Beware the lion who dreams of flying,

  Of soaring through skies,

  Of diving and rising,

  Twisting, turning, rolling.

  Beware the eagle who dreams of fighting,

  Of roaring over walls,

  Of gnashing and gashing,

  Clawing, biting, feasting.

  Beware the day they are one and the same,

  Of the lion with wings,

  Of the eagle with fangs,

  Beware, Sisters! Beware!

  ~Venefican Prophecy

  GENERAL CASSIUS TOTORO eased his muscle-weary body into the steaming water, taking a seat on the ledge that jutted from the bath’s wall. As the soothing waters enveloped him, he closed his eyes and allowed the image that lurked in the depths of his memory to surface. His father’s eyes, bulging with abject fear, moments before Totoro had extinguished their light.

  Beneath the bath water, Totoro flexed his fingers and squeezed them into fists, recalling how he had crushed his father’s windpipe. Totoro’s lips twitched toward a smile as he savored his triumph over his first and worst oppressor. Of all the people Totoro had killed, no one had deserved it more than his father.

  No one.

  Maybe that was why training had been both arduous and tedious today, Totoro thought, inhaling the bath’s lavender-scented vapors. Not just today … most days. Every day.

  He released a shuddering breath and sank further until his shoulders slipped beneath the bath’s surface. How many men must he kill before his efforts finally felt meaningful? Before the blood on his cheeks and hands carried even a droplet of purpose? Of passion? What must he do to rekindle the ecstasy of his first kill?

  He’d ended so many lives since then, but he only had one true father. One true abuser. One true betrayer. Even beheading his slave masters had failed to stir his blood. After all, they were never supposed to protect him. To nurture him. They merely did as slave masters did. Punish, humiliate, and torture until the men they owned would do whatever they were told no matter the cost. Killing the slave masters had felt like a … a business transaction. A balancing of the scales. He’d returned to them what they’d given him and a bit more. A fair exchange in any god’s eyes.

  But his father … his actions were inexcusable. Indefensible. He had forsaken his sacred duty. Had preyed upon the ones he was supposed to protect. Had murdered Totoro’s mother. The bastard deserved a hundred more deaths if such a thing were possible—and Totoro would gladly deliver each and every one of them. Maybe if they met again in the afterlife. In Malavita.

  Totoro grunted. His thinking was twisted by his anger and guilt; he knew it was. But life wasn’t rational, so why should he care? After all, despite his countless violent crimes, he had escaped execution. And through scores of battles, he had continued to escape death. Miraculously, he’d even risen to the rank of a Tolian general.

  A splash followed by something smooth brushing against his right shoulder pulled Totoro out of his dark ruminations. He opened his eyes as one of his concubines leaned against him. She tugged lightly on his arm, and he acquiesced to her movements, unclenching his fist to let her scrub the blood from his skin and nails. Moments later, a second woman joined them on his left and massaged his sword arm. Before him, a beautiful young man with flesh as supple as any woman’s bowed his head and asked, “My General, is there anything else you need?”

  A host of ideas swam through Totoro’s mind. Each one more decadent than the previous. But today, his training had been exceptionally difficult. Totoro was exhausted, and after he finished his bath, his need for sleep would undoubtedly outweigh his desire for an evening of carnal pleasures.

  “Just wine, Davus.”

  “As you wish, My General.”

  After a quick bow, the nubile young man cut through the water with a swan’s grace until he reached the bath’s marble edge. There, Davus stepped out of the steaming pool, and finger-like rivulets trickled down his lithe, toned body.

  Totoro bit his lower lip. Maybe after a rest. Maybe.

  His eyelids, though, suggested otherwise, already fluttering with sleep as Davus scampered toward the bathhouse exit. But then his graceful movements turned suddenly awkward as he skittered across the slick tiles and stumbled to a stop. Dropped to a knee and bent his head in supplication.

  The surprising change in Davus’s movements transformed Totoro. His eyes shot open, and his tired muscles tightened with newfound verve. Fully alert, his ears caught the rhythmic thumping that had undoubtedly rattled his slave—footsteps marching in unison up the bathhouse hallway.

