Batrin smiled at that. “You’re sure that’s what they are?”

Batrin Wu, Cardenia’s father, was formally Attavio VI, Emperox of the Holy Empire of the Interdependent States and Mercantile Guilds, King of Hub and Associated Nations, Head of the Interdependent Church, Successor to Earth and Father of All, Eighty-seventh Emperox of the House of Wu, which claimed its lineage to the Prophet-Emperox Rachela I, founder of the Interdependency and Savior of Humanity.

“We’re sure,” Cardenia said. The two of them were at Brighton, the imperial residence at Hubfall, the capital of Hub and her father’s favorite residence. The formal imperial seat lay several thousand klicks up the gravity well, at Xi’an, the sprawling space station that hovered over the surface of Hub, visible to Hubfall like a giant reflective plate flung out into the darkness—or would be, if most of Hubfall were anywhere near the planet surface. Hubfall, like all the cities of Hub, was first blasted, then carved, into the rock of the planet, with only occasional service domes and structures peppering the surface. Those domes looked out on an eternal twilight, waiting for a sunrise the tidally locked planet would never offer, and which, if it did, would bake Hub’s citizens, screaming, like potatoes in a broiler.

Attavio VI hated Xi’an and never stayed there longer than absolutely necessary. He certainly had no intention of dying there. Brighton was his home, and outside it, a thousand or more well-wishers pooled near its gate, cheering for him and occasionally breaking out into the imperial anthem or “What Say You,” the cheering song for the imperial football team. All of the well-wishers, Cardenia knew, had been thoroughly vetted before they were allowed within a klick of Brighton’s gate and within earshot of the emperox. Some of them didn’t even have to be paid to show up.

“How many did we have to pay?” Batrin asked.

“Hardly any,” Cardenia said.

“I had to pay all three thousand people who showed up to cheer my mother on her deathbed. I had to pay them a lot.”

“You’re more popular than your mother was.” Cardenia had never met her grandmother, Emperox Zetian III, but the tales from history were toe-curling.

“A rock would be more popular than my mother,” Batrin said. “But you shouldn’t fool yourself, my child. No emperox of the Interdependency has ever been that popular. It’s not in the job description.”

“You were more popular than most, at least,” Cardenia suggested.

“That’s why you only had to pay some of the people outside the window.”

“I could have them dismissed, if you like.”

“They’re fine. See if they take requests.”