When her head rose out of a box next to him—he had no idea how she’d managed to get inside the box without him seeing, but he’d learned to stop asking pointless questions—he nodded to her.
“Good evening, Guild Head,” he said.
She turned to him, solemnly inclining her head from over the rim of the box. “Good evening, Calder Marten. Are you sick?”
He took a sip from the mug in his hands, which tasted like lemons and cinnamon and lightning. The world lurched around him, as though reality were trying to stand on its head, but by now he’d grown used to the effects of the alchemy. “Just tired. I was poisoned earlier, and now I’m holding the ship together.”
“I see.” She pointed to the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. “I’ve noticed that people often wrap blankets around the injured and the sick. Does it help somehow?”
“At least I won’t be tired, shaky, and cold.”
She rubbed her chin as she considered. “I see. I’ll remember that.”
The Guild Head started to lower her head back into the box, a clockwork toy rewinding itself, but Calder stopped her with an outstretched hand. He was actually going to touch her shoulder, but reminded himself at the last second that he might want to keep the hand.
“Bliss. Who attacked us?”
He’d been planning on waiting for Meia to disappear so that he could talk to Bliss without interruption, but that plan had worked entirely too well. Meia had vanished almost immediately after the survivors of The Eternal had been rescued, and he hadn’t seen her since. He would have sworn that she’d left, if there had been anywhere else for her to go. A cursory Reading of the ship didn’t reveal her, though he couldn’t spare much attention or Intent for a thorough search.
As far as he knew, the Consultant could be lurking over his shoulder, listening to every word. But that couldn’t be helped. If she overheard him, so be it; he had to know what they were sailing into.
Bliss’ brow furrowed. “That’s a good question. I don’t know, though I’m certain the Elders are involved if they’ve taken over the Imperial Palace. You know how difficult it would be for a human to use the Optasia.”
Calder reminded himself that his mother treated Bliss with endless patience, and tried to summon some of that for himself. “No, in fact I don’t. What is the Optasia?”
“It’s the Emperor’s throne,” she said, levering herself over the edge of the box to crouch face-to-face with Calder. “He used it to control a network of amplification devices all over the world, so that he could use his Intent anywhere, instantly. An ingenious system. Too bad it was so terribly flawed.”
Calder waited for her to continue, but she seemed to think that she’d explained enough. After a few awkward seconds, he prompted her. “Flawed?”
“Yes.”
Nothing else.
“How was it flawed, Bliss?”
She moved her head from side to side like a snake, searching his face from every angle. “You must have wondered why we were willing to let someone so young, inexperienced, naive, emotional, under-educated, and generally unsuitable call himself Emperor.”
Endless patience. “I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms.”
“As we explained before, we need someone to sit on the throne. Not the blocky chair in the audience hall, although I’m sure that you will have to host an audience at some point, and you should be prepared for that. We need someone on the real throne. The Optasia. So while there are any number of other qualities that we would like in an Emperor, all we want is a Reader strong enough to use the Optasia to magnify their talents. And to not go insane, of course.”
Calder was having enough trouble wrapping his mind around the reality of a device that allowed the Emperor to cast his will across the world. Was that how he had become so much more powerful than any other Reader? Did he have an artificial, world-spanning system propping up his powers?
No, that wasn’t likely. Calder had Read enough of the Emperor’s trail to know that the man invested objects just by walking down the same street. An Intent like that couldn’t be faked.
But then, Calder would never have thought such an Intent could be magnified either.
“I’m sorry, Bliss, but I feel like I’ve been invited to a play in the third act. How does this device work? What did he use it for? Why does it have to be the Emperor who uses it, and not someone else? Most importantly, how is it going to drive me insane?”
The Guild Head smiled at him with obvious pity, patting him softly on the top of the head with one hand. “There, there. No need to apologize. The throne is linked to amplification devices created by the Emperor and scattered all over the world. They’re in the shape of statues, I believe. They took his Intent and focused it wherever necessary, so that he could deal with threats without leaving the Capital. I should think it would be obvious why we’re restricting its use: we’re handing control of the Empire over to the first powerful Reader who sits in the chair. That requires quite a bit of caution.”
Using both hands, she reached out and snatched his mug of softly glowing alchemical medicine, taking a brief sip. She made a face like a little girl who had bitten into a lemon, looked all around her, and then took another sip.
“What about the insanity, Bliss?”
“You’re very stuck on that. It’s not good to be too focused on one thing. Well, the Optasia was constructed so that the Emperor could respond to any of the Great Elders who acted up. Indeed, some of my predecessors in the Blackwatch wondered why they were necessary at all, if the Emperor could blast Elders to pieces from his seat in the Capital.”
“That’s another thing. How does anyone blast anything with their Intent? That doesn’t seem possible.”
She shrugged. “He’s the Emperor.”
In hindsight, it had been a stupid question.
“But the Emperor used the Optasia only rarely, for the greatest hazards, and in the last twenty years of his life I can only prove that he used it one time. Why is that, do you think?”
Bliss stared at him quizzically, as though genuinely wondering if he had the answer.
“If he had to focus his Intent on a Great Elder every time it popped up, he would be staring madness in the face. I don’t know how he ever did it without going insane; that sounds like it would be worse than Reading an Elderspawn directly.” And everyone knew you couldn’t Read an Elderspawn directly unless you were tired of keeping your personality intact. Or unless you had Kelarac’s handprint on your arm. Before that, when Calder sent his Intent down to the Lyathatan, he was very careful to Read only the Intent in the manacles and chains. Like looking at a reflection in a mirror.
Bliss beamed at him, patting him on the head again. “Very good! If I were grading you, I would give you full points. And I am grading you. Secretly.”
“Then what do you want me to do with it? If this Optasia was too difficult for the Emperor, then I’m more likely to kill us all.” Calder questioned many things about the late Emperor, may his soul sink down to Kelarac: his character, his decisions, his concern for the people of the Empire. But Calder had never questioned the man’s power as a Reader. If the Emperor hadn’t figured out a way to use the Optasia safely, then Calder would do nothing but die.
Bliss lowered herself into the box, shutting the lid over her head. Her voice came from inside, muffled and indistinct. “Don’t worry. We know you can’t force Urg’naut back into his seal, or keep Ach’magut from rebuilding his library, or do anything useful.”