>// ONE YEAR EARLIER

  My idea of a party was a bunch of people cutting loose, having fun, and generally leaving restraint at the door for the duration of the event. This party, though, was the furthest thing from my idea of a fun time that I was pretty sure I needed to come up with an entirely separate term for the scene I had found myself in. The room was opulent to the point of being overdone, the food was three times as expensive as my usual preferences while tasting only half as good, and the guests; prefects, senators, and other important and usually busy people from all across the Empire, all looked lifeless. Fake smiles and bored, soulless eyes filled the room along with superficial, random conversation which I had already blocked from my mind. This was a pretentious gathering, for pretentious boring people, and it sucked. The worst part? The party was supposed to be held in my honor, despite the fact that my distaste for this kind of event was rather common knowledge.

  Obviously, I wasn’t here to have fun, but at least I could try and make something of this mess before I got to work. My eyes raked over the pretentious display, taking the scenery in to try and occupy my mind. High vaulted ceiling, gold trim accents on the walls and heavy bulkhead doors. Holographic plants and art pieces decorated the room, occasionally shifting to other displays. Paintings of serene landscapes contrasted with chaotic battle scenes and runic poetry. Clustered around the room were the partygoers with their myriad styles of hair, and hair and eye colors and patterns all across the visible spectrum, Every guest present had pointed ears and horns protruding from their foreheads, including myself. The only consolation was that most of the people here wore clothes which, quite honestly, looked pretty cool. Various colors of kimonos with intricate patterns of various types, long leather coats with fur, and some of the women wore dresses which ranged from simple to excessively elaborate. However, as I took in my surroundings, I was soon snapped out of my observation.

  “Hey.”

  I heard a voice from my left as someone nudged me with their elbow, and I looked over at the familiar figure, who was around a foot shorter than me. Kane Shiran, my chief advisor and oldest friend, had been almost entirely silent since we showed up, just sitting next to me and drinking his favorite brand of Ironmooran Blood Mead in relative peace. “You alright?”, I ask with concern as I frown slightly. Kane had always been reserved and borderline cold, and I’d always had trouble figuring out the man’s mood at any given time.

  Kane ran his hand through his straight, shoulder length black hair and shook his head. “You’re really standing for this, Xylan? You’re the freaking emperor, just… say something about it right now.”

  I sighed and leaned back into the booth, locking my hands together behind my head and blowing one of my long bangs out of the way of my eye. “You know, would I really be here if I weren’t planning something?”

  Kane cringed ever so slightly, narrowing his cobalt blue eyes. “And thanks for reminding me, blondie.”

  I leaned in, lowering my voice so as to not draw attention. “Listen, Kane. The senate and most of the sector prefects know I can’t stand these events.”

  “And that’s important… why?” Kane cocked his head, replying with a hushed tone.

  I rested my arm over the back of the seat and narrowed my eyes. “A party like this for me specifically? Sticks out like a compound fracture. It’s not a party, it’s a show, which means the guy behind this is up to something.”

  My advisor leaned back, deadpanning. “You could have said that in a much less disturbing way, blondie. Got any ideas?”

  A knowing smile slowly formed on my face as I stood from the booth and looked over my shoulder down at Kane. “I’m going to try something a little… different.”

  “Please no,” he deadpanned dryly, still staring with that perpetually reserved look. “What?” I turn around and gesture openly with my hands. “I’ve done worse.”

  “You’ve done stuff that almost got us killed. Remember that custom spinal implant that you-”

  I cut him off, shaking my head. “You’re never letting me live that one down, are you?” Kane just shrugged as I took a step out into the so-called party and headed directly, with no hesitation, for the bar.

  One thing immediately stood out: the one person in the room who was taller than me. Leaning against the bar was an eight foot tall behemoth built like a brick wall. He shared my crimson eye color, but his hair was a much paler shade of blond and cut shorter despite still being pretty wild. His horns were also a deep red and visibly filed down for sharpness, with a tooth charm hanging from the left one. Both of his arms were cybernetic replacements, heavily armored with dark gray nanolaminate plating. The prosthetics in question were modeled after organic arms, which made him look even more muscular than he already was. His attire consisted of a tactical harness which he wore over his bare chest, and winter camouflage cargo pants. Two icy white pelts, likely the fur of a Greater Skyfox, were tied over his shoulders and around his waist. His massive hand held a traditional drinking horn from his home world, and he wore a goofy, drunken grin on his face: an expression I knew just as well as the man himself.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here, Seras.” I sat down as I greeted him, resting my elbow on the bar. “I didn’t know the Praetorate was invited.”

  “Hah, man of the hour, Lord Xylan Miirak!”

  Seras thumped his chest and immediately took a massive gulp of whatever he was drinking. Clearly he was at least a bit buzzed, though I knew his tolerance for alcohol nearly rivaled my own. I couldn’t even get slightly intoxicated. Considering the plethora of self-designed biomods which my body contained, not to mention the cybernetic liver, I doubted more than a few molecules ever made it to my nervous system.

