“He will know only when it is too late to halt matters lest he risk alienating my magistrates and priests,” Sinshei said. “And how will he deny you the right to protect your family after the Vagrant nearly took the life of your son?”

She let her voice dip and her smile vanish. It was only the two of them here, sharing secrets and mutual understandings. Her whisper was full of promises.

“You won’t be at their mercy ever again. You’ll never need Magus and his paragons to protect you. By your own hands, you will bear the strength to rule Thanet as it must be ruled. For this gift, you need only the courage to open your heart and accept it.”

For a long while the handsome man stared at her, no doubt attempting to decipher her true intentions. Sinshei held not a shred of fear he would succeed. She had grown up in the courts of Eldrid as one of the God-Incarnate’s daughters. She had walked amid secrets and plots since the moment she took her first steps.

“And once I am a paragon, we won’t need to fear anyone,” he said, carefully choosing his every word. “We won’t need to listen to the Imperator, not after all his failures. The church and the royal court shall hold mutual sway. We will rule Thanet, you and I, together.”

Just one word, but a hundred promises within it, and a thousand fantasies the wealthy man had no doubt entertained over the past four years.

“Together,” she said.

Gordian lifted his hands, still wet with the blood from the girl he’d butchered.

“I will never be helpless before these wretched people again,” he said. “The ritual cannot come soon enough. What must I do, Anointed One?”

“When the moon is at its zenith, you must only accept the sacrifice of the faithful. Have no fear. Come the appointed hour, it shall be my hand that holds the dagger.”

CHAPTER 27

ARN

It seemed every single man and woman on that caravel piled onto the deck to gawk at the approaching island and its capital city of Vallessau. Arn kept away, content to let the shorter folks crowd the railing. With his arms crossed and his back leaning against the mast, he took in the distant docks, the houses steadily rising up higher and higher in a vague U-shape around the inlet. Arn was disappointed by how normal it looked. He’d hoped the buildings would be weird and exotic, reminiscent of the stories of far-flung places such as Miquo and Lahareed. Instead, they seemed remarkably commonplace, their lower foundations muddy bricks and their walls cut from pine. Hardly much different than the homes he’d passed by every day of his life back on Gadir.