Phoran let them all look their fill. A few Septs frowned or sat up, but most of them looked bored. They were waiting for a speech, he knew. Rhetoric was a common occurrence—even if the sword was a little more extreme than the usual props.

“We do not have a list of all the deaths these men are responsible for—though Our father and uncle are among them: emperor and regent to emperor. So We tell you instead the names of those who died fighting for Our life.” These names he had memorized long before he decided to use them here. A man, it seemed to him, ought to know the names of people who died for him. He gave them the names of fifteen Passerines. Then ten men who’d belonged to Avar, the Sept of Leheigh, who had come to Phoran’s rescue. “And of the Clan of Rongier the Librarian—” Eight names, and it took most of the Septs all eight before they realized the names belonged to Travelers.

Two of his counselors, Gerant and Avar, Septs both, had told him to leave those names off. Eliminating the “scourge” of Travelers had been a policy of the Council for generations. But those men had died for him also, and Phoran had decided their names should speak to the guilt of the accused.

“The first person to fall that night gains no justice from this. Lady Myrceria of Telleridge, daughter of the former Sept of Telleridge, died under torture, which was conducted by her own father. She died to keep Our secrets so We could bring about the fall of the Path. I would that Telleridge could be here to answer for his crimes, but he died that day, and he died much too easily.”

While he was speaking, two guards, chosen especially for the duty, removed the statue of the rearing horse from its place of honor and pulled off the embroidered covering beneath it to reveal the cold granite stone that lay beneath.

Phoran nodded, and Jenne’s guards led him to the stone. They jerked him off his feet and held his shoulders down against the granite, his head hanging over the end, with the smoothness of three days spent practicing that move on each other in preparation for this moment.

A Sept convicted of treachery had to shed his blood in the Council chambers. Traditionally the emperor would cut the Sept’s hand and let the blood fall. A beheading would follow, usually the same day, in a courtyard of the palace reserved for such things. But, there were exceptions to that tradition.

With both hands, Phoran raised the old sword high over his head. The leather wrapping of the pommel kept his sweaty grip from slipping as he brought down that sword, a sword made for chopping rather than thrust and parry, and let it cleave all the way through Jenne’s neck.

The whole thing had been accomplished so quickly, Phoran didn’t think that Jenne had even realized what was happening to him.

Somebody shouted, not a protest, Phoran thought, but shock. When he turned to face them, the Council of Septs, he saw he finally had their complete attention.

In the silence that followed, Phoran let them get their fill of looking at him holding that dark sword with blood splattered about him; let them burn the image in their hearts and minds to supersede the picture of the weakling they’d thought him.

He kept his face impassive. It helped that this was not the first man he’d killed. No matter how much it felt like it, he told himself fiercely, this was not murder.

The guards pulled the remains of their former charge aside and covered the body with rough, dark-colored sacking—no fine linens for these men. When the bloodstained stone was emptied, Phoran nodded to the next pair.

After the first three, he found it was easier to keep down his gorge. He learned how to swing the blade so speed and the sword’s own weight did most of the work. He only had to make a second chop once, when the Sept of Seal Hold struggled a little too vigorously for his guards and put his shoulder in the way of the sword edge.

While Phoran was waiting for a body to be moved, Toarsen brought up a clean, damp cloth and wiped the Emperor’s face clean of blood and sweat: and that, too, Phoran had carefully staged beforehand.

He didn’t want the Septs to see a madman, crazed by blood; but an emperor who was willing to kill to protect his Empire, a man whose power was to be feared.

At last the final body fell.

“In the name of Phoran, he who is emperor, the sentence has been carried out. Let their bodies be burned and scattered to the four winds. Let no one sing their way to the tables of the gods. Let their names be forgotten.”

Phoran was never certain who it was who said those words. It was supposed to have been him—he’d written it out himself—but he was beyond talking. He cleaned the sword on the clothing of the last man he killed, then returned the polished blade to Toarsen’s care.

Looking neither left nor right Phoran exited the room. Kissel, his Second Captain of the Emperor’s Own, and Avar, the Sept of Leheigh, both kept a step behind him to serve as honor guard.

As soon as he was in the hall, Phoran quickened his walk as much as he could and still maintain the illusion of imperial dignity. He was grateful that neither of the men accompanying him said a word.

Once inside the privacy of his rooms, Phoran grabbed the basin he’d brought out for just that moment and vomited into it. When he was finished, he wiped his face with a cloth, then leaned against the nearest pillar and rested his forehead upon the cool stone. He wanted to be alone. Wanted to be anywhere but here.

Avar handed him a cup of water.

Phoran rinsed his mouth and spat in the basin.

“You were right,” said Avar. “I was wrong. There isn’t a man who was in that chamber today who will forget what happened.”

Phoran wanted to forget, but he supposed that Avar was right.

There was a short, efficient knock on the door.

“Come,” said Phoran, recognizing it.

The Sept of Gerant came in, followed by Avar’s brother Toarsen. Toarsen still carried the sword, but it was sheathed and resting casually against his shoulder.

It was probably stupid, thought Phoran, that of the four people he trusted completely, he knew only one of them well. An unwitting tool in the Path’s plan to ensure a weak emperor, Avar had been first Phoran’s guide and then his companion in debauchery. Avar had never quite reached the heights of corruption that Phoran had managed, though. Like a gold coin in the mud, there was something pure and shining about his friend that nothing could quite smudge.

Until a month ago, Phoran had known Avar’s brother Toarsen and Toarsen’s best friend Kissel only to greet in the hall as they passed. Both of them were of poor repute—and from what he’d learned in the past month, their reputation for villainy was probably much less severe than they deserved.

He also knew they were, both of them, absolutely trustworthy. They were his, given to him as a gift by Tieragan of Redern—or else he’d been given as a gift to them: Phoran wasn’t quite certain.

The Sept of Gerant, though, was very definitely Tier’s gift. Gerant had come so seldom to Taela that Phoran wasn’t certain he’d ever even met the man before he’d come in answer to Phoran’s summons, a summons he’d written on Tier’s advice.

Before Gerant arrived, Phoran had envisioned an aging Avar: big, charismatic, and physically gifted—especially after he’d done some reading about the victories Gerant had managed against the Fahlarn twenty years ago. But Gerant was no giant, no flashy hero.

He was shorter than average, and looked a dozen years younger than he was. He dressed modestly and watched more than he talked. At first Phoran had thought him a stolid sort of man, true as good steel but the kind of person who had to think things through before he acted. And Phoran had been right—except Gerant thought faster than most. Phoran’s uncle would have liked Gerant, and Phoran knew of no greater compliment.