“And you won. This is a day I never dreamed would arrive, and yet it has. Can you not see? Can you not understand the great lengths I went to for such a victory? Just as the empire utilizes Seeds to bless its paragons, so, too, did I build my garden in Thanet. I arranged the meeting with only the most loyal and faithful members of our resistance. And faith in you grew, as it did with my husband. When the Skull-Amid-the-Trees hung from the city gates, I swore I would not repeat the same mistakes I did with him. I had begged him to cast aside his rising faith, to rebuke his growing powers, for it was not his place as a mortal to ascend to godhood. I put doubt in his mind, and it cost him everything. It robbed him of his power when he attempted to kill the God-Incarnate. But with you, Cyrus?”

His pleasure, his twisted satisfaction, made Cyrus’s insides tremble far worse than any battle against a paragon.

“You, my Vagrant Prince? In you, I re-created the demigod that was the Skull-Amid-the-Trees, only this time instead of pleading for you to deny your ascension, I had you embrace it. From the first moment of your training I impressed upon you the need to transcend the limits of the mortal realm. And did I not succeed?”

How could he deny it? Against Magus, he had moved through shadows far sooner than his ring should have allowed. He had blocked direct blows from a paragon, blows that mere weeks ago would have broken the bones in his arms. Exhaustion had never touched him. His speed and skill had defied even the legendary Imperator’s understanding. Cyrus had thought it the excitement of battle, the single-minded focus that often filled all hardened fighters… but this was more. Lightning sparked through his veins. The dark corners of rooms called to him, and he viewed them not as shadows, but doorways.

“I never asked for this,” Cyrus insisted against the panic rising in his throat. “You forced a change upon me with your lies.”

“I never lied,” Thorda said. “I made my intentions clear that first night you arrived at my countryside mansion.”

I want a weapon. I want a god of death the empire one day fears. Is that you?

“You know I didn’t understand,” Cyrus insisted.