

“A man that fathered greatness. It is a shame I couldn’t meet the man, even if it’s just to shake his hand and thank him for you.”

Staying on the topic of my dad would make me depressed, so I try to get us back to the topic of conversation: “Do you think it’s possible there’s more out there? Another Invictis? What if he wasn’t the only one?”

Fred’s brows crease, and he turns thoughtful. “I… frankly, I never thought about that possibility. Not once. I was so focused on trying to find a way to counteract Invictis’s power and complete the quest my lady gave me that I never once stopped to wonder if Invictis is the only one of its kind.”

Shit. I thought of something the researcher himself hadn’t?

The man is silent for a while, and he leans back and folds his arms over his chest. “I suppose it could be possible. There could be more out there, waiting, biding their time. If that’s the case, then Laconia is even more fortunate to have you at its helm: the only person who could ever truly defeat one of them. Perhaps they’ll think twice before attacking us once they realize you defeated Invictis.”

Damn it. Coming clean isn’t going to be easy—hence why I’m not doing it now.

I don’t say anything right away, too busy thinking, lost in my own head. Fred studies me across the table for a bit before he says, “Is that all you were wondering, my lady, or is there more?”

I want to know if it’s possible for an empress to lose her magic, or her connection to the aether, but I just can’t say it out loud. It’s like if I say it, it’ll be real. Stupid, I know, because it’s already real and I can’t cast a single spell or fling one tiny fireball no matter how hard I try.

Fred drops his hands to his lap and rubs his palms on his knees. “If there is more, you know I am always here for you, as I was for your mother. My son is at your disposal as well, though I’m sure he’s told you that numerous times already—”

“Uh, yeah, yeah I know.” I get up. “Thanks for the talk, Fred. I’ll see you later.” I walk away from that table before I let myself say anything more.

Well, I got no answers, and now I can’t stop thinking about how there might be another Invictis out there, somewhere.