“Do you have so few men, heathen”—he looks between Keris and me—“that you must ask your women to fight?”

“I was planning to cut off your head,” Marcus says with a grin, “after I’d stuffed your manhood down your throat. But I think I’ll let you live just so I can watch Keris gut you slowly.”

The Commandant says nothing. She meets Grímarr’s eyes briefly, a look that tells me, sure as if she’d spoken it, that they have met before.

She knew he was coming. And she knew he was coming with a hundred thousand men. What did she promise this monster of a man that he would do her bidding and bring a war to Antium, all so she could take the Empire? Despite the fact that the Karkauns appear to have no war strategy, Grímarr is no fool. He nearly bested us in Navium. He must be getting something more than a weeks-long siege out of this.

“Deliver your message quickly.” Marcus pulls out a blade and casually polishes it. “I’m already wondering if I should change my mind.”

“My brother warlocks and I demand that you give up the city of Antium. If you do so immediately, your elderly will be exiled instead of executed, your fighting men enslaved instead of tortured and put to the pyre, and your women and daughters taken to wife and converted instead of raped and debased. If you do not give up the city, we will take it by the Grain Moon. This I vow to you on the blood of my mother and father and unborn children.”

Avitas and I exchange a glance. The Grain Moon—again.

“How do you plan to take the city?” I say. “You have no siege machines.”

“Silence, heathen. I speak to your master.” Grímarr keeps his attention on Marcus even as my hand itches for my war hammer. “Your answer, my lord?”

“You and your corpse-stroking warlocks can take your terms with you to the hells—where we will shortly send you.”

“Very well.” Grímarr shrugs, as if he expected no less, and wheels his horse away.

When we are back within the city, Marcus turns to Keris and me. “They will strike within the hour.”

“My Lord Emperor,” Keris says, “how—”

“They will strike, and we must be ready, for it will be swift and hard.” Marcus is distracted, head tilted as he listens to whatever secrets his brother’s ghost whispers. “I will command the men at the western gate. Keris, the Shrike will inform you of your duties.”

His cape whips behind him as he walks away, and I turn to Keris. “Take the eastern wall,” I say. “The defense is weakest near the central gate. Hold it, or the first level will be overrun.”

The Commandant salutes, and though her face is carefully neutral I can sense the smugness rolling off of her. What the bleeding hells is she up to now?

“Keris.” Perhaps this is a lost cause, but I say it anyway. “I know this was you,” I say. “All of it. I assume you believe you can hold off the Karkauns long enough to rid yourself of Marcus and Livia. Long enough to rid yourself of me.”

She merely watches me.

“I know what you desire,” I say. “And this siege you’ve brought upon the city tells me how badly you wish for it. But there are hundreds of thousands of Martials—”

“You don’t know what I want,” Keris says softly. “But you will. Soon.”

She turns and stalks away, the Plebeians nearby cheering her name as she passes.

“What the bleeding hells is that supposed to mean?” I turn to Avitas, who is at my back. My hand is slick, clenched around the hilt of my dagger. My every instinct screams that something is wrong. That I have irrevocably underestimated Keris. “She wants the Empire,” I say to Avitas. “What else could she possibly be after?”

He doesn’t get a chance to answer. Panicked shouts rise from the wall. When Avitas and I reach the walkway that runs along the massive structure, I understand why.

The sky is illuminated by the light of scores of pyres. Skies only know how Grímarr disguised them, because I’d have sworn those pyres weren’t there moments ago. Now they dominate the field, their flames shooting high into the sky.

Grímarr circles the largest pyre, muttering incantations. From this distance I should not be able to hear him. Yet the malice of his magic taints the very air, the words snaking beneath my skin.

“Ready the catapults.” I give Dex the order. “Ready the archers. The Emperor was right. They’re making their move.”

Down in the Karkaun camp, bound figures are brought toward the pyres, twisting in panic. At first, I think they are animals, part of some sort of ritual sacrifice.

Howls fill the air. And I realize it is a sacrifice.

“Bleeding hells,” Dex says. “Are those—”

“Women.” My stomach churns. “And . . . children.”

Their screams echo across the Karkaun camp, and when one of my men retches over the wall, I cannot blame him. Even from here, I can smell burned flesh. Grímarr chants and the Karkauns echo him, soon accompanied by the steady, deep beat of a drum.

The Martials on the wall are well and truly rattled now, but I walk back and forth among them. “Courage in the face of their barbaric ways,” I shout. “Courage, lest they bring their darkness upon us all.”

The chanting slows, each word drawn out longer until it is one unending low hum that seems to arise from the earth itself.