1 Year 5 Months and 10 Days Until the Fall of House Romulus

  Mikhael was escorted up to Romulus's mansion. The corridors stretched like tunnels carved from another world. Marble floors, golden trim along the base of every wall, dark red rugs so thick they swallowed sound. Paintings hung like relics, their frames glinting in the light of crystal chandeliers that burned without smoke.

  He had never seen such things. He had never known anyone could live like this. Even the air smelled different up here, sharp with perfume and power.

  They brought him into a room that felt more like a library than a chamber. Dark wood shelves lined the walls, books crammed so tightly it looked as if they were holding up the ceiling. A broad desk sat in the centre, its surface almost disturbingly clean.

  Behind it, the Duke.

  A guard stepped forward and spoke, voice formal. "Mikhael, as requested."

  Romulus did not look up. He sat with his back straight, one hand resting lazily on an open page, the other holding a thin, sharp knife, cleaning beneath his nails with slow, unhurried precision.

  "My wife made me work in the garden with her," he said, as if continuing a conversation Mikhael had not heard. "Planting flowers. Tedious work, I must say."

  Mikhael stood rigid, unsure whether he was supposed to answer, unsure if this was addressed to him at all.

  Romulus's eyes flicked up. "You forget something."

  Mikhael blinked, frowning.

  Then it hit him. He hadn't bowed. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind.

  "You forgot to bow," Romulus said, his face perfectly indifferent.

  The seals etched into his clothes flared, a brief halo of red. Mikhael's body dropped instantly, knees slamming into the polished floor as if his own bones had betrayed him. His head bowed of its own accord.

  Romulus's mouth twitched in the ghost of a smile. "Quite a rebellious little boy you are, Mikhael. Your name is Mikhael, yes?"

  Mikhael nodded, jaw tight.

  "All that time with the Reaper did not do much for your behaviour, I see," Romulus went on. "Well. He was always too merciful."

  "Merciful. That's what you call merciful?"

  "And you made quite the show of all this," Romulus continued, idly turning the knife between his fingers. "Killing one of my guards on your very first day."

  "I did not kill him," Mikhael said, voice low. "You people did. But I wish I had. I do not mind taking their shitty deaths on me."

  Romulus leaned back a fraction, studying him with new interest.

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  "Oh, I see," he murmured. "Well. If you did not possess such immaculate talent, I wouldn't have spared you a glance. It would be easy to drain you dry and let your strength vanish into a crystal no one ever notices."

  The knife stilled.

  "But that would be a waste," he said. "I will not dull your blade, boy."

  "What is he saying? He wants me with him. As one of them. Like Greaves. Like the traitors wearing seals instead of chains. I would rather die."

  "If I refuse, he sends me back down. Back to the Reaper. Back to the seals. Lionel in the fields. Me under the stones. We never leave. Never breathe free again."

  "I have to play along. I hate it. I hate it more than anything I have ever known. But this is the only opening I see. Not the chance I wanted. The only one I have."

  "You can return to the Reaper and have everything stripped from you," Romulus said calmly. "I will not ask twice. Or you can serve me directly. I do not care that you were a commoner. I do not squander tools because of where they were born."

  He reached into a basket beside the desk and pulled out an apple, turning it once in his hand before holding it out, casual as an afterthought.

  "I will help you grow," he said. "And you, and your power, will help me. What do you say?"

  "Join him? Do what he does? What all of them do?"

  "To do anything, I may have to start from inside the rot. I will gain his trust. Learn his seals. Learn his habits. Then I will kill him. Not just him. All of them. This whole cursed Empire."

  "I accept," Mikhael said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears—hoarse, steady. "I will do as you wish of me."

  He reached for the apple.

  Romulus's hand drew back a fraction. The knife turned lazily between his fingers again.

  "Even though I killed your brother, Mikhael?"

  Mikhael's chest locked.

  "Lionel. Dead. No. He would not waste Lionel. He is lying. Testing. Trying to see if I crack."

  His hand did not stop. His fingers closed around the apple anyway.

  He bowed his head.

  "Even then, my lord," he said.

  They didn't put chains back on him when he left the study.

  Two guards flanked him, but they didn't touch him. They didn't speak either. They just walked in silence down the polished halls, past marble statues and thick carpets, past portraits of dead men who still watched everything.

  The light was warm, the air clean.

  It felt wrong.

  All of it.

  The smell of soap.

  The absence of shouting.

  The soft hush of footfalls on rugs instead of stone.

  This place wasn't like the chamber. It wasn't like the fields. It was built to be quiet, not for peace, but because no one dared raise their voice here.

  They brought him to a door and opened it without a word.

  Inside was a room. Not large, but warm. A fire burned in the hearth. A tub waited with steam curling from its surface. Towels were folded neatly on a chair. A shirt and trousers lay beside them, both new, both clean. In the corner stood a bed, its sheets white and untouched.

  One of the guards gestured toward the bath.

  Mikhael stepped forward slowly, expecting a trick. When none came, he approached the tub. He hadn't seen his own skin properly in a long time. Under the grime and seal-burn, he looked thinner. Harder. His fingers trembled when he touched the water.

  He washed without hurry. Not because he enjoyed it, but because it had been so long since he was allowed to be still. The water turned dark quickly, and still he sat in it, letting his bones remember warmth.

  When he was done, he dried off, dressed, and stared at the bed for a long time.

  "I do this while Lionel is out there. Cold. Or dead. It all feels wrong. It should be me in the fields and him in this bath. Don't worry, brother. I'll take them all down."

  He lay down and closed his eyes, but sleep didn't come.

  "Is Lionel dead?"

  Romulus had said it like a passing remark. Like a joke made of rot. There was no proof. No confirmation. Mikhael had learned not to believe anything in a place like this.

  But the thought settled in his chest like a stone.

  "If Lionel was dead, Romulus would die for it.

  If he wasn't, Romulus would still die.

  That much hadn't changed."

  He let the heat from the fire seep into his spine. The sheets were soft. The pillow shaped itself to his head.

  His fists stayed clenched above the blanket.