"I will not hold you for long." Althea began, looking at the army before her. Not a very organized army, the lines were messy and crooked, but it was what she had.

"I am sure you have heard of the beast horde, and the subsequent list of complaints from the surrounding villages. I expect to get more from the other regions soon."

The entire ground was silent as she continued.

"So I shall dispatch you to every nook and corner of this county, to see the condition of the villages and, if possible, secure any that are in danger. I wish that all of those that leave shall return, but I know that may not be possible."

The mood immediately soured.

"But I will not send you without weapons to deal with the threats you will face. The Cornessa hall will, from now on, contain the Diery manual where you can attempt to learn the art." she said.

The army bristled, emerging into the chaos of shocked conversations.

Althea continued.

"But this is not all. The cabinet and I have deliberated, and we think a more permanent solution is needed. A Scribe will soon arrive in Deadre and make copies of the cultivation manual. The manuals will be displayed in each city a month from now.

A person may use the manual and join the reserve forces of the Diery army. The reserve forces will live as they did before in their village, with the promise that should the village come under attack, they will help defend. "

The whispered conversations were nearly as loud as her now. Althea called on the wind to send her voice to them.

"I want you to spread this message, to encourage people to cultivate and help protect their county." Althea finished. "Now please form squads and take your assignments."

A squad would go through a particular route, checking the villages in their path. Althea sighed as she walked back to her room, the next day was going to be busy. And so were the days after, at least until this beast horde business settled down.

The Minister of Justice was waiting for her in the hallway.

"How may I help you, Minister?" she asked.

"I wanted to ask about my daughter Isa," he said. Althea raised an eyebrow.

"What about her?"

"As I understand it, your grace, she has decided to enroll in your college."

Now he had her attention.

"I do not remember any Isa in the students accepted." she pointed out.

The Minister's face reddened. "Yes well, she and I…do not have the strongest relationship." The Minister straightened "But she is still my daughter. As I understand it, she was the first your maid approached."

The girl had introduced herself as Ves, an orphan. The one with great talent in the sword.

"And what do you wish to speak to me about? If you want me to kick her out, I fear I will have to disappoint you."

The Minister coughed. "Oh dear no, Isa would hate me if I did that. No, I just wanted to ask…are you sure about her talent?"

Althea had to say, she was feeling a bit out of the loop.

"Pulsie identified her to have quite a bit, yes. What is this about?" she asked.

The Minister hesitated. "Do you know why the other ministers don't have their heirs in the county?"

"I actually didn't know that." she said. "The other academies are recruiting?"

"A few colleges, yes. The children's talents aren't enough to get into an academy, or even college, to be honest. The nobles just…" the Minister let his words fade away, but she understood what he meant.

The nobles let the children in as a bribe. So they were corrupt after all.

"And Isa got rejected?" she asked.

"Yes. The Bern college said that she did not have enough talent to even break through to Apprentice." the Minister said. "And if the Countess is going to send the students to war…"

The Minister was worried about his daughter's safety. A Novice would be humiliated in the college. But if she did get an assignment, she might die.

"Isa will be an Apprentice by the end of the week." she said. The girl was already at the peak of Novice at the ball, breaking through shouldn't even take that long, right?

"Isa does have low compatibility with the Diery manual, her talent lies in Sword, nearly to the exclusion of other elements."

"The Sword is an element?" the Minister said, sounding doubtful.

"A powerful one. I will see if I can get her a manual, but I doubt it will be soon." she replied. A noble family would sometimes allow another to use their manual, for a hefty price. But even that would be hard, finding a family willing to spread out their method was hard enough. Then there was having something that they would accept as a price.

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And she needed to limit what she offered too. Isa was talented, a future Master, but even the Master rank was one rank below Adept. And she had one that could be an Adept. The Space girl. If she put no limit on what she was willing to give, there wouldn’t be enough.

"I see." the Minister bowed, walking away. Althea just walked to her room, glad that she could finally sleep. Pulsie had opinions about that. The plant wanted to know what had happened today, and she wasn't sleeping till he was satisfied.

sc

The next day found her facing not just the incoming crisis, but a very irritating person. Queen Elara had come to complete her deal, and she wasn't taking no for an answer. Not to mention the few hundred people she had brought with her.

"Queen Elara. " Althea said, looking at her from her throne. "I did not expect you for a few days."

"Yes, I just thought you would like to see me early." the Queen smiled. "Are you not pleased, Countess?"

"Of course, why would I not be pleased by you coming early with a few hundred unexpected guests?" Althea said. What was this sly woman up to now?

"I knew you would be glad!" the Queen smiled widely. "There has been a sudden epidemic of half-Elves in my kingdom, and you were in need of singers."

Althea paused. Did she just say half-Elves? The world had other species, but the book did not have a single non-human character. The other species rarely came to this continent, and they came only to trade or take over kingdoms. The latter more often the former if history was true.

How exactly did the Queen get so many half-Elves? Did an Elf spend a century impregnating people or something?

The policies on non-humans were also complicated. The Elara kingdom had a kick them out policy. The Solerian Empire wasn't as hostile, but a non-human could not hold citizenship in the Empire.

