A month later the boy King Borcuse sat upon his throne.
Mitte was summoned to the palace. He found the new sovereign slumped at an angle upon the seat, eyes half-lidded as a procession of splendid dancers moved before him like a flock of brightly feathered birds.
"Your Grace," Mitte said, bowing.
Borcuse waved him up with languid fingers. "Speak," he murmured without turning.
"Might it be," Mitte ventured, "that of late Your Grace is not pleased with the burden of rule?"
"Pleased?" Borcuse snorted, then grinned faintly. "Pleased enough… yet—" He beckoned Mitte nearer with a careless motion.
Mitte came on quick, his footsteps small and obsequious, the posture of a man who has learned the angles of deference.
"Teacher," Borcuse confided, speaking as a child might to a favorite tutor, "I must read so many papers each day. There is no time for play. My back aches and I grow thin with worry. It seems to me a prince's life was the easier way. I would have every delight set before me: music and wine, silk and song. Let the realm be peaceful and the people sing, and I will enjoy the years the gods grant me. Tell me, sir—can such a plan stand?"
Mitte's brow tightened at the boy's childishness, then smoothed into a smile the shade of court Favor. Joy, thin as coin, creased his face. He answered with the careful flattery of a man who has learned what answers keep a head upon its shoulders.
"To a prudent sovereign, such things may be had," he said. "To a foolish one, they are poison. I speak plainly: Your Grace is young and without the rooted support one needs upon the imperial stage. Many houses and ministers will watch the throne and scent weakness. Some among them may covet your crown and put forward their own claim. Until those dangers are dealt with, there will be no ease for Your Grace."
Borcuse sat up, alarm breaking through his indolence. "Then what shall I do, sir?"
Mitte leaned forward as if offering a lesson in statecraft. His voice was low and steady, as if reading from a book of hard remedies. "Sire, you must make the law iron and the penalties terrible. Deal death upon the guilty and all who are related to them, root their houses from the earth. Remove ministers of the late king and estrange even kinsmen who might conspire. Raise the poor to station and cast down the born great. Replace your father's friends with those who owe you everything. In time every man about you will be bound by gratitude. With danger removed and debt repaid in blood and office, the realm will settle. Then, Your Grace, you may sleep without fear and indulge your pleasures."
The boy's eyes brightened like a candle snatched from the wind. The counsel suited him as well as any sweet wine. "May I entrust this to you, sir?" he asked quickly.
Mitte's smile widened until it showed the practiced gleam of a blade. "Sire, I have ever been your faithful servant. Leave to me the remaking of law and its execution. When I have done, you shall lie down carefree and take your ease."
"Ah—yes."
Borcuse had been about to lie back, but rose again with a small, impatient motion and turned to Mitte.
"That Providence Palace—didn't work on it stop when Father fell ill? Tell them to set the workers to it at once. Whenever I sit in that cold hall I think of Father and my eyes fill. I cannot govern with such sorrow on my heart."
He spoke the words like a child who has learned the manners of grief; there was no true grief in his face, only the neat mimicry of it.
Mitte inclined his head with the practiced deference of a man who has learned which answers keep a head upon its shoulders. "Your Grace," he said softly, "I have no quarrel with that wish. Yet the Chancellor may oppose it."
"My uncle?" Borcuse blinked. "Why should he stand in the way?"
"He has petitioned that work on Providence be stayed," Mitte said, measuring each syllable. "The tomb of the late emperor has consumed a great portion of the treasury. The coffers are thin. Laborers are scarce across the realm. The people grumble. To raise another palace of such excess while the common folk starve—it will anger men."
"Why should they do everything for Father, and nothing for me? I am the emperor now!" the boy protested, indignation bright and shallow.
Mitte's answer was smooth as oil. "Sire, you are the emperor. A direct command from you bends all who serve. Who would disobey?"
Borcuse's voice dropped, a tremor of uncertainty. "And if someone refuses?"
Mitte's face hardened a fraction; his tone grew cold as winter road. "Then…make them suffer the fate of men who defy the crown. An emperor who does not show his power courts disorder. This is the moment to make clear to all that you sit upon the throne."
The sudden cruelty in Mitte's voice startled the boy; he shrank inward like a thing chilled by wind. Mitte's expression melted at once into a softer thing; he stepped forward and took the child's hand.
"Fear not," he murmured, the gentleness of a tutor placed like a hand upon a scabbard. "I am your teacher. All I do is for Your Grace's will.
Hoch Mitte, chamberlain to the late Emperor Justin and tutor to the new sovereign Borcuse, bore titles that would make a nobleman proud. Yet his birth was anything but noble.
His mother had been a convict, and he himself had drawn his first breath amid the smoke and clamor of a workhouse built for those newly loosed from imperial prisons. He might have lived and died nameless, had not word reached Emperor Justin that within the slums of Zonne there dwelt a boy quick of wit and hungry for learning, untouched by the games of lineage and house. The Emperor had him brought to the palace, schooled him, and made him his personal attendant.
When, years later, Mitte broke the law of the realm by some misstep of ambition, it was Justin's own hand that signed his pardon. From that day forth, Mitte served more devoutly than any priest. The Emperor had raised him from the gutter, and in return, Mitte offered him his life, his mind, his very soul.
It was the Emperor who made him tutor to his favored son, the young Borcuse. For that alone, Mitte believed he would be loyal to Justin's blood until his final breath.
But now Justin was dust, and Borcuse sat the throne—a boy without measure or restraint, playing at sovereignty while the realm waited to be ruled. At first, Mitte's heart seethed with disappointment and fury. Such folly, such waste, in the hands of a child who thought of pleasure before duty.
Then, as the anger cooled, something darker settled in its place. Understanding.