  Before I could respond, the huge warrior had already continued speaking. “Nope, but I showed up anyway!” He grinned and nodded, taking yet another massive gulp of his drink. A party like this? Seriously? I shook my head and just barely managed to suppress a laugh.

  “The Praetor Seras Loken, Beast of Ironmoor, hero of Operation Krakenmaw, showing up uninvited to a boring party for stuck up politicians?”

  Crap. I could already feel the eyes on me as I turned around, crossing my arms. “What? Nobody here seems to be enjoying themselves at all.”

  Of course, I could already hear the loud, poorly concealed snort of humor from Seras. Yeah, good work Xylan, that could have been worded, and timed, in a much better way.

  The guests looked at each other and began exchanging words in hushed tones, all clearly concerned that I’d finally mentioned what everyone already knew. I didn’t bother turning up my hearing sensitivity or focusing on any of them in particular, but I knew what everyone was saying: they all saw it coming. My voice cut through the hushed whispers. “Not your fault, these events can have… let’s just say disappointing expectations.”

  Once again, the crowd had gone silent, every eye focused directly on me. I swear I could feel my hair blowing in whatever current the room’s air circulation had kicked up, and one of the two neck length bangs which framed my face had blown into my eye again. I reached up to adjust my hair as I smiled. “Just know I don’t like this stuck up crap either, so do yourself a favor and try to actually have some fun.” I paused, and smirked. “Or not, if you’re into that.”

  More hushed murmuring. I should have known. I leaned against the bar again before glancing over at Seras. “And now, we wait.”

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  A faint snap echoed through the room along with a slight gust of air as Kane appeared to blur from his seat in the corner and just appeared next to us. “Told you so,” the raven haired advisor dryly remarked.

  “Wait for what?” Seras chipped in, sounding slightly confused, before he took another huge gulp of his drink.

  “Well,” I began to explain. “A party like this, in my honor of all things…” I gesture to the crowd, where people had thankfully begun to lighten up. “…makes it pretty obvious something else is going on. You really think I showed up just to be respectful?”

  Seras gave a grin, the specific variety of which I knew all too well. He was expecting action, and I knew exactly what he was about to ask. I shut it down immediately. “No, Seras, you can’t just dismember the guy.” I shook my head, letting off a slight chuckle.

  “Hah, some other time then! Guess I’ll just get drunk instead.” He kept the menacing grin as he thumped his massive armored hand on the bar. “Aye, barman! Got any more mead?”

  I locked eyes with Seras as the bartender prepared what was probably the burly warrior’s tenth drink. “You’re on.”

  Drunk Seras wasn’t all that different from how the guy was normally, so I figured, why not humor him again? Without even turning my head, I shifted my hand back and my fingers closed around what I assumed to be my glass, since Seras was still chugging from his drinking horn, and as I looked over to Kane, I noticed he had his own and was just blankly staring at it. As I raised the glass, I noticed the liquid within was entirely black to a degree that put black coffee to shame. It looked more like crude oil, but even that didn’t do it justice. Black Mead. It was the strongest drink in the known universe, designed specifically to inebriate the most heavily augmented people and lethal to any baseline biology. For me, it may as well have been water.

  With a nonchalant shrug, I gulped down the entire glass of what could only be described as liquid absence of light in a single go. The taste was unimaginably strong, ten percent espresso, ten percent mead, and the rest pure ethanol with a hint of something I didn’t even recognize. Kane gave me a disapproving glance as I turned my eyes to Seras, who was holding his drinking horn out for another refill. I was about to do the same as I noticed a figure approaching from the corner of my eye. Well, that was much faster than I was expecting.

  “My lord?” The man of interest was looking at me, his right fist closed and over his chest. Though I hadn’t talked much with him outside of meetings, I recognized the voice as belonging to Seiko Tanaka, prefect of the Raijin sector. I quickly sized him up, confirming it was in fact who I thought. Slicked back brown hair, heavily trimmed blonde beard, slight tan, and a scar over his left eye which I assume was intentional and cosmetic. Left eye a vertical split of blue on the right and brown on the left, and right eye the opposite. He was dressed in a bright red kimono with metallic gold trim. In fact, it was probably actual gold threading through the fabric. Either way, the hairstyle made him look like a dork, and not the funny likable kind.

  Before Tanaka could finish the word “lord”, I casually waved two fingers and nodded at him. “At ease, it’s fine.” Judging from the concern on his face, I was pretty sure this was the guy behind the un-party, not to mention the possibility of a big head from his job as a core sector prefect. “You’ve got quite the arrangement, am I right?” I cocked my head, crossing my arms as I continued. I was going to absolutely grill this man until I heard everything he had to say. “I’d say it feels pretty performative, though.”

  “Performative? That is…” The prefect paused, as if trying to find the correct words. I was pretty sure he was actually trying to find the words least likely to piss me off. “With all due respect, that’s quite a stretch, my lord.”

