Prologue
Duellona the Torchbearer seeks glory in war; Paxitar the Martyr preaches that less is more.
Gorag the Beast lusts for vengeance on foes; Sinstra the Seductress sings of beauty in prose.
Karalla the Judge weighs our purity and sin; Rintiki the Trickster laughs at others’ chagrin.
Myrthool the Trader loves coins stacked in neat columns; Phalga the Savage is icy storms and spring blossoms.
Phost the Illuminator gives sun and moonlight; Quiss the Watcher whispers secrets to thieves at night.
Zorthiss the Slayer revels in torment and death; Aurelliade All-Mother gives life with her breath.
–Unknown, a children’s rhyme describing the Sulanthan pantheon
Palace of the Purple-Born, Sulanth the City
Autumn, 160 ECY (Emperor’s Common Year)
Alarm bells shattered the stillness of deep night within the House of the Invicticani. Vesnia of Aesodunum, Imperial Guard optio, raced through the torchlit halls, leading two sections of elite legionnaires from the Emperor’s Heart Cohort. The only sound aside from the bells was the thundering echo of the column’s hobnailed sandals and clattering armor. The bells now sounded throughout the palace, but the alarm originated from the palace’s heart. Near the imperial apartments. The first alarms had since gone silent. This was how the gods rewarded fools like her who complained about peacetime’s tedium.
The purple marble corridor they jogged through bustled with passing dignitaries and imperial functionaries by day. Their only company now was the guests here for Empress Hypathia’s nameday celebration peering from behind doors cracked open. Distant echoing shouts gave the night a haunted feel, making Vesnia half expect to see the shades of dead senators stalking the halls at their sides, hunting the long-dead Invicticani with daggers in hand.
She pulled up short when they arrived at their rally point outside the tall gilded doors of the imperial residence. An Imperial Guard post was here, but only the carved eagles above the doorway remained to defend it. Where were the Guards? The doors were ajar, revealing a slice of darkness. Vesnia drew her spatha and heard blades rasping from her troopers’ scabbards behind her. She advanced and threw open the doors. It was worse than she expected.
The apartments’ antechamber was deserted, save for the dead. A Soul Burner sorceress rested on her side in the doorway, clutching a bronze dagger in her throat. Three Imperial Guards sprawled another stride away in pools of their own blood. Bared blades said that they had been aware of a threat when Zorthiss the Slayer found them, but their spathae gleamed in the torchlight, clean of blood. Each man died from a single thrust to the throat. Their killers knew their business. There would have been a full section of Guards at the door, but the remaining two corpses wore the white and blue tunics of palace servants. A shaft of argent bonemoonlight highlighted a body fallen headfirst in the burbling fountain in the room’s center, submerged to the waist amid statuary depicting a bucolic forest glade.
Vesnia chopped her spatha at the three open doorways leaving the antechamber, directing quartets of Guards to light the way with torches. She then led the other section in to inspect the carnage. There had been certain hazy mornings after a long night of dancing with the grape when thrusting her head into a fountain would have felt wonderful. Vesnia seized a handful of the corpse’s tunic and heaved. She recoiled from the thing that emerged.
The pretty servant girl’s future had been bright this morning. Her dark blonde tresses and ample curves were guarantees of a comfortable life as an imperial courtier’s woman. Alas, today was the day for which The Fateweaver snipped her life’s thread. The girl’s face was purpled; her bloodshot eyes bulged with terror. Vesnia’s gaze fell to the servant’s hands. Their scaly flesh was black and swollen with fingers coiled into claws that scored gouges across her palms. What in the emperor’s name…? Queasiness rippled through her. Who—or what—could have done such a thing?
A disgusted grunt drew her attention to where Duodecanus Fulvius had turned over the other fallen servant. The body had the same discoloration in the face and extremities. Like the woman, the old man’s face contorted with terror, even in death. The tip of his tongue fell from his mouth, bitten off in his panic. Fulvius shrugged and guessed, “Sorcery?”
“Optio!”
Vesnia whirled to face the legionnaires at the central doorway. Duodecanus Sempronas gestured into the darkened hallway. “I, uh…I think they went this way.”
