I sucked in a breath. If I showed my people what I was, what I could do, if I was lucky they’d shun me. If I wasn’t, they’d try to kill me.

Ragan cast his hand toward the soldiers. “Why are you even here, helping them against the constructs? What do their short lives matter when compared to ours? I read the books my masters forbade me. Lin, I could show you so many things. I could teach you so many things. You just have to be honest with yourself. You just have to be honest with them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice sounded weak and small.

“I could be like Dione. You could be like Viscen. Look at you, fighting in the mud and the muck with the sort of weapons a mortal would use. Why be Emperor? Why rule among these petty beings when you are so much greater than they are? When you are Alanga?”

I could feel my world shrinking as he spoke. He meant to separate me from all the people I’d grown to care about, for it to be just me and him and the other Alanga. “Why can’t you just go and leave me in peace?”

He scoffed. “As soon as you show them what you are, do you think they will follow you? They don’t care about you. I’ve seen the way they treat you. Why are you standing up for them? Why are you trying to be like them?”

I wanted to tell him to go. I wanted to tell him to find other Alanga. I wanted to tell him that I would not stand in his way because I’d never asked to be one of the Alanga in the first place. I had enough to deal with just keeping the governors in line, trying to appease them, keeping the Shardless Few from sweeping across the Empire. Why would I want to take on yet another responsibility? Let Ragan serve as a beacon to the emergent Alanga, let him guide them.

But Lozhi stood behind Ragan’s legs, tail curled about his tiny body, his blue eyes finding mine.

This was the relationship Ragan wanted between an Alanga and their ossalen. One of dominance and oppression. It was the same relationship my father had had with the citizens of the Empire.

I couldn’t absolve myself of responsibility for this. I’d been putting my position as Emperor as a priority, determined to keep it so I could use that position for good. I’d told Jovis he was meant to be a servant of men because that’s what I’d wanted for the Empire and the Emperor. For myself. But this was a truth I could not escape from: if I stood against the tyranny of the Empire, then I had to stand against all tyranny.