Page 46 of Empire's Curse

“Peccata?” Daiyu had never heard the word before, and it clearly seemed to be foreign. “What is that?”

“Oh. ThePeccatais a group of His Majesty’s personal … soldiers? I don’t even know what to call them because they’re really just a group of young men and women whom His Majesty has helped raise. They do various things for him: assassinations, spying, and other sorts of missions.” Yat-sen sipped his water. “Atreus is one of them. There are six in total and you’ll likely meet them all throughout your stay in the palace, or even here. I believe Nikator is planning on arriving at this base in a few days.”

Nikator was a foreign name she had never heard of, and seeing as how Atreus was also foreign, she wondered if the rest of thePeccatawere foreign. It wasn’t strange for an emperor to help raise a group of people in hopes that they would become his trusted special soldiers, but she found it hard to believe that Muyang,who appeared so young, would be able to help raise anyone to adulthood.

“By raise, you mean like he acted as their patron, right?”

“I’m not sure on the details.” Yat-sen slurped the rest of his drink and placed it beside his empty bowl. Streaks of brown sauce were still left over on the sides of the white ceramic, and he stared at them intently, his thoughts seemingly elsewhere. “I don’t know Emperor Drakkon much, and I don’t know anything about his life prior to … his ascension to the throne.”

The ascension to the throne—meaning, after he brutally murdered more than half of Yat-sen’s family.

“Has he always been so powerful?” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she glanced over at Commander Yao Bohai and General Liang Fang, who were in their own world speaking to one another. She looked at the other people at the table, but none seemed to be paying attention to her. “He seems to have powerful magic, but I’ve never heard of a commoner having?—”

Yat-sen grabbed her forearm tightly, his eyes wide with alarm as he scanned the table. “Do not,” he said under his breath, so quietly that it was almost lost in the sea of conversations around them, “evercall him a commoner.”

A shudder ran through her body and she found herself bobbing her head quickly. She was too scared to speak, even when he released her. That simple sentence—an accident, really—could sentence her to death, and she knew it. The emperor was a divine being, and saying otherwise was treason.

He cleared his throat and fiddled with the sleeve of his vermillion silk robes. “Anyone can become powerful with magic, commoner or not,” he said, his voice still quiet. “It has to do with how much yin and yang energy you are born with. The more balanced the two are within you, the more powerful you are.”

Once again, she felt like he was speaking in tongues she had no idea about. The very concept was foreign to her, but the vast majority of the population was ignorant when it came to magic, so she couldn’t feel too down on herself.

“So you’re saying that the emperor has a very balanced energy?”

He nodded. “Correct.”

“And everyone is born with these two energies?”

“Yes.”

“You seem to know a lot about magic,” she said, folding her hands on her lap. She had finished her meal already, as did he, but she didn’t want to leave just yet. She wanted to learn more about magic, even though her bones were heavy with fatigue and her eyes burned with sleepiness. “Can you tell how much yin and yang I have?”

An apologetic smile graced his thin lips. “I’m sorry, but I’m not good at reading people. You can ask His Majesty or any of the mages in the palace?—”

“Oh, no, thank you.” She was already shaking her head, an awkward laugh bubbling from her. “I’d rather not.”

She didn’t want Muyang to become even more suspicious of her. But she supposed she could ask Feiyu when she went back to the palace. She was sure he would know how to read her?—

She stopped those thoughts. There was no reason for her to know any of this. She was planning on leaving, not staying to learn magic.

“I understand.” He chuckled, and his dark brown eyes softened, his guard seeming to slip. “His Majesty is very … intimidating, as are the mages.”

“Oh, so you understand me!” She laughed too, and the tension in her shoulders seemed to ease. He was easy to talk to, and she didn’t feel like she needed to put air around him. “It’s difficult to be in his presence when he’s so powerful and his reputation … well, you know. Anyway, how do you know so much about magic?”

“I had to learn all about it since I was a child. The royal family—err, I mean, thepreviousroyal family—” Yat-sen cleared his throat. “The MuRong family has been blessed to have equal amounts of both yin and yang energy, which makes us verypowerful magically. But that doesn’t mean that nobody else is like that—there are thousands of commoners born with the same type as us.”

Daiyu bobbed her head, but a realization struck her in that moment. Didn’t that make him even more of a threat to Muyang? If Yat-sen, and presumably the rest of his living siblings, were able to learn powerful magic, wouldn’t that make them extremely threatening to Muyang’s reign? She could hardly see why the youth was even alive if that was the case.

“I’ve always been interested in magic,” he said. “I find it all so intriguing …”

“I think it’s fascinating too.” She thought of all the times Feiyu had warped in and out of places, and how jarring and intriguing that had been to see. A stabbing of guilt tightened her chest. She was sure her brothers would have loved to see magic up close, or even her elderly parents. Or her grandmother. Her smile soon turned sad, and she sighed. “I wish I could use magic. At least then I’d be able to see my family.”

Concern washed over the youth’s face. “Oh. I … I’m sorry.”

“It’s been weeks since I’ve seen them.” Her words barely squeezed out of her constricted throat and she tried to banish the guilt, sadness, and anxiety that came with thoughts of her family. “I wonder if they’re doing well without me.”

“I can … I can probably help?” He twisted the gold ring on his finger and cast a quick look around the room to see if anyone was looking, and then whispered, “I can let you see if they’re all right, at least.”

Daiyu’s eyes widened and she held her breath, unable to think properly as he smiled hesitantly at her. He was … able to help? As soon as those words registered, she grasped his hands tightly and excitedly. “Can you really?”

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