I bit my lip and stared at the weeping statues.

The entrance to the catacombs was cold, dark, and intimidating, but it wasn’t the source of my hesitation. I had been loitering for an hour in these decrepit tunnels because I was afraid of stories and rumors, and whispers in the dark.

My cousin told me that he and a few of his friends had actually been inside, but I didn’t believe him. When I was a child, my mother scared me with fairy tales about the witch of the undercity, but I didn’t believe her either. It was all so ridiculous, so fanciful.

But the history books spoke plainly: a powerful warlock had tried to usurp the sovereign throne, and as punishment she had been killed. Her ghost was sealed in the old catacombs, and we were all forbidden to venture into them.

I was an Augustine; petty rules like that weren’t supposed to apply to me. But I was still afraid. Afraid to die, mostly. A bit of power wasn’t worth death. Maybe.

Dimly, in the distance, I heard someone moving. That was the last push I needed; I ran between the statues and into the warlock’s lair.

Her lair was filled with broken adornments, torn pages, and decades-old bodies. Cold light flickered at the edges of my vision, and I knew that the ghosts of those fallen disciples still lurked. I ran faster.

In a dusty cathedral, deep underground, I found her.

The Usurper stood in front of a broken altar with her hands clasped behind her, visible through her translucent body. She smiled as I approached.

“Long has it been since a supplicant came before me. You are young, frail, but spirited too. Desire trembles beneath your cloak of fear. Who are you, child?”

I raised my head high and dug my nails into my palms to keep from quivering. “I am Bellistrix Avicus Augustine, a noble-born kindred. Many Lords in the city know my name, and I am heir to a great legacy.”

The ghost clicked her tongue and swept towards me, gliding across the stone floor. She floated a few inches above it, never quite touching the ground, and she moved like no ghost I’d ever seen. Too fluid, too predatory, as if being a ghost was somehow more natural than the motions of the living. She seemed more at ease being dead than ghosts who had been that way for centuries.

She raised a cold hand to my face and I flinched. She laughed. “Pretty little creature, that is not what I asked. You tell me of your parents and your peers and your overlords, but that is not who you are. Is it?”

I stared at her. I didn’t know how to answer her question.

She laughed again. “Lacking an identity, I see. Perhaps you can answer something else for me, Strix: why are you here, in my domain?”

That I knew. “I want power. I want… I want to be powerful and respected. I want to change the world, but nobody will listen to me. They say I’m just a child. They say I should wait and make my name slowly, but that’s not what the greats did. Nobody became Empress by waiting.”

Interest gleamed in her cold, dead eyes. “And you think I can teach you that power?”

“My books tell me you were a warlock without equal. They say you were stronger than every mage in the city. But they won’t tell me why you were so strong, or what forbidden knowledge you had that made you dangerous. They all just say you were a heretic and a witch.”

“And what do you say?”

Resolve crept back into my words and gaze. “I say a witch is just someone who’s a threat to the powerful.”

The ghost chuckled, and her voice echoed through the cathedral. “You’ll do, lordling. You’ll do. My name is Caligula, though I’m sure you know that. I will teach you the dark arts, the magic that all your nobles and royals are afraid of. I’ll make you strong.”

I smiled.

I scowled. “Why isn’t this working?”

Caligula eyed me with distaste. “Because you lack resolve.”

Our captive whimpered within his cage and I hit him to shut him up. I’d found a slave stealing food, and rather than report him I offered him a second chance. That was a lie, obviously, and now he huddled in chains.

“Tell, me, Strix, where did you find this… slave?” Her lip curled on the word.

“I told you to stop calling me that. And I found him stealing food.”

“From where?”

“The kitchens. Where else?”

Caligula’s voice was raw with scorn. “And why were you in the kitchens, lordling?”

I swore internally. “I was-”

“Lying is futile, my erstwhile apprentice. You lost your resolve. You ate.”

“It was just a little morsel!” An apple or three.

Caligula swept away from me without another word. I glared at the slave. His fault.

“I tried, warlock. But my stomach was eating me alive. I just needed a bit of relief.”

“You failed to understand the exercise.”

I growled with frustration. “What is the point of all this? I didn’t need to starve to learn sorcery or glamour.”

“Weak magic. Lesser magic. That is why. Consumption can only be born of hunger. You are a precious, lovely, spoiled little thing, and if you cannot break that mold, you will never be strong. You will always be like them, like your parents and your cousins.”

