“Perhaps you would follow me to the study, where we might converse more comfortably?”
Sebastian reminded himself of his mother’s advice to remain cordial and pleasant to this man who had ordered his father’s death. “Please, uh, Commander, lead on.”
He followed Vittorio down a hallway into a small, cozy room with walls lined in bookshelves and a few mounted animal heads. There were two leather chairs set beside a hearth that had already been lit. It occurred to Sebastian that perhaps the commander had thought through and planned much of this. Although the idea was a little unnerving, Sebastian was still without a coat, and therefore very grateful for the warmth as he sat down beside the fire.
Vittorio sat across from him, placing his hat on his knee as he looked earnestly at Sebastian.
“I hope that perhaps you and I may speak openly, man to man.”
Sebastian couldn’t help feeling a tingle of pleasure at the sentiment of camaraderie. Whatever else Commander Vittorio might be, he was a picture of masculine virility. The perfect soldier, just the sort Sebastian had fantasized about becoming when he was a boy.
“Er, yes.” Sebastian straightened in his chair, and tried to match the commander’s bearing. “That is why I asked my mother to allow us this privacy.”
Vittorio nodded approvingly. “I trust that she has now acquainted you with at least the general nature of my interest in you.”
Just as Sebastian’s mother had suspected. “You want a magic user in your army?”
“Ah!” Vittorio raised a finger and smiled. “Not merely a magic user. A magic user with profound natural talent, and one who is both Izmorozian and Aureumian and can therefore represent the interests of both peoples. Although the empire began in Aureum, the empress, in her benevolence, believes it should represent all its subjects, not just those from Aureum. That includes the people of Izmoroz as well.”
“That’s not what my sister said.” The words leapt from Sebastian’s mouth before he could stop them. It was true that Sonya often railed against the empire, believing it to be a threat to the “true” Izmorozian way of life. But she was the last person he wanted to talk about.
“Yes, your sister.” Vittorio tapped his mustachioed upper lip thoughtfully. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”
He shrugged. “Half a year at least. She lives for long periods of time out in the wilderness communing with foxes, or whatever it is she does out there. Why?”
Vittorio waved his hand dismissively. “It is of little import at present. What I’m far more interested in is whether you will heed the summons of Empress Morante and serve the Aureumian Empire.”
Sebastian struggled with how to respond. He had never truly relinquished those childhood dreams of military gallantry. Had he known about the summons, he would have begged his father to allow him to enlist. But his father had sacrificed his own life to prevent it, and surely there had to be an important reason he had done so.
Vittorio held up his hand. “I am perhaps overeager. Forgive me. Might I share something from imperial history that I think would interest you?”
Again the commander’s solicitousness struck Sebastian. It was so unlike his father, or really any man he’d ever known in Izmoroz. “Of course, Commander.”
“It’s doubtful that you would remember this, since you were only an infant at the time, but about fifteen years ago, a terrible pox spread across the entire continent, killing countless citizens all over the empire. Can you imagine? The mighty army of Aureum felled by an invisible foe? It was a nightmare, and everywhere was grief and fear, because none knew how to end it.
“But then, a gifted apothecary named Stephano Defilippo—a singular young man much like yourself—came to Empress Morante with a bold solution. By purposefully exposing subjects to a weakened version of the pox by means of a tiny incision in the arm, Defilippo had discovered that the subject was not only able to fight off the infection, but develop an immunity to it. Many thought he was mad, and that he would doom the empire with such a dangerous plan, but he presented his evidence to the empress so convincingly that, in her wisdom, she commanded him to treat herself and her family with this procedure, which he called inoculation. Once she found it was safe, she ordered that the entire empire be inoculated. So while other lands, including our hated enemy, the barbarous Uaine Empire to the west, suffered countless waves of death during the decade that followed, the Aureumian Empire held strong, granting us the opportunity to solidify and expand our influence to become the most powerful force in the world.”
Vittorio was quiet for a moment, and only the hiss and crackle of the hearth fire filled the silence.
“Do you know why I tell you this story, young Sebastian?”
Sebastian felt it might be a failure of some kind, but he shook his head.
“It is a fine thing to be a genius. But if you want more—if you want to change the world as Stephano Defilippo did, you must have powerful allies who will provide the resources and support you need to achieve the true greatness we both know you are capable of.”
“I—I see…” Sebastian’s voice was not as firm as he would have liked.
The true greatness we both know you are capable of? It was difficult to hear such words of praise from the man who had ordered his father’s death. Words he had often longed for his father to utter. His father had always affirmed his abilities and encouraged him to develop them, but only as a means of controlling them, never for greatness or glory. Sebastian didn’t want to keep his gift a secret. He didn’t want to pretend he was just like everyone else. In his fondest daydreams, he longed for greatness. And he wanted someone who saw that greatness within him and encouraged it.
“Your father didn’t want you to enlist in the army,” Vittorio said quietly.
Sebastian’s stomach twisted as the conflict grew within him. “M-my father didn’t want me to experience the horrors of war.”
Vittorio nodded. “A noble goal. Every father longs to save their child from the suffering they themselves endured. And I won’t lie and tell you there won’t be suffering somewhere along this path. But there is always suffering. On any path. That is an unavoidable part of life, regardless of what you choose to do with it. Suffering is what makes us who we are. And so, Sebastian Turgenev Portinari, when I ask you if you wish to enlist as an officer in the imperial army and serve the Aureumian Empire, what I am really asking is whether you wish to passively wait for the suffering that life will inevitably visit you, or whether you wish to choose the nature and fruit of that suffering for yourself. With the empire, you could use that suffering, along with discipline and sacrifice, as a means to achieve glory.”
Sebastian found that his hands were clutching the soft leather of his armrests. Everything the commander said made it seem as though he could see into Sebastian’s heart—like he knew the truest expression of his dreams, perhaps even better than Sebastian. And yet, it had been his father’s dying wish that he escape the military. Had he done so with good reason? Or had the great war hero Giovanni Portinari merely been an overprotective and overbearing parent so set in his ways that he preferred to die rather than admit when he was wrong?
“If… I joined the imperial army, would I be doing good in this world?” Sebastian asked plaintively.