Leman studied his brother climbing the rose-lined stairs toward the mansion. He forced his face into neutrality, but his eyes caught every detail of John’s defiance. He wore the plain orange robes of his ragged sect, a deliberate insult in place of the Church’s regalia. Disgust and fury warred within him. He remembered what the new First Speaker of the Conclave had told him, what he was to do. John was a shame on the Church, the Conclave, and their family. But his orders… he shook his head. It was for the good of the One. For the good of the Conclave and Church.

  John reached the final flight of stairs and walked up them. Leman plastered a smile on his face and felt the attendants of the household hustle behind him as his brother reached the last few stairs. He readied himself to give the formal greeting.

  John ignored the customary halt three steps below, mounting the platform as if protocol itself were beneath him. He smiled warmly at the staff, but they froze, trapped between fear and courtesy. A few offered brittle smiles; most didn’t dare move. Leman felt the guards tense. A clear breach of protocol. Clear disrespect.

  Have you not understood the seriousness of his situation from my letter? Well, two can play at this game.

  “Little brother, I welcome you to our father’s house. I see that grief about his death must have overcome you, Bishop.” He spoke the last word with cutting sternness.

  Yet John turned to him, his straight brown hair bound into a single braid, his orange robes plain yet well-made. John studied him, then smiled. “My dear older brother, it’s an honor to have you welcome me into this house.”

  Leman smiled, yet inwardly he was choking. Another slight. A mere junior bishop daring to greet a full bishop in this manner. Unthinkable, except—

  But John seemed to have read his thoughts.

  “What is a title worth, a word that is merely written and not acted upon?” He smiled broadly, quoting Olivie, the Avatar of the Sage.

  He found Rosa’s eyes—his wife, daughter of Cardinal D’Estella, First Speaker of the Conclave. He made a slight gesture and his wife dismissed the household staff and walked forward.

  As soon as they were out of what in polite society was considered earshot, Leman hissed at his brother. “Have you gone mad? This little show at this occasion, after that extortionate letter you sent me?”

  “No. Have you gone mad, using our father’s funeral as an occasion to attempt to suppress my reforms? And then you have the gall to call me out on breaching protocol?” John hissed back.

  “Reforms? It is a rebellion. Do you even understand what you are doing in those ridiculous orange robes? You and your little street preachers. Father didn’t dare act against his own son, but Cardinal Solomon won’t have the same compunctions out of familial love.”

  John chuckled, and Leman nearly choked. “That betrays the depth of your blindness—to think that Father’s love was the only thing that kept him from acting against me. Do you not understand how he kept traditionalists and reformists off each other’s throats? And what your dear mentor is doing?”

  He looked at Rosa and smiled. “Excuse my words, but your father is poking both hands into a hornet’s nest right now. The reformist faction wouldn’t exist without legitimate grievances. I was seen as a civil way of letting them be expressed—to keep the more radical reformists out of influence.”

  Rosa merely sneered at him. “My father is well aware of the rot you Northerners have brought to the Church. And he is aware of how in the South we have prevented such methods from taking root.”

  John snarled and chuckled. “I’m well aware of those methods too. I’m also aware that they have kept the South in poverty, whereas the North has risen.”

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  Rosa gasped, took a step toward him. “You dare?”

  “Yes,” John spat, and a cold shiver went down Leman’s spine at the glowing fanaticism in his brother’s eyes. “I dare.”

  He turned away from Leman’s wife, deliberately ignoring her. “It is already done. I came here knowing that I might be martyred. Yet the translations are complete, and thousands of copies have been spread over the North.”

  He smiled viciously at Rosa. “And some to the less ignorant Southerners as well.”

  Rosa choked, her hands going to her mouth. Leman loved his wife with all of his heart, but she was born of high breeding from her earliest days, and someone talking back to her was never easy to handle.

  Great. What has this fool done?

  The words caught up to him. His stomach lurched. “The Seven? You translated the Seven?”

  “Yes,” John hissed. “Into the Northern tongue. In case I need to repeat all the words I have said for you to keep up with me.”

  “Solomon… The cardinals shall have your head for this,” Leman gasped, but John merely laughed.

  “You speak as if the Council of Cardinals are united behind a single idea. Your traditionalists are so blind. I’ll tell you what will happen.”

  John’s ring flared as he touched it. Lightning cracked overhead, and words of fire seared themselves across the sky—thirteen burning heresies for the whole city to see.

  Leman scanned them quickly, and his mouth fell open ever wider as he read them—besmirchments of the Church, the Conclave, accusations of corruption, denunciations of at least three of the cardinals.

  “What have you…”

  John nearly smiled smugly. “All over the North and South, the translations are being spread. Times are changing. The people will have to decide on the fate of the Church. No longer the Church on the fate of the people.”

  Leman’s heart began beating faster. His eyes darted around. First Cardinal D’Estella had told him what would happen if his brother refused to take the oath of silence to join the Monastery of the Mute Bell. Any second now, they would strike.

  But instead of being taken down by the secret Holy Order of the Church, John just stood there.

  A long, painful minute passed, the text in the sky rippling as mages attempted counterspells against the heresy. Yet clearly the ritual was well-resourced and powered by skilled mages.

  “This is in the Holy City. The city of the Conclave! Has the fall of the Holy Land not been enough humiliation for the Church for you? Now this display! Our father would turn in his grave.”

  “Our father isn’t even in his grave, and you have already conspired against your brother, Leman.”

  Leman’s eyes widened. He knows.

  John made a gesture to the air. The aether shimmered, and five bloody spectacles of gore in the midst of several side streets and the roses ten steps down the stairs appeared.

  “Did you really think I would walk into a lion’s den without adequate protection?”

  For the first time, Rosa broke. A strangled scream escaped, collapsing into a hoarse whisper behind her trembling hand: “My cousin…”

  Then she turned, and her fingernails dug into Leman’s arms painfully until he felt blood spill forth.

  “My cousin was leading that unit, Paul…”

  John merely shrugged. “I believe the Secret Orders’ oath calls for sacrifice. Consider this his.”

  Leman tensed and felt the ozone crackle of energy as she charged up her attack artifact.

  “No,” he whispered to her. “He is protected. Don’t.”

  John merely shook his head. “You think after what has happened, such a bauble would endanger me? No. Tell me—our father waits in the Grand Hall?”

  Leman choked down his rage and glanced around. To execute the assassins—to annihilate the unit—without anyone noticing. Like this… he must have at least two archmagisters on his side. Reinforcements. Demiurges Curse.

  The mocking tone broke his reverie. “If you could please come to realize the circumstances of your trap being engulfed in my trap first, brother, I would like to have some time with our father before I leave this city.”

  He looked at Rosa. “And its lovely residents… for good.”

  Rosa hissed and attempted to jump forward, but Leman grasped her under the arm. The searing beam of the attack spell shot forth, cutting a statue in half, molten rock splattering to the ground as the rest of the statue’s head shattered.

  John apparently hadn’t even noticed the attack.

  “If that is all… I do believe I still know the way. Good day, brother.”

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