Of course this was different. They were his friends. His family. Cyrus felt a tremble in his chest. He’d missed them, each and every one, and he’d had no clue just how deeply until back in their presence.

  That comfort soured in his belly. One man was responsible for his departure. One man, and one betrayal. The man who had sent forty Thanese faithful dropping to their deaths. The man who had called him “son.”

  “I once promised I would not return here,” Cyrus said, struggling to find a way to broach such a complicated topic. “I suppose today I break that promise. I’ve missed all of you terribly, but I won’t come back without offering an explanation. My absence was not without reason, and I cannot in good conscience fight alongside you until everything is known.”

  Cyrus told the tale as best he remembered it, sparing no detail. He opened with Magus’s arrival in the bell tower once the forty were hanged. He shared the same words, the accusations of a traitor amid their group who had alerted the Imperator of the plan. And then Cyrus turned to Thorda.

  “I would have them hear it from your own lips,” he said. “That is my price. Speak the name of our betrayer.”

  Thorda sat in his little chair by his fireplace, his hands crossed over his lap. Cyrus thought he might be angry, or bitter, but he appeared remarkably calm. When all eyes turned his way, he merely shrugged.

  “It was I,” he said.

  The shock rippled through his friends. They shared a look, a communal question of “why?”

  “The purpose, though,” Cyrus said, attempting to answer that exact question. He tried to find the right words, a way to explain the absurd. “His goal, throughout all of this, was to turn me into a god that might replace Lycaena and Endarius. I would be Thanet’s final hope. I would be a murderer, unstoppable, unbeatable, without remorse or pity. A new god. The true Vagrant Prince, for whom the rumors paved the way since the day my training began.”

  Silence filled the room. Hard stares pierced the tension. Would they believe him? Could they? No one spoke for an unbearable time, yet Cyrus refused to continue. He needed them to dwell on this fact. He needed them to understand exactly what had happened, and why he turned his back on their resistance.

  In the end, it was Stasia who broke the silence.

  “Did it work?” she asked softly.

  Cyrus chuckled. There they were, the anxious nerves he’d grown so accustomed to feeling. It was one thing to speak the truth to his friends. It was another to reveal the change overcoming him, especially when he hadn’t yet reconciled it with himself. Did he want this? Fear this? Hate it? The power was useful, perhaps necessary. But what of the cost? And was he even worthy to accept it?

  Rayan had witnessed him in battle against Lycaena, but the others had not. If they were to believe such an absurd claim, they would need to see with their own eyes. So he turned his bare face to each and every one and then lowered his gaze. His eyes closed.

  The Vagrant must have allies, he thought. And for that, they must see the truth.

  A cool chill blew across Cyrus’s body despite the closed door and warm fire. His face went numb. His vision darkened. He looked up.

  “Yes,” he said. “It did.”

  He needed no mirror to know the grinning skull had appeared on his face. The shocked and startled gasps of those in his company were enough. It lasted but a moment, and then the numbness vanished. This visage was one he could maintain for only a few seconds, and it was even harder when outside the thrill of combat.

  “I can confirm what you have witnessed is no mere trick,” Rayan said after a pause. He leaned forward, his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped together. “In the far north of Ierida, we battled a gruesome mockery of the goddess Lycaena. In that battle, I witnessed Cyrus move in ways that I would normally deem impossible. His prowess and strength impressed even the Heir-Incarnate.”

  “The Heir-Incarnate?” Arn asked. “It sounds like you had some fun up north.”

  He was trying to break the tension with his cocky grin. It wouldn’t work. Cyrus and Thorda were two fires burning toward each other, consuming the very air.

  “Maybe I’ll tell you the story sometime,” Cyrus said. He returned his attention to Thorda. “But it was in fighting Lycaena I saw the desperation of my people. I saw the despair that would ruin them, and drive them to false gods of blood and sacrifice. So let them turn to me instead. I will be the god they need, if it spares our island a cruel mockery of the faith we once practiced. Better the Butterfly still wrapped in beauty than the bloody moth. Better my name whispered in reverence, than foul prayers to the God-Incarnate.”

