“I thank you for the advice, Senator. Do feel free to come and give me more in person.”
Pasus just smiled, for he knew to come in person would be to fall into Tyrus’s power. “I am always glad to offer it. And if Your Supremacy wishes more, do but come to my territory—and seek it again.”
Tyrus smiled too. That was not going to happen.
But then after the transmission ended, he blew out his breath, pulled the scepter out of his waist sheath again, and gazed down at it with frustration.
“He knows something. That’s what he was hinting about. And the gall . . . Salivar is freshly dead, and he’s already angling for my cousin’s hand.”
“That can’t happen,” I said.
Pasus was threat enough as it was, being the most powerful member of the Helionic faction of the Senate, and one of the wealthiest Grandes in the Empire. If he wed Tyrus’s heir, Devineé, then I wouldn’t give Tyrus a week before he’d meet an untimely death.
“Of course it won’t happen,” Tyrus said, tightening his fist about the scepter.
My eyes sought his, saw the stormy cast of his features, and I knew in my heart that a disaster loomed on our horizon. He shoved the scepter back into its sheath, where it might as well remain, for all the good it was doing him.
“Tyrus.”
He looked to me distractedly.
“Perhaps it’s time.”
“Time . . . for what?”
“Let me kill those who pose a threat to you.” This. This was one thing I could do—one strength I could bring him that no one else could. I had no pity, and if they threatened him . . . I couldn’t lose him as I had Sidonia. “I’ll start with your cousin.”
He strode over to me, took my cheeks in his hands. “Nemesis, no.”
“But—”
“You are not my Diabolic. I am never going to ask you to be my Diabolic again. This is a setback. I will figure this out.”
He said that, but he didn’t know how. He did not.
And so I waited until Tyrus had to surrender to that need to sleep, the one I had so little of, the one he needed far more than I did.
Then I determined to go find the reasons for his weakness for myself. There was one man in this superstructure who had the answers. And he would give them to me.
4
THE PENUMBRA was a tiny vessel, a fixture of the Chrysanthemum, and intended to be a domain solely of the vicars who served the imperial family. It had been donated to the faith by a long-ago sovereign, the pious Empress Avarialle.
I had no right to board it, but a threatening look toward those servants at the entrance stopped them from reaching out, from interfering. So I barged right into the vessel of holy sanctuary and found myself surrounded by clear walls that gazed upon the bright stars of the Cosmos, and tangled canopies of plants climbing over every surface.
Through that corridor of starlight and nature I strode, until I came upon the great central garden, lovingly tended by hand, not service bot. Hedges were crafted to mimic the traditional shape of stars—like circles with pointed rays jutting out from them.
And in the center of it all, the massive crystalline statue that gazed down upon it all. A depiction of a man, his bare feet so large that his ankles were at the same height as my hips. My gaze wandered up the crystal expanse and lingered on those features. A broad nose, heavy-lidded eyes. Flattened hair like a bowl over the head.
A distinctly ordinary-looking man, for his towering size.
Yet this was the same depiction I’d always seen of the Most Ascendant Interdict, the chief vicar of the Helionic faith. He was rumored to be immortal and dwelled in the Transaturnine System at a wondrous starlight realm called the Sacred City.
Donia had recited the accounts to me when we were both little, at first with reverence. And then, as she grew slightly older, with a tentative hint of uncertainty.
“Is it very bad of me if . . . if I doubt whether he really exists?” she’d asked me fearfully several times.
Nothing Donia could do was bad. That had been my belief, so doubting whether there was an actual Interdict seemed like it had to be a fair and just thing to do.
After all, no man was immortal.
“I should have expected you would have no respect for this sanctuary,” spoke a voice behind me.
Fustian nan Domitrian carried a jar of oil and a liquisilk rag past me, aiming for the statue.
“This is a holy space, and you are an abomination. From what I’ve heard, your disrespect has already been rebuked once today by our Divine Cosmos.”
“In fact, Vicar,” I said, watching him anoint those big toes with oil, “that’s what brought me here.”
“I do hope our young Emperor is well?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Quite,” I said between my teeth. “In fact, he meant to speak to you. But I wished to see you first. Alone.”
“And why would that be?” said Fustian, looking back at me contemptuously.
I smiled broadly. “Because Tyrus is often kind. I am not.”
Fustian’s hand stilled where he was anointing the toes. His gaze trailed past me, and I asked him, “Are you contemplating calling for help? Do you truly know anyone suicidal enough to protect you from me?” I shook my head. “No, no, Vicar. This is the time when I ask questions, and then I get answers. And if you will not talk at first, I will convince you in the myriad ways abominations are skilled at using.”
The vicar was trembling. I could detect that, practically sense his terror, and there was a part of me deep down that exulted, gloried in it. I’d been fashioned for just this, and every predatory fiber of my being enjoyed causing sickening fear in this old man who’d made himself my foe.
He’d abandoned the statue and now was on his feet, his back pressed against it as though the unmoving crystalline Interdict could shelter him. “What happened was the judgment of the Living Cosmos. You may harm me if you wish, you monstrous thing, but it won’t change anything.”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that you were soon to be replaced as Vicar Primus,” I said quietly, “and suddenly a Great Heliosphere’s worth of people—including your replacement—end up scorched by a star. And I don’t believe that’s divine intervention.”
He paled. “You believe I did that.”
“I believe after I tear out every one of your fingernails and teeth, you will be able to tell me honestly.”
With that, I feinted toward him, and he shrieked, cringed back.
“It wasn’t me!” His hand flew up over his face. “The scepter. It was the scepter.”
He did know. He knew.
My blood raced with the need to lash out, to hurt. I circled him, keeping my aggression in check, and watched his shaking hand lower as he realized he wasn’t being physically tormented just yet.
“Explain it all to me. Now.”
He drew and released several breaths, gathering his courage. “This is not for you to know—”
“But I will know,” I roared at him, “whether now or after I’ve hurt you.” Then I drew so close to him, he backed into the statue.
I decided to test my theory. “Pasus betrayed you, you know.” It was a lie, but I meant to test him. “He told us you were the one to ask about the scepter. I know you are in communication.”