Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #19 October 2015 | Page 11

would pull it out, but after a weak tug he let go. Mikkel tasted tears and realized he was weeping.

“Captain, what are you doing?”

“Please,” the emperor choked. “Please.”

Mikkel did not answer. He moved around the
flower-laden corpse of the empress. You wanted to die,
Little Sun, he thought.
“Put the weapon away,” Alliot ordered. “Captain! Mikkel!”

Alliot coughed once more, spattering his
murderer with blood. Then he shuddered and his legs
collapsed beneath him. The smell of shit mixed with
the smell of death and roses.

The emperor took a step backward and
thumped against the wall of the tower. His eyes widened, went wild with fear. Mikkel remembered the
bright curtain of blood pouring from Alliot’s nose.
He remembered the lace of his daughter’s eyelashes against her fat baby cheeks. He remembered his
grandson’s gap-toothed smile.

Mikkel did not bother to remove his sword
from the body of his lord. He walked back to the chair
beside the empress and sat down in it. His hands were
bloody, he saw, and the clothes Alliot had so carefully
chosen for him were stained. The legends were not
true, he thought. Even when bathed in the blood of his
emperor, he did not feel healed.

Mikkel drew back his arm and plunged the
sword hilt-deep in Alliot’s belly.

The crystal appeared at the base of the door,
climbing the wood, spreading to the walls like a shining malignancy. It covered the tile and the bottoms
of his shoes. It took the edge of the bier, encasing the
flowers as if they had frozen. The crystal swallowed
the empress’s feet, then her gown, then her hands. As
glass filled Mikkel’s mouth and nose, he thought, we
will all be perfect now.

Bright blood poured over gasping lips and
down the lightly bearded chin. It was hot on his hands,
and for a moment Mikkel wondered if his sins had
caught up with him, if he was burning. Alliot reached
up to wrap his fists around the sword’s handle as if he

11