She said, “Fulvius, your section will hold the entrance. Nobody leaves. Sempronas, you’re with me.”
The torches Sempronas’ men held aloft illuminated a scene fit for a battlefield. Imperial Guard corpses littered the hall, their white capes crimson from gaping wounds. A Guard war priestess had her decapitated head at her feet. Blood sprayed high on the walls, turning a wall-spanning mosaic depicting the Glades of Caesatum into a scene where nymphs and satyrs frolicked in a slaughterhouse. Seven Imperial Guards, butchered like peasants armed with pitchforks. Stunned, Vesnia required a few heartbeats to absorb it all.
At least these Guards had put up a fight. Four copper-skinned men in servants’ tunics sprawled dead nearby, each clutching a curved sickle-sword. On a whim, she used her Guard dagger to cut open the nearest one’s tunic front. Unsettled mutters arose from the Guards as she revealed black tattoos covering most of a chest shaved clean of hair. A dark line bisected his sternum, surrounded by images of locusts, skulls, and a jackal’s head. They were Myantari Soulless, dedicated to their death goddess, Achivesh. Just like the campfire tales described.
Rumors swirled about the ruthless Myantari assassins and elite soldiers who sacrificed their souls to Achivesh in exchange for supernatural abilities. Only the Empire’s best made the Imperial Guard, but facing Soulless sent a chill down Vesnia’s spine. She stood on wobbly legs. Soulless infiltrating the imperial apartments. It was a waking nightmare.
Vesnia advanced, her Guards at her back. Doors along the hall opened onto the bedchambers used for the emperor’s visiting extended family. Bodies in tunics of imperial purple, the imperial family’s red-violet hue, littered the carpeted floors. She grimaced at the sight of men, women, and children with the same blackened extremities and purpled faces that they observed on the servants. Some had trickles of vomit streaking their clothing, and all bore the same fixed terror. Vesnia’s hand tightened on her spatha’s hilt at the sight of the children’s contorted faces.
None of that prepared them for the scene in the dining hall staging area where servants assembled meals. Seven masses of shredded flesh oozed gore near the dining hall doors. The bodies were piles of bloody meat barely recognizable as corpses; no piece was bigger than a clenched fist. Blood drenched the walls and dripped from the ceiling for strides around the bodies. Vesnia had seen the Slayer’s work on the battlefield but the sight made her gulp; several of the Guards sketched Duellona’s crossed torch, sword, and spear over their chests.
“Optio?” Sempronas had reached in with his spatha to probe one of the flesh piles. It emerged hooked on a shredded swatch of fabric drenched in gore. “Look,” he said, pointing to an untouched corner. The fabric was dyed in the palace servants’ white and blue. Examining the bodies revealed more bits of shredded fabric. Faint wisps of violet mist coiled about each mass of dead flesh. The mist slithered above each body and coalesced into humanoid forms. She and the Guard recoiled and lifted their swords, but the vaporous forms writhed in silent pain as phantasmal arrows, axes, and swords tore into them.
“Emperor’s balls, was that ours or theirs?” Sempronas asked.
That was a question for Soul Burners and priests. Vesnia shook her head and gestured to the next door.
They continued through expansive chambers and halls into the heart of the imperial residence, where the emperor and his immediate family lived. The awe-inspiring splendor went unnoticed beside the constant presence of death. Servants, soldiers, and imperials; the Soulless spared no one. The assassins chose a good night to work their evil with all of House Aquilune gathered to celebrate Empress Hypathia’s nameday. The Aquilunes were a fruitful family, but they passed a chamber containing the bodies of Crown Princess Rufinia, Emperor Aurelius’ eldest daughter, and her husband, both with corrupted skin and terrified expressions. Several young princesses littered another bedchamber, all slain with sword thrusts through their narrow chests. This was more than assassination; it was extermination. Vesnia felt like a shade wandering the Underworld’s Graybloom Meadows as she advanced through the chain of silent bedrooms where only the dead slept. Was anyone alive? Where were the assassins? As if in answer to her thoughts, she heard something from a doorway up ahead.
She raised a hand to halt the section and removed her plumed helm to listen. It was sobbing—there, in the emperor’s library. Replacing her helm, she rushed forward and smashed the heavy oak door open with her shield.
