The standing table they’d occupied was littered with empty parfait glasses, bottles, and other vessels for alcohol, and Raksha had just finished his second fowl leg when the discordant thumping and shrieking the nobles called music cut off. A bright spotlight fell on him, then. It also encompassed Sadea, who was blinking and swaying as she struggled to stay on her feet.

He did the only thing that made sense: wipe his greasy fingers and mouth on the white tablecloth, pulling up one of its corners to accomplish the latter. Then he shook Sadea by the shoulder.

“Hey!” Raksha hissed. “Something’s happening!”

“Huh? Whuzzat?” Sadea slurred. Raksha caught her by the scruff of the neck before she slid off the table.

“Behold, my friends, the Hegemony’s champions! Killers of mutants, immolators of heretics, slayers of demons! I present to you, Sadea Horatius and Raksha of the Conflagration!” Antonius’s voice rang from across the fancy chamber.

Raksha’s gaze shot to the speaker. The former Hegemonic Lord stood on a raised dais, his arms raised high. He, too, stood in the circular white radiance of a spotlight. They’d met, briefly, at the base of his palace, before uniformed serfs had ushered Raksha and Sadea into an elevator.

He recalled Leona mentioning how Antonius’s reign had spanned nearly two hundred years, but the former Lord’s face was unlined with age. He had slicked his platinum-blond hair back across his skull, and he hid the lower half of his face beneath a neatly trimmed beard.

Antonius’s clothes looked expensive. A black jacket, all sharp angles, purple stripes, and shiny buttons, stretched from his shoulders to just below his hips. A strip of red silk hung from his neck midway down his white shirt, which was also silk, as were his dark trousers. His soft leather boots gleamed beneath the spotlight.

The former Lord wore a sword at his belt. The jeweled hilt and pommel of his blade swayed as he spoke. “They are here at our new Liege Lady’s behest. God bless her! Amen!”

The nobles echoed Antonius’s “Amen” with manic enthusiasm. Raksha felt dozens of eyes on him, as many of them predatory as curious or admiring in their regard.

“My friends, on this night of revelry, I must beg your indulgence and forgiveness by bringing up a topic all of you will find dry and humorless: serfs,” Antonius continued. A few scattered groans rolled across the crowd, but the nobles dutifully returned their attention to their former Liege Lord.

“You know as well as I do that serfs are never content with their rightful toil. This is a fact of life, as immutable as the sun’s passage across the sky. But here, in Neo-Mizuru, even when tasked with the God-given duty of feeding our province, the serfs’ complaints never cease, and their demands accrue by the hour. Can anyone who walks in God’s light not be affronted by their audacious ingratitude? By their impious selfishness?”

“No!” many nobles roared, equal parts of anger and amusement evident in their voices.

“My friends, it is our lot, the nobility’s, to shepherd the Hegemony’s teeming, ignorant masses and to ensure that their lives are spent in blessed productivity, and for two centuries, with your assistance, I have done so, as the Lord and Master of this province!”

“Antonius! Antonius!” several noblemen began to chant, pumping their fists into the air.

“But my service in this capacity is done.” Antonius lowered his voice, bringing down to a monotone of mock respect. “I make way for younger, fresher blood, one who possesses a more fiery heart and who wields a fiercer hand in battle. I, like all of you, my friends, am now a vassal and subject of Hegemonic Lady Leona Belisarius. God bless her.”

Scattered murmurs of “God bless” echoed across the room.

“Even now, she goes to war in our defense. Look toward the southern border, and you will find her banner flying in the wind, her loyal warriors marching by her side, her eyes burning with the resolve to shield us, her loyal subjects!” Antonius pointed as he spoke, though Raksha didn’t know if he was actually pointing south. “In her absence, the task of ensuring the gears of industry and toil turn smoothly falls to us, my friends. And until recently, we have been doing a commendable job.”

The former Lord nodded to a nobleman wearing a bright green hat adorned with red feathers. “Calvus! Didn’t you round up and incinerate that lot in facility #4971?”

“Yes. Damned serfs were talking about a union.” Calvus grinned. “They shut up real quick when my men stuffed them and their families into the furnaces.”

“Fabia!” Antonius cast his gaze to a noblewoman in a silk dress that showed off pretty much her entire bosom. “You were magnificent in quelling that food riot last week! Luring the vermin into a warehouse and then gassing all of them was truly ingenious. All of us stand to learn from you.”

Fabia tittered. “You’re too kind.”

“If you start a fight now, we’re going to have to kill everyone here, you know?” Sadea mumbled as she swayed into a drunken lean against Raksha’s side. “Take a deep breath and try to relax. Or not. We can just slaughter the lot, loot their bodies, and tell Leona they were all traitors.”

Raksha realized that his fists were clenched so tightly that the whites of his knuckles showed. He tried to focus, letting his rage bleed out with every breath. Beginning a massacre now would not lead him to the Tree of Hearts’ fruit.

“But now, difficulties have emerged beyond our capacity to manage with our usual finesse and aplomb.” Antonius dropped his voice to a hissing, conspiratorial whisper. “I speak of heresy, of impure and unclean abominations taking root in Neo-Mizuru, of mutants sowing discontent and chaos among the weak-willed masses we shepherd, spreading their foul taint into every soul that would allow it to take root.”

“From these vile seeds, violent dissidence has sprung forth. Already, several of us have been slain in our homes, our household guards overrun and slaughtered by mutant hands and heretical sorcery. Our enforcement patrols have been ambushed and annihilated, our personal repositories of wealth raided. And when we reach out with vengeful hands, our assailants are nowhere to be found, their trails lost amidst serfs who shelter and succor them in the misguided hopes of bettering their lot.”

“And so, my friends, we arrive at the point of my speech tonight. We have come together to celebrate Hegemonic Lady Leona’s champions, mighty killers both, who will root out the heretical foulness that plagues Neo-Mizuru and restore our home to its rightful state. By the blood they shed shall they illuminate to the discontent serfs the folly of their dissidence and return their hearts and minds to our stewardship.” Antonius swept his hand across in a gesture that encompassed Raksha and Sadea. “My friends, I present to you once more, Sadea Horatius and Raksha of the Conflagration! Defenders of the Hegemony!”

Thunderous applause erupted from the nobles. It was only then that Raksha noticed how they’d given him and Sadea a wide berth, forming a sizable ring of empty space around them despite the press of bodies everywhere else. Not a single noble stood close enough to be caught in the spotlight.

And so when the chamber’s wall panels and ventilation grilles were kicked in, and dark-clad figures swarmed out, converging on them with blades in their hands, Raksha wasn’t very surprised at all.

“Ah, shit.” Sadea hiccupped. “I could really use a drink right now.”