This place looked more like a lawyer’s office crossed with an ancient Asian antiquities museum. The walls were lined with shelves full of books, scrolls, weapons, vases, and Spirit apparatuses, and a huge dark wood desk covered in maps and jade books stood at the center of the room.
Leaning over the desk was a cross between a bipedal Komodo dragon and one of those World Strongman competitors, bracing himself with both enormous arms. He looked like a careless flex would make his fancy tailored suit burst into threads around him. An air of intensity and authority surrounded him, almost as strong as the pressure Sanya-ketsu had put on us in the dream pod room, except his didn’t seem intentional, like it was just an aura he gave off.
“The Death cultivator and his entourage from Van Diemann, Your Excellency,” Sanya said, bowing at the waist.
Rali and Kest were the first ones to get down on their knees and press their foreheads to the floor, which reminded me to do the same thing. On my left, Warcry grunted as he folded his prosthetic leg under him.
Papers shuffled, then jade clicked. The Emperor wasn’t in any hurry to acknowledge us, at least not before he got everything settled the way he wanted it.
Finally, he came around the desk and perched on the corner in front of me. His shiny black shoes were so close to my face that I could smell the polish.
“Sit up,” he said in that almost-Russian accent. When we straightened up, he was staring down at me with flat lizard eyes. A forked tongue slithered out and tested the air. “Grady Hake, yes? Not much cultivated for man who can kill hundreds in single Spirit attack.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I went with the truth. “I’m new at this, Your...” I couldn’t remember what Sanya had told us to call him, so I went with, “Your Almightiness.”
“Carpet bomb approach is only useful sometimes,” he said. “You can direct your attacks to single target, yes?”
“Yes, Almighty Emperor.”
“What about scattergun tactic? A handful of targets—eight, ten—while avoiding certain other targets. You can do this?”
That one I wasn’t so sure about. “Maybe?”
I didn’t like where this was going, but the Emperor wasn’t giving anybody a chance to answer any questions he hadn’t asked. Before I could say anything about not wanting to become his right-hand serial killer, he shifted focus across the room.
“The Selken twins from the traitor’s line.” He appraised Rali and Kest, then turned to Warcry. “And meat roach war hero’s estranged offspring. Sanya tells Takeshi you are all extremely powerful, both alone and as team.” The Emperor glanced at Rali and frowned. “Or were at one point, yes? Unfortunately, Dragons have no use for broken Spirit sea fighters.”
Warcry’s lips pulled back in a snarl, but he managed not to say anything that would get us all beheaded.
“Almighty Emperor,” Kest said, bowing her face to the floor again as she spoke. “Rali will be powerful again. It’s only a matter of time before we make a breakthrough and discover a way for him to cultivate.”
“Eight-Legged Dragons didn’t become strongest gang in galaxy by making allowances for weakness, Metal cultivator,” the Emperor rumbled.
“Of course not, Your Excellency. Forgive my outburst.”
“Takeshi knows your work, Selken. You spy on the Technols for us, yes? Which of the Shinotochi planets were you stationed on when you used platinum favor card to negotiate this meeting?”
“Shinotochi-Sarca, Your Excellency,” she answered without raising her head.
He nodded his scaly head. “Did you discover what these Technols search for on Sarca?”
“No, Your Excellency. The matter your favor card was used to resolve came up and I was forced to attend to it first.” She meant saving my butt from getting executed by the Shogun and taking Rali and Warcry down with me. “I’m only considered a probationary member of their organization, so I wasn’t given a full briefing on what we were looking for, only tasks to complete for my superiors.”
Emperor Takeshi-ketsu grunted, then stood up and went back around his desk.
“Stand,” he said.
We did.
“Gang war is coming. Not just between Dragons and Heavenly Contrails—” He glanced at me like, Thanks for that, by the way. “—but between Dragons and greatest enemy, Technols. Technols are encroaching into heart of Dragon territory. Is direct insult to Eight-Legged Dragon authority in Shinotochi system.
“Wearing guise of ruins salvagers, they are delving into Sarca’s deepest jungles,” he said, shuffling through a stack of what looked like satellite photos and overhead shots of stone ruins. “Technols we take alive fry their circuits—poof—before can tell us what they are looking for.”
The Komodo Strongman Emperor looked at us. “Legends exist of powerful prehistoric weapon lost to time in Shinotochi system—is part of reason we took this system in first place—but no one knows what weapon is. Technols must have new information to steal into Dragons’ territory so boldly.” He straightened up and locked eyes with Kest. “You left Technols in good standing?”
Kest nodded. “Yes, Almighty Emperor. When the favor card matter came up, they gave me a two-week leave to go to Van Diemann and do what I could for my brother. I’m supposed to pick up where I left off when I get back.”
“You return to Technols tomorrow,” Takeshi-ketsu said. “Complete probationary mission and learn for what they are searching.”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” Kest said, bowing deeply. “However, if I could make a request?”
All the air went out of the room, and Warcry, Rali, and I looked at Kest like she’d lost her mind. This wasn’t the time or place for her to act like...well, herself.
But the Emperor just waved a scaly hand at her. “Ask.”
“Since you have no use for Rali, might my twin return to Sarca with me?” she asked. “It would legitimize my claim that I went to Van Diemann
