“You’re here to do what?” the footman asks me, standing at the last set of doors between me and the conversation I’d been working towards for the last two hours. I’d long lost my patience.

After talking with Sybil and the others, I took full use of the rooms they’d purchased to bathe and make myself presentable enough to be taken seriously as a renegade king. And with it, I girded myself with the stern authority I had learned over the course of my life. “I’m here to meet with your councilman.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

I roll my eyes, bureaucracy. “I do not need an appointment.”

“Right, I’m certain you are quite important, Sir…” The man’s eyes take me in from head to toe.

“Sire,” I correct. “My name is Antonio de Cardenas, the Mad King of Led, Prince of Cainern. You will let me in or you will speak to my brother, my army, and my father’s country.” I give him a scalding look.

He crosses his arms. “Do you have any form of identification to corroborate such claims, young man? Why! The gall of the youth these days.”

I sigh and push past him. “Wait, you can’t–” He tries to grab my shoulders but I push him back.

“You will not touch me with your filthy hands,” I bellow. “I am far more powerful than you could hope to fathom.”

He starts to shrink back, face pale and eyes widening before a red pigment begins to bloom in his cheeks. “Why, I nev–”

I push through the doors, letting him fall over my heels as I storm into the room. A fat man stands behind a long desk. Rows of bookshelves line the walls of the bright room. His face jerks up in surprise at my entrance. I cross my arms over my chest once I am within an arm’s length from him. “State your name,” I demand.

The man turns tomato-red. “I ought to be demanding that of you, child–who let you in here?”

The footman behind me bows deeply. “Councilman Faulkner, I apologize for the–”

“Faulkner?” I narrow my gaze at him. “We’ve met before, though you do not recognize me. Kneel.” His white eyebrows shuttle down over his angry eyes and he sputters something in confusion. “Kneel.”

“Who are you to demand that I kneel?” His voice echoes in the tiled room.

“I am Antonio de Cardenas, and you owe your fealty to me, Jim Faulkner.”

The last syllable rings out between us, plunging the room into a stunned silence. Recognition flickers over his features, and his face goes pale white. He crashes down to his knees and bows his head. “King De Cardenas–”

“You and I made a deal long ago, did we not?” I walk around him and sit at his desk. He does not move. Good. Maybe this will make it easier. “When I disappeared, you took up support with my brother and my father. Your staff could not even recognize their king.”

“You were nowhere to be found, sire–”

“I am here now.” I cut him off and watch as his head dips back down. “And I intend to reclaim my throne.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Will you give me what is owed to me?”

His face is slick with sweat, and his voice trembles, “It isn’t so easy as–”

“It’s exactly as easy as you will make it, Faulkner. You swore an oath to me.” I stand from the chair and stroll around him so that he can see me fingering the hilt of my sword. “Or was that oath just words of a dead man?” I whisper, crouching near his ear. “That one might swear loyalty to any king were the wind to change?” I can feel him quake just beyond my skin, his entire body vibrating and terrified. Good.

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I stand and walk back to his desk, leaning back against it. “That being said, Faulkner. You know that I am a benevolent king. All nice guys here, aren’t we?” I gesture to the room around us. “We could be civil men and go on our way, or,” I level my gaze at him, meeting his eyes as he dares a look up from his bowed head. It holds him firm. He is terrified of me, but I have softened enough to make him listen to me. “You follow through with your original oath to me. You lend me your aid.”

“What would you have me do, Sire?” He asks, his voice tight.

I examine some dirt beneath a fingernail that I hadn’t quite scrubbed out. I use the letter opener from his desk to scrape it out. “Have you heard the rumors about me, Faulkner?”

“I wouldn’t dare–”

“Oh, it’s no matter. Rumors are rumors. Some of them are my own.” I squeeze just a bit of humor into my voice to lighten the air. “What have you heard?”

“Only that you’ve gone missing.”

“And?” I dig, blowing out the little bit of gunk I’d been able to pry from beneath my nails. “Certainly you’ve heard more.”

“That your father tried to have you killed, but those are only whisperings.”

My chest constricts. So that had been considered, and it was probably as close to the truth as I was going to hear. “And?”

“That… well, if you don’t mind my saying so, that you have become a sympathizer–but I would never presume–”

“Presume away.” I tell him, opening my arms. I twirl the letter opener through my fingers, a nifty trick I picked up from one of my soldiers in the war, and tuck the other into my pants pocket. I circle around him. “How many people have you shuttled off, Faulkner? Men, women, children even?”

“It was–”

“Yes, my laws. My father’s laws. My brother’s law. I can hardly punish you for simply following my lead, can I?” I take a seat behind his desk again and gesture for him to rise and approach. He does, looking severely uncomfortable. I can’t blame him. I can’t imagine having a missing king, presumed dead, showing up and taking over your study in the middle of a Tuesday. “I’ve had a change in heart, councilman. I’ve met with the necromancers. I’ve met with beastmen, and I do believe that I was woefully underestimating the resilience of my people. But that’s quite enough about me. Tell me, Faulkner–and this is a safe place, I will not harm you for your dalliances or sympathies, how many of your own beloved subjects have you had to shuttle off due to my policies?”

He doesn’t answer right away, staring at the grain in his own desk. He does not meet my gaze. Even still, I see the cogs in his head spinning and turning.

Before he responds I add. “There’s a friend of mine being held in your prison as we speak. A drider by the name of Soleil.”

“A spider man?” he asks in surprise.

“Yes. I would very much like to return him to his loved ones.”

“Yes, of course. Say the word, I will have him released.”

I arch an eyebrow. “So you agree that my previous policies were filled with bigotry?”

He pales, “Well, sire, I–”

“How many of your friends did you have to watch me drag away? How many deaths did you have to order?”

He stares past me, nervous. “I–” His voice catches in his throat, and I know I’ve put him in a tight spot.

“Faulkner, you and I have a lot of atoning to do, don’t we?” I lean back and look up at the tiled ceiling. “A lot of blood on our hands. On my hands. It’s not your fault that I had ordered you to do something. You would have lost the lives of your own family had you not followed my laws. You would have lost everything.”

“Sire…” His voice is a bit gentler now and I look down to see his blue eyes misty. “I… Thank you, your highness.”

I shake my head, trying to scare my own wistfulness away. “That rumor is true. I am aiming to reclaim my throne, and when I do, I will rid these lands of my own policies. I’ll build Led anew, as it was before I came. I’ll protect its traditions and values.” This time when I smile, I flash my teeth at him. I want this next part to land with the threat I fully intend on relaying. “And I will protect it at all costs against anyone who seeks to destroy it. Including its own people, including my own family–including myself. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Your Highness.” I see a light flash in his eyes–a kind one. It’s the first light that I remember seeing during my tour.

I nod and stand. “Release Soleil to my friends, they are at the prison already. I have an army at your gates: skeletons and beastmen alike.” His eyes widen. “Allow them in. We will not harm you unless you give us reason to. And then you and I will dine and discuss how you can generously support our endeavors.”

I feel the tension fall apart then, because he smiles. “It shall be done, my King. It would be my pleasure.” He nudges his foot at the footman who had addressed me so harshly at the door. He is still in the lowest kowtow I have ever seen. “Get up, man. Go get that drider out of jail. Open the network. Let the people know that glamour is no longer necessary in Pirovo. We are not in danger of the empire any longer.”

And I smile, too, because that is exactly what I had hoped he would say.