To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

Chapter One

The sky was crying again.

All around me, my world wept. Gray, icy tears caressed my skin, shivering cold in the late-­ summer heat. With deliberate steps, I passed the Fence that carved my city into halves, guarded by Roman soldiers and their white-­ knuckled grips on the guns that haunted our nightmares, ready to shoot me down over perceived slights.

I hated these men. Hated their stern, foreign faces and foreign attire from beyond the shimmering portal high in the somber sky that now joined our two realms. A glistening fracture, looming over my broken city like the all-­ seeing eye of a vengeful God who was not here to love and protect, but to torture.

To inflict unimaginable pain and suffering, as the Romans had for over two decades now.

Every day, I cursed this road, this fence, their loaded guns, and every trace of Rome that marred my world like a permanent stain.

Yet, I still bowed my head for them, still walked this road week after week, under hawk-­ like gazes, for the drug that killed my sister slowly, but without which she would die fast like a flower cut from the stem. At least with opian, Meiya might live another two, three, or even five years like Father had.

Without it, she might not live through the season.

Some Romans wore disgust and hate clear on their faces. Others wore smirks and lust.

One pursed his lips and let out a sharp whistle that made my spine flinch cold.

Death's magic thrummed quiet under my skin: embers ready to kindle into wildfire the moment I allowed it.

I had no reason to fear these men. Given my powers, I had no reason to fear anyone.

With an arch of my hand, I could dip into Death's realm of stark grays, pluck qi from their bodies until only corpses remained. A constant temptation—­ to take something from them the way they

had taken so much from us.

But Grandma had raised me to be cautious. A girl could never be too careful in this age of colonial destruction, where the peace between magic and science balanced at knife's edge.

I could kill one of them—­ perhaps two or three if I was lucky. But I couldn't kill every Roman who marched this city. Their heads high with arrogance, entitled to claim anything and anyone they pleased.

Though years had passed, memories remained vivid like a fresh dream: the first time I witnessed one of my own slaughtered in cold blood under Roman hands.

I was still a child and Father was still alive and kind as he'd ever be.

It was murder by gunshot, execution-­ style. And the fingers that had pulled the trigger belonged to none other than their eldest prince—­ Valentin Augustus. Just three years older than I was, he'd shot a man dead before hundreds of witnesses for the audacity of placing soiled hands on the prince's pristine clothes, for daring to beg him for the pennies he kept carelessly in pockets. Pennies that would enable a father to feed his starving child.

If I closed my eyes, I could still feel my father's shaking hands holding mine, smell the fear that radiated from everyone in that crowd like a foul stench. The very fear that emanated from my own skin the moment I heard that sky-­ splitting bang. A primal thing from deep in my belly.

Evil ran in all Roman veins common as blood, but Valentin Augustus was rumored to be something worse.

The city whispered of his brothers, too.

The middle prince who lived on Pangu soil with Valentin, but no one had ever seen him venture beyond the Fence.

The third and youngest prince, who was a bloodthirsty military protégé and the only prince who remained in Rome as their grandfather's right hand.