  As if you loathe it, whispered that dark voice in his mind he long wished to silence.

  “This is the path set before me,” he continued, pretending to not have heard. “I may have walked its first steps without knowing, but my eyes are open now. Call it blasphemous, call it madness, or call it necessary. I don’t care. I have this power, and I will use it to save my people. It is in that, and that alone, I still share something in common with our leader.”

  At last, Master Ahlai stood. He pulled at the sleeves of his robes, gathering himself. Nervous? No, Cyrus decided, not nervous. This man didn’t know the meaning of the word. His conviction had carried him for decades. If a sliver of doubt had existed within him, it’d have long ago traveled to his heart to put an end to his series of failed rebellions.

  “I have always done what I believed must be done,” Thorda said. “I will offer no apologies, nor excuses, for neither are deserved. With the Vagrant, we have ourselves the weapon we need. Victory, the first real victory against the Everlorn Empire in decades, is within our grasp. I understand some of you may not agree. I will not argue with you. The door is there. If you feel my actions crossed a line, then leave through it and do not return.”

  His gaze swept from person to person, Rayan to Arn, Stasia to Mari. None stood. None left. How much blood was spilled between the four, Cyrus wondered? Could any of them condemn Thorda for the deaths of innocents when each man and woman in that room was a murderer famous throughout the empire? Cyrus’s hands weren’t innocent, either. So much blood. Perhaps it was foolish to think there might even be a noble path leading to the end.

  “We all have our sins,” Arn said, answering the unspoken question. “I won’t condemn anyone here for their own.”

  “If Cyrus is willing to put it aside, then so am I,” Stasia said. She glared at her father. “Though I’d be saying differently if you’d not saved Clarissa from that noose.”

  “Or Keles,” Rayan added.

  Mari stared down at her hands. She did not speak, but neither did she get up to leave.

  “Very well,” Thorda said, accepting the silence as her answer. “Cyrus’s return is most fortuitous, for it will mark the start of our own escalation. With Lord Agrito dead, the Tannin Realm will be in chaos, and the Heir-Incarnate’s attention forced upon it. He will divert soldiers and spies out from Vallessau, and so we will do the opposite. I have coordinated efforts from both commander Pilus and Lord Mosau to smuggle soldiers from their training grounds right here, into the heart of the capital.”

  “You would hide an army underneath the empire’s very nose?” Cyrus asked.

  “Hardly an army, but it will be a killing force,” Thorda said. “Our war shall soon begin in earnest, now that we have our prince to lead it.”

  Over a month passed, and yet nothing had changed. His former master barely even had to alter his plans. Had his protest been for nothing? What point did those weeks living under bridges and in shabby lodges even serve? Cyrus felt foolish and bitter, young and stupid, too naïve and yet burdened with an army and a purpose.

  “You presume much,” he said. “I demand no apology, and I offer you no forgiveness, but that does not mean my return comes without requirements. What I want is a promise, Thorda, one given in full witness to this group. No more lies. No more deception. You will speak only the truth to each and every one of us. Without that, I walk back out the door, and I will save my island without cooperating with your teams or acknowledging your plans ever again.”

  Thorda’s lips curled inward as if he tasted something sour. He glanced once, to Stasia.

  “I swear it,” Thorda said. “No deceptions, only the truth.”

  Mari startled from her chair. She stood there awkwardly, her neck and face flushing red. If she meant to say something, she changed her mind and instead crossed the room to wrap her arms around Cyrus. The embrace was far more calm and controlled than her first greeting.

  “It really is good to see you again. I missed you dearly.”

  She withdrew. Despite the crowd, she turned to her father and addressed him as if they were alone.

  “You once asked me to never hate you,” she said. Her whole body shook with her words. Witnessing such hurt was heartbreaking. “It’s getting harder and harder, Father.”

  She left without waiting for a response. Not that one would be forthcoming. Thorda’s tanned skin had turned ashen, but his features were still hard as stone. His ire shifted Cyrus’s way.

