“Times change as fast as seasons, and time itself has become nothing but a tyrannical variable. I am not a remnant of the past, nor even a reprieve. I am unnameable.”

  Epitaph of the First Emperor, Athanasius.

  Myosotis had not closed his eyes all night.

  Not that he needed to. Immortals are almost never sleepy, and they hardly ever sleep. And I am in a good position to know. Many immortals had, for the most part, been killed not so much by an enemy as by an unreachable desire: to go beyond the end. Which always struck me as unproductive.

  But I must return to that solemn morning.

  The first rays of the Incandescent appeared lazily along the edge of his window. He felt the heavy footsteps of Calice—his niece (also immortal)—as if he could see her standing right in front of him in his brother’s apartments.

  And her lack of inner debate was even more unbearable than if she had attacked him outright and brutalized him.

  Athanasius still had not returned.

  She entered the adjoining antechamber and quickly crossed the short, narrow corridor.

  Further in, on the quilt where Myosotis lay half-dozing, the adolescent sat up as he sensed her coming.

  Despite their youthful appearance, these two very young-looking people together were older than the City itself. Calice was, moreover, older than her uncle. She did not even greet him. Her irritation and anger were far too great.

  “So it really is going to happen?”

  Myosotis said nothing.

  He did not know what to answer when he knew no answer could be interpreted well. Their entire plan—and every possible future—rested on the ritual being impossible.

  “Those filthy women turned his head. If they hadn’t been there…

  And the moment they fed him those lies, off they went on a pilgrimage or a prefiguration or whatever it is they call it!”

  Myosotis sat up further and yawned without emphasis behind his sleeve.

  He knew she was about to cry. She kept pacing.

  “If the ritual fails and he dies, Rhodo will kill me afterward when he understands my power and what I’ve done…”

  “He won’t know anything. Unless you declare it to him.”

  “Bernos already suspects, I’m telling you. They both know. And you already know it,” she snapped.

  With her very small height, she climbed onto the wide chair—standing on it—and at last she surpassed him by barely a hand’s width.

  Though it had not always been the case, Calice had kept a pleasing physique.

  She pulled out a tiny comb and began stroking the curls at Myosotis’ temples. She needed to keep her hands busy.

  She had always been the cleverest in the family—at least according to herself—though Myosotis was no blind player either. But now she was trapped.

  She was closer to tearing out her hair (or rather, her uncle’s) than reaching any optimal, positive solution.

  “He left last night without telling me anything, and I thought you would come see me. There was a commotion last night at the Great Gate, apparently—Celeste told me—and people came specifically to see him, you know, the sacrifice. They want to see his body once he’s dead. Or else they imagine he’ll be alive but with no life left in him, it makes no sense. Those people think Athanasius has magical powers. They know nothing. They don’t know it’s my—”

  “Enough. Now,” the other protested.

  Myosotis took her hands and met her eyes with authority.

  “But I—” she complained in a sulky voice.

  She jumped down from the chair, arms crossed.

  “You hate me, Myosotis. It’s always you who hates me the most…” she grumbled in a babyish voice.

  “You know that isn’t true. We’d be better off going to see Rhodo. It’s the best thing to do. I’d go right now if you want…”

  At the name of the necromancer, memories surged back into her mind.

  Having become immortal at the age of eight in the year 110—while only vaguely understanding the implications, as her own father had explained them at the time—she had stood at his side and had almost died not long afterward.

  But we will return to that later, at a more revealing moment, if needed.

  Back then, she sometimes ran after the cats that slipped into the palace’s inner courtyard.

  Her father was not yet a member of the Five at that time. She felt obligated to stop whenever her father arrived or left, judging her with a disapproving eye.

  “Stop behaving like a child.”

  Once—she was much “older” then in truth—Rhodo happened to be there, as if by chance.

  She had almost gotten a beating, but she had the intelligence to flee at the right moment.

  Myosotis was only a toddler of five or six. His father had died a few months after his birth, and his mother was a princess.

  It was just after the War of the Three Clans. And it was Rhodo who had ended it, so they said.

  She respected him greatly, but she knew her father did not like him—and she did not like him either.

  She could not truly say why. He did not seem reliable, that was all…

  She snapped back to herself as she remembered that Myosotis had full access to her thoughts. She blushed abruptly. Calice put on the most outraged expression and shot him a pitch-black glare.

  “See? That’s exactly what I was saying. You hate me. You never tell me anything even though you know almost everything…”

  She fled, retracing the passage she had taken.

  Myosotis followed almost instantly, knowing she needed to put on a performance—and that it came from her father.

  Calice could be a real scoundrel.

