Epilogue
Summer wore on, and as autumn approached the executions continued. As each traitor was put to death, Josan stood at Empress Nerissa’s right hand and uttered words of praise. Repetition had not numbed him. On the contrary each new killing only increased his sense of outrage and helplessness. If this is what it meant to rule, then Lucius was a fool ever to have wanted the throne.
Dama Akantha was the first. As a woman and a noble she was granted the courtesy of a swift, private death, witnessed only by Josan, the empress, and two dozen members of the court. Renato was next, and his death was a public affair, held in the great square outside the palace, attended by thousands of jeering spectators. Weeks went by as the fates of the conspirators and those they implicated were decided.
Most of those who had been arrested that night were executed. In some cases their family members were also executed, in others they were merely stripped of their titles and properties. Salvador, who had been a close confidant of both Nerissa and her father before her, was found dead in his cell. It was possible that his elderly body had been unable to stand the strain of his imprisonment, but more likely that he had been granted the mercy of poison.
Josan had dismissed Salvador as a querulous old man, but he later learned how badly he had misjudged him. It seemed that while Salvador had supported Prince Lucius’s original bid for power, he had then blamed the prince for its failure, and for the deaths of so many whom Salvador had called friend. When Dama Akantha had shared the news that a potential pretender to the throne had been sighted at a remote lighthouse, Salvador had been the first to guess that the man might actually be Prince Lucius and sent an assassin to kill him.
Ironically it was this very assassination attempt that had brought Prince Lucius back to the capital, though it was doubtful Salvador realized what he had set in motion.
But if Salvador had not supported Lucius’s attempt to raise a new rebellion, neither had he informed the empress of the threat against her. Thus it was only in the manner of his death that the empress showed the remnants of the affection she had once held for him.
To his knowledge Myles had not been captured, though since he was a commoner, it was uncertain if Josan would have been required to witness his execution. Lady Ysobel had escaped to freedom, as had Septimus the Younger, who had fled on one of his own ships when he learned of his father’s treachery. Ambassador Hardouin had been expelled for failure to control his subordinate and a new ambassador appointed to fill his place. Along with the new ambassador, Seddon had sent profuse apologies for the actions of their rogue liaison, and for the moment Empress Nerissa seemed inclined to take their explanation at face value. She had enough enemies within her borders to occupy her attention.
Brother Nikos had called upon Josan once, at the empress’s request. There had been nothing for them to say to one another. All meaningful topics were too perilous to be spoken aloud, for Josan’s rooms were watched at all hours of the day and night. Still, the visit had been of some use, for he had persuaded Nikos to lend him scrolls from the library at the collegium.
Every week a slave brought new scrolls for him to read and took back the ones he had finished. They were the only means he had of alleviating his boredom. Most days he was confined to his room in the palace, allowed to leave only when it was time for his daily stroll or he was summoned by the empress.
There had been two attempts on his life. The first, by poison, had been insufficient to kill him, producing only a night and day of fevered sweats and agonizing cramps. The second attempt was less subtle; a servant stabbed him while he was walking in the gardens. If the gardener had known how to handle a dagger, he might have succeeded, but his first strike was a wild glancing blow that merely grazed Josan’s skin. The guards that accompanied him everywhere ensured that the servant did not have a second chance to strike.
He had few visitors since none dared seek him out unless they were ordered to by the empress. Prince Anthor came by, but he merely inspected Josan and his quarters, then left without speaking. Others came, but no one he knew. They called him Lucius, and spoke to him of trivialities—plays that he would not see, people that he did not know. When other topics failed they turned to the weather and the prospects for the harvest. He would have preferred the solitude of his lighthouse to these false-faced strangers.
Everyone called him Lucius, although only the empress addressed him by the title of prince as well. There was no one to speak his true name, no one to remind him of who he had once been. All thought of him as Lucius, and he wondered how much longer it would be before he thought of that name as his own.
As for the prince’s spirit, he had heard not a whisper since the night of his arrest. He wondered if it was possible for a soul to will itself out of existence, and if that was what Lucius had done.
Or was the prince’s spirit still trapped somewhere within him? Was he slumbering now as he had been before? What would it take to recall him?
But even if he knew how to summon Lucius, he did not know if he would do so. It was not pure selfishness, though the prince might see it as an attempt for Josan to keep the body he had stolen as his own. But rather he did not know if it was fair to inflict his trials upon another. It was a mercy that Lucius had been spared witnessing the deaths of those who had supported him. The prince might well have been driven mad by this existence, but Josan was stronger. He was strong enough for both of them.
He knew better than to try and guess what the fates had in store for him. Two years ago he had been a lighthouse keeper, intent simply on surviving the great storm. Last year, he had been an outcast wanderer, fighting for survival as he battled what he thought was the onset of madness. Now he was living the life of a captive prince, and doing so might well prove his greatest test yet.
Still, he would survive. If he had learned anything in the past years, it was that he was a survivor. Every day he lived was a triumph over those who had sought to destroy him.
He refused to believe that this was the end. It was merely the newest beginning.