The crown might rest upon Borcuse's brow—but power, true and silent, could dwell elsewhere.
And so, Hoch Mitte smiled once more. The same smile that had won him mercy from an emperor now became the mask of a man reborn in ambition. Beneath that calm face, thoughts coiled and twisted like serpents, whispering of laws to rewrite, nobles to break, and a kingdom to reshape—not in the name of a boy-king, but in his own.
The chancellor's manor was vast and quiet, save for the murmur of worried men behind the lacquered doors of its study. The air inside was thick with the scent of parchment, ink, and fear.
Barlog Solan, Chancellor of the Empire, sat among his allies—lords and ministers who owed their fortunes to his favor. Their voices pressed upon him like a rising tide.
"The imperial tomb was His Late Majesty's will. We had no choice but to obey," one said, hands trembling over a roll of accounts. "But to continue with the Providence Palace as well—my lord, the people will not endure it!"
"Aye," another added. "Let the works be halted—three years at least! Only then can the realm find its footing."
"And these executions," a third murmured, lowering his voice. "If His Majesty continues to spill blood so freely, the hearts of men will curdle with dread. We cannot govern through terror forever."
At this, Barlog stirred. His heavy brows drew tight; he rose and began to pace across the polished floor. The faint clack of his heels against stone silenced the room.
"Very well," he said at last, his voice grave as the toll of iron bells. "We shall go together to the palace and place your counsel before His Majesty."
Relief softened their faces—but only for a breath. The chancellor turned, eyes sharp as blades.
"However," he continued, "you will speak only of the palace works. Nothing of blood, nothing of the executions. That matter will not be raised."
Several men began to protest, but Barlog cut through them with a wave of his hand.
"The boy is young," he said. "New to the throne. As yet he has given but two commands—and you would see both undone? That is like plucking scales from a waking dragon. Tell me, who among you would dare keep his flesh afterward?"
The ministers fell silent, chastened. Barlog's voice softened, but only slightly.
"We move step by step. If the emperor heeds our words on the palace, then we may speak of harsher matters later. Do you understand?"
Murmurs of assent followed.
When the last of them departed, Barlog stood alone beneath the lamplight, his shadow long and crooked across the wall. He knew well what lay behind the boy's cruelty—it was fear. Yet to stand against it would be to lose everything he had built.
For a fleeting moment, the chancellor thought of another boy—the first prince, Sarbon Solan, proud and iron-willed, who had never feared to speak his mind. Had it been him upon the throne, Barlog wondered, would the Empire now be stronger?
He exhaled, long and low, and shook his head. Sarbon was dead, the crown had passed, and oaths once spoken could not be taken back. Such thoughts were as dangerous as open rebellion.
So Barlog turned down the lamp, leaving the room to its shadows—and to his silence.
In the great hall, a handful of old ministers stood before the throne, bent at the waist, their trembling voices weaving a tapestry of caution and plea.
Borcuse did not answer them. He merely called one name.
"Uncle Barlog. Do you, too, believe the construction of Providence Palace must cease?"
Barlog's tone was calm, but beneath that still surface flowed a quiet current of entreaty.
"Your Majesty, not cease — only delay. As Your Majesty well knows, the palace has been under construction since the late Emperor's youth. The work was halted and resumed more times than I can count. Even now, it remains far from completion. One reason, of course, is the staggering burden it places upon our coffers and our people. Even if the builders were recalled today, the palace would demand another five or six years at least…"
"Enough!"
The Emperor's voice cracked like a whip. The warmth drained from his eyes, leaving only the chill of affronted pride.
"I am Emperor now. Is this the gift you offer me on my ascension? Is this what you call loyalty to the late Emperor? Do you forget that Providence Palace was his command? I seek only to finish what my father began — to bring his vision to life. And that, you call folly?"
"Your Majesty, that is not our meaning—"
"Then why did none of you protest while my father yet lived? And now that I sit the throne, you find your tongues so sharp! Every word you speak cuts not only at me, but at his memory. Tell me then, what is it that festers in your hearts?"
"Your Majesty," one ancient counselor stammered, voice frail as old parchment, "none here would dare malign you or the late Emperor. We only beg Your Majesty to show mercy—to the people who bear this weight."
His plea stirred murmurs of agreement.
"Mercy," Borcuse repeated, his lips curling around the word like a snake tasting the air. "How noble you sound."
He exchanged a brief glance with Mitte at his side, then rose from the throne, his voice swelling through the hall.
"You speak as if gilded in virtue! Yet I am the Emperor! They are but common folk — born to serve! To labor upon Providence Palace, a work that shall echo through the ages, is their honor! And now you would lay your failures as governors at my feet, and call it wisdom? You shift your shame upon me — and upon the late Emperor — and still dare to call yourselves loyal sons of the realm?"
At that, the ministers fell to their knees, bowing so low their foreheads touched the cold stone floor.
"Never, never would we shirk our duties, Your Majesty! You know it well. When the late Emperor first decreed the building of Providence Palace, we stood with him — we followed his will!"
Borcuse's laughter came low and pleased. Seeing them tremble, he sank again into his throne, fingers tapping the armrest.
"Then tell me," he said, "what is it you truly believe? That what my father could do, I cannot?"
"That is not our meaning either…" Barlog's voice trembled despite himself. "Only that Your Majesty has but newly ascended the throne. To tax the people now, to drain their strength so soon — it may give rise to unrest…"
"Ha! Do not try to frighten me with phantoms! I am the Emperor — no peasant rebellion could ever shake me. Enough. I tire of this. The construction of Providence Palace shall proceed as planned. You may go."
Barlog's eyes burned red as he bowed, words dying on his lips. He looked once more upon the young ruler on the throne — proud, furious, unyielding — and lowered his head in silence.
"May Your Majesty's will be done."