CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The world had no name.

No, that’s not true.

The voice was right. The world did have a name, but it had slipped into the depths of his memory and been eaten by the snapping creatures that dwelt within. The man had a name, too, but he had forgotten that as well. It did not matter. He rarely used it. Even to his children, the man was Viceroy: a position more than a name. One of power, one of influence. It was more important than something as simple as a name. It was more important than something as simple as a child.

The child’s hair was long. It was a tradition among his class to wear the hair long, and cut it only on ascent to one of the world’s many great positions. And so, it had grown and grown, long enough now that he tied it back with ribbon. The ribbon was purple, the colour of heroes. His hair was as black as night.

The child had seen his brothers and sisters cut their hair as they grew taller, finished their extensive schooling, and eventually moved out of the family villa. The child would not follow. He was the fourteenth, and even at his tender age, he knew that he would wear his hair long for the rest of his life.

The man was talking. The child could hear him through the floor, pressing a tumbler to his ear to enhance the sound. He had stolen the glass from the kitchen staff, telling them that he had broken it accidentally, and cleaned up the wreckage before they discovered it. It was a lie, but even at his age, the child had perfected the art of subterfuge.

‘Is he strong?’

‘He is. The therapies were effective on his siblings.’

‘He would never return.’

‘As I understand. Our house has a rich history of providing aspirants to the Legion.’

‘He may not survive the trials.’

‘I do not care. I have no need of him.’

‘Then it is done.’

A scramble, to hide the tumbler, to climb back into his bed, to feign the stillness of sleep. The door opened, a crack of light opening the way to the outside.

‘Get up,’ his father said.

They made a deal, Cecily and Xantine.

She had seen the very worst of Serrine. Its violence and its misery, its death and destruction. She wanted nothing more than to simply leave – to disappear into the night sky, and live amongst the stars. He gave her that promise. He told her that, when his perfect society had been built, he would give her what she desired: a way off the world of her birth. She did not entirely trust him, but there was no other who could even make such a promise.

In return, she gave him power, simple and unalloyed – the abilities of a very rare kind of psyker. Like Phaedre before her, she became one of his muses. It was a grandiose title, but the concept was simple. Xantine had long surrounded himself with powerful and useful mortals, offering them gifts or promises in order to utilise their talents over those that would unseat him. If he tired of them, or if he never delivered upon his promises, then so be it – as long as he could secure their power for a time.

Cecily’s ascension to the role of muse was not taken well by Phaedre. The witch met her with barely disguised contempt. Her mind was guarded, her own prodigious psychic powers meaning that her thoughts were naught but a swirling vortex to even the most intense of Cecily’s intrusions.

‘You are a butterfly, fluttering on glass wings,’ she told Cecily, as their lord slept off the effects of one of his cousin’s heady draughts. ‘A distraction, but on closer inspection,’ she added, leaning in so close that Cecily could smell her breath through her yellowed teeth, hot and rancid, like the gases released from a corpse’s stomach, ‘you are still an insect, fragile and disgusting.’ Phaedre stepped back, and made a show of inspecting her manicured nails. They were long, and Cecily knew that each one had been taken from the fingers of other women. ‘He will tire of you soon, and you will fall from the sky. When you do, I will crush you under my feet, and no one will remember your name.’

His brothers among the Adored were slightly more accommodating, even if they were rarely warm. Qaran Tun studied her with an academic eye, in much the same way he appeared to approach all living beings, while Vavisk viewed her with brusque indifference. To him, she was just one of a generation of mortal curios that his brother had taken on.

The Noise Marine interested her, despite his coldness, primarily for the obvious connection that he shared with his warlord. The Word Bearer, the witch, the other preening mortals who haunted the upper reaches of the palace – all of them often suffered Xantine’s ire, blamed for their insufficient talent or appreciation. Vavisk, on the other hand, was rarely the target of his brother’s wrath, his counsel somehow always quiet, despite the cacophony of wheezes, wails, squeals, and screams that emanated from his warped body. Indeed, the occasions that Xantine sought communion with his brother were some of the few times that she was separated from him.

The other times were when he turned to his meditations. Cecily did not know what went on behind the wooden doors to Xantine’s chamber during these periods: she was ushered from the room by oiled slaves before the ceremonies commenced. She knew only that such events involved Qaran Tun, and they incapacitated her lord for several hours, or even days, afterwards.

Most often, he returned slowly, groggy from his sojourn, eyes and aura dull from mental effort in some unseen realm. Other times, though, he woke up different.

This was one such time. Cecily yanked her hand backwards, dropping her dampened silk cloth, as Xantine’s massive head rose. Its features were covered by strands of unwashed black hair, but she could see a toothy smile spreading across the lower half of his face.

‘My lord?’ Cecily asked. ‘Are you returned?’

The voice that came from Xantine’s mouth was his, but not his, somehow. More sinuous, sensuous.

‘I am, my dear,’ he said.

His tongue flicked from his mouth, long and black. It tasted at the air. He stood smoothly, and she noticed in the darkness of his chamber that his eyes had lost their turquoise brightness. The irises were milky pink, like the clouds that had blocked her view of the sky.

‘I believe I will take my leave tonight and be with my subjects,’ he said, moving before she could offer a response.

When he returned, hours later, his hands were wet with blood.