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Lilath produces collars for the rest of the tribunal. Her men pull them down to fix them tight. Two protest and are killed. After the survivors are fitted, Lilath tilts her head to the door behind me.
“My Emperor. Your slaves await.”
Small hands applaud from behind me and the Boneriders bend in amorous supplication, even Lilath.
“Well done, my Queen. Well done, my friends.”
That voice.
Its accent is Lunese, but I know it to my bones.
Fear eclipses all rational thought. Little footsteps make their way to the front of the court. An abomination wears the face of a small boy around ten years old. Its hair is flaxen. Its face narrow. Its eyes reptilian in their cold curiosity. It stands before the enslaved Vox carrying several simple plates.
“I know this emotion,” the Abomination says sweetly. “This reminds me of a novel I’ve read about a shoemaker in old Russia. It’s this moment, isn’t it? This moment where you breathe on all fours, your heads privately tucked to your own chins, where the personal myth which you shrouded around your hearts collapses under its own weight, and you realize what you actually are. Not weak—that would still give you a victim narrative with enough tragic romance upon which to nurse yourselves. Not average—you are all clever in a rudimentary way. Just smart enough to rise above the sea of human meat to comprehend how insignificant you really are.” The Abomination touches Publius’s head. “We all want to be special. It must ache to discover you are not.”
He goes to the Blue Lilath slaughtered and picks out handfuls of her brains and deposits them upon the plates before setting each one in front of the Vox. Lilath falls to her knee and unveils a small box. From the box, the Abomination draws an antique razor.
The Sword of Silenius.
He cracks the whip.
“The natural order has resumed,” he says to the Vox.
“Hic sunt leones!” say his men.
“The son of Augustus rules the Republic. But what is a world with only lions? Do my bidding and you will be rich and mighty. Slave Kings of the Emperor.” He points the Sword of Silenius at them. “Now eat your supper.”
Publius is the first to eat. As they cry and chew, the Abomination watches and turns to me with familial affection. “Hello, sister. So nice to finally meet you.”
“APPARENTLY HOWLERS DO KNEEL,” Lilath says.
I am in a nightmare.
The clone of my brother stands before the Morning Chair running his hand along the smooth wood as if it held an electric current. Still wearing his collar, Publius sits on the floor staring at nothing. Gorgo, the Obsidian enforcer with gold teeth, watches the clone with deep respect.
Sevro, Pebble, and Clown are driven to their knees beside me before the Morning Chair. They have been beaten to a pulp. Which means they look quite like I did after the mob did its work. Even my hair is missing chunks. My forearms are covered with poorly sutured wounds.
“You untidy abortion,” Sevro hisses at Lilath through mashed lips. “How the hell are you still sucking oxygen?” He glares at the clone. “And what the fucking fuck is that?”
Lilath smiles idly and sits at the foot of the clone’s chair. Boneriders rove about. Made all the more mad by their isolation in Deepgrave, they have decorated the room with the corpses of Republic Wardens.
“Mustang, what is this?” Sevro asks. “Who’s the beady-eyed rodent?”
“That is a clone of my brother,” I reply. The spike has not been removed, but no longer plays with my serotonin levels. Instead, my legs are paralyzed. I barely notice.
“The Jackal?” Pebble whispers.
“Bullshit,” Sevro says. “Bullshit.” He tries to stand, but receives a kick from a Bonerider to his stomach. He falls gasping. Gorgo walks up to him and kicks him again for good measure before returning to the clone. “How…”
“The Emperor is a master strategist,” Lilath proclaims. “He sees all.”
“He sees all,” Gorgo echoes.
“I was not certain my plan to wrest control of the Sovereigncy from Octavia would work,” the Abomination says, still examining the chair. “So I left dear Lilath instructions and samples of my DNA in case my life was spent in the effort. I left messages and instructions to myself. One can never be too careful.” He walks around the chair, eyes barely coming over the top. “After she recovered from her own wounds, Lilath went to Earth and found Zanzibar the Master Carver, and proved her ultimate loyalty by growing me in her own womb.”
Sevro literally throws up. He spits bile on the ground. “You that desperate to get the Jackal inside you, the only way you could do it was by shitting out his clone?”
Lilath lunges forward, so close to caving in Sevro’s skull with her hatchet.
