“You’re sure that this couldn’t have waited?” Lucious demanded of one of the men. He wore the gilt-edged armor of the royal bodyguard, not the common red and silver of the guards.
“The king said ‘at once,’ your highness,” the man said, with a flatness that reminded Lucious of teak or stone.
“And did he say what this was about?” Lucious demanded, as they continued to hurry toward the castle.
Beside him, the silence was palpable. The royal bodyguard didn’t so much as dignify the request with an answer. If Lucious could have done it, he would have had the man demoted for that, or sent to the fringes of the Empire to fight the raiders who sometimes came over the border, but these guards answered only to the king.
The walk to the castle did little to improve Lucious’s mood. It wasn’t just the fractiousness in the city, when everyone should have been staying in their homes, afraid of him. It was the way he had to walk between the two guards to keep the threats of the streets away, looking less like a figure they were protecting than a prisoner for them to guard.
By the time they reached the castle, and the doors to his father’s chambers, Lucious was fuming. When one of the bodyguards there stepped into his path, Lucious almost struck the man. Only the thought that he was probably more than capable of beating Lucious to a pulp slowed him.
“Get out of my way, man!” Lucious ordered.
“Forgive me, your highness, but you are still wearing your sword.”
Lucious wanted to draw it and thrust it through the man, but instead, he handed it over with bad grace, throwing in his dagger just to make the point. The guards finally stepped back, and Lucious stepped past them.
“Remember that one day I will be your king,” Lucious said in what he hoped was a suitably dangerous tone. Again, he met silence.
His father was sitting on the throne he kept within his chambers, of course. He always did when he wanted to appear serious. Lucious would have believed it better if he hadn’t known of all the serving girls he’d had “attend” him there on that throne, and all the times he’d gotten so drunk he’d fallen off it. Both traditions Lucious fully intended to continue when he was king.
Today, his father’s expression was serious, even stern. There was no sign of Lucious’s mother. After the last time they’d spoken here, Lucious had the sense to bow deeply, even if he felt that his father ought to be the one rising to meet him.
“Lucious, my son,” his father said, standing. “I expected you sooner.”
“I was busy dealing with things in the Stade. Securing our Empire,” Lucious said. “Doing all the things you wanted me to do.”
“The things I wanted you to do, yes,” his father said. He walked into the area of the chambers where the statues of long dead kings looked down. Lucious followed, even though he hated the dead eyes staring down at him.
“Do you remember the lessons Cosmas drilled into you?” his father asked. “Do you know who these men are?”
“My ancestors,” Lucious answered, because really, who had time to remember the names of the dead?
“Your ancestors, yes,” his father said. “Some of them were good men. Some of them were bloody-handed tyrants. This is Nemius, the Year Long King. They say he was a wise and good man who tried to change the Empire.”
“He sounds more like a fool to me,” Lucious said. “Why call him the Year Long King?”
“He died in less than a year, trying to help with the bubbling plague,” his father said. “As you’d know if you’d learned your history.”
“Did you really call me here to discuss ancestors so stupid they couldn’t keep away from plague pits?” Lucious demanded.
He heard his father sigh in the way that had always annoyed Lucious, as though Lucious only existed to disappoint him.
“You have no patience, Lucious. It is just one of your problems.”
Lucious thought he’d had plenty of patience, waiting for his time to rule, but he didn’t say that. Instead, he laughed.
“And what good did patience do your Year Long King?” he asked. “Probably, if he’d had less, he would have gotten more done.”
“Do you have any respect for the achievements of the men before you?” his father demanded. “Do you have any respect for anything?”
“I have respect for power,” Lucious said. “For the strength of our arms and the position our blood gives us. Does it help me to know about dead men?”
“It might help you to avoid some of their faults,” his father snapped back.
Lucious doubted it. He pointed to one at random, since they were all the same to him. “What about this one?”
“Phenus,” his father replied. “He fought wars to expand the Empire. He also taxed his peasants too heavily, and endured years of famine.” He moved over to another. “This is Falkon the Slaver, who took the daughters of his nobles to his bed, and was poisoned by his own courtiers. This is—”
“Are you going to go through all of them?” Lucious demanded.
He shrank back as his father rounded on him. Damn him for always being able to make him feel fear, despite his age.
“You are not listening, Lucious. These are men who went too far, as you do! You have terrorized Delos and the countryside around it. You have taken and taken, with no thought for what is left behind. You have been cruel for the sake of being cruel, and only fueled the rebellion!”
“I have done nothing you did not tell me to,” Lucious pointed out. “You told me that nobles could take what they wanted from peasants, so I did. You told me to remind them of their place, so I did.”
“But I forgot that we have a place too,” his father replied. “I am not just blaming you, my son. I forgot as much as you did that we exist to look after the Empire, not just to take from it. A shepherd who cares for his flock year after year, not the wolves who descend upon it to slaughter it.”
