The guards do not speak as they lead you through many corridors in the emperor’s castle. Their armor is polished, their boots silent against the marble. You expect another chamber, perhaps a guest room, but the corridors twist downward, deeper into the citadel, until the smell of incense gives way to cool stone and dampness.
At last, they stop before a door of black wood bound with iron. One produces a key and turns it. The door swings open with a low groan.
Inside is no throne room, no audience chamber—only a windowless cell lit by a single lantern. A bed of silk sheets lies in one corner, a low table in the other. The walls are bare stone, smooth and featureless. You turn, startled, but the guards have already stepped back.
“I swore fealty,” you say, your voice echoing in the room. “I chose to stay.”
No answer. The door closes. The lock turns.
You are alone.
Hours blur into one another, time unmoored from meaning. Sometimes food appears—lavish trays of roasted lamb, dates stuffed with almonds, honeyed pastries, spiced wine poured into silver cups. Other times, water in carved alabaster jugs. Always silent. Always delivered by hands you do not see, set down through a narrow hatch in the door.
You speak to the guards, but they do not answer. You demand the Emperor, the Magus, the truth. Nothing.
The windows are barred. The door never opens.
At first you pace, your boots scuffing the floor like a caged animal. Then you stop pacing. Then you start again. The silence inside your head grows louder.
Finally, you begin whispering to yourself. The words come unbidden at first, then form a pattern, then a litany.
“All mirrors are broken.”
“I’m looking at myself,” you echo, voice low, trembling.
“Reflected on the sand.”
“On every grain of sand.”
“Reflected on people.”
“On every pair of eyes looking at me.”
“I am with others and in others.”
“And there I remain eternal.”
“Alone I’m not, and I never was.”
The mantra becomes your anchor. You repeat it in the darkness, over and over, until your heartbeat finds its rhythm inside the words.
Sometimes you dream. You dream of dunes and black wings, of a crow’s shadow over your face. You dream of your uncle’s voice calling from a tower you cannot reach. You dream of the woman from the inn—her eyes wide, her mouth moving but no sound emerging—as she vanishes into the desert.
When you wake, the cell is the same.
It might be days. It might be only hours.
At last, the lock turns. The door opens.
You blink against the sudden brightness. Four vassals enter—slender, perfumed, their faces veiled. They say nothing, but their movements are precise, ritualistic. They lead you to a copper basin steaming with scented water. You do not resist as they strip away the rough linen you’ve been wearing and wash you. Their hands are gentle, their gestures rehearsed. Oils are rubbed into your skin, warm and fragrant.
They dress you in robes of midnight blue and silver thread, heavy with embroidery. A cloak of soft sable is draped over your shoulders. Rings are slipped onto your fingers—one bearing the sigil of Zalenice, another blank.
Your reflection glints briefly in a polished bronze mirror they hold up. For a heartbeat, you see yourself as you were—dust-caked, hollow-eyed, sunburned. Then the mirror tilts, and you see the Duke of Zalenice staring back.
The door stands open.
“Come,” a guard says at last.
You are led through the citadel’s upper halls now, not the depths. The corridors are alive with sound—drums, horns, the murmurs of many voices. Light spills from high arched windows. The scent of incense returns.
The doors to the audience chamber stand open, and beyond them the throne hall glows like fire. Hundreds of people fill the space—nobles, officers, priests, merchants—arrayed in a half-circle before the Emperor’s dais.
You step inside. A murmur runs through the crowd like wind over grass.
Claudius sits on the throne, robed in black and garnet, a crown of iron and gold upon his head. Beside him stands the Magus, silver eyes fixed on you with an unreadable intensity.
“Come forward,” Claudius says, his voice carrying easily over the hall.
You walk the long carpet of crimson and gold until you stand at the foot of the dais. The horns blare once, twice, then fall silent.
Claudius rises.
“In the name of the Empire,” he declares, “and in my right as Emperor and sovereign protector of the Slavs, I name you Duke of Zalenice.”
An attendant steps forward with a sword—long, ceremonial, its hilt shaped like twin wings. Claudius places it in your hands.
“With this, you hold command of the city, its lands, and its armies. You are free to go, free to act in my name, free to shape the fate of Zalenice.”
He gestures toward the great doors at the back of the hall.
“Your retinue awaits outside. The army has gathered to hail their new leader.”
You hesitate. “My army?”
Claudius’s eyes narrow faintly, as though at a private thought. “Your army now. Every soldier in Zalenice swears fealty to you as its Duke.”
The Magus shifts slightly but says nothing.
Claudius’s voice lowers, almost conversational. “But there is something you must know before you decide your first act as Duke.”
He pauses, letting the silence stretch like a blade between you.
“Moravice has fallen.”
Your stomach lurches. The words hit harder than the desert sun, harder than the silence of the cell.
Claudius continues, his tone steady but not without weight.
“Lord Ignacjusz of Drevanyn seized it weeks ago. Your parents are dead. Their banners burned. Their allies scattered.”
You feel the world tilt, as though the marble floor beneath you had given way.
Claudius does not stop. “I do not envy your choice now, Duke. You have an army at your command. You can march on Moravice to claim what is rightfully yours. Or you can remain here in Zalenice and govern your new realm. Either path will cost you dearly. But only you can decide which price you are willing to pay.”
The horns sound again, softer this time. The crowd stirs, a hundred eyes fixed on you.
Claudius spreads his hands. “I have given you the means. Only you can choose the purpose.”
He sits again, the weight of his presence pressing down on the hall.
The Magus’s silver eyes gleam like moonlight on steel.
Your fingers tighten around the sword’s hilt. You hear your mantra echo faintly in your head, as though whispered from every face in the crowd:
“All mirrors are broken.”
“I’m looking at myself.”
“Reflected on the sand.”
“On every grain of sand.”
You draw a slow breath. The banners of Zalenice hang above you, and beyond the doors, an army waits to raise them high.
The Emperor watches. The Magus waits.
The weight of a kingdom—and perhaps a war—rests in your next words.
…
—We march on Moravice at dawn, you declare, fury blazing in your eyes. —Ready the army!
…
—Send an emissary to Moravice,” you whisper, voice trembling with grief. —Demand a parley with Lord Ignacjusz. No more blood must be shed.
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