It appeared that this was all rote learning and memorization, drilling only what needed to be known to pass the Imperial tests into the heads of the students. He’d been very lucky; there had been a handful of genuinely passionate teachers when he had been here who had been willing to teach far more than that, to any hostages who were willing to learn. It was not uncommon for weaker children to overstudy, to escape the “free time” when predatory hostages could roam among the others looking for victims—and some, like him, because they were genuinely curious and had had a love for learning itself instilled into them at a young age.

These hostages would go home as proper little examples of the Empire; without compassion, without empathy, thinking of no one but themselves, willing to exploit anyone and anything. If their lands were lucky, and their parents had somehow escaped that conditioning, someone at home would bring them out of that mindset. Or, if their lands were lucky, they would do something that got them killed, and a younger, unindoctrinated sibling would rule in their stead.

But most would be what the Empire wanted.

What the Emperor wanted.

He drew on his time here to school his face into an absolute mask, showing no expression whatsoever.

There were about fifty or sixty students here. At the very front of the room, the oldest were divided up into pairs, each supervised by a human teacher, seated at small tables, and facing each other. On the table between each pair was one of the Three Games. It was clear that for the Emperor, mastery of the Games was the most important thing these hostages could learn.

It had been that way when he’d been here as well.

The teachers mostly watched in silence, but occasionally berated or mocked someone who was playing badly.

He remembered that all too well too.

There was another difference from when he’d been here. They’d all worn identical “uniforms” of Imperial red with the purple wolf-head on the left breast of the coat.

Now, though, they wore long, open robes of Imperial red with the wolf-head, but beneath the robes they wore their own clothing. And as he took in the degrees of splendor or lack of it in that clothing, he understood why this had changed. Being able to display the wealth of their families was one more way in which the hostages were divided against each other. If you were poor, the only way to escape abuse was to be big and strong, or to be quick and clever and know how to cheat. If you were rich, everyone around you would know it.