A Few Good Men by Sarah A. Hoyt

under them, most of it hereditary. They’d immediately become subordinate to even the lowest servants of whoever took over. Their homes would be taken, their possessions looted. And though it was never mentioned in the news, and would be denied if it had been, there were stories one heard. Intrigues and assassinations. Even the widows of Good Men weren’t safe. Anyone who might wield the smallest amount of power by tradition or custom would be despoiled, reduced, removed, until the people were left leaderless and ready to accept the new leader.
    My life wasn’t worth much. And my rule would be worth even less. I’d never been trained in it. But if I claimed the isle, I could protect Olympus. Now that there were no other candidates of the blood left to rule, no one could really dispute my right.
    I could at least protect Mother and our retainers. And I could find out who had killed Max. I read the description of how they’d found him and shuddered. If this had been done by the Sons of Liberty, they’d answer to me. I’d personally destroy them one by one.
    The one thing I knew for sure was that Max might look like me, but, having known him when he was very young and unable to disguise what he was, I could tell that there had been no malice in him. I knew he could not possibly have grown up to deserve this fate. And I would find the ones who had killed him and I would relish wielding the power of the Good Man of Olympus if it meant I could torture them as they’d tortured Max.
    I stood up from the booth and got ready to claim my inheritance.

Long Live the Good Man

    Olympus Seacity is, perhaps appropriately, more vertical than most seacities, climbing up to a high summit where my ancestral palace was, occupying the center of carefully tended gardens, surrounded by high walls. Around it, in almost defensive array, stood the mansions of our favored retainers.
    I knew several ways into the palace. Ben and I had started getting around security, probably with Mother’s behind-the-scenes help, when we were very young, but by the time we were teens, we knew how to exploit real security flaws.
    There was a way to go around the back, over the wall, into the trees in the garden, and then to a spot where there were no cameras, and from there to my room. For a moment I considered it, but it would be insane.
    If anyone in there remembered me—well, the retainers would and I hoped Mother did too—most would think I was long dead. One doesn’t come back from the dead by sneaking into one’s old room and pretending to simply have overslept by fifteen years or so.
    No, when returning from the dead it behooves the newly alive man to make as much of a splash as possible. Knock on the doors, rattle the windows, demand that his shocked retainers put silk attire on his back and rings upon his hands. At least that’s how every fairytale treated the lost prince.
    I didn’t know how I’d deal with it, if the front gate had been closed, but it wasn’t. Even stranger, the guards normally stationed at it didn’t stop me, or even look at me twice as I walked up the long drive that led to the front door.
    I’d heard it said that some Good Men’s palaces were architectural witnesses to hereditary madness. Syracuse’s for instance is almost a declaration of paranoia in cement and stone, with staircases that lead nowhere, sudden drops at the end of a passage, and all the style and taste of a brothel. A cheap brothel.
    Our family’s madness seemed to be of the more controlled kind. The kind of control in a fist that clenches tight over the levers of power and will never let go.
    It was rectangular and sprawling, and perfectly symmetrical, its front displaying a broad, white dimatough staircase leading to a shining door that looked like crystal, but was translucent dimatough.
    I’d never seen the door closed during the day, but it was closed now. Maybe this explained the gate being open, or the inattention of the guards. Or perhaps it was