Emperor Aurelius Aquilune knelt on the floor’s only clear spot amid toppled bookshelves and strewn parchment. The venerable emperor’s silver hair was rumpled. His violet eyes were dulled and reddened with tears whose tracks cut paths through the blood spattered on his face. His bleak stare was that of a broken man.
The emperor was Sulanth’s bastion through uncounted crises. However dire the situation, the emperor exuded confidence, feeding his people the will to persevere. Seeing Emperor Aurelius brought low, being the one who needed them this time, crushed Vesnia. She would have given anything at that instant for a chance to punish the Myantari.
Aurelius clutched Empress Hypathia’s frail form to his chest as if attempting to hold her soul in place. The empress’ blackened extremities and twisted visage proved that even he could not defy death. A Soulless corpse near the emperor had a quill sprouting from an eye. Like countless others, the Soulless made the fatal error of underestimating the emperor.
He slowly looked up at their entrance and heaved a sigh. “They are all dead,” he said, his aristocratic intonations lost in a bleak monotone. “Four generations of my House, murdered in a single night. I woke today with more than fifty heirs. Now, I am the last of the Aquilunes.” Gazing into his wife’s empty eyes, he whispered, “Oh, Hypathia, what have I done…”
“Imperial Majesty…?” What did one say to a broken emperor? How could children comfort their father? Vesnia struggled for words, at last blurting, “How…what happened?”
Aurelius moaned and put a trembling hand to the side of his head. “The sweetmeats. They put something in the sweetmeats. Everyone had one, at my insistence. Two bells later, my family started dying.” Choking on sorrow, he gasped, “I gave her mine. They were her favorite.”
Sempronas leaned close to whisper, “The food taster was in the servant’s room we passed, dead like the rest.”
Vesnia’s recalled the mutilated forms outside the dining hall. Like everyone in imperial service, palace servants swore a divinely sanctioned loyalty oath. Those shredded bodies…they must have betrayed their vows. It took enemies with fanatical dedication to sacrifice their lives and immortal souls for their cause. Their ends would have been quick, but agonizing, and Duellona would punish the oath-breakers for eternity.
A distant crash brought the emperor’s head up. A series of thuds followed. Frowning, he murmured, “That came from the nursery.”
Vesnia whirled and charged into the hall, crying, “Sempronas, defend the emperor with your life!”
Six Guards on her heels, she bolted through a short passageway and around a corner. The nursery’s door gaped open. Overturned furniture and scattered belongings suggested that thieves had ransacked the place. Bloody streaks on one wall trailed down to the crumpled forms of a trio of infants: the triplets, Hadrian, Hypathia the Younger, and Hyrenicus. Once bundles of endless energy, their tiny bodies now resembled broken toys. Two Imperial Guards standing amid the destruction turned at their approach, scowling. The men were unfamiliar to Vesnia, though one wore a centurion’s helm with a transverse crest.
The centurion, a man with an Imperial Easterner’s swarthy coloration, said, “Took you long enough. The last few scattered, looking to escape. Separate into pairs and sweep the outer chambers. They won’t get away with this.”
Her men began to pair off, but Vesnia raised a hand to stop them. Whether it was something in his lilting Eastern accent, or instincts forged during a decade of war, something was amiss.
The centurion’s face darkened and a hand slipped to his spatha’s hilt. “What in the Pit is your problem, Optio? I gave you an order. Move out.”
“Your suspicion is justified, Optio. His spatha is belted on the wrong side.”
It was the emperor, in the doorway behind her. She should kill Sempronas for letting him follow, but Phost’s burning balls, he was right! Officers wore their swords on the left; the centurion’s was on the right, like a soldier from the ranks would wear it.
The imposters exploded into motion, drawing spathae in an impossible blur. Gods’ blood, they were Soulless. Snarling, Vesnia’s Guards were halfway across the room before hearing her order to attack. The Soulless retreated to a wall, where they fought side by side with the Guards surrounding them.
The emperor shouted, “Take the leader alive!”