  Uninvited guests were paying Totoro a visit.

  He clenched his jaws, shrugged free from his concubines, and sank deeper into the water. He gathered his feet beneath him, crouching on the ledge instead of sitting in case he needed to explode out of the bath.

  A fistful of heavy heartbeats later, a squadron of the Guardia del Lupo trotted into the bathhouse and circled the steaming pool, their synchronized sandal stomps and the clack-a-clack of their armor echoing against the white marble walls. Giant male warriors armed with great swords and powerful female warriors with shields and spears soon surrounded Totoro.

  Few soldiers gave him pause—but the Guardia del Lupo was an exception. The elite squadron was composed completely of northern barbarians. Fierce warriors from the icy wastelands of Jotunmark who had bent their knees to Tol’s Imperator and taken up service as his personal guard. By Tolian standards, Totoro was a large man. But even the women in the Guardia del Lupo were taller than him, and the male barbarians towered over him. Understandably, most of Tol called them the Guardia dei Giganti, and Totoro didn’t stand a chance against his visitors. Not a whole squadron of them.

  This is how it ends, then? Totoro wondered. Naked in a bath instead of armored and bloodied on a battlefield? So be it.

  Resigned to his fate, Totoro braced for the guards’ attack. But once they finished surrounding the pool, they paid him no heed. Instead, they stood at attention, their chiseled faces focused on the bathhouse’s entrance. Following the guards’ example, Totoro turned toward the doorway just as a statuesque woman—clad in a cascading black dress that fell past her ankles—glided into the chamber.

  Even though the woman’s robe’s deep hood obscured her face in shadow, the long silver locks that flowed over her chest were unmistakable. Headmistress Leandra Voltrona, Mother Superior of the Venefican Sisterhood and the most powerful woman in the Tolian Empire, stood in Totoro’s bathhouse. Her role as the Imperator’s advisor explained the Guardia del Lupo’s presence. But why was she here? What could the witch want with him?

  Given the guards and the location, clearly nothing good. His concerns were further heightened when she stopped in the entrance, waved her hands dismissively at Totoro’s slaves, and said, “Leave!” As if to emphasize her point, a dark-furred mink with a white chin poked its head out of Voltrona’s hood and hissed.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  A distraught Davus glanced back at Totoro, and he responded with a terse head bob, sending his slave scurrying away. The concubines beside Totoro, though, sought no such permission. A mistake that would need reprimanding later, he thought, while they splashed out of the bath and chased after Davus.

  Once his slaves departed, a woman who had stationed herself unobtrusively near the bath house’s back wall stirred to his right. He turned to better follow her silent movements as she swept through the shadows cast by the trellis above them. Unlike his slaves, this woman—also clad in a flowing black dress with a deep hood—made no effort to leave. Instead, she stepped toward him as a brilliant blue bird dropped from a beam and perched itself on her shoulder. But when she extended Totoro’s robe to him, Voltrona held up her hand.

  “No, Sister,” Voltrona said. “Leave him be.” The words stung Totoro’s ears, as if they were palpable—poison-laced needles instead of mere sounds.

  Sister Amaranta Bacio, Totoro’s Venefican advisor, halted her movement. The afternoon sun angled through her dress’s sheer material, giving Totoro a glimpse of her sensuous form. Even if he were half-dead, she could rouse his passions—passions, though, sadly and strictly forbidden. Still, she stirred his blood like no other. So much so he hadn’t realized that she had remained intently focused on him and what the gesture meant. Rather than acknowledging her Mother Superior, Amaranta was waiting on him, seeking his input and revealing where her loyalties lay.

  Totoro blinked back his lust, grunted with satisfaction, and nodded to her. “No worries, Amaranta. Do as she says.”

  To his left, Headmistress Voltrona huffed. Aggravation pinched her voice as she snapped at him. “Sister Amaranta is not one of your slaves or your soldiers, General. Or have you forgotten?”

  Totoro turned back to Voltrona, curled his lips into a sneer, and countered her stare. She waited, no doubt hoping her silence would goad an apology from him. That he would make the mistake of yielding to her presumed authority. Or maybe she hoped he would cower before her show of force, the squadron surrounding his bath while he was seemingly defenseless.