I bristled and clenched my fists. “I am so much more than them. Our family hasn’t had a proper Lord in generations, and I’m going to be the next. I will be powerful.”

A ghostly fist slammed the nearest wall. “What do you know of power, lordling? Why do you seek such lowly heights when you could rule this empire? Your lack of ambition disturbs me – nay, it disgusts me. She who would be sated with a morsel is unfit for a feast! She who would settle at anything can never possess the world’s glories.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “What are you talking about, Caligula? You speak of madness.”

“And you speak of weakness.”

“The nobility is made of stepping stones. You can’t step from the lowest rung to the highest.”

“Then destroy the nobility entirely!” she roared. “End their charade! Remake this world and all worlds in your image!”

I took a step back. She wavered.

“Perhaps I was wrong about you. Perhaps you lack the heart for it. You will never want true power. Not enough to call upon my art.”

No. No, that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t abandon me. I needed it. This was my chance.

I felt a stirring. A calling. I turned to the slave and thrust a hand to his face, and with my magic I ripped at his soul.

Energy, little flickers and traces of cold green-blue light, drizzled out of him and swirled around my hand. The slave collapsed, and the light vanished, but I felt… renewed. And hungrier.

“I am not weak.”

Caligula turned to me and examined the scene with more interest. “Hope after all, then.” Her glimmer of approval evaporated as quickly as it had come. “But next time, don’t use a slave.”

I frowned. “Why? Nobody misses them.”

She didn’t answer me. Caligula just stared off into the distance, plotting something in her conniving ghostly head.

“I told you, no more slaves.”

“It was a just a snack. You told me tonight was important, that I would need every ounce of strength.”

I’d traded in my elegant gown for black cloth, tight-fitting but flexible. My hair was tied-back, and my knife was in easy reach. Caligula was ignoring my new outfit and focusing on a minor detail.

She shook her head disapprovingly. “Your dismissal of them is dangerous and foolhardy.”

I rolled my eyes. “They’re just slaves. They can’t fight back. What’s a slave ever done?”

Fire flashed in her eyes. “Much more than you understand, apprentice.”

“Can we just get to the part where you tell me what’s so important about this session that you had me get all dressed up?”

Her venom didn’t settle. “Not if you continue to defy my teachings and act so recklessly.”

I clenched my fists and let out a guttural cry of frustration. “What is it with you and slaves? They’re not even kindred, they don’t matter.”

“They are kindred.”

I stared at her. “What are you- what are you talking about? No they’re not, they’re from other worlds and don’t have magic. They don’t even leave ghosts.”

Caligula swept towards me and cold energy swirled around her hands. “I was a slave. Shackled, bound, suppressed. But I was strong. My magic burned through their wards. I learned hunger. I learned to consume. And I took back what they stole from me.”

I didn’t know how to process that, so I just said, “Okay, no more feeding off slaves. I- I’m sorry. Now will you tell me what we’re doing?”

“You’re going to steal an Ossuary.”

Somehow, that came as more of a shock. “I’m what?”

“Most Ossuaries are either too weak to be useful or kept under too heavy guard to retrieve, but one is being moved. You will steal it, and you will devour its inhabitants.”

My gaze flitted to the shattered crystal on the altar. “An Ossuary. You had an Ossuary when they came for you. You were trying to do something with it. Trying to use it. Why?”

“The details are unimportant.” She waved her hand dismissively.

“No, no they fucking aren’t. I-” the weight of my actions hit me. I was standing there, arguing with the ghost of the empire’s greatest villain. What was I doing? “Are you just using me? Am I just a vector to power for you?”

“I am trying to mold you into something more than the nobility would let you become. Do not spit upon my charity.” Her words carried a dangerous edge, but I was fed up.

“Your charity? All you do is belittle me and insult my friends. You defend slaves, and you rail against the empire. I’m a part of that empire. I want to make it strong, improve it. Not burn it to the ground.”

“That is a mistake. Your empire is corrupt. There is no saving it. Only darkness and doom await your precious bastion of civilization. The slaves will rise. The Lords will slaughter each other over petty quibbles.”

“How do you know?” I glared at her with daring eyes. “How do you know any of that will happen?”

“Because I have drank of the waters of prophecy, and because all empires are doomed to fall. The only way your people will survive is if they grow. And that cannot happen if you allow stagnation to go unpunished. Fire is cleansing, Strix. The empire must burn.”

Hatred was building in my veins. Through gritted teeth I said, “And what of those souls? What role does an Ossuary play in your little bonfire scheme?”