  “I pray your promise was worth it,” he said. “The truth cuts harsher than any story, and it need not always be brought to the light.”

  “Do not blame me for the cost of your own decisions,” Cyrus shot back.

  “I pay every cost, and accept every blame. I must. What cost are you willing to pay, Vagrant? What blame will you allow to fall on your selfish shoulders? Or did you think Thanet, and your friends here, would fare perfectly well during your absence?”

  There was the anger and frustration Cyrus had anticipated. It had only lain dormant, waiting for his promise to return to the group. Waiting until Thorda need not fear chasing Cyrus away a second time. He grinned at the older man, and he might have summoned his second face, the face of the Vagrant, if he thought it would affect him in the slightest.

  “You would try to guilt me?” he asked the man he once foolishly thought could be a father. “Not now, and not ever, Thorda. There’s enough weight upon my shoulders. I need no guilt from your own bloody hands.”

  CHAPTER 23

  STASIA

  Stasia traversed Vallessau with her head down and her hands deep in the pockets of her light coat. Cyrus had stormed out after the meeting, and after some prodding by her father, she’d gone after him. On the one hand, Cyrus might need some time alone. On the other, he’d had a full month of being alone. Her gut said he needed company, not solitude and moping.

  It hadn’t even been a difficult guess. She found him atop the bell tower overlooking the scene of the hangings a long month ago. The execution platform had burned to ash, as had multiple nearby buildings. No attempts had been made to rebuild.

  Stasia sat beside him, her legs dangling off the side, and elbowed his ribs.

  “Here you go,” she said, handing over three stones. They were perfectly spherical, and a deep gray color reminiscent of soot. “My father calls them smoke stones. Throw one to the ground and it’ll explode in smoke and ash. Great for making timely escapes.” She cleared her throat. “He made them for you. I suspect it is his way of attempting to apologize.”

  Cyrus accepted the stones, pocketed them, and then resumed staring. Stasia grunted. So it’d be like that, would it? He’d always been a quiet kid since she met him, happier to vanish into a room to read than laugh and joke with friends. But of course, he’d not actually had friends, had he? Just her, Mari, and Thorda. No one his age. No one who knew a regular life, one free of war and killing. To think that he’d not just endured, but thrived…

  “Mari said to come by her room when you get back,” Stasia continued, pretending all was fine. “She said she needs your measurements.”

  “Is she to sew me new clothes?”

  “Perhaps? You do smell pretty foul.”

  He chuckled, a bit of his seriousness cracking, but it didn’t last. The young prince appeared determined to brood. Silence returned, but it would not defeat Stasia.

  “How long ago was it, two years ago?” she asked, her tone light, as if they were casually chatting on one of their morning runs. “No, three years, that’s it, three years since we started your training. I’ll admit, I thought it was a bit of a lost cause. You were such a skinny little kid, but damn if you didn’t have a mountain full of heart.”

  “Did you know?” Cyrus asked, curt and accusing. One question, yet there were dozens within, like threads linked together into a single rope. Did she know about her father’s plans? Did she know he would kill innocent believers? Did she know he would try to turn him into a god?

  “No,” she said. “He kept me in the dark, just like you. You were to be a symbol, and I was to train you so you didn’t get killed. That was all I knew. I didn’t need to know more, and so I wasn’t told.”

  Cyrus wouldn’t look at her, his gaze locked on the burned remnants of the hanging platform. It seemed like he believed her. It probably helped that a bit of Stasia’s own frustrations leaked out with her words. Her entire life was filled with similar moments, such as when Thorda hadn’t mentioned the riots in Vallessau after the partial implementation of the Joining Laws. The truth, if inconvenient, was best left unspoken to keep things as her father desired. Even from family.

  “Such lofty ambitions,” Cyrus said, and he laughed. “Hey, Cyrus, don’t get killed so everyone else can do the hard work. Is that all it takes to become a god in Miquo? You must have had a very crowded pantheon, indeed.”