  Hardly. Voltrona had a reputation as a dangerous woman, but Totoro didn’t care. To him, she was merely a witch and unworthy of his deference. If anything, the Mother Superior should be fearful of him. Defer to him. Bow to him.

  So rather than answer, Totoro maintained a stony disposition and glared at Voltrona. And, soon enough, she broke their eye contact. Likewise, her strange pet mink withdrew into the shadows of the witch’s hood. But as Totoro celebrated his petty victory with a bored sigh and smug smile, Voltrona turned her head and called over her shoulder. “They are ready for you, My Imperator.”

  Her statement caught Totoro off guard, triggering an exaggerated swallow he was unable to repress. Voltrona wasn’t his only visitor. His true visitor. No, she was merely an escort. For some reason, the Imperator himself was making an unannounced visit to his understudy.

  In all the world, only one man had earned Totoro’s respect. The man who had emancipated Totoro from the fighting pits and had raised him to the heights of power. Imperator Lucius Tenebrus, Supreme Ruler of the Indomitable Tolian Empire. The man, who among other things, had come to be a proper sort of father figure for Totoro.

  But age and rheumatism had enfeebled the Imperator. He rarely left his palace these days—only for reasons he deemed critically important.

  Why, then, is he coming here? Totoro thought. Why when I would have gladly gone to him? What troubles My Imperator?

  Voltrona raised an eyebrow and smirked at Totoro, but she said nothing. Instead, she bowed her head and stepped aside as two hulking guards, by far the largest in the bath house, entered and flanked the entrance. The arrival of Sigvard and Gunnar, the Imperator’s personal guards, meant the great man could not be far behind. Then a familiar plink of wood striking tile echoed forth from the bath house hallway. A second plink and a third.

  A wave of worry and respect washed through Totoro, and he finally rose from his bath. Any other man—naked and exposed before so many—might have felt vulnerable—especially one who bore the plethora of scars that marred Totoro’s body. The white lines that crisscrossed his tanned torso from blades that had come too close but not close enough. The vicious raised bands that striped his back from the times his insolence had been met with the whip. The mottled scars that rippled his forearms from the burns he’d received when the whip had failed to tame him.

  But Totoro was no ordinary man. Instead of cowering, he puffed out his chest. Let them see, he thought. Let them see and be afraid.

  His bravado faded, though, with each repetition of the tapping sound, which swelled in volume and drew closer until a tall figure bent over a walking staff finally stepped through the doorway. A frail-looking man with white hair, white beard, and dressed in white robes. A man Totoro could kill with only one hand. Except power came in many forms. And, despite his skill and strength, he’d never get close enough to the Imperator to end his life. Twenty blades and spears would puncture Totoro the moment he made the slightest wrong move. Even if he somehow succeeded in leaving the pool, Sigvard’s battle axe or Gunnar’s war hammer would easily end him.

  That Totoro was outnumbered, though, was not what held him in check. Not what made him bow his head respectfully toward his visitor. This was the man who had given Totoro everything. And only an idiot considered poisoning the well that sustained him.

  “My Imperator,” Totoro said. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit, Sire?”

  “My child,” Tenebrus rasped. “Lift your head so I may gaze upon you.”

  Totoro pursed his lips and slowly raised his chin until he gazed into Tenebrus’s pale, watery eyes.

  “Better,” Tenebrus said. “Much better.” Then he leaned toward the guards by the door and whispered to them.

  “Yes, Sire,” Sigvard said, nodding. He waved his hand and barked a command. “Exit the bath! The Imperator demands privacy!”

  In unison, spear butts struck floor and swords smacked shields, filling the room with a thundering crack. Then, the guards spun on their heels and trotted toward the exit. Once they were gone, Sigvard said, “Sire?”

  Tenebrus waved his cane toward the exit. “No worries. I am as safe with him as I am with you.”

  Sigvard bowed. “As you command, Sire.”

  When the last two guards had vacated the space, Tenebrus leaned toward Headmistress Voltrona and said, “Let us begin, shall we?”

