As he tried to leave, Erik grabbed him firmly by the arm. His voice was low and livid. “If she comes back, then you won’t be in control anymore. You know as well as I do that this kingdom will rally around her—they follow you only because they think she’s dead. But when the kingdom finds out that you lied to them, Your Excellence? That your Messiers tried to have her killed?”

He held back a retort—the Messiers were not his—they had not been since that bot had uploaded the strange virus into him. He could barely command a simple door lock at the moment. It was like there was this cold shard inside him every time he tried, this errant line of code that kept pulling him back, yelling—screaming.

It was a problem he did not like.

Erik leaned in close, the blue of his eyes almost glowing against the shadow of his brow. He was meticulously put together, with pruned eyebrows and a clean-shaven face. The vines buzzed into the sides of his head were particularly sharp today, his hair atop expertly styled.

“You understand the great risk she poses if she is still alive,” said Erik in a soft growl, leaning back as a Messier made its rounds down the hall.

He would have thought it was Mellifare spying, but he knew she had taken over a Messier on Cerces, ransacking another ruin. She rarely used the crown anymore, and simply tore through the iron-locked doors with vicious strength.

He tried to reach out—take control of the Messier down the hall—but the cold spike of code drove into his head again, and he winced, snapping him back into his body.

The Messier moved on without so much as a pause.

When it was gone, Erik curled his fingers tighter into his arm, pinching his skin. “You have full authority in this Goddess-damned kingdom, Your Excellence. Why don’t you use it?”

He jerked his arm out of the Ironblood’s grip and walked around him. “That is true. But I would rather plot murder with a pile of dirt.”

With a snarl, Erik spun around and shouted, “You’re the Emperor! Do something!”

Ignore him, he told himself, his fingernails biting into his palms. Ignore the bastard.

“Or are you scared? Scared that I’m right? That if she comes back, you won’t be in control. Or maybe you don’t care because—”

Goddess, it would just feel so good to rip that Ironblood’s head from his neck.

“—someone controls you!”

The words made him stop. Because the Great Dark was scratching, hissing at the back of his head. A feeling he had only just recently come to hate. How it sang and sang over every thought he made.

And oh that damned voice underneath, where the glitch festered and someone shouted—screaming, raging—

He could not get the dead C’zar’s face out of his head, or the girl’s golden eyes, or the memories whispering, prodding—memories that were not, could not, be his—