He followed the Emperor into the sitting room. He sat in the offered chair opposite his godfather.
The Emperor looked at him for a long time. "Here is what you will do. I am putting you as an advisor at the Academy. I want you to manage certain promising individuals and guide them in their courses and to the best instructors to bring out their talents. I have a house prepared for you on Stall St. You will live there. It is close to your parents and close to the Academy. You will also marry when I find a suitable candidate. This is what your Emperor commands."
Tate felt his throat close, he swallowed hard. He had to fight tooth and nail not to let his utter despair show on his face. He knew that this was the plan, he'd know that coming here.
So why did his heart feel like a stone all of a sudden, why was everything suddenly suffocating to the point he began sweating? There was something in his throat and no matter how many times he swallowed it wouldn't go down. He tried to breathe in but it sounded like a gasp. He shut his mouth and tried again through his nose, which was a little better.
He clenched his hands on his lap, hopefully it was too dim in the room for the Emperor to see his hands shaking.
"I'm not ignorant, Tate, I know this is not what you want. However, you cannot have what you want. Not only is it not in my power to give you, it is not in anyone's power. Therefore if you cannot do what you are best at, which I would have preferred as well. You will do what is good for the Empire. Is that understood?"
Tate nodded.
"If you understand then pull yourself together. I will send more instructions in the next few weeks. If I were you I would try my best to get used to the idea. It is not my wish for you to be miserable, but the Empire comes first."
Tate nodded again still not able to speak. He must not have done a good job at all of hiding his emotions. The Emperor stood from their very short conversation and left the room, patting him on the shoulder as he went.
Tate was no fool, the Empire comes first meant the Emperor comes first because the entities might as well be one and the same. He put his face in his palms and ran his fingers into his hair pulling it over and over again. He tried to use the slight pain to focus but it was no use. Why was he being like this? Why was this his reaction?
He'd know what this was about. He had planned to either suggest an alternative or just submit altogether. After what happened at the Dragon Corps it had seemed total submission was the only answer. He had planned to bow his head and quietly, with dignity, accept his fate. However, when the words had left the Emperor's lips there had been no hope of controlling himself. He had not felt such an intense feeling of suffocation since the day he'd woken up to remember that Aquana had died, that he was alone in his mind, that he would never fly again.
Now not only would he never fly again, but he would never be his own person again. In that moment a wild hatred for the Emperor burned in him. The feeling was so sudden and left him feeling so conflicted he was actually dizzy. He'd been raised to do what was asked of him. All his life had been in service to this Empire, to the Emperor. He had been raised to live a life of unquestioning loyalty and submission. Anything he achieved was the Emperor's achievement as well. He knew that he enjoyed a position with the most powerful man in the realm that no one else did. The day he'd said his vows as a Dragon Rider and then to his Emperor had further sealed that position in stone. In many ways, he had always been even more valuable to the Emperor than anyone but his direct heir.
Tate felt tormented as reality truly came crashing down around his ears. He had not asked for this. He had not asked to give his life for the crown, he had not been given a choice. It was expected from the day he was born, even more so the day he hatched Aquana, and even more so when he wiped out the Emperor's enemies.
It was a horrible thing to face, the truth. The truth that you had never belonged to yourself, not one moment in your entire life. No decision had been your own. Even training Aliya, which he had loved, was not of his own volition. The things he had taught her were the things he knew from experience would make her more valuable to the crown. The only thing he had done that was his own choice, and at the time he'd been half out of his mind, was stepping into the veil.
He was almost hyperventilating as his mind returned to that feeling. Those moments where he'd felt utterly free and extremely powerful. He'd hoped to return there, to recapture that feeling. Now, it all seemed impossible. When he stood in front of the Emperor, his life seemed impossible. Anything beyond the plans of the Emperor seemed to be behind a wall as tall as the sky. His grand plans to tell the Emperor that he wished to go back to the veil and do something, he wasn't sure what his excuse would have been, study, curiosity, something else, flew out of his mind when faced with the Emperor himself.
He stood and began pacing trying to calm down. He was grateful the Emperor had left and he didn't want anyone, not even the servants, to see him like this. The Emperor knew exactly what would happen, he knew people well. He knew that Tate would either accept it stoically or he would break apart.
Tate was breaking.
Everything around him was foggy, he walked back and forth back and forth. His unbandaged hand returned to under the shirt he was wearing, to his shoulder, and he began unconsciously scratching at the bandages covering his wounds. He couldn't stop.
Suddenly, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He stopped cold and just stared as if in a trance. How odd, his markings, which he never paid much attention to, were pitch black.
He stepped closer to the mirror hanging on the wall, his left hand left his shirt, and reached up to touch his neck. The sound of skin sizzling at the pain that followed in his fingertips was shocking.
"Agh!" He stumbled back. In the mirror, the man who looked back at him looked unhinged. His pupils were blown out until his eyes looked black, and the bond marks on his neck were black as soot and as he'd just found out burned when touched. His hair was sticking in every direction from where he had pulled at it.
He slapped himself, hard. When his palm came into contact with the black marks on his cheek and eye the pain in his palm almost made him scream. He clenched his teeth and did it again, and again, and again.
With each hit to his face, he was able to shove these feelings into a box. The pain helped his clarity. Slowly he noticed that the markings began to fade to what they had been before, almost invisible markings. He stumbled backward into a chair, leaned his elbows on his knees, and put his forehead onto the steepled sides of his hands. Bent over he forced himself to breathe in and out with exaggerated slowness.
"Stop." He whispered to himself, the sound ragged in the empty room.
"Stop. Stop. Stop..." He repeated the word in between each breath. That was how he slowly, piece by piece put himself back together. He was a man, after all, a great warrior, if it took string and glue he would pull himself back together. Even if he was full of cracks and missing pieces of himself he would carry on as if nothing bothered him. It was all he could do, or maybe it was all he knew how to do.
Finally, he sat up straight and then stood. He walked back to the mirror, his marks were barely visible, but the rest of him was still a mess. His cheek was red, there was no fixing that, his hair though. He gently combed his fingers through the strands and created a passably tidy appearance. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, at some point he'd cried although he couldn't say when. He took more deep breaths and then faced himself.
The person in the mirror may not be smiling but they at least looked sane. He nodded to that person, that was the person he needed to be. This was the only person fit for public consumption. The Tate that had almost lost it a moment ago was shoved into the deepest recesses of his mind and the door was slammed and locked.
Tate felt a little bit powerful at being able to push such a wild being back into the shadows. he could do this, he could be what he needed to be.
Suddenly, words from a long time ago came into his mind. "I just want my family to be happy. I never want to have to make that choice between my blood and my country." He wished his brother the best in fulfilling those words.
As for himself, his family was about to be made for him by his "country." He could do this. He told himself again. He would tell himself that every day if he must until he died. He would tell himself that every day until the version of him he had just shut away died at least. He nodded at himself in the mirror, sure of his ability.
He would not understand until much later that the parts he had locked away were now trapped in a room that had a door full of cracks.