He gave one last chuckle, and it became a sigh. “Let’s get on with it,” he said.

There was a clatter as the trap dropped open.

The Villain

Leo had won.

He’d faced crushing defeats. He’d suffered terrible losses. But he’d won a victory bigger than anyone could’ve believed. He sat at the head of the Closed Council. The most powerful man in the Union. In the Circle of the World, maybe. Who’d dare deny it?

The Burners had used the White Chamber as a stable. A little fuck yourself from Judge to the old regime which had left the place smelling faintly of horse however thoroughly it was scrubbed. The table and chairs were the same ones King Jezal’s Closed Council had used—as battered and scarred as Leo was—but he’d ordered them left in their places. A timely reminder to anyone he let sit in here that they could always be replaced.

The chosen few filed in respectfully. First came Leo’s old friends, Lord Chamberlain Jurand and Lord Marshal Glaward. They sat down grinning on his left and right and Leo grinned to see them there. It reminded him for a moment of those high old times. Until he remembered everything he’d sacrificed to win. Everyone he’d sacrificed. He wished Antaup, and Jin, and Barniva, and Ritter were there, too. But wishing does no good.

Lord Admiral Heugen and Lord Chancellor Isher were the next to enter, sporting more gold thread between them than a set of palace curtains, uniforms as splendid as their military records were wretched. The best men on the Open Council. Or at any rate the best runners.

Two bureaucrats followed. Victarine dan Teufel’s sudden disappearance—

to the bottom of the canal, he hoped—had left the Arch Lector’s chair open for Lorsen, Superior of Westport, who seemed a man untroubled by conscience. High Consul Flassenbeck was one of the few officials of the old government lucky and cunning enough to tiptoe alive through the purges. They were hardly the sort of men that Leo admired, but he supposed someone had to take care of the details, and luck, cunning and lack of conscience were certainly qualities his new Union would need.

Finally came the four freshly minted Ministers. People who understood the modern world, supposedly. Jurand had pleaded with Leo to give Savine that much, and pointed out the magic she’d worked on the government of Angland, and in the end he’d grudgingly admitted it made sense. Inventors and industrialists in shiny civilian clothing and, at the back, having toned down the bosom somewhat but still smelling strongly of roses, none other than Selest dan Heugen. A woman in the White Chamber would’ve caused uproar a few years ago, but progress and all that. Leo saw no harm in having something ornamental to look at as long as she remembered her place.

He winced as they grovelled their greetings and slipped into their seats. He’d won. There was no denying it. But the stump of his leg hurt no less. His metal-riddled arm felt no more. There was that same bitter tang in the gap in his teeth. His temper, if anything, was shorter than ever.