Leviathan

once we got to Switzerland.”

“Yes, but I didn’t think we’d make it,” Volger said quietly. “Still, I suppose it’s time you knew the truth. Come with me.”

Alek glanced at the other men, who were hard at work unloading the walker in the dark. Apparently this secret wasn’t meant for everyone.

He followed Volger up the stone stairway set against the inner wall, which led to the castle’s only tower. It was an unimpressive round parapet jutting out over the cliff, lower than the stable rooftops, but with a commanding view of the valley.

Alek could see why Volger and his father had picked this place. Five men and a Stormwalker could defend it against a small army, if anyone ever found them there. Already the icy wind was blowing loose snow across the walker’s giant footprints, gradually erasing the signs that anything had come this way.

Volger looked out across the glacier, his hands deep in his pockets. “May I be frank?”

Alek laughed. “Feel free to put aside your usual tact.”

“I shall,” Volger said. “When your father decided to marry Sophie, I was one of those who tried to talk him out of it.”

“So I have your dismal powers of persuasion to thank for my existence.”

“You’re very welcome.” Volger made a formal bow. “But you have to understand, Alek, we were only trying to prevent the break between your father and his uncle. The heir to an empire can’t simply marry anyone he wants. Obviously, your father didn’t listen, and the best we could do was a compromise: a left-handed marriage.”

“A polite way to put it.” The official term was a morganatic marriage, which had always sounded like a disease to Alek.

“But there are ways to adjust such contracts,” Volger said.

Alek nodded slowly, remembering his parent’s promises. “Father always said that Franz Joseph would give in eventually. He didn’t understand how much the emperor hated my mother.”

“No, he didn’t. But your father understood something more important, that a mere emperor isn’t the last word in these matters.”

Alek looked at Volger. “What do you mean?”

“On that trip two summers ago we didn’t just tour old castles. We went to Rome.”

“Are you being obscure on purpose, Count?”

“Are you forgetting your family history, Alek? Before Austria-Hungary existed, who were the Hapsburgs?”

“Rulers of the Holy Roman Empire,” Alek dutifully recited. “From 1452 until 1806. But what does that have to do with my parents?”

“Who crowned the Holy Roman Emperors? Whose word invested them with royalty?”

Alek narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me, Count, that you met with the pope?”

“Your father did.” Volger pulled a leather scroll case from a pocket of his fur coat. “The result was this dispensation, an adjustment of your parents’ marriage. With one condition: that your father keep it a secret until the old emperor passed away.”

Alek stared at the scroll case. The leather was beautifully worked, decorated with the crossed keys of the papal seal. But even so, it looked too small to change so much. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“It’s signed, witnessed, and sealed with lead. With the power of heaven it names you as your father’s heir.” Volger smiled. “A bit more impressive than a few gold bars, isn’t it?”

“One document gives me an empire? I don’t believe you.”

“You can read it if you want. Your Latin is better than mine, after all.”

Alek turned away, gripping the parapet. A sharp edge of broken stone cut into his fingers. Suddenly he could hardly breathe. “But … all this happened two years ago? Why didn’t he tell me?”

Volger snorted. “Aleksandar, you don’t trust a mere boy with the greatest secret in the empire.”

A mere boy … The moonlight on the snow was suddenly too bright, and Alek squeezed his eyes shut, his whole life unwinding inside him. He’d always been an impostor in his own house, his father unable to leave him anything, his distant relatives wishing he’d never been born. Even his mother—she was the cause of it all. She’d cost him an empire, and somewhere deep down that fact had always stood between them.

How could the abyss that had defined his life disappear so suddenly?

The answer was, it hadn’t. The emptiness was still there.

“It’s too late,” Alek said. “My parents are dead.”

“Making you first in line for the throne.” The wildcount shrugged. “Your granduncle may not know about this letter, but that doesn’t change the law.”

“No one knows about it!” Alek cried.

“I certainly wish that were true. But you saw how doggedly they’ve hunted us. The Germans must have found out somehow.” Count Volger shook his head slowly. “Rome is filled with spies, I suppose.”

Alek took the scroll case, his fist closing tight around it. “So this must be why my parents were …” For a moment he wanted to throw it from the battlements.

“That isn’t true, Alek. Your father was killed because he was a man of peace, and the Germans wanted war. You are simply a postscript.”

Alek took a deep breath, trying to fit himself into this new reality. Everything that had happened in the last two years had to be rethought—all of these plans his father had made, knowing this.

Strangely, a small thing troubled him most. “All this time, Volger, you’ve treated me like …”

“The son of a lady-in-waiting?” Volger smiled. “A necessary deception.”

“My compliments,” Alek said slowly and evenly. “Your contempt was most convincing.”

“I am your servant.” Volger took one of Alek’s hands in both of his and bowed. “And you have proved yourself worthy of your father’s name.”

Alek pulled away. “So what do we do with this … piece of paper? How do we let people know?”

“We don’t,” Volger said. “We keep your father’s promise and say nothing until the emperor dies. He’s an old man, Alek.”

“But while we hide, this war goes on.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Alek turned away. The freezing wind still blew against his face, but he could hardly feel it. He’d spent his whole life wishing for an empire, but he’d never realized the price would be so high. Not just his parents, but the war itself.

He remembered the soldier he’d killed. Over the next years there would be thousands more dead— tens of thousands. And he could do nothing but hide here in the snow, clutching this piece of paper.

This frozen wasteland was his kingdom now.

“Alek,” Volger said softly, gripping his arm. “Listen …”

“I think I’ve heard enough for one night, Count.”

“No, listen. Do you hear that?”

Alek glared at the man, then sighed and closed his eyes again. There was the sound of Bauer chopping wood, the moan of the wind, the ticking of the Stormwalker’s metal parts still cooling. And somewhere out on the edge of his awareness … the rumble of engines.

His eyes sprang open. “Aeroplanes?”

Volger shook his head. “Not at this altitude.” He leaned out over the parapets and scanned the valley floor, muttering, “They can’t have followed us. They can’t have.”

But Alek was sure the sound came from the air. He squinted into the icy wind, until finally he saw a shape forming in the moonlit sky. But what he saw made no sense at all.

It was huge, like a dreadnought flying through the air.