  Unlike his own room—formal and outdated, resembling in every way a servant’s cell or a spare room for guests who knew little or were simply unplanned and of little importance—his brother’s room was of striking luxury.

  The entire floor was covered in fur and rugs, and he did not even remove his shoes before entering.

  There were visible shelves with trinkets, vases adorned with bouquets of flowers nearly wilted or artificial, a large black-varnished sideboard, and a small bookcase that needed dusting. A chandelier hung high above, unused for a long time.

  The door being open, he closed it behind him.

  “There’s nothing in your room,” his brother had told him once. “It feels like a prison. Like a guy who builds his own prison.”

  He had laughed then. Athanasius loved laughing at his own jokes. Myosotis had replied that he did not need to own much since his brother was there and already owned everything. After that, Athanasius stopped joking and told him to get out.

  “So you think I’m depraved and iniquitous. Go pray, then. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  He had left the room under the household’s gaze without looking back.

  No doubt, someone outside the family might have thought Athanasius a buffoon. One must understand that he was nothing of the sort, and that he was in truth a perfectly reasonable man…

  At least until that fateful day.

  Calice lived in the main room of her father’s apartments and slept on a small bed sufficient for her frame (she measured around forty-five inches), surrounded by a removable opaque curtain fixed to the ceiling that could be drawn and fastened to the wall.

  She was sitting there now, visible, head turned toward the wall, sulking prodigiously.

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  I know you suffer more than I do deep down, so leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you, she thought so strongly toward him that Myosotis got goosebumps.

  “Do you want me to tell you what is really going to happen? I know for certain now, and it wouldn’t please anyone…”

  Calice seemed mildly interested. She half-turned, but she was not convinced.

  No. I’m not interested if the solution involves Rhodo, closely or remotely, she thought at him, less abrasive now.

  Then they heard an echo outside—a woman’s scream, or something comparable. They heard footsteps approaching, and Celeste entered.

  She did not see Myosotis behind the door she pushed.

  “By the archangel—Miss, you’re not dressed? Your father could arrive any minute… Ah, I think I hear noise. Someone’s coming, or it’s just the morning service.”

  “Did he tell you when he was coming back and where—?” Calice asked, but Celeste was already gone.

  She scowled again.

  “Is it him, Myosotis? Is he coming?”

  “What I know interests you now?”

  “Answer the question!”

  “There was an accident in the Tower. One of Rhodo’s girl died in the night—well, rather, she was neutralized in a fairly violent way, apparently…”

  Calice turned, frowning.

  “What do you mean, neutralized?”

  “Her head was cut off.”

  Now exclamations could be heard outside.

  But nothing truly understandable. Calice stood up, intrigued.

  “I see you’re in a better mood now…”

  “Don’t push me,” she snapped.

  Myosotis smiled slightly, seeing her in better spirits.

  “Go now. I’m going to change. And don’t even think about spying on me.”

  “There wouldn’t be anything to see anyway…”

  “What! You scoundrel—”

  Now bright red, she threw a shoe—not at him, but at the door.

  Myosotis avoided it easily and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  This time, for good.

  Myosotis could hear the various echoes of surrounding thoughts and all the sensations tied to them.

  When her father arrived some twenty minutes later, she was already fully prepared, proud of herself, and Celeste stood at her side.

  Celeste was not truly a servant like the others, but not truly family either.

  Celeste belonged—so they said—to the descendants of Arial’s first population, long before Amaranth came to found one of his bastions there.

  The region was not unhealthy, nor sterile, and it lay near the isthmus now fractured between the North of Arial and the other shore visible from those who called it the Central Continent. Here, life was good. And until the area became overcrowded, there were very few "demons" around…

  The local population had not been harmed after the settlement, but it no longer held any predominance now, surrounded among the newcomers.

  They had been given the name Natari, to distinguish them from Amaranth’s people and his descendants. When the immortal father appeared, Calice almost seemed not to recognize him.

  “I didn’t do anything…” she said in advance, facing her father.

  He was nearly livid, but he walked straight, without looking back. But he did not even listen to her. He sat at his desk, wiping his forehead.

  He quickly told her about the discovery of the decapitated corpse, while Celeste brought lemons to refresh morning tongues.

  Back in his room, Myosotis remained standing, suspended.

  He could neither sit nor walk.

  Calice did not know that Athanasius—her father—was going to die.

  But she would know soon enough.

  He regretted, somewhat, not telling her.

  Yet deep down he already knew she must suspect it, given her anger. He held no grudge against her. She already suffered too much.Sometimes he no longer knew how to distinguish the thoughts of others from his own.

