“It will be a hard fight.” I force my thoughts toward the challenge that lies ahead. “Keris is a wily enemy.”

Laia holds up a scroll. “I’ve had a message from the Shrike. She is offering aid. She wants fealty in return, but it might give the Tribes a chance to renegotiate their treaty with the Empire.”

She examines me. “You could help with that if you chose,” she says. “Negotiate well, and they might be more willing to fight for you.” She nods after the retreating Tribespeople. “You weren’t doing so well there.”

“Thank you for talking to them,” I say. At her shrug, dismissive and embarrassed at once, I find myself thinking of when I first became Soul Catcher.

Darin was still recovering from Kauf, and Laia and I were walking along the border of the Forest of Dusk, speaking of the Empire.

Nothing ever changes, she had said. Nothing ever will.

Maybe we’re the ones who change it, I’d told her. If there was one thing you could do right now to change the Empire, what would it be?

I’d get rid of the ghost wagons. Set free the Scholars locked up inside. Light those skies-forsaken death boxes on fire.

You can disappear. I’d taken her hand then, even knowing that Mauth would punish me for it. I can windwalk. What’s stopping us?

She offered that same smile. That same shrug. And then she started planning. Afya helped smuggle the Scholars we freed south, and Darin aided in the fighting. But Laia was the heart of it.

“You’re good at bringing people together,” I tell her now. “You always have been.”

“And you’re good at leading them.” She holds my arm and walks with me, and I’m so astonished I let her pull me along. “If you want your ghosts back, you’ll have to channel that skill.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

She shakes her head. “Elias, you need the Tribes to fight for you. You need to save the ghosts from whatever hellish torment the Nightbringer is subjecting them to. But”—she cuts me a look—“you cannot lead them if you do not understand them. No one wants to draw blades beside someone who views them as lesser. You are too distant. Too cold. If you want the Tribes’ loyalty, then appeal to their hearts. You might want to start by finding your own.”

XXXVIII: The Blood Shrike

“Lord Kinnius! We are pleased to grant you an audience.”

Livia rises from her simple black onyx throne and smiles at the dour-faced Illustrian staring her down. My sister arrived in Antium this morning, a week after we took the city, and barely had enough time to change.

But she appears serene and composed, as if she’s been settled here for ages. Rain drums on the roof, washing away the Karkauns’ filth. The muted light filtering through the throne room’s high windows illuminates her face just so. She looks every inch the Empress Regent.

I stand behind her, flanked by Rallius and Harper. When the latter fidgets, I almost look at him. Since we took Antium, I’ve been finding excuses to. And I don’t like it. Avitas Harper is a distraction.

He was a distraction as I oversaw the cleansing of the palace, which the Karkauns degraded into a nightmare pigsty. He was a distraction as I sent troops into the city to help the citizens rebuild.

And he is a distraction today in the throne room, as Livia welcomes our first potential ally from the south.

I fix my attention on the advisory council—including Teluman, Musa, and Darin—all of whom are gathered in front of the throne. Lord Kinnius’s gaze falls on the Scholars—standing equal to the Martials and armed with Serric steel blades. He scowls.

My sister offers him a brilliant smile in return. “Welcome to the capital.”

“Or what’s left of it.” Kinnius glances around the throne room, pointedly not using Livia’s title, and I stiffen at his insolence.

Harper quells me with a look. We need allies, he seems to be saying. Winning over Gens Kinnia, with its grain stores and barges and gold, is more important than pride or titles.

Livia’s smile does not shift, but her blue eyes are cold.

“The city stands, Lord Kinnius,” Livia says. “As do its people, despite the traitorousness of Keris Veturia.”

“You mean despite the failure of the Blood Shrike.”

“I did not expect a man of your intellectual caliber to be taken in by the usurper’s honeyed words,” Livia chides him, and I stifle a laugh. Intellectual caliber indeed.

“There are thousands in Antium who witnessed Keris’s betrayal,” my sister says. “You may speak to them if you wish.”