“That sounds like the kind of nonsense Lord West might have said,” Lucious countered. He was glad that the old fool was dead, although it rankled that he’d died clean. A traitor like that didn’t deserve it.
“Lord West was one of my closest friends,” his father said, sounding older than ever to Lucious. “He was an honorable man. You were going to kill him as though he was there for your entertainment.”
“I was going to make an example that would stop others,” Lucious retorted, anger running through him with every beat of his heart. “Don’t start moralizing, Father. You have done plenty of cruel things in your time, and you had your part in this. You wanted this.”
His father turned to look him in the eye. “And now, I do not.”
He said it as though it were that easy. As though the world turned according to his whim. As though Lucious was supposed to change who he was, simply because his father no longer wanted what he once had.
“I have been issuing orders today,” his father said. “I have commanded that the captured rebels should be released. The taxes will be put back to their previous levels, and there will be no more seizures of goods or random tortures. This stops, Lucious.”
Lucious froze, hardly believing what he was hearing.
“And how does looking weak help us?” Lucious demanded.
“It is not weak to show restraint, or to do what is right,” the king said. “Although it has taken me a long time to remember that, and I am not sure I taught it to you at all.”
Because it wasn’t true, Lucious thought. It was simply a lie told by the weak to try to rein in the strong. He’d thought his father knew better.
“And that is why I have something else to tell you, Lucious,” his father said. “Something I must admit to the world.”
A heavy silence fell, until he finally looked him in the eye with grave solemnity.
“Thanos…he is your brother.”
He said it as though it was some great revelation, and Lucious had to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to know the secret of his brother’s parentage. Thankfully, his father was too caught
up in his own confession to notice the slip.
“I was young, and I was foolish,” King Claudius went on. “But I was stupider to try to cover up what happened. I had the events stricken from the records, but I have already sent to have that put right. I will reinstate Thanos as my son.”
That caught Lucious by surprise, stealing his breath from him. He felt his world spinning out from beneath his feet.
“No,” he said softly. “No, this can’t—”
“It’s true,” his father assured him, as though that was what Lucious was worried about. “Thanos is your brother.”
“I know that!” Lucious yelled back. “Of course I know that! And he knows that, and probably half the rebellion knows that by now! Do you think that this charade fooled anyone?”
His father looked stunned.
“Don’t raise your voice to me, boy,” the king said. “I am still your father.”
“And that of who knows how many other brats,” Lucious said. “We all take our turns with the peasants, but that doesn’t mean we have to acknowledge their whelps!”
His father turned red.
“Thanos’s mother was no peasant!” his father snapped back, and for a moment, Lucious thought that he might strike him. Lucious found himself taking a step back automatically, and hated himself for it.
“I will not accept this,” Lucious said, with his fists clenched. “I will not. I am your son. My mother is your wife!”
“All of that is true,” his father said, and there was something in his tone that made Lucious think that perhaps he regretted it all. That made anger sit in Lucious’s chest like a stone, the weight of it making it hard to breathe.
“Is that all you have to say?” Lucious demanded. “Just that it’s true that I’m your son, my mother is your wife? Make it sound like it means something, you old fool.”
“I have been a fool,” his father said. “A fool to think that you would understand this, Lucious. I have spent my life being blind to what you are. I made excuses for you, when I should have taught you better. I set you the worst kind of example, and you followed it.”
Lucious didn’t say anything then. He wasn’t sure what there was left to say.
“This will take time to adjust to, for you and Athena, I know,” his father said, “but you will get used to the idea, Lucious.” His father reached out to touch the statue that represented Lucious’s grandfather. “You must, because when I acknowledge Thanos, he will be my oldest son. My heir. He will be your king one day, Lucious.”
Lucious shook his head, refusing to accept what he was hearing.
“He’s a traitor. He helped the rebellion, and you reward him like this?”
“He is a man willing to risk everything for what he believes to be right,” his father said. “The Empire needs a ruler with that kind of honor.”
Lucious felt as though he could have been one of the statues around him, as cold and empty as any of them. He’d passed beyond simple anger now, into something blank and dangerous and pure.
Perhaps if his father hadn’t touched him in that moment, it might still have been all right. Lucious had swallowed his anger before, many times. He’d pushed it back, held himself back. Then again, where had that ever gotten him?
As it was, his father was stupid enough to reach out and touch his shoulder, as if that would be enough to pacify him. As if affection from the man who had just ruined his life would make things better.
Lucious lashed out on instinct, feeling his fist sink deep into his father’s stomach. It felt good to finally do it when he’d dreamed about it so many times. So good, in fact, that he did it again.
“Lucious,” his father said, “what are you doing? Stop this.”
The best part of it, the part Lucious suspected would stay with him until the day he died, was the fear he heard there. The fear he’d always wanted to hear from his father. The same fear he’d somehow managed to inspire in Lucious all his life. Lucious felt as though he was watching it from afar, enjoying it the way he might have enjoyed a particularly brutal performance in the Stade.