The Zun Empire had a kill on sight policy ever since a group of Elves, Dwarves, and Fae tried to take over them. The Elara kingdom had faced an Elven coup once too. There was an entire treaty called the Human treaty concerning it. Althea knew it had something to do with the sequel series, but she hadn’t read that one. The bloody prequel had been bad enough.

"I see." Althea looked at the Queen with narrowed eyes. "I am not sure why you think I would be agreeable to this, Queen Elara. I am sure you are aware of the logistical problems of having a non-human population."

Althea expected a call from the entire royal council if she dared accept her new guests. The nobles of Soleria did not like change.

"Have you tried contacting an Elven kingdom?" she asked. The Elves should take their people right? Althea felt a little guilty, they were half-human too. But they would probably be treated a lot better among Elves than here.

"The Elven kingdoms will not accept them." the Queen replied. "The kingdoms have decided to send every half-Elf to their other halves lands. The ships ended up landing on my shores."

And you decided to move them around again cause the human nations didn't like them either.

"I am sure you would be pleased, Countess, did you not want singers?" the Queen grinned. "The Elves are known for their beauty and singing voice after all."

Althea gave her a glare. The Elves were known for that, yes. But she had something known as an education. And that education told her that while Elves generally did have a wider vocal range than humans and were often more aesthetically pleasing, they were certainly not all singers.

"If you will excuse me, Queen Elara, I have a royal council meeting to ask for." Althea marched out of her court, the other members leaving with her. Queen Elara narrowed her eyes, but followed.

Now, she could have just finished the deal and then dealt with it, but having the Queen wait gave her a certain pleasure. And it came with the added advantage of letting her not accept it.

As much as she sympathized with the Elves' plight, Diery county was already stretched thin and politically vulnerable. The county could not keep a wave of Elven refugees safe. Not without the Empire’s support.

"Oh, don't forget to mention that the Zun Empire has been kind enough to divert their part of the ships to you." Queen Elara said from behind her.

Althea just continued walking, not showing any reaction as she walked into her room, crossing the garden and stepping into a part of the room she had barely been in. The formal meeting room.

A room of dark wooden, throne-like chairs with linings of what seemed like real gold. The chair was probably supposed to give an air of silently showing off the Diery wealth. How much it succeeded, she did not know.

The Steward kept the orb on the table and turned to her.

"The royal council will try to have you take in the refugees, your grace. I recommend you refuse it." he began. Althea spoke before he could say more.

"The Diery county’s systems will be overwhelmed, we don't have enough people to build and protect their homes or see to their health. The county already lacks medical personnel for this expedition. Yes, I know that. I read the books.”

The Steward nodded, looking a bit surprised. "And we don't know why they are being kicked out. The Elven kingdoms suddenly decided to kick out people they had given refuge to for well over a thousand years? I think there is more at play here than prejudice, your grace."

Althea hadn't thought of that. But it made sense, if it was prejudice then they would have kicked them out long ago. A sting of possibilities ran through her mind as the Steward started the communication orb. Had they attempted a coup? Asked for more rights? Or participated in terrorism? What had happened?

And there was the fact that this did not happen in the book. Althea shouldn't have done anything to affect an event of this level, yet here they were. The manual, the beast hordes and this Elven migration were not mentioned in the book at all.

The first two could be explained by being isolated and occurring during a time skip, but the third would have huge consequences.

The royal council gathered in five minutes, or at least their representatives did. The only one to answer her call in person was the Empress, the other duchies had sent representatives.

"Why has the Countess Guarding Diery called us today? Has the Zun crossed the Northern fortress?" one representative asked, his meaning clear. The only reason she should have to contact them was if the Northern fortress had fallen, other matters were too small to be discussed here.

"Queen Elara just gifted a few hundred half-Elves." she said. "If she is to be believed, there are more on their way, and the Zun Empire has directed every half-Elven ship our way."

"How many more?" the same representative asked.

"I do not know, but it seems that the Elven have kicked every half-Elf out of their continent and into the lands of their other species." she replied.

"And Queen Elara has seen fit to copy the Zun Empire." one of the other representatives said dryly. Althea noticed that half of the representatives had been replaced, probably by someone higher ranking. A few dukes had joined in too.

"Or the Zun Empire has copied Queen Elara." the Empress stated. "The event is troubling, the incoming Elves will certainly cause a legal crisis, and we lack information."

"A move like this should have had indications." the Duke of Reh said. Reh was the easternmost part of the Empire, and would probably get the most ships.

"The reports indicate that there has been an increasing amount of activity in the Elven kingdoms over the last few decades, but nothing of this scale." the Empress said. "At the same time, our spies are a continent away and betraying their species. A lack of information is to be expected."

"Yes, it's problematic to collect information. Now can we please discuss what we should do?" a Duke of Zerolian said. The Zerolian duchy was the most powerful in the Empire, just below the royal family, and it acted as such. In fact, it acted like it was the royal family half the time. Just what was written in her history textbook made her wonder why the royal family hadn’t killed them yet.

"I recommend just putting them in the Diery county, they have space and food." the Zerolian Duke said as the royal council nodded in agreement.

Well, they were off to a great start.