Ravel smiled. “Spoken like a true Voss.”

  The handsome man’s brown hair swayed in the wind as he bowed, striking a picture of elegance. “But please, Your Highness, allow me to finish.”

  I nodded.

  Ravel began again. “Your Highness, the emergence of the damned as a threat is currently being treated as nothing more than a nuisance by the senate. Their position is that the imperial ministry is exaggerating the danger to seize more power. They have ordered all brigades, including General Lloyd’s, to ignore reports involving the damned and to classify all related information.”

  He looked directly at me. “Basically, Your Highness, they are not allowed to fight the threat. Commoners are being kept unaware of what lurks among them. The only way to free the Eleventh Brigade’s hands is to convert it into your legion.”

  “You know this will cause a chain reaction,” I said. “The aristocratic families will begin marshaling forces. Senators will protest. Commoners will rise. Rebels will fish in the chaos. What are we supposed to do then?”

  “Crush them,” Ravel said simply.

  Saha stared at her cousin, aghast. She was slowly realizing she wasn’t speaking to a family member, but to an imperial chancellor, and that the words she was hearing reflected the emperor’s policy. Still, she needed to know.

  “And the emperor wants this?” she asked quietly.

  “I want to say yes, but…” Ravel scratched his head. “You know the emperor doesn’t think like us short-lived mortals. Most believe he wants the Voss Range to serve as a proving ground for his progeny. To learn, to test themselves, to unlock their potential. But the chancellery knows he’s thinking long-term. He wants to know why the Northern Storm is expanding.”

  Saha folded her arms. “And for that, the emperor wants to eliminate the nobles and the senators? Ravel, we grew up with these people. We were friends with them. How can you be so calm?”

  “Saha!” Ravel snapped.

  I cleared my throat.

  Ravel looked up at me, looming over him, and visibly steadied himself. “Cousin, you need to understand the scale of the problem. The Northern Storm’s expansion isn’t local. It’s a civilization-level threat.”

  I looked at Saha’s downcast expression, then back at Ravel. “Is it necessary to eliminate all the aristocrats and senators?”

  Saha looked at me with sudden hope.

  Ravel sighed. “Your Highness, the emperor is displeased with the senate. It prevents him from acting. I wouldn’t say this in front of anyone else, but the empire is a mess. The Tyrant Hills have fallen to the damned. The Eyes of Saroom roam the inhabited free lands. Beast waves push us back on every front.”

  He continued, his voice hardening. “Meanwhile, the senate engineers infighting among the aristocracy while consolidating power. Some have begun spreading rebel propaganda, calling the emperor the Tyrant King. Most of it comes from Voss senators.”

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  Saha gasped. “Have they lost their minds?”

  “No,” I said quietly. “They are damned. They are spreading chaos.”

  Ravel nodded. “That is what the emperor believes as well. He wants them dead.”

  Saha let out a long breath. “What about the nobles?”

  I met her eyes. “I will save as many as I can.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”

  Ravel cleared his throat. “There is one more thing, Your Highness. Before the emperor sent me, he gave me a verbal message for you.” He hesitated. “He said, and I quote,

  ‘Voss, when you hold the control crystal, you will understand the true nature of the range and why the empire cannot be trusted with it. Keep it for me, son.’”

  I blinked. “Father wants me to keep the control crystal? But he ordered me to connect it to the imperial throne.”

  Ravel shrugged. “I don’t know why the emperor countermanded his earlier order. Perhaps others were listening. Perhaps he changed his mind. In any case, the chancellery stands with you. And we are willing to use our resources to help you, and the empire.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  Saha stepped forward with a gentle smile. “Voss, when the Eleventh Imperial Battalion becomes an imperial legion, you’ll be responsible for funding, arming, and feeding them.”

  “And the Voss clan’s funds are at your disposal,” Ravel added.

  “But that’s your money,” I said.

  They exchanged a look.

  Finally, Saha spoke. “No, love. It isn’t. It’s the clan’s. And this is the only way we keep the range.”

  Ravel huffed. “That’s debatable. The Voss clan lacks the numbers to hold the range. But a Truechild can, even if he must act like Shazed Voss.”

  Saha winced. “You can’t be serious. The atrocities he committed still haunt our family name.”

  “This is about survival,” Ravel said sharply. “Ascari forces gather in the west. Stormlings press from the north. The Eyes of Saroom roam the southern plains. Our only leverage is the empire to the east. So yes, I don’t care if the clan head kills and eats babies. We do whatever it takes to keep our people safe. That is our duty as Vosses and imperial nobility.”

  Saha shook her head. “I won’t let my favorite stain his hands with innocent blood. The empire will intervene.”

  “No,” Ravel said. “It won’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Politics. The senate won’t allow the emperor to act. That’s why he created his Truechildren. To act in his stead. To remind the senate they don’t control him.”

  “Blight and curses,” Saha spat. “Don’t they realize he’s practically a god?”

  “They don’t,” Ravel said quietly.

  The cousins exchanged a look heavy with shared history and unspoken fear. I didn’t understand it. I tuned them out as they began bickering.

  I had more pressing concerns.

  Ravel had raised many issues. None of them were the damned. No one treated them like the existential threat they were. Of course they didn’t. They hadn’t seen the true damned. They didn’t understand that danger they represented. They didn’t even know that one right now roamed the empires’s lands walking around in the guise of Tyran Truechild. They only knew of the hungry larvae that attacked them periodically.

  The empire treated Father like a god, even though he hated it. And when a god walked the land, everyone left their hardest problems at his feet.

  That left me.

  I needed to fight the damned. I would need troops. But using Voss clan funds felt wrong. Funding the war through the capital would alert the senate. Transfers would be blocked. Optics weaponized. Father’s involvement had to remain hidden.

  The empire needed stability.

  I was no longer the silent hunter of the dark waters. I was bound to flesh. I could no longer merge with the depths and move instantly. My exhausting climb during the fight with the larvae had proven that.

  I was weaker than before.

  And in my current state, I couldn’t let the damned know I was swimming in their waters. They could not be underestimated.

  Basically, I needed to get strong. How was I going to do that?

  Well, I had an idea. Long ago, when I was just a young reaper I didn’t have the bottomless pool of essence to use all of my abilities. I had to track and hunt down the predators swimming in the dark waters to gather it, bit by little bit. It was hard. It was dangerous. But I had done it once. And it looked like I was going to have to do it again.

  And this time I had mana.