When Ajax was emperor he would change many things, but he would not change this throne. Not for all of the riches of the Karthagon spice trade, not even for the chance to force Lysander and Demetrius to compose poetry about his brilliance and recite it naked in the streets. No, this throne room had been built for him, and him alone. He strode up the dais and settled himself upon the velvet cushion. Left leg crossed over his right knee, he gripped the armrests and surveyed the room. His narrowed eyes darted from golden wall to golden wall. The incense tickled his nose.

If I were an emperor, what secrets would I have?

Ajax could live like many emperors before him. He could drink and dance and leave all the spiritual things to the priests, and the war things to the military, and spend his days doing whatever best pleased him.

But Ajax wanted to be worthy of the commemorative golden statues of emperors and empresses past, for his memory to be as revered as that of Ismene I or Commodus IV. He wanted to be Ajax the Great, the Ajax against whom all others would compare themselves.

Sometimes, a vein in his temple throbbed to picture that glory so clearly while remembering that he was not yet sixteen. In many ways, he was a kid wearing his father’s clothes, cuffs drooping well over the tips of his fingers. But Ajax would grow. If he were allowed to live, he would grow.

If I were an emperor, where would I hide things?

Likely, Erasmus’s everything had been monitored. His clothes checked, his wine tasted, his shits inspected. An emperor’s body belonged to the people, not to himself. Holding on to the things he cherished would be like trying to keep a mound of gold coins in well-oiled hands.

When I am an emperor, Ajax thought, slipping his dagger from the hidden sheath by his ankle and tapping it against his teeth, what will I want to keep close?

He turned his weapon to the throne. Delicately, he traced the tip along the golden claws and wings. He tapped the flat of his blade against the throne’s legs. He reached over and stuck his knife against each individual golden scale.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tick.

Ajax paused; he’d hit something hollow. Sheathing his dagger, he got to his knees on the cushion and bent over, his braid flopping as he gazed upside down at the fifth scale on the first row. Ajax touched it, tapped it again. Then, he tried flipping it upward. The hinges squeaked.

Success.

A little hidden compartment in the dragon throne. Glad for the first time that his hands were small, Ajax reached inside. His index finger traced something metal. Drawing in a breath, Ajax pulled out a small iron key. He flipped the scale closed, concealing the hiding place, and held the key overhead in triumph.

He stood and gave a showy bow. He imagined his father and all the bitter families as they were forced to bend their knees. He imagined a woman with his eyes standing somewhere in the back, watching with muted approval.

Ajax palmed the key.

“All hail the emperor,” he said.