The order forced the Guards to bash the Soulless with their shields and the flat sides of their swords, helping the Soulless make things interesting. One severed a Guard’s hand; the other removed a man from the fight with a thrust through his abdomen. All of the Guards sported injuries by the time one finally cracked the Soulless leader’s head with his sword pommel, dazing him. The other Soulless spun and decapitated his comrade with a sweeping slash. He then fell upon his sword with a bloody smile before the Guards could seize him.
“Sinstra’s box of mysteries!” the emperor swore, shocking Vesnia with the oath’s coarseness. She understood the emperor’s frustration though; even Soulless would have yielded their secrets to Soul Burner interrogators. It was pleasing to see them dead, however. Perhaps it would help the shades of the fallen pass on to judgment, comforted with the knowledge that their murderers would soon follow them into the Underworld.
“Imperial Majesty? Is that you?”
The feeble query came from the balcony outside. Vesnia stepped before the emperor and put an arresting arm across his chest. She shot a look to Sempronas until he nodded to confirm that he had the emperor. She then advanced onto the balcony. It was deserted. Where had the voice come from? Baffled, she turned, but saw only a bin full of gardening tools and heavy stone planters brimming with the empress’ prized white lilies and daffodils.
“It is I,” the emperor announced from the doorway. “Who speaks?”
“It’s Scribona, Majesty! Please, help! I can’t hold on much longer!”
The woman’s voice came from her left, but the only thing there was one of the empress’ planters. Frowning, Vesnia bent to slide it aside, waving for the nearest Guard to assist. Doing so revealed a young female servant with her arms wrapped about a balcony rail support, dangling high above the Palace of the Purple-Born pavilion. A baby with a full head of blonde hair emerged below her chin from layers of clothing wrapped about her to hold him in place. It was young Honorious, the emperor’s great-grandson and the youngest member of the imperial family.
Scribona looked up at them with a hopeful smile. “The emperor lives?”
“Sinstra’s holy globes,” Vesnia breathed. “Honorious is alive, Imperial Majesty! Help me get her up, trooper!”
They hauled Scribona up to the balcony. Emperor Aurelius, cheeks wet with tears but smiling, rushed to take baby Honorious and cradle him in his arms. Vesnia had no child of her own, but was the oldest of seven. She would swear upon Duellona’s spear that she had never seen a baby adopt such a solemn expression as he reached up to punch the emperor in the nose.
Laughing, the emperor cried, “That is my brave boy! Not a tear shed and still defiant. That is proof of a true Aquilune, if I have ever seen it!”
Scribona stared at her toes and clutched her tunic in bunched fists. “Imperial Majesty, I’m so sorry. I wanted to save them all, but I thought I could only hold one. Little Honorious was the smallest, so I chose him.” Unable to restrain sobs for any longer, she cried, “It broke my heart listening to the little ones’ cries, wailing as they were murdered. I failed you, Imperial Majesty! I should have done more.”
Emperor Aurelius cupped Scribona’s chin in his hand, bringing her eyes up to meet his. “Scribona, you saved my family from destruction. Do not dwell upon what might have been. Your cleverness defeated the Soulless and thwarted a plot likely years in the making. You have the Empire’s gratitude and I’m sure that Hadrian, Hyrenicus, and Hypathia the Younger smile upon you from the Fields of Light even now. I will see your bravery and forethought rewarded. Name it, woman; anything within my power to give is yours.”
Blushing, the maid’s gaze dropped back to her feet. “Imperial Majesty…I…I don’t want anything. I only did my duty.” She risked a brief glimpse at the emperor through curls hiding her face and finished in a rush, “You’ve already saved me and my family from the Ashspires by letting me work here. Helping your family pays my debt of honor.”
Emperor Aurelius gave her the famed crooked Aquilune smile that promised that the cagy emperor had another trick ready. “Scribona, your honor and nobility would shame most of the so-called nobles of the Houses.” After pausing for a heartbeat to consider, the emperor’s smile widened. “Scribona of the Ashspires, I hereby grant you the nomen legatum of Honorborn. From this moment, your name is Scribona Honorborn. Your heirs will enjoy the right to use this nomen legatum to honor your deeds forever.”
Eyeing the slain Soulless, the emperor murmured, “The Empire never forgets.”