  A rooster crowed in the neighboring courtyard.

  Myosotis was of average height for his age. He still had rounded features, not yet the angular, traced lines of an adult. His hair was light chestnut, sparse, with ochre undertones that would darken over time. His skin was of a lighter tone. He dressed quickly in a long, fitted dark tunic, belted at the waist with brown leather.

  He retied the laces at his ankles and left again.

  He did not forget his white veil. He tied it across his forehead and set it over his face. He could see without being seen.

  Two slaves armed with simple steel spears guarded the gate, seeming bored to death though they had barely woken.

  And the next guard shift was late in arriving.

  Hearing him approach, they opened the gate and lowered their heads. But he did not want to go out yet.

  He headed toward his brother’s gynaeceum.

  He only entered the courtyard where Argon usually slept.

  He was normally stretched out on his straw bed, beneath a simple wooden awning that protected him from cold and rain.

  He slept there whatever the weather, as if none of it touched him, and the girls had come to regard him as their guardian.

  As massive and giant as he was, he remained perfectly harmless. But at times he was wild and truly ill-tempered.

  He had been accused of indecency—or was it sacrilege? He was barely twenty at the time. He had been destined to be handed to the demons and exiled, but Athanasius had a sharp eye and took him into his service. He had punished him as was fitting: his tongue was cut out, and he was made a eunuch.

  Despite the shock of his aborted exile, his punishment, and his survival, Argon remained quick-witted. He had a fierce affection for the concubines (there were four), and he was, in short, exclusively in their service. Athanasius had taught him to write in a rudimentary way, and he had a small table at the pavilion entrance where he wrote daily details, incidents, and the various missions as they came.

  Argon was not there.

  Myosotis circled the pavilion and ran straight into the man in the middle of washing. He was humming in his head, and Myosotis was aware of it.

  More importantly, he was naked.

  Myosotis could not help stopping on the mutilation before immediately looking away. Argon, who had seen him coming, froze and wrapped himself in a very large towel that looked almost like a toga. Since he could not speak, he merely coughed. Myosotis removed his veil and spoke under the other’s hostile stare.

  “You need to come with me today, Argon… It’s very important.”

  His voice was deep, but not very authoritative. His appearance did not help.

  “I know, deep down, you don’t want anything to happen to the girls…” he continued, loudly enough to sound almost provocative.

  At those words, Argon suddenly stood up (he had been seated facing the fountain) and advanced—almost leaping—toward the boy, who did not step back.

  Until the last moment, I truly thought he would crush him, or shove him away brutally with his body.

  But he stopped as quickly as he had lunged.

  He stood face-to-face with the immortal, towering over him.

  "You know very well I wouldn’t do that. But you know very well others certainly would… You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? Athanasius is going to die—yes, it’s almost certain—and I need you to help me retrieve him when it happens."

  Argon still stared down at him.

  He looked deeply thoughtful, and in total incomprehension—one that suggested renewed anger in the background.

  “If you do what I tell you, nothing will happen to the girls, and it will be as if nothing happened between us. If I fail, you can kill me if you want. You have nothing to lose. Does that suit you?”

  Argon, whose mind did not think in the long term, stepped back.

  But he hesitated.

  Argon turned his head toward the pavilion and pointed at it. Then he pointed at himself.

  Who’s going to stay here, idiot? the eunuch thought.

  He did not know Myosotis could hear him.

  “Calice will stay. There’s wine at the entrance. I can assure you that if anyone comes through, they won’t last long. Lower yourself. I’m going to tell you why…”

  Argon bent down. Myosotis whispered Calice’s secret into his ear.

  Then he looked back at him with the kind of expression that said:

  See? They’re not at risk. And neither is Calice…

  Argon’s eyes went wide—very large, very black—and he began to laugh (or something like it).

  He did not believe it was possible.

  Myosotis swore it was true and gave the names of the people who had “not lasted long.”

  Argon shrugged.

  Myosotis finished:

  “It’ll take barely an hour in the Tower. Anyway, almost no one is awake yet.”

  Argon stared at him, then sighed.

  So young, he was already thick, bloated, tense toward women in a futile way.

  He sniffled. He was not sad for Athanasius.

  But there was, for him, the realization that nothing would truly change after his death.

  “So—are you coming or not?”

  At last, he simply nodded. Then he disappeared into the foliage to dress.

  While waiting for him to finish, Myosotis stopped at the small chapel at the edge of their estate, invoking in silence.

  He fastened his sacrificer’s medallion at the back of his neck, then returned to the pavilion to retrieve Argon.

  He headed toward the Tower.

  Argon followed in his wake.