The Emperor’s solar was not a room of state, but a chamber of ice and thought. One entire wall was a single sheet of flawless crystal, framing the alien, ochre-banded moon hanging in the lavender sky. The light it cast was sickly, wrong. The other walls were lined with shelves holding not books, but crystals, metallic orbs, and artifacts whose purposes Koronos could not guess. The air was even colder here, scented with ozone and something metallic, like old blood.

  Emperor Xerxes sat not on a throne, but in a high-backed chair of pale wood, draped in his white furs. He looked even more ancient and brittle in the direct light, a carving of frost. However, being Everliving, he was likely not as frail as he appeared. To his right stood a man Koronos had seen in the throne room: Lord Ultramar. He was everything Xerxes was not: tall, broad, his blue skin vibrant, his white hair bound in small, severe military braids. He wore court-armor of silver-trimmed blue steel; it was a court ornate, not meant for battle, and his gaze was a physical weight, full of disdain and calculation.

  “Be welcome, Koronos of… another place,” Xerxes said, his voice a dry rustle. “We have much to discuss.”

  Chamberlain Vale stood by the door, a silent blue-grey ghost. There was no seat offered.

  “Where are my companions and Shelove?” Koronos asked, his voice flat.

  “The Red… person is secure,” Ultramar answered, his tone implying ‘and that is all you need to know.’ “Your concern for a creature of Emberhold is… noted. And concerning.”

  “She is my sworn shield. Her safety is my concern.”

  “A curious bond,” Xerxes murmured, his white eyes unreadable. “One that complicates your position here. It is a complication we must address. But first, a more pressing matter.” He gestured a skeletal hand. “Lord Ultramar.”

  Ultramar stepped forward, his movements precise. “The Bleak Pass. A key trade route in the northern ranges. For months, it has been plagued by… disturbances. Raiders using corrupted majiks, night-stalking horrors. Our garrisons are bled as white as a Malatak of Oceanus. The local commander is incompetent. We require the problem resolved.”

  Koronos stared. “You have an empire. Send your legions.”

  “Our legions,” Ultramar sneered, “are securing the borders against the real threat—the Red devils of Emberhold, who watch for any sign of weakness. This is a splinter, not a spear. But a splinter can fester. We need it removed. Swiftly. Quietly.”

  “And you think I can do this.”

  “We think you are an unknown quantity,” Xerxes said. “An Everliving, found in possession of a First Age artifact, appearing from a realm thought inaccessible. You are either a weapon of unimaginable potential or a catastrophic accident. The Bleak Pass is a test. Succeed, and you prove your value. You earn… guest-rights. And information.” The ancient emperor leaned forward slightly. “And stop playing the lost fool. I know what you are. What people like us are. We are weapons, made by the gods of old to fight the encroaching, vile darkness of the Nightlands.”

  “What information?”

  “About the device that brought you here. About the nature of the ancient gateways. About the possibility of… a return journey to your forsaken, pathetic world.” A trace of something like pity touched his desiccated face. “I have walked these worlds for tens of thousands of years. I know many things. This sword,” he gestured to the Sword of the First, hovering in a shimmering energy field beside his chair, “I know who made it. Her name was Otepi. She was from this world. A half-breed abomination of a Red Malatak and a… human. Hence her peculiar golden locks.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I’ve seen her in her crypt. I know what she looks like. I saw her ascend in a ray of light into the heavens,” Koronos said, a blunt demonstration that he, too, knew things.

  “Interesting,” the emperor mumbled, a flicker of genuine curiosity in his weary eyes.

  The hook was baited, plain as day. Koronos felt the trap, but he had to step in. “My companion goes unharmed. My people are treated well. And I get my sword back. It is a tool I know. I will need it.”

  Xerxes gave a slow, almost imperceptible shake of his head. “The Sword of Otepi is not a ‘tool.’ It is a relic of supreme power from the most powerful Everliving who ever walked the realms. Its presence here is a historical event. It must be studied, understood. Its energies have been… attuned to this world by Arch-Sorceress Lazuli.”

  As if summoned, the woman from the throne room stepped forward from where she had been looming in the shadows. She approached the hovering sword. It looked the same, yet utterly different. Its usual radiant, yellow gleam was overlaid with a sickly, crawling verdigris of Bergian majik, like moss on a tombstone. It hummed with a captive, resentful energy.

  “Cleansed of foreign residues,” Lazuli said, her voice like grinding glass. “And bound to the Ley of the Coalition. It is safe now. For our purposes.”

  Koronos’s hand twitched with the instinct to call it. He felt nothing but a dull, wrong ache in his bones. The Emperor’s power was a mountain fortress. The sword was theirs.

  Ultramar smirked. “You will have your spear returned. It is already attuned to your… abilities, though perhaps you are unaware. You will have a command. You will have the opportunity to prove your worth. That is the offer.”

  The offer. Not a plea for a hero, not a call to honor. A transaction. Your service for her life. Your obedience for a chance. The cold, quantifying clarity of it was like a dash of ice water. This was not the council of a chieftain, weighing the good of the clan. This was the calculus of an empire, weighing assets and liabilities. It was the same math Octavius had used when he sent legions to die for a field he wanted.

  “These ‘disturbances,’” Koronos said, forcing the heat from his voice. “You call them raiders. But you fear they are more. You fear the ‘Cold Whisper’ your sorcerers mutter about. You fear the Nightlands has a claw in your realm, and you do not wish your precious legions to see it. You want the barbarian to go poke the dark hole with a stick and see what bites.”

  A flicker in Ultramar’s eyes confirmed it. Xerxes remained impassive, a master of negotiation yielding nothing.

  “The nature of the threat is yours to discern,” the Emperor said. “Your task is to end it. It is what you were created for. Do we have an accord?”

  Koronos looked from the ancient, weary emperor to the proud, hostile lord, to the sorceress and his stolen soul-blade. He saw no kinship here, only a different flavor of prison. On Terra Primius, the chains were iron. Here, they were crystal, cold logic, and political games. But they were chains all the same.

  He was a piece on a board he didn’t understand, playing a game he despised. And his people were hostages.

  “We have an accord,” Koronos said, the words ash in his mouth.

  “Good,” said Xerxes. “Chamberlain Vale will see to your provisions. You depart at dawn.”

  Koronos turned to leave, the weight of the alien moon pressing on his back.

  “One more thing, ‘Kazonos’,” Ultramar’s voice stopped him at the door. The deliberate mispronunciation was a tiny, pointed cruelty. “Do not fail. The consequences would be… far-reaching. For all your people.”

  The unspoken threat hung in the sterile air, colder than the mountain wind. Corvannafax. They will kill her.

  Koronos stopped. He did not turn around, but his voice, low and final, filled the space between them. “Know this. If harm befalls Corvannafax or Shelove, not even your legions or your majik will save you from my wrath. I will burn your world down. This is not a threat. It is a promise.”

  He left without another word. The crystal door sealed behind him with a sigh. He stood in the empty, gleaming corridor, the hum of the palace in his bones.

  He was a pawn. His most loyal piece was held hostage.

  And the game was just beginning.

  Koronos the Kazarian | Royal Road