“I’m sure your wife and new son will be fine. It is written in the stars.”

New son?

Caitoman halts, his gaze shy at the sight of his father. Constantine stops too, then gestures for his brother to follow him down a different hall. They chase each other through the maze of the palace; the farther they get from their father, the more at ease they seem to be.

Eventually, the boys double back and find themselves heading down a dimmer corridor. Constantine has pulled ahead, alone for a few minutes while his brother chases after him.

Here he slows, then stops as he wanders to a slightly ajar bedroom door. He peers into its darkness, where he catches a glimpse of his mother lying in the bed, midwives buzzing around her.

He listens, waiting for the screams of his mother to echo again through the palace halls, as they have been for hours.

But this time, he hears nothing.

He presses his ear against the door a little longer, then puts his face against the slit in the ajar door again.

One of the midwives carries bundles of cloth soaked in blood.

His eyes settle on the shape lying on the bed. His mother. All he can see is her outline, her hand being held by the hand of a richly dressed noblewoman. He can’t hear her voice.

“What are we going to tell the Premier?” one of the midwives says.

The other shakes her head. “Fetch him right away.”

Constantine’s hands start to tremble. Somehow, he knows the worst has happened.

“Santine?” the young Caitoman says, doing his best to pronounce his brother’s name, then shuffles up to Constantine and peers curiously into the room.

Constantine puts a hand on his little brother’s shoulder and guides him away. “It’s nothing,” he tells the smaller child. “Come on. Let’s go to the east wing.”

As they turn the corner, they bump into their father, headed down the hall from where they’d just come. Constantine jumps back—Caitoman lets out a small squeak.

The Premier gives Constantine a stern glare, then glances briefly at Caitoman. The glare turns into a sneer.

“Get this thing out of my halls,” he mutters at Constantine as he brushes past the boys. “I told you not to bring him into the palace.”

It takes me another second to realize that he meant Caitoman. Caitoman was the thing to be rid of. A glimmer of realization hits me. Did Caitoman not grow up in the palace with Constantine?

The memory shifts. I see young Constantine again, this time dressed in somber blacks, going up to his father at night as the man leans back in his chair. The boy’s eyes look pink, as if he’s been crying. A fire crackles at one end of the meeting room.

“Look,” his father says to him, without looking at him at all. Instead, he points the wineglass at a tapestry on the wall.

Constantine obeys and looks. On the tapestry, Karensa had not yet conquered the northernmost and southernmost states. The Federation’s borders extend like a gash through the center of the continent, bleeding ever wider.