It was from that point of view that he saw himself lifting the stone bust of the Year Long King. It seemed appropriate, somehow, using the bust of one royal fool on another, a king who had reigned barely long enough to cut short one who had reigned far too long.
“Lucious,” his father begged. “Don’t!”
Lucious struck, and the feeling of it wasn’t what he expected. He’d anticipated that it would feel spectacular, like lying with a bevy of maidens or slaughtering his way through a village. Instead, like so many of the moments in his life he’d looked forward to, it felt like nothing at all. Nothing beyond the crunch of stone against skull, at least, the dull, thudding impact of it all.
Lucious struck him again anyway, just to see if he would feel anything then.
Still nothing.
Standing over his father, he knew he should have felt guilt, or shame or one of the other emotions that peasants seemed to feel so strongly.
Mostly, he felt satisfaction.
Satisfaction, and a sense that this was all his father’s fault. Standing there like that, watching what were surely his father’s last breaths, he couldn’t think of anything but the stupidity of the man. He’d been doing the right things. He’d given Lucious the chance to do as he wished. Lucious had even believed that in time he would be proud of all that his son had done to secure the Empire.
Instead, he’d proven himself as weak and as foolish as all the rest of them. Lucious let the statue fall from his hand, taking care to wipe away the blood. No doubt the royal bodyguard would try to kill him if they saw him like this, yet once his father was dead, he would be king, and they wouldn’t so much as raise a hand.
“Lucious…” his father breathed from the floor, breathing his dying breath.
Lucious scowled down.
“That’s King Lucious,” he replied, as he headed for the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Thanos crept through the castle, looking around with every step for the guards who might be waiting. He couldn’t let himself be captured before he made his offer to his father.
He pressed himself into a niche behind a drape as guards walked past, not daring to breathe as footsteps echoed in front of his hiding place. He held still until he was sure that the threat was gone, then continued on his way.
He knew the secret paths through the castle as well as anyone. He’d run through the halls and the passages as a child, learning every hiding place, dodging his tutors or playing with the other children of the castle when no one was around to tell him he couldn’t. It served him well now, letting him get closer and closer to his destination.
There was no way to sneak into the royal chambers unobserved, though. Kings with secret passages into their rooms didn’t last long, and there were bodyguards on the door, looking as implacable as ever. Thanos thought about distracting them, luring them away, or even just appealing to their loyalty, but he knew better than to try it.
The royal bodyguards knew their tasks, and they were absolutely committed to the king’s safety. Perhaps it was because they knew that they would be executed if anything happened to their royal charge. No, there was only one way past them.
Thanos crept as close as he could, and then charged.
He caught the first man with a punch to the jaw that sent him crashing to the ground, then cannoned into the second, grabbing him and dragging him down with him. The man was strong, but Thanos had trained with the best of the combatlords, and he came up on top. He wrapped an arm around the man’s throat, squeezing tight. The guard scrabbled for his weapon, but Thanos caught his arm and kept squeezing until his foe went limp.
He let go and tried the door, opening it as quietly as he could.
“Father?”
The room beyond looked set to receive visitors, but it seemed empty. For a moment, Thanos thought that he’d misjudged where his father would be at this time of day, but if the king wasn?
??t in his throne room or out hunting, this was the most likely place for him.
Then Thanos looked beyond the throne.
His heart collapsed.
“No,” he said aloud. “It can’t be.”
His father lay on the floor, his royal robes stained dark with blood. His head looked like a bloody mess, while one of the statuettes from the collection representing previous kings lay on the floor beside him, reddened at the base.
“No!” Thanos cried.
He rushed forward and knelt in the blood that pooled on the floor of his father’s rooms, not caring that it soaked into his clothes and covered his hands.
He cradled his father’s head, and the king seemed so light then, so fragile that he could have been a child. Thanos felt tears rising to his eyes in a way he might never have thought possible for a man who had been this cruel throughout his life, yet the fact remained that this was his father who lay dead there among the statues of his forebears.
Except that, even as Thanos knelt there beside him, he saw the faint, fluttering rise and fall of his father’s chest. He was breathing, if only barely, and even that fact was enough to make hope spring up in Thanos’s heart.
When King Claudius’ eyes flickered open, Thanos dared to think that things might be all right after all.
“Father, can you hear me?” Thanos asked. “Hold on, it will be all right. I’ll fetch help.”
“It’s too late,” the king replied, in between ragged breaths. “I’m… dying, Thanos. I can… feel it.”
“No,” Thanos insisted. “You can’t know that. You’ve seen men on the battlefield who thought they were going to die and lived. Let me fetch the royal physician.”
“I’ve seen more who… died when they were told they’d live,” his father said. “Lucious… has killed me.”
“Lucious,” Thanos repeated.
The need for retribution, for some kind of justice, burned up in him then. He’d let Lucious get away with so many things, had spared him because of who he was, or how much trouble it would cause.
“I’ll kill him for this. I’ll tear the castle apart if I have to.”