Willios sank to his knee. How strange....a thing he had done a thousand tis without thinking, and now it just seed so wrong.
The act landed him directly beneath the thing that had once been his prince and now looked like a wound in a god’s face. He risked a glance up and found himself caught by two lifeless slits of iron: the mask that hid whatever rot Mavius’s flesh had beco. The eyes behind it stared down with an impassive, hungry calm.
He let his gaze fall to the dust at his boots. The keep slled of tallow; the wind outside carried the distant clatter of n and the muffled creak of wood.
This wasn’t a very rich city....
When at last he spoke it was with his face still bent. "Your Imperial Majesty." The words felt small in the room.
"Lord Willios." The reply scraped out of Mavius like gravel. There was pleasure in the rasp, perhaps it was just him happy to see him, but nonetheless it just ca out wrong.
He moved with the languid grace of a cat that has already had its al and is amused by the twitching of its prey. He crossed to the high window and looked down over the city, shading his eyes with a hand that trembled only the slightest. In that softened profile Willios could read a child’s glee: the private delight of soone who has collected every toy and now imagines the world as his display case.
"My dear brother," Mavius murmured without turning. The title landed between them like a provocation. "He is busy turtling in his great city.What a gift!" The rasp chewed through the words. "He cowers behind walls while others take the world.We just have to go and take our due." His laugh seed as if soone were rubbing two stones together. "How fortunate for us that the houses of the east were so ready to embrace a son who rembered their nas." He breathed out a wheeze. "He was always a soft thing. He had no business wearing the crown."
Willios felt for sothing like pity or brotherhood in the tone, they after all were of the sa blood; he found none. Mavius wanted the sight of submission.
"If my brother surrenders the city," he added, gaze drifting back to the mapless plain and the city’s tiled roofs like a child imagining toy soldiers, "I may spare his life."
Mavius turned then and laid a hand on Willios’s shoulder, a touch that should have felt warm. Willios felt it as a weight. He wanted to snatch his shoulder away, but of course, dared not. He kept his face controlled and let duty dictate his limbs.
"I will give you a quarter of my army,"he suddendly declared, and the sentence fell like an edict. "Move southwest toward Maisse. Accept their surrender or level the city if they do not offer it. We have been handed power on a platter; to dawdle is to waste it." His words ca faster now, a thin stream of certainty. "If the Eternal City must be besieged, I will not have wolves gnawing at our heels,while we tend to our campaign. We will close every flank they may attack us.
We will stitch the wounds of this rebellion, and then," he spread his hands as if to gather the world, " I will take the throne that should have been mine long ago."
For a long beat, he stood looking at the city again, as if asuring the distance between conquest and his coronation.
Even though the war had gone for so long, he dread of being the man who would, for the first ti take the Eternal City by strength of arms...
"Do you fear it will be a long business?" Willios asked for the first ti since he entered. He followed his liege’s gaze toward the valley below, where the last loyal banners of the east had begun to flutter once more in the wind , purple cloth stitched with the double-headed eagle.
Willios imagined the battle that was to co, would most certainly look confusing with both sides holding the sa banner...
Once, it had been a sight to stir pride. Now, it gave him nothing.
"It depends," Mavius said at length, his voice dragging through. "On how tight the Achean grip still is on the city. I doubt there are many lords foolish enough to drown with that sinking ship. It was always the old lion’s roar that kept it standing...nothing more.
Now that he’s gone, the cubs gnaw at the father’s bones." He turned slightly, the dim light through the high window drawing the shadow of his iron mask long across the chamber wall. "How regrettable," he murmured, almost wistfully, "that one of the great houses must be extinguished for the stupidity of its last patriarch."
Willios hesitated, then ventured, "Mayhap they will surrender before a siege? I doubt even the Acheans could be so blind to the state of things."
Mavius did not answer at once. His shoulders rose in a soft, almost indulgent shrug, as though the prospect of slaughter or surrender made no difference to him. The rasp of his breathing filled the silence. "If they surrender, so be it. If they resist..." he paused, a faint tallic whisper sounding as his gloved fingers brushed the edge of his mask, "...then the house of Achea will be rembered only in stone, and the birds will nest in their crests."