  I leaned back on the counter, locking eyes with him, a slight edge rising in my voice as I continued to keep it cool. “Well, I think the guests would disagree.” I glanced over at Seras, who’d taken the opportunity to start chatting it up with some pretty lady and show off his iron liver. “Isn’t that right, Praetor?”

  “You got that right!” Seras shouted out a little too loud for comfort, raising his drinking horn in acknowledgement before immediately resuming his second favorite activity. Kane had taken up the couch, and he was sipping another drink while shooting me knowing glances.

  A bead of sweat ran down the prefect’s forehead, and I could make out the subtle tension in his facial muscles before he spoke again. “My lord, events like these need to be proper. You should understand as much as I do.”

  I couldn’t help but scoff at that. “Proper according to… who, exactly?” I raised an eyebrow, knowing I already had an opening. I was going to systematically dismantle Prefect Tanaka’s cover, and hopefully have enough time left over to mark this situation resolved in my schedule and finish turning this event into a real party before dusk hit. Considering his brain now appeared to be experiencing a lag spike, my odds were looking pretty good. As soon as I noticed, I just waited, my eyes boring into his, taking in the look of that definitely self-inflicted, fake tough guy facial scar.

  After a few seconds, he finally broke the silence, coughing up some words. “The people need to know we take our work seriously, my lord, we-”

  I cut him off. “Well, we aren’t doing work right now. We’re in a big room, with no current responsibilities, and there’s free booze.” It was then another thought slipped into my mind. The Raijin Sector’s annual budget. Not only was it a core sector, but Raijin itself was a massive business hub as well as a legion homeworld. I glanced across the room, locking eyes with Kane before I called out. “Hey, advisor. I need some advising.”

  That saying had been a running joke since the formation of the Empire itself, and Kane and I both knew exactly what it meant: that I needed his help to shut someone down. Kane didn’t stand up from the couch or even speak, just giving a slight nod of acknowledgement. Prefect Tanaka’s eye twitched. Seras even paused his flirting just to look over and grin, baring his filed-down canine teeth.

  “Remind me what percent of Raijin’s sector budget went surplus this year?” I cocked my head as I asked.

  “Five percent,” Kane responded, monotone.

  “And what, again, is Raijin’s baseline tax rate?”

  “Eight percent.”

  I slowly turned my head back to Prefect Tanaka, who had taken several steps back. “Wait, you paid for all of this… out of pocket?”

  The prefect nodded, taking a deep breath before answering. “Yes, my lord.”

  I shook my head, standing up from the barstool, looking down as I towered over him. “And you’ve been calling me that this entire conversation, despite the fact I said you didn’t need to.” Again, Prefect Tanaka froze up, and I was starting to have just a little bit more fun than planned. I glanced over to Kane again. “Hey, can you run some numbers?”

  “On it.” Kane acknowledged again, already pulling out his holo-tablet. And I heard footsteps, close by.

  “Anyway”, I began as I turned back. “I’d really appreciate it if you actually had fun, for-”

  Prefect Tanaka was already pointing at me and looking over to the crowd as he began to loudly address them. “I invite you to enjoy my hospitality, and look how our gracious emperor treats me!” Sure enough, every eye in the room was on him. Over in the corner, Kane nearly spit his drink out and I could tell his eyes were subtly glowing. Seras’s free hand twitched as he restrained his power claws from instinctively deploying.

  I rested my hand on my hip, stepped in front of Prefect Tanaka, and raised my voice. “Don’t mind this guy. He’s just upset that you’re having fun.”

  Seras raised his drinking horn and bellowed out, “You got that right!”

  More hushed talk among the crowd, this time with quiet laughter. I could tell they weren’t taking him seriously anymore. If the prefect had experienced lag spikes before, by now his brain was probably blue-screening.

  “If you’ll excuse me, my lord,” the prefect spoke up as he turned to me, face pale. “I have to go outside and take a call.”

  I shrugged and nodded, waving him away. “After that stunt, you probably need some fresh air. Come back when you look up ‘party’ in a dictionary.”

  Without another word, Prefect Tanaka turned and headed for the exit. A smile crept onto my face as I spoke quietly to myself. “Checkmate.”

  Contacts flickered through my vision as I pressed my index finger behind my left ear. The physical gesture was completely unnecessary, but old habits die hard. I sat back down on my barstool as I dialed the one person I reached out to when I needed problems solved quietly.

  A restrained, slightly rough voice with the edge of a man who had seen too much sounded through my aural implant. “This better be good, I’m in the middle of… business.”

  I paused to grab my drink and take a sip, before answering. “Yeah. Need some eyes.”

  The sound of something metallic being dropped or forcefully set down echoed through the line, before I heard a response. “You got me, I’m listening.”

  “Raijin Sector Prefect, Seiko Tanaka. He’s hiding something, and I need to know what.”