Kinnius snorts. “Plebeians. Scholars.” He looks Darin up and down before turning to Quin. “If I’d known you were so desperate for men, Veturius, I might have sent a platoon or two.”

Thank the skies Livia is Empress Regent, because if I were, Kinnius would be attempting to reattach his head right now.

“But you didn’t send a platoon, did you?” Livia’s smile vanishes, and I am reminded that she survived the murder of our family. She survived Marcus. She survived giving birth in the midst of a war.

“Instead,” she says, “we won Antium with the aid of the Scholars, who conducted themselves with far more bravery than you. Do not mistake me, Kinnius. We are not so desperate for allies that we will tolerate the insults of a man too weak to fight for his people. If you wish to discuss your support for Zacharias, the rightful emperor, then remain. If your fear of Keris is so great that you’d rather spout horse dung, my Blood Shrike will escort you to the city gates.”

And you can crawl back to your bitch of an empress, I don’t add.

“I hear, Shrike, that the people hailed you as Imperator Invictus.” Kinnius turns to me. “Could it be that you wish to take your nephew’s throne for yourse—”

I have a knife to Kinnius’s throat in two seconds. “Go on.” I draw a bit of blood. “Finish that sentence, you cowardly pissant.”

“Shrike,” Livia says sweetly. “I’m certain Lord Kinnius regrets his hasty tongue. Don’t you, Kinnius?”

Kinnius opens his mouth and closes it, nodding frantically. I step back, and Livia levels her smile at him again. I see it hit him like a punch in the face. She steps down from the throne and takes his arm.

“Walk with me, Kinnius,” she says. “See the city. Speak with the people. Once you learn the truth of what happened here, I believe you’ll have a different opinion.”

My hands shake, even as Livia guides Kinnius to the door. Quin gives me a long look, and he is not the only one. I remember what the jinn said to me weeks ago.

You do not love the child. He is your blood, but you’ll see him dead and yourself upon the throne.

But I’d die before I let anything happen to my nephew. That is a truth I know in my marrow, and nothing will change it.

Harper remains in the palace, and I follow Livia and her guards out, trailing them through the city.

Despite the rain, the bazaars are full, and children run past with barbecued kebab skewers and bread slathered with honey and ice plum jam. Dozens of merchants who have returned to the city call out their wares. Scores of people greet Livia and me with flowers and smiles, while glaring at Kinnius with hard suspicion. He has the decency to at least look chagrined.

When I’m certain Livia has the man well in hand, I return to my quarters in the palace. They are small and east-facing, unlike Livia and Zacharias’s expansive rooms, which, though only a few minutes away, face the Nevennes. The drop from their windows is a sheer fifty feet, while I’m on the ground floor. But my doors are unguarded, while Livia has four Masks outside hers.

“Why,” Dex says when he finds me a few minutes after I arrive, “do you not have guards at your door?”

“We need city patrols,” I say. “And the Empress Regent requires a full complement. I can handle myself. What news?”

“Our spy has returned from Adisa,” Dex says. “He’s outside, waiting to deliver a report. And this arrived from the Tribes.” He hands me an envelope. “Also, Darin of Serra has requested a private audience.”

“Send him in,” I say. “And find Musa. I promised him if I heard from Adisa, he’d be the first to know.”

Darin enters after I’ve heard from our spy and read the message from the Tribal lands.

“Laia contacted me,” he says. “She needs aid, Shrike. And I’m going to her.”

I briefly consider protesting—we still require more weapons. Armor. But the glint in Darin’s eyes tells me that he will not be swayed.

“I requested that you wait until we had taken Antium,” I say. “You waited. I won’t stop you. But I will ask that you go with the troops I’m sending.” I hold up the missive I’ve just received. “I heard from Laia too. The Tribes have agreed to support Emperor Zacharias in exchange for a renegotiation of their tithes and our military support. Five hundred men and two Ankanese sappers.”

“That’s quite an escort, Shrike.”

“If anything happens to you, it’s my throat your sister will tear out.”

Darin laughs. “She will indeed.” I wish suddenly that we had met when we were younger. That he could have been a brother to me too. He is, I think, a good brother.