“It is about power. It is always about power. With enough concentrated magic the impossible becomes possible, and the world can be fundamentally altered. You could become something… different. Something dangerous. A true warlock, not some pale imitation.” She narrowed her eyes. “You resist. You defy. Your imperialist heart betrays you. But I know that you crave power. That power can be yours, if you simply set aside the old world and embrace the new. Join me, Strix, and together we can reshape this world.”

I made my decision. “No.”

Caligula came for me, but I was ready. Hunger, called up from a well of power. The dark art, pouring through my veins. The third path, bursting out my hands and searing her ethereal form, crackling like fire against flesh.

She screamed, but wasted no time. Cold light surging towards me, wrapping around me, draining me. My knife, glowing red with fury, with sorcery, cutting through the lines of power. Another burst of hunger tearing into her, breaking her concentration. My feet on the ground, running, running.

She followed, a wolf wearing a kindred face. Her hunger devouring mine, devouring me, and I kept running. I couldn’t beat her. Just keep running.

Her magic crashed into me and I went stumbling. She was there, standing over me, snarling.

“Weak.”

She ripped out my heart, my soul, my self, I screamed. My magic, beating, pulsing, the well of power singing dark shrieks. The dark art was dying, diminishing, overcome by her power, her mastery. My magic cracked, and I reached through the cracks for the essence of it and I flung that at Caligula, and then she was screaming.

Her magic and my magic killing each other, eating each other like an ourobouros serpent. My chest was empty, broken, shattered, but I could breathe. I could run. No, I couldn’t run, but I could stumble. I lurched away from her, barely saw her, but she was wounded. Caligula screamed at me as I ran away, and I felt something snap.

I collapsed outside the catacombs and just breathed.

I was safe. For the moment, at least. But there was an emptiness, a hole that wasn’t healing over. I could feel my sorcery and my glamour, but the dark well was gone. Sacrificed, I guessed, to hold off Caligula. I’d hurt her, I could feel that, but she wasn’t destroyed. Just weakened.

I laughed, and laughed, and it was bitter and terrified. I cried and smiled. Fool girl, trying to take a shortcut. Dabbling with things she doesn’t understand. Playing with power. Caligula was right about me.

But I could learn. I could grow. I didn’t need her, or her magic. I just needed will, and drive, and wit. I had all of those in abundance.

There were other paths to power. Paths more suitable for my aims.

I reclined on a plush sofa and watched as my friends drifted in. Caria took her favorite chair, Cossus his goofy stool. Nero sat next to me on the sofa.

Nero waved a hand lazily and said, “Well, we’re all here. Care to fill us in now, Bell?”

I smiled thinly. “With pleasure. I have a proposition. One I think you’ll enjoy. If you like power, that is.”

Nero smirked, Cossus perked up, and Caria rolled her eyes. “Bit vague, isn’t it?” she said.

“My friends, we are the next generation. We are the scions of the empire. Our destiny is to rule. Why wait?”

Nero raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t another of your schemes, is it? I’m still recovering from the last botched party.”

“Nothing of the sort. No, this is a… long-term plan. It will be difficult, but if we pull it off we will be the most powerful people in the history of the empire. My friends, I propose a conspiracy.”

That caught their attention. Caria waved for me to continue and I smiled.

“Long has the Triumvirate existed as a stymie to progress. Long has the sovereign fought with their underlings. Long have we been bound by bickering and noble infighting. I propose an end to all that. The four of us can change the empire. We can rule it, bend it to our will, and send it in a new direction. We will forge a golden age to rival that of Aurelius herself.”

Caria eyed me skeptically. “How?”

“Simple enough. Three of us will become the new Triumvirate. In public we will be rivals, cold to each other, reserved. In private, we will use our connections and our political capital to help each other rise through the ranks and become natural picks for the Consul seats. The fourth member will be sovereign. Opponent of us all, but in secret, our ally. The court will be obsessed with garnering favor between us, but in truth every action they take will be in service to our schemes. Through guile, we will rule every man, woman, and child in the empire.”

Greed glittered in their eyes. Hunger touched their twitching fingers. I could feel the ambition lurking, their hearts beating in time with mine. My offer was an attractive one, seductive, and they were seduced.

First Cossus, then Nero and Caria. Many details would need to be hashed out, plans drawn up, schemes outlined. It would take time and effort to become powerful, but our conspiracy would make it all the simpler. Victory for one would be victory for all, but shrouded from prying eyes.

Our pact was struck. Our fate set.

The empire would be ours.