Chapter 331: Birth and Death
Due to Imperial Family tradition, the funeral of the Emperor was held for only a single day, the shortest funeral any monarch on the continent observed.
Outsiders called it cold, or impersonal, or unseemly for a ruler of such vast domains. But those who understood the Iondora way knew better. The Emperor did not demand weeks of mourning. He did not wish to be a burden on his people even in death.
The burial procession began after the seventh wave of mourners finished their prayers, late in the afternoon when the sun had begun its slow descent toward the horizon. The casket, draped in the imperial standard, was carried through the palace gates and into the city beyond, where common folk lined the streets in silent vigil.
Under the bleeding sunset, the casket was lowered into the earth.
And the week-long mourning period began.
Across the entire Empire of Iondora, music fell silent. Dances ceased. The opera houses shuttered their windows. Parties and banquets were postponed. Even the red-light district, that eternal, unsleeping beast, dimmed its lanterns and closed its doors. For seven days, the empire would hold its breath.
Those whose birthdays fell within the mourning week were encouraged to postpone their celebrations. As compensation, and as the Emperor’s final gift to his people, they would receive one gold coin, provided they could prove their birth date fell within the designated days.
Newborn babies counted. A life entering the world during the Emperor’s death was not an ill omen but the opposite. A reminder that the wheel kept turning.
The Emperor’s courtesy, they called it. A tradition that celebrated life even as it mourned the dead.
And for those who lost loved ones on the same day as the Emperor, or in the week that followed, they were encouraged to donate a portion of their funeral savings to the newborn orphans, or to children who had lost one parent.
The Emperor had led by example. His funeral was simple. Brief. The money that might have funded an elaborate, week-long spectacle was instead funneled to orphanages and widows’ funds.
He had left the world the way he had ruled it, quietly, with more concern for the living than the dead.
***
Seven days passed.
Damon stood in his black clothes before the empty throne.
The ministers, aides, servants, and guards had shed their mourning attire the day before. Now they wore their court robes. Elegant, color-coded according to their hierarchy. They knelt behind the dark-robed Crown Prince, their heads bowed, their voices rising in unison.
"Your Highness, please ascend. It is time."
"Please ascend!"
"Please ascend!"
"Please ascend!"
Damon stood at the base of the steps, looking up.
The throne waited. Empty. Gleaming. His.
Ahh, fucker.
Not long ago, he had been begging his sister for a wife who would let him be a trophy husband.
Reginald and Jove were too young, and Angela couldn’t grow a dick.
Either they couldn’t handle the throne, or would suffer if they tried. At least not without Damon stepping up to become a shadow emperor behind them.
Maybe if he had married a beast lady, he would have been exempt. No heir of a human kingdom was permitted to marry a beast and retain their claim to the throne. It was an old law, but it would have served his purposes perfectly. He could have escaped. He could have been free.
But the opportunity had passed.
His father died.
Fucking just died.
His sister was not pregnant yet. He did not know what the hell was holding her back. Angela was capable of many things, and surely producing an heir was among them. The baby could have been a great investment for the futu—
Wow, he almost punched himself, genuinely appalled. What a dick, Damon. Were you going to call your nephew an investment? A throne investment? ’Hello, little one, welcome to the world, your primary function is to take this job I do not want’?
He joked about it before, but this time he almost actually meant it.
Alright. Alright. Let us not think of that. Birth and death. Birth and fucking death.
Come to think of it, Ivy and Isla Cassia had a missing younger sibling. The third Cassia child. Rumor said she was a girl, though no one seemed certain. The child had vanished as an infant and had never been found.
Ahhh. Poor child. Again. Birth and death.
Like the newborn orphans they had compensated during the seven days of mourning. Cold and alone, without parents to warm them.
If the missing Cassia sibling was still alive now, she would be another genius like her older sisters. Around twenty-five. Bluish eyes. Blonde hair like Ivy and Isla Cass—
Twenty-five.
Blonde.
Blue—
Wait a minute.
Damon stood at the base of the throne steps and felt an epiphany strike him like a meteor.
The Cassia sisters were blonde. Blue-eyed. In their late twenties. Their missing sibling, a girl, rumor said, would be around twenty-five by now.
An orphan.
Blonde.
Blue-(green-grey)eyed.
Damon’s head turned like whiplash.
Behind him, the ministers knelt. The guards stood at attention. And somewhere in this city, Arkai Dawnoro was walking around with his thick Johnny and his bride.
He spun on his heel, facing the assembly, and screamed—
"ARKAI DAWNORO, YOU SON OF A BITC—"
***
Flap—flap—flap—
The sound was soft but distinct, the rhythm of large wings beating against the evening air.
Roarke crossed his modest quarters in three long strides and pushed open the window. The healer’s quarter at the temple was immaculate, stone floors swept clean, shelves of dried herbs arranged neatly, the gentle bubble of simmering medicine providing a constant, soothing undertone.
It was a good cover. A perfect cover. No one suspected the quiet, competent healer who brewed remedies for fever and set broken bones with gentle hands.
But none of that distracted him from the sound outside.
And just as he expected, it was Lost.
His trusty raven. Massive and glossy-black, with eyes that gleamed with an intelligence that bordered on unsettling. The bird landed on the windowsill the moment he opened the window.
Roarke had left Lost back in Cassia, his true base of operations, the place where he returned between assignments, where his weapons were stored and his identities were maintained. No one knew he had based himself there. No one except two very important people.
Ivy and Isla Cassia.
The Cassian Twins.
Thus, only those two could communicate with him via the raven. It was a private channel, separate from the usual methods.
Most of his assassination requests came through the guilds, coded messages left in dead drops, payments made in untraceable currencies, the cold machinery of murder-for-hire.
That was how he had received the contracts for the southern beast tribe chiefs earlier that year. Clean. Professional. Anonymous.
The Cassian Twins, however, did not give him such crude requests.
If they wanted someone assassinated, they would not merely pay for a death. They would orchestrate a disappearance. A tragedy. An accident so perfectly staged that even the victim’s own mother would believe it was fate.
But if they did want people to know, when they wanted a death to send a message, that message would arrive with such clarity that no one who heard it ever forgot.
They paid extremely handsomely.
And they were also the ones who never let him starve in the darkest days of his life.
Roarke received Lost, the raven hopping from the sill to his forearm with a soft, throaty croak. He was about to open the message capsule attached to the bird’s leg when—
"Who’s that from, Father Rohan?"
Roarke jumped.
Peeking up at him from under the window was Bimo.
Or, more accurately, Angel’s Bunny. Angela Iondora’s highest-ranking spy.
This little boy’s large, round eyes truly never missed anything, huh?