“It haunts me,” Thorda said, after a moment to gather himself. “Those words. Those lies. When my hope falters, or the task of building yet another rebellion threatens to exhaust my will and crush my spirit, I remember my rage in that one moment. I doubted the empire’s hunger. I believed peace a viable path. For those great failures, I lost the man I loved most. I have dedicated the rest of my life to retribution. I want to make the God-Incarnate hurt, Cyrus. I want him to feel exactly what I felt as my nation crumbled around me and everything I loved and held dear was brought to the sword.”

It was a rare moment of vulnerability, and for once, Thorda did not try to hide it. A twin pair of tears trickled down his leathery face. His hands shook as they clenched into fists.

“Perhaps such desires are the mark of a terrible heart. If so, I am most terrible indeed, and those damn horrid words I spoke to my dying husband only prove it true.”

Cyrus didn’t know what to do or say. He remembered his own sick anger, especially in his earliest days at Thorda’s mansion. He remembered the stuttering speeches he gave at Regent Goldleaf’s behest during those awful parties, condemning belief in Lycaena and Endarius and diminishing his own parents’ death as a necessary part of Thanet’s salvation. Cyrus looked to his master, and he wondered how similar they truly were. All his talk of tales and heroes and inspiring the populace… how much of it was true? Or did he see something else in Cyrus, something so much simpler and easier to understand?

“Do Mari and Stasia know?” he asked after a time. “Who Rhodes was, or why you had to condemn him as you did?”

Thorda hesitated a moment, then slowly shook his head.

“Mari was too young to remember it now, nor understand what was happening. Stasia did, for a time. It drove her during those early years, put a fire into her that allowed her to endure trials that would fell most mortal men. Does she still remember the face of her other father? I do not believe so. Too many lost years. Too many campaigns and war-torn nations.”

Thorda offered Cyrus the skull mask.

“I pried that off my husband’s swollen, bloodied face and smuggled it out of the prison. Twice before, I have attempted to build a legacy worthy of him. Twice, I have witnessed my chosen warrior die at the hands of paragons. You are my third, Cyrus, and already you have accomplished more than Rhodes did in his time. You give me hope. You make me believe that there is still a chance we can send the empire crumbling into the ashes of history.”

Cyrus accepted the mask, and he held it with newfound respect.

“You ask so much of me,” he said.