  “As you wish, Sire,” Voltrona said with a quick bow before turning to Totoro’s advisor. “Sister Amaranta, Your Imperator is most curious about your student’s development. Can you tell him how General Totoro has been progressing in his training?”

  Amaranta nodded and said, “Yes, of course. With pleasure, Mother Superior.” Then she turned to Tenebrus and lowered herself to one knee. “Sire, my student and master, Cassius Totoro, has been most impressive. He is a quick study and possesses a keen understanding of how to manipulate others. I am pleased to say his political acumen has grown as sharp as any other weapon he chooses to wield.”

  Tenebrus tugged on his ear and nodded. “As I expected all those years ago. Never have I known a more determined man. Thank you for your service in this matter, Sister Amaranta. And how have you found your time with my protégé? Has he treated you well? Do you wish to remain in his service?”

  Amaranta gave a subtle nod. “Nothing could please me more, Sire.”

  Tenebrus smiled. “Excellent. Most excellent. Then it is settled.”

  With that, the Imperator finally turned his rheumy gaze back to Totoro. “My child. The time for you to repay me has come at last. Many years ago, as I’m sure you know, our legions overcame the fabled defenses of Hyasa’s fortress capital, D’Win. In so doing, we added a honeyed land of sweet pomegranates, immaculate silks, and healing hot springs to our Great Empire.”

  “They are fortunate, Sire, to know the glory of your generous rule.”

  “So it would seem. But these Hyasans are a stubborn people, Cassius, and despite decades under our governance, they still chafe at our occupation. Now, though, the rheumy affliction in my joints and bones has worsened, and I dream of traveling to Hyasa. I’m told the healing powers of Lake Apakay’s spas are unparalleled in all the world. That they alone may bring me comfort and respite from what ails me.”

  Totoro looked away as he processed the Imperator’s dilemma. Why would the great man risk such a strenuous journey at his age—especially if he was ailing? Then something else about the region surfaced from Totoro's memory, a connection to the Imperator’s lifelong obsession. “Sire, do I recall correctly that the griffins you have yearned for—that they once flew over those same lands? Have you had recent news of them?”

  Tenebrus drew in a heavy breath and shook his head. “No, no news still. We have scoured the highlands for twenty some years now without a sighting, so I fear we’ve indeed purged them from the world. Besides, griffins were never a part of Hyasa. They belonged to a different people.”

  Totoro paused, surprised by the Imperator’s answer. Could it be that the Imperator was being truthful? That he was truly so ill that only this desperate plan could save him? A strange fear stirred within Totoro. One he hadn’t known since his mother’s death. To his surprise, his throat tightened and his eyes stung, and his words stuck to his tongue. “W-What then, S-Sire, would you have me do? How may I help?”

  The Imperator smiled. “By doing what you do best, my child. I need you to take charge of this situation and break the spirit of these pesky Hyasans. Turn this buzzing hornets’ nest into a haven, so I may take my convalescence there in peace. Will you do this for me? If so, I can promise you this—when I am called to join the gods, all Tol will be your playground as the next Supreme Ruler.”

  Totoro blinked, shocked by the Imperator’s declaration. His head filled with conflicting emotions. Somehow, though, he mustered a calm response. “My Imperator, my only purpose is to serve.”

  Tenebrus smiled. “Of course, of course. Then it’s settled. You and Sister Amaranta will leave for D’Win tomorrow, accompanied by the 7th and 8th Legions. More troops will follow shortly after.”

  “Yes, Sire. I’m honored.”

  “Let me be explicitly clear, Cassius. I expect to join you in Hyasa sooner than later, my child. I do not have another decade, and even a year may be too long. So do not dawdle. Do whatever it takes to crush these ingrates quickly, so my joints may finally find ease from these ceaseless pains. Will you do this for me?”

  The ruthless request returned Totoro to familiar ground. A mindset of brutal power. He grinned, his pulse quickened by his Imperator’s orders. At last, a challenging task with clear and purposeful objectives. “Have you ever known me to play with my food, Sire?”

  “No, my child. Never.”

  “Then, as you wish, Sire, so it will be done. Quickly and decisively.”