Of course, at first he had been taken in like every other newcomer, awed by the city’s scale, delighted by its confusion, thrilled by its beauty. But he was to have a new master now. One who had coin enough to buy up all the best-looking boys in the market. He hoped, maybe, to be trained in the arts of war. He felt strength growing in his youthful body, his muscles winding tighter like bowstrings, ready to release him into manhood and, if fate was kind, better things. Instead, that which made him a man was taken from him, root and branch. The thought of it burned his heart now as hotly as the wound had burned his body then. He was transformed into a thing, a sexless thing.

Both. And neither.

All so that he could be sold for still greater profit into the court of the Emperor Justinian, second of his name. The Slit-Nosed. He was put to learning and learn he did, quicker than the other boys, quicker even than the other men – or eunuchs, as he learned to call them. He learned to speak many tongues; he learned to read, to dress, to serve. He learned the protocols of court; he learned the laws of empire; he learned to see people, to read them, to know their thoughts before they formed them. He learned to hide in plain sight. He learned to shine.

Emperors had come and gone as revolt succeeded revolt. But he remained at court, a constant. And all that while, he had never forgiven the city that had meted out his final humiliation. Had never forgiven its people, nor its god. The priests told him that God the Father loved him, that God had ordered every moment of his life, and somehow God meant it all for good. A sick joke. The priests spoke often of the Father’s love, and every time he heard the seiðman’s laughter ringing in his ears and felt his cold breath prickle the back of his neck. The Father didn’t love him. If this life was the Father’s gift then He could have it back. God had tried to crush him. But he would not be crushed. Instead he had waited, watching the empire thrash in its noose, watched as the Arab tide rose ever higher until the city stood in isolation, like a rock in a roiling sea. And as their armies drew closer, his path became more certain. God could not defeat him. It was God who would be defeated. And this city, His precious jewel, that would be destroyed.