The Severan Funeral Garden was the planet’s largest public park. Surrounded on all sides by the imperial city of Nova Roma, its grounds extended for several hundred kilometers, featuring ornamental terrain of every kind. In its green commons were thousands of monuments to the dead. Standing tombs stood shoulder to shoulder with shrines and reliquaries. Fountains murmured alone in empty clearings. The dark forests were crowded with stone angels and obelisks to mark the passing of royalty.

 

It was a fine playground for a young Emperor, with a million places to hide. On this particular morning, a brown-skinned child crept through the weeds, hardly stirring a blade of grass as she prowled on her hands and knees. She was stalking an old black man, who had taken shelter in the shade of the trees. A born hunter, she came silent and deadly on his right flank: the daisies nodded wisely around her head, stirred more by the morning breeze than by her passage….

~ Imperial Ghosts, Deep Magic December 2016