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father—”
    “Your father was a pawn, in life and in death! They’re using him to distract you when I need you most, and if you pursue your revenge now, then everything we have done here will be for nothing. I ask you to reconsider.”
    “The blood of my family has been spilled. I will have my revenge.”
    “Then you will choose between the command of my armies and your revenge. I will not order your obedience in this.”
    Thirty-five years have passed since then, and I still have not had revenge. By the time we had taken the throne and gained the obedience of the knights, our energies were expended on keeping the Empire together and building a coalition of the Houses against the rioting populace, who had seen the chaos and feared for the safety of the Empire. I could not set aside my duty, and still cannot. Even now, when I believe that my silence serves no purpose, I will not take the risk of tearing our fragile alliances apart and turning to mob rule.
    It is now nine in the evening. The sun has left the sky, and the storm has opened over the city.
    Swiftly, then, swiftly! I have little more time to dote on the past.
    In the many years I have had the honor and the privilege of serving under His Majesty Fannon IV, I have watched the fortunes of the Empire increase. Yet even as the surface of the Imperial painting grew in luster, so did the canvas underneath it rot, falling apart under the pressing weight of time and the teeth of countless vermin, teeming with corruption and spite. The Empire is strong from without, but from within it awaits the slightest push to start it crumbling.
    The signs were there. What began as a proud land so many hundreds of years ago, rising from the chaos of the Great Uprising on the back of King Martyn the Strong, has lost its way, become adrift in the endless plots of the minor lords and nobles who scheme in Terona. Each High House maneuvers against the others. Each pursues its own vendettas at the cost of the Empire, each with its own vision of Martyn’s dream, each doing its level best to play kingmaker, and now I cannot think of anything that might hold them together. Except perhaps the traitors’ plot—but I shudder to think of what they intend should they succeed.
    How did I first become aware of the traitors? In the easiest way possible: they approached me. It wasn’t anything as simple as asking me to betray His Majesty, but to my eye, it may as well have been.
    It was a night about a week ago when they approached me. I was in the court, mingling among the courtiers with the three trusted lieutenants I mentioned previously: William “Wet” M'Cray of House Cronen, the son of the man who had died in the Utland Uprising, was the first. He was a tall, slim, and nervous man, but his mind was keen and fast, and with a rapier I knew none better among mortal men. The second was Ilocehr Hargrave, a captain lately of House Bhumar, a dark-skinned man of wild impetuosity, generosity of spirit, and a fierce grasp of small squad tactics. He was also, it was rumored, seeking the hand of Sofia DeTrellzi, and this led to no end of hardship for him among his peers. The third was Nansa Westkitt, who had been third in line to inherit the power of the Westkitts when the matriarch passed away, but this peaceable young woman had discovered a talent for supply that outshone the appeals of Father Church, and she renounced her family's calling for ours. All of them noble-born, and all of them well equipped to help me find the mood among the powerful.
    This was our most hated duty: courtier work, necessary to find out what they wanted from us. Would they be seeking to expand the frontier skirmishes, or were they content with the progress of our many tiny flares of fighting? Did they seek intensification or a withdrawal based on the success or failure of their business dealings? Would we be drawn into another Siullan conflict to fortify the coffers of the wealthy? My staff and I did not like to be caught