And Corien…

Corien could control them—the children, and their beasts.

He could control all of them.

14

   Jessamyn

“Translated from the formal Qaharis, ‘Vaera Bashta’ means ‘den of sorrows.’ This massive, cavernous facility, spanning two square miles beneath the city of Elysium, houses prisoners from every country in Avitas, and was designed by the Emperor, in His infinite wisdom, to torment its human inhabitants beyond repair.”

—The Glory of Elysium: An Introduction to the Emperor’s City, compiled by the Invictus Council of Five for students of the Lyceum

It happened twice a month, announced by five sharp blasts of the huge brass prison horns—some kept underground, others bolted to nearby rooftops in the city above.

Jessamyn crouched on her perch in the prison of Vaera Bashta and watched the chaos unfold. In the common tongue, it was called the culling. In Lissar, it was cinvayat, and in Qaharis, it was praeori kyta. A time when all the locks in the prison’s fifteen wards were undone, all the doors thrown open.

For three hours, thousands of prisoners were free to do as they pleased, to kill who they wished, to cower in the shadows and hope no one found them—until the angelic wardens forced them back into their cells.

Jessamyn waited until the horn blasts had faded, then jumped silently down from the stone ledge overlooking section E3. The grated walkway below was empty, untouched by the chaos of the culling. It led to the solitaries, and the prisoners kept there were not allowed the same fun as the others. The solitaries were special. Many had personally affronted the Emperor. Conspirators. Dissidents.

Brothers of stubborn princesses who refused to use their power as they ought to.

The wardens had retreated to their offices, food and drink in hand—none of which would quench their thirst or satisfy their hunger, but the act of consuming it, Varos had long ago explained to Jessamyn, was satisfaction enough. At least for a time. At least until it wasn’t.

As Jessamyn stalked down the empty walkway, the sounds of violence rang in her ears. Savage shouts as hunters pounced on their prey. Choked, wet cries as death claimed the weak. She caught only glimpses of the prisoners swarming through the dimly lit caverns below. A skinny boy, his shoulder blades protruding from his bare back like a pair of submerged knives, crawled through the shadows and whispered frantic prayers that no one would find him. Someone did; Jessamyn heard his stifled cry, the sound of bone smacking stone. To her right, marching toward the lower wards, a gang of men chanted in Borsvallic, brandishing torches they’d wrenched from the walls. To her left, a gang of half-naked children in filthy rags pounced upon an old man and dragged him to the ground.

They were hungry. For some, this was a time to kill not for pleasure, but simply for a full belly.

When Jessamyn at last reached the solitaries, the culling had faded to an echo. The corridor was carved from black stone, immaculate and silent. Two adatrox guards flanked door 14. Jessamyn prepared to order them aside, but they opened the door and stepped away before she could.

She set her jaw as she breezed past them. She hoped that when the Empire had been elevated to its proper former glory, the use of adatrox soldiers would no longer be necessary. They could be useful tools, she supposed, but she hated their sightless gray eyes, the stupid, jerking way they moved. Controlled by angels, their own human minds flattened and ravaged—the adatrox reminded her of her own humanity, and how weak it was. How easily she could be invaded and manipulated, reduced to some puppet creature, if she failed to prove her worth to the Emperor.

Someday, when she had earned her angelic name, and with it a place as an adviser to the Emperor, she would tell him this. And he would listen.

A tiny chill of pleasure skipped down her arms as she imagined it. Since her appointment with the Emperor the day before, she had not been able to stop thinking of him. Blood-splattered, wild-eyed, and beautiful, whispering to her of the plan they would carry out together. Turn the boy Remy into a weapon. Use him to wear down the last of Eliana’s will.

Show the little shit of a princess that the one person left to her in the world had become an eager pet of the enemy—all thanks to Jessamyn.

Pride warmed her chest. If only Varos could have seen this day. He would never have doubted her again.

Jessamyn stood tall in the door of Remy’s cell. He huddled in the corner. The air was foul and cold.

“Wake up,” she commanded.

A moment passed. Remy did not move.

She stormed toward him, grabbed the collar of his prison tunic, and wrenched him to his feet.

“Wake up,” she repeated, shoving him away with a snarl.

He stumbled, wide-eyed, and managed to right himself. His bare feet slapped into a shallow dark puddle near the drain in the center of the floor.

In silence, Jessamyn assessed him. He was a skinny bird of a boy. His head barely reached her shoulder. His matted hair had grown wild; his bottom lip was swollen and bloodied. Scratches marred his arms and feet. He stood with his shoulders hunched, his body curled forward as if to protect his middle.

Jessamyn suppressed a swell of irritation. Presenting a mangy, half-dead child to the Council of Five as her new student would make her a laughingstock, no matter the Emperor’s orders.

She would need time alone with Remy before anyone at the Lyceum got a good look at him. It was not only her reputation at stake but Varos’s as well.

“My name is Jessamyn,” she told him. “You will come with me.”

She turned and made for the door, but he did not follow. At the threshold, she glared over her shoulder.

“Or would you prefer to stay here?” she asked calmly. “Alone and festering in the dark? Rotten scraps to eat and guards coming every morning to beat you?”

At last, he spoke. “Is where you’re taking me worse?”

That surprised her. Such a miserable-looking creature; he didn’t look as though he had any wits left about him.

“Better in some ways, worse in others,” she answered, for there was no point in lying. She forced herself to gentle her voice. Let him think she could be a friend. “But you will see your sister. In fact, if you do as I tell you, there will soon come a time when you’ll be able to see her every day.”

His face brightened. In his eyes shone a small light of hope.

Jessamyn frowned as he limped to follow her. So there was softness in him yet.

There would not be for long.

• • •

That night, Remy sat on a stool in Jessamyn’s room at the Lyceum, watching her closely in the mirror.

“Your face is your biggest failing,” Jessamyn told him. A silver snip of her scissors. He had bathed, and now she was trimming his hair to a respectable length. “I can see every question you wish to ask, every emotion you feel.”