Emilia had not felt this comfortable since before the Trial began. She sat in the imperial library, at a long table with the soft glow of candlelight to guide her reading. The moss-green carpet was lush under her shoes. Two cream silk-upholstered chairs with wooden feet carved to look like dragon talons hunched before the fireplace. The smell of moth and vellum lay heavy in this library, the scent so comforting she would have worn it as perfume.
Emilia perused Imperatoria, Emperor Erasmus’s musings on the worthiness of an empire, the book she’d received upon winning the Game. Emilia would have loved to just read the book cover to cover, but the others were counting on her to find…something. What, she did not know. She had gone on this mission based on a sensation in her gut. “Hunch,” her brother would call it. The others were counting on her.
Lucian was counting on her.
At the thought of him, Emilia felt a tickle somewhere beneath her left rib cage and down the back of her neck. She quickly focused her energy on a flower; she’d gathered a hasty bouquet from the garden in case of an outburst. A twitch of her eyelid, and the flower crystallized. She picked it up. A petal, now sharpened, pricked her thumb, and she dropped it with a curse.
Things were changing, weren’t they? These past few days, her headaches had begun to abate. Her panic had slowed. Maybe it was all the fresh air. Maybe it was sitting with Lucian and the others, drinking, sometimes laughing, now working together.
What if solitude had been the worst possible medicine? Perhaps isolation had sharpened her affliction.
There is so much we don’t know. Emilia couldn’t help the pang of regret. Once, there had been the crystal chaos towers in Catalenia, a library made of glass that had contained the studies of chaotics across history.
A library that had been smashed, and all its volumes burned, when the chaos nation was defeated. Emilia’s existence was an amalgamation of questions, and anyone who could have answered was a thousand years gone. She frowned as she read. Was she wasting her time?
No. If they wanted to survive the priests, knowledge and power might be the only way out. And Emilia, more than any of the others, had knowledge and power to spare.
She could imagine Lucian regarding her with awe as the walls crumbled about them, and she forced the group’s way past those simpering priests. He had sworn never to harm another soul. His rough hands were gentle now; the scars on his body would never let him forget. They’d both endured so much since they’d parted five years ago. And Lucian, tall and battle worn as he was, had kept the most important pieces of himself intact. Still trusting. Still brave. Still kind to her; the kindest person she’d ever known, besides her brother. She thought of Lucian watching her unleash her power, imagined his look of horror at her freakishness. Emilia was evil. Born evil. As she felt the creep of chaos, a march of ants along the fissures of her brain, another flower shriveled and died.
“How are you doing?” Hyperia asked.
Emilia screamed, slamming the book shut and jumping to her feet.
She only just managed to suppress her power, imagining it as a stack of china cups teetering in her hand. The Volscia girl appeared bewildered at the outburst.
“Er, you startled me. No luck with the door?”
She brushed the dead flower to the carpet as Hyperia took a seat.
“We need the key.” Even in private, Hyperia sat on the edge of her chair, as if waiting for an order. She scanned Emilia’s book with a distasteful expression. “I fail to see how Erasmus’s teachings will help.”
“We all saw the emperor in that vision.” Emilia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear; Hyperia’s appraisal made her shy. “When you get to know a person, you can start anticipating how they’ll act. His books are the only real chance we have to understand him.”
“It seems like our time would be better spent finding the key.”
Emilia felt a small flame of anger. “Books can teach you how to make a key.”
“But you only like philosophy, it seems. Thinking about thinking.” Hyperia scoffed. “Waste of time.”
“Thinking makes us human,” Emilia said. “There’s also history and theory; those are important for an empress. Who won and lost the great battles? And why? The fight against the Oretani, for example.” She swallowed; chaos prickled her skin. She must be careful. “I’ve read histories that declare he and his chaotic followers had the eyes of wolves in human faces, and that to awaken the static chaos nation requires the sacrifice of a noble heart’s blood.”
“Stories. Lies.” Hyperia’s nostrils flared. “I hate lies.”
We’ve all noticed.
“Just because something hasn’t been proven doesn’t mean it’s a lie.” Emilia fought against a smile. “Besides, there’s power in stories. Did you ever hear of Emperor Tiberius the Fifth?”
“Of course.”
“How did he die?”
“He passed away in his sleep, after a well-earned victory and a hearty meal.” Hyperia sniffed. “Dull fact.”
“Not according to Plautus’s Secret History of the Empire. According to him, the emperor loved honey and banana puddings. He ate so many that he needed to use the bathroom, pulled up his robes, and…” Emilia fought not to laugh, her stomach cramping with effort. “They found him dead in the morning. He was so stopped up, he’d had a heart attack trying to relieve himself.”
Hyperia looked as if she’d been slapped.
“That is obscene! He was an emperor, anointed by the Dragon Himself!”
“He was.” Emilia couldn’t stop the giggles now. “But he also really, really loved pudding.”
To her surprise, Hyperia’s own lips began to twitch.
“Not funny,” she said fiercely. The sight of Hyperia struggling so valiantly not to laugh made Emilia laugh harder, and soon the sight of her howling broke Hyperia as well. Hyperia clapped her hands over her mouth, and Emilia leaned so far back she nearly knocked her chair over. Wiping her eyes, Hyperia groaned.
“That’s not actually true, is it?”
“No one knows for sure. But you’ll never think of Tiberius the Fifth in quite the same way again, will you?” Emilia shrugged. “That’s power.”
“You’re confusing.” Hyperia sighed. “Of everyone here, I understand you the least.”
“Likewise.” Emilia could anticipate Hyperia, much like she could anticipate how a lioness would hunt its quarry. But what went through the animal’s mind? Emilia would never be able to guess.
“But I certainly don’t like you least.” Hyperia adopted that unnerving stillness. “Would you say the same about me?”
Emilia was smart enough not to voice her opinion, but not quick enough to decide what to say in its place.
“I…”
“It’s fine.” Hyperia gave a brisk nod. “I admire your honesty.” She seemed truly pleased.
Emilia opened Erasmus’s book again. She found her place and was about to flip to the next page when something caught her eye. She frowned, leaned nearer.
“What?” Hyperia muttered.
“This note in the margin. This was the emperor’s personal copy.” The emperor had underscored a passage about the concept of “infinite cruelty.” In the margin, he’d written: Cont’d in vol. 24.
Emilia checked the spine. This was the twenty-third pamphlet of Erasmus’s writings. Why make that note? And why “infinite cruelty”? Strange words for an emperor to write.
Getting up, Emilia went to the shelves and searched. There was no twenty-fourth book. No matter how she looked, going up and down the ladder to read every spine available, the book did not appear. She hissed in frustration as Hyperia joined her.
“What does this mean?” Hyperia asked, clearly puzzled.
Emilia said the words she hated most. “I don’t know.”