Karchedon

It was a prison. A luxurious prison, to be sure, furnished in royal style and adorned with every comfort a king's son might wish. Quintus had not seen its like since he was a young boy, not even in Danae's opulent quarters.

He thought it must be a jest, a condemned man's last view of a life he would never have. A life he had never wanted.

Quintus sat in an ivory-inlaid chair, exhausted from a long night's pacing. No one had come to see him since his transfer to Nikodemos's custody. He had expected far less pleasant accommodations, where he could remind himself with every clank of chains and breath of stale air that he was Tiberian.

But he'd been spared a painful and inevitable death at the High Priest Baalshillek's hands only to face a prospect as bitter as it was unthinkable.

He was the half-brother of Nikodemos, ruler of the Arrhidaean Empire, nephew of Alexandros the Mad. How the absent gods must be laughing.

I am Tiberian.

He slammed his twisted left hand on the chair, relishing the pain. Why had his father not told him? Why had he been allowed to grow to manhood believing that he was a true-born son of Tiberia, of the Horatii, ancient in loyalty and honor? Why had the family of Horatius Corvinus taken the terrible risk of raising the emperor's condemned bastard son?

Quintus stared at his crippled hand. Philokrates had known. Had he been the emperor's agent from the moment he had come to the Corvinus household until he had revealed himself as Talos and fled to the palace? Had he bribed Quintus's adoptive father, or threatened him with a fate worse than mere conquest?

No. No bribe, for Quintus's family had not b