"Much the sa," the prince went on, "will happen to that little southern princeling who thought himself fit to ddle in imperial matters. That dog..." His tone shifted from idle to almost amused, like a man discussing sport. "The South had grown too unruly since Father’s death. Perhaps the death of one of their own will remind them that Rolia is not so far away as they imagine." He leaned on the window ledge, fingers tapping absently against the marble. "From what I hear, the boy’s crown sits crooked. His own nobles can hardly stomach him. A farr’s blood under a golden wreath, it must itch to bow and kiss his feet."
Willios kept his face still, though his stomach tightened. He knew who the prince ant. But he did not dare to say his input, for he believed the man was no fool and no re "peasant," but correcting Mavius right now was unthinkable.
The prince spoke on, half to himself, half to the room. "Once I am seated in the Great Marble Palace, I will send an army south. The workshops of Yarzat still turn, I hear, still craft their wonders . Those riches will fund the healing of Rolia."
His tone brightened, like a man admiring his own vision.He went on and on , about how he would force that southern princedom to swear an oath and be his vassals, of course demolishing the castles on his borders, so that he may have an easy access there if they beco too unruly under him.
That , he believed , was the mistake his ancestors did, they had let the South be at the slightest of bothers they gave them.
He laughed then, that usual thin sound, the laughter of a man drunk on visions of a future that had not yet co, and perhaps never would.
Willios lowered his eyes again, willing himself to silence. He wanted to end the audience there, to bow, to leave before that laughter continued. But sothing gnawed at his mind, sothing he could not dismiss, no matter how much his instincts scread for caution.
"Your Imperial Majesty..." he began, and instantly regretted it. The iron mask turned toward him with an almost serpentine slowness. Even without seeing the prince’s face, Willios could feel those dead eyes fixing on him. "May I... ask you a question?"
The pause that followed was unbearable. Then the rasping voice ca , coarse, wet, yet oddly calm."You have served long, Lord Willios. I see no reason why not."
"It is about..." Willios hesitated, his mouth dry.How was he to call them"...the soldiers that you have brought with you."
"The pigs?" Mavius said at once. There was no malice in the tone, only indifference, as though he were speaking of cattle. ’’What of them?
Willios swallowed. "I do not understand, Your Majesty, for what reason you would bring them. They are dullards of mind, half-mad, if I dare say so. Save for their... absence of fear or pain, I see little use in them. They obey no orders, and most of the ti, I doubt they even hear them. Why keep such... things... near the heart of your host?"
Mavius said nothing. He simply stared.
Five seconds passed. Ten.
To Willios, it felt like an age. The silence pressed down on him, heavy and suffocating. And then , gods help him , he thought he saw it: a flicker of sadness in those lifeless eyes behind the mask.
"I brought them," Mavius said at last, his voice lowering, almost reverent, "because they were to be the key that would win us this war." He exhaled slowly, as though the admission itself carried weight. "I have spent so much effort, so much hope upon them... You can imagine my regret that it seems I will not need them."
Willios hesitated. "But... what are they for?"
The Imperator turned away, looking once more toward the city lights below. His gauntlet tapped lightly on the marble sill, a slow rhythm that made Willios’ stomach knot. "Have you heard," Mavius asked quietly, "of the barbarians that t us at our gates? Of that first charge?"
Willios frowned. "I have, Your Majesty."
"Then you know what they saw," Mavius continued. "They are similar to them."
For a heartbeat, Willios could not breathe. The blood in his face drained cold. He realized , far, far too late ,what his liege was saying.
"Demons," he whispered, the word escaping before he could stop it. He half turned, as though even speaking the na might summon divine wrath.
"Simply n," Mavius replied’’That bled, piss and shit’’.
But Willios saw the lie for what it was.
The lord of the Fingers lowered his gaze, his heart hamring against his ribs. The realization ca upon him like ice in his veins.
They were bringing demons, into the heart of Rolia.
They were traitors in more than one way, not only to their nation but even to their gods.
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