Prince Alexander swept his eyes over his strategoi. “Hadrian Marlowe is many things, Leonid. Mad, yes. Arrogant, certainly. But faithless?” He shook his head. “Father—my Imperial Master, I should say—always said you were a sword without a handle. I say you’re nothing but the edge.” “I have been called much worse,” I said, not faltering under the prince’s empyrean stare. “Command suits you, Alexander.”