  “We did, before the God-Incarnate slaughtered them all.”

  Stasia was glad to see Cyrus wince. He might be hurting on the inside, but to insult her home like that felt… petty.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s hard to get out of my head sometimes. Even with all I’ve endured, others have suffered worse.”

  Stasia picked up a pebble dislodged from the stone bricks and chucked it off the side.

  “Others, but not many,” she said, thinking of how his parents had been beheaded while he watched. She put a hand on his shoulder. He trembled at her touch. “I understand the guilt you feel, I do, so I want you to know that I ask this with full sincerity—is it truly so terrible, what you are becoming?”

  He glared at her, angered at the question exactly as she’d feared he’d be.

  “How could you ask that?”

  “Because you’ve been given power, Cyrus. Power at a cost, yes, but all power comes at a cost. We fight a near unwinnable war. Clawing our way to victory won’t be pretty, and it won’t come without blood on our hands. Thorda is a conniving bastard, you won’t get any arguments from me on that, but there’s no changing what’s been done, only deciding how we move forward.”

  “So pragmatic.”

  Stasia shrugged.

  “I wasn’t given much choice on how else to live, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Cyrus fell silent. He was struggling to understand, and she wanted to feel sympathy for him, maybe even pity. She couldn’t muster either. No matter how hard Cyrus tried, he would not understand her life. Not completely. Yes, he had undergone tragedy and suffering, but his three years of isolation while his country was taken from him did not compare to Stasia’s two decades of warfare. He had not made new friends and lovers, fought with them, and bled for them, only to watch them die. He had not wept over their graves, and then been forced to move on. Another battlefield, another doomed war, another culture broken and shattered and reshaped with only its most smooth and harmless remnants allowed to endure in the shadow of the God-Incarnate.

  Twenty-five years, she thought. Twenty-five gods-damned years. It’s a wonder I haven’t taken a knife to my own throat.

  Cyrus could not see her pain, but he could feel its presence, could sense its weight. It made him rethink his initial outburst, and after a time, he tried again. This time it felt honest, and Stasia was thankful for that.

  “I feel like I have no idea what it means to be a god anymore,” he admitted. “Gods were… they were Lycaena, and Endarius. They were these eternal, wondrous beings beyond my understanding, who loved us and cherished us for some unfathomable reason. They were the makers of the world. They were the divine pair who would carry us into the eternal lands beyond, and allow us to live among them without hunger, pain, and strife.”

  He touched his face. Still wearing gloves, she noted, and had so ever since he’d returned from his self-imposed exile on the streets of Vallessau. Was there a reason for that? Did he fear his own touch?

  “Of all people, how can I become a god?” he asked. “And if someone like me can become one, what does that say about the gods we do worship? And the gods all across Gadir? Or even the God-Incarnate himself? To think this is possible, or justified, feels like an insult to them all.”

  “Then insult them, Cyrus. They’re divine beings. They can handle whatever it is you’re becoming. I’m more worried about you breaking under the strain, not the pride of some lousy gods across the sea or the absolute cock-weasel that is the God-Incarnate.”

  He laughed, and it looked like a thousand pounds had slid off his shoulders.

  “I feel like I’m losing my mind any time I believe this is happening, and I’m the one it’s happening to. Yet you’re not all that surprised.”

  “Miquo’s gods were different, remember?” she said. “It’s… easier, for me. My father has told me stories of them, but even the dozen or so gods I know the names of are but a fraction of the eighty we worshiped. Our gods would age and give up their mortal shells to take their rightful place in the stars. Their power, their wisdom, and their faith would be passed down to another.”

  Stasia shrugged.

  “The people chosen would sometimes be children, sometimes elderly, but they were always human. Always mortal. And then they would become divine. So for you to become the same, it’s not that strange to me. The source of the power is. There is no god whose gifts you inherit. It is a new faith, infantile and wild. It’s one born out of fear and desperation, and I suppose in this analogy, my father is the wet nurse.”

  “Or the one who impregnated Thanet so it might birth me.”