My only regret is that i did not purge enough people
Letâs say youâre an evil emperor.
Tyrannical, Oppressive, doing all of the -cides, the usual. You want more power, and more land and more.
You got where you got by murder and backstab, which really is the same thing. The point is you donât trust anyone. So, because you are both powerful and paranoid, you werenât exactly concerned with what happened after your death. By the time you couldnât have more children, you realized that you had â or your advisors â or your pissed off underlings, ensured that all of your potential heirs met their end. Now as the bells toll from the obsidian towers, you realize that somewhere along the way, you might have made a mistake.
The bells tolled across the sprawling capital of the Empire. Black banners unfurled from obsidian towers, their slow, mournful ripple against a gray sky, the only sign of state-endorsed grief.
You are dead.
Not by blade or poison, though many had tried, but by your own withered heart, finally succumbing after six decades of paranoia, conquest, and cruelty. Your reign was been marked not only by expansion and absolute rule, but by a systematic purge of anyone who was even a tangential threat.
Sons? Executed.Â
Brothers? Poisoned.Â
Cousins? Disappeared.Â
Bastards? Strangled at birth or lost in the alleys of the outer rings.Â
Old nobility? Faded to shadows or fled beyond the mountains.
By the time your body is laid on the obsidian bier, perfumed and robed in imperial crimson, the imperial bloodline is a mythic memory.
Also, not that you would care about such things, but all of your daughters are infertile. Which is why you had their mothers strangled. And then them strangled. Your sisters which you and your father had married to top officials, were either purged in your ascension or killed later as a test of loyalty you had for those officials. Not that you care. If they wanted to lead, they should have been born with the capacity to.
In your private Council, a private chamber hung with your stuff, the remaining lords convened , dozens of nobles and generals, now eyeing one another not with grief, but calculation.
There is no clear successor.
Half are incompetent sycophants, and the other half are schemers. Unfortunately for you, you never learned which was which. The far bigger problem is that they donât know either. Everyone believes that they are the greatest political operator this world has ever seen. Well greatest besides you, of course.
And the imperial law, rewritten a dozen times by your hand, left the succession ambiguous by design, no man, no woman would rise too high in your lifetime. But now... you are dead.
Lord something or other, once a distant cousin, thought executed, but in fact quietly exiled, stepped into the chamber, face calm, papers in hand. His black hair bore the streak of silver only seen in imperial blood. Which isnât true but lying is so much easier. His voice, when it rang through the council chamber, was cold as the obsidian floors: "By right of blood and the last unbroken line through the Lady Myrene, fourth daughter of Emperor Daelus II, I stake my claim."
A ripple, sharp and startled.Â
Lady Myrene? Dead fifty years ago. One of your fatherâs purges.
"Proof?" sneered Duke Irrelevant, a warlord whose iron leg was already half-planted on the throne in his own mind. Disgusting to see such ambition before your corpse is even cold! How dare they!
The Lord simply handed over a sealed scroll, witnessed and notarized long ago, hidden for just such a moment. The seals were authentic. Unforgeable. Allegedly.
Yet blood was not all. In the shadows of the hall, others moved. The Guild masters of the western ports, rich beyond kings, whispered offers of gold and ships to whoever would wear the crown. The Generals, hardened by border wars, eyed the capital with their legions marching ever closer.
"To bloodlines... however thin."Â You donât really know who said that, but they must have been a close friend of yours.
"And to opportunity," replied Lord Cousin (allegedly), without drinking.
But as Duke Irrelevant drained his goblet, his iron leg screeched against stone, he lurched, face turning an ugly shade of violet. A heartbeat later he crashed to the floor, foaming. The room froze. Poison? In these hallowed, honored halls? How dare they!
Then, almost simultaneously:
Baron whatâs his face, who had smirked at the dukeâs demise, suddenly began to cough, blood-flecked. His cup still trembled in his dying grip. Viscount fish head stood to shout a warning, but as he rose a thin steel dart struck his throat, fired from the decorative suit of armor in the corner, no doubt primed in advance by one of your many loyal spies. He toppled over the great oak table, gurgling. Assassinations? In these hallowed, honored halls? How dare they!
"Gods save us," whispered Lord-General Dog eyes, hand on sword. Then he collapsed.
 In moments, a quarter of the council lay dead or dying, wine tainted, blades hidden, darts loosed, hearts clenched.
Lord Allegedly, untouched, remained seated, hands calmly folded. His cup remained full, he had not trusted any wine in this city since the first bell tolled. Opposite him, Countess Hot daughters, similarly unflustered, dabbed her lips with a silk kerchief.
"Efficient," she murmured, eyes glittering.
"Inevitable," Lord replied.
How dare they! All this work, all your work undone!
Of the original thirty-two council members, only three remained upright. The servants had long since fled. Outside, faintly came the echo of armored boots, soldiers approaching.
Now the path was clearer:
Lord, blood-claimant, alive, calm.Â
Countess, spymistress, her networks already moving to spin the tale of âtreacherous, self-poisoned fools.â Of course, the networks were nothing compared to your networks, but she wasnât entirely incompetent, even if you had mainly wanted access to her daughters.
Chancellor appointed last Wednesday, the new kingmaker, old and clever. Presumably.
And the others? Eyeing each other like wolves.
"It seems we are now the true council," the countess said softly.
"And the throne is within reach," lord answered.
As Countess reached to draw out a prepared writ, no doubt naming Lord "Protector of the Realm" and herself First Minister, her hand froze. Eyes narrowed. She glanced down.Â
A thin, stiletto blade now jutted from her ribs, driven up beneath her breastbone by a slender, leather-gloved hand.Â
Sir Jareth Moren, her own captain of guards, bribed, turned, or simply ambitious, twisted the blade as the countess gasped.Â
Hah! She fell for the classic trap of ⌠well it was her fault anyway; this would never have happened to you.
"For my House," he whispered in her ear, letting her crumble sideways across the blood-spattered table. No guards rushed in. The chamber doors remained eerily silent.
Across from her, Lord exhaled slowly, an unnatural rattle in his breath. His skin had taken a waxen pallor for days now, though he masked it well with powder and poise.
In truth? He had been dying since the Imperial Feast three days prior, when his cup, untouched that night, had already been poisoned through a thin smear on its lip. It was your clever scheming. You think anyway. You didnât even know he existed, but that has never stopped you.
Heâd probably known within hours, numbness, black veins creeping beneath the skin, but there had been no antidote, no time.Â
Every gesture now cost him effort. Each word scraped his throat.
"How fitting," he murmured through cracked lips, watching the countess body sprawl. "A race of corpses vying for a tomb."
Idiot. This would have never happened to you.
As he reached for his own goblet, not to drink, but to steady himself, his hand spasmed violently. He slumped back in the high-backed chair, breath growing shallower, chest heaving. Soon, very soon, he would be dead as well.
Chancellor Who had watched this grisly ballet with an unreadable expression, as always, the picture of distant scholarship. Presumably.
But as he rose now, perhaps to finally seize the moment, to name himself Regent, to call in the hidden city guard, his steps faltered. A tremor seized him. His old, thin frame arched.Â
Eyes bulged. Fingers clawed at the air. A sudden, massive heart attack, swift and cruel. Whether natural, stress-induced, or spurred by a conveniently placed powder in his morning tea, none could say. Or would say. Chancellor collapsed against the council table, quill still in one hand, a scroll fluttering from the other.
