I was Emperor, and I was also Alanga. If everyone didn’t know yet – they soon would. All this time and effort I’d spent becoming Emperor and now I’d made my position precarious, untenable. I’d given the governors even more cause to call for my abdication. They wouldn’t be content to see me quietly retired to some distant island. There would be calls for my execution. I’d saved the people of Gaelung, but at what cost? I’d failed the Empire.

If I slunk away now, if I took Thrana and ran, I could find a living somewhere in the Empire. I was smart, resourceful. There were ways I could disguise myself. I could build a house on the edges of a town, where Thrana could go unnoticed. Just her and me, sunning ourselves on a beach somewhere, no one to care about except ourselves.

It sounded like a lovely life.

It sounded like a lonely life.

I’d told Numeen that I’d be a better Emperor. I’d promised him.

The serpent snapped at Gio, its long, sharp teeth barely missing him as he dodged. Whoever had been riding on its neck was gone. It struck out wildly.

He could handle the serpent on his own. He didn’t need me. But I could be wrong, and then who would suffer for it? Everyone I’d promised to save. Perhaps I didn’t need to be a better Emperor. Maybe just being a better person was good enough. I set my jaw. “We need to get close,” I said to Thrana.

She’d already started moving before I’d finished talking. We shouldered past men and women fixated on the fight. A few turned to glance at me astride my ossalen, mouths agape once they recognized me, but apart from Thrana, I was indistinguishable from the wet and muddy masses.

The gate was rubble under the arch. Where was Urame? Phalue?

I didn’t have time to look for my allies. Ahead of me, the sea serpent loomed, Gio dwarfed by its mass. “Distract it!” I called to him.

He scowled at me, only briefly. The sea serpent coiled, ready for another strike. Gio pulled the water around him into a swirling cyclone between him and the sea serpent, filled with rocks and debris. He sent it rumbling toward the serpent and I charged after it.

The beast screeched as the wood and stones struck its hide, embedded in the flesh between the scales. Before it could recover, Thrana slammed into it, my thigh wedged between her fur and the slippery, scaled skin of the serpent. I centered myself and reached out.

I grasped only the massive spinal column of the serpent. It froze when my hand entered its body, but without manipulation of its shards, it would freeze only very briefly.