Freiweld was, like the rest of the nation, odd in its functioning. For all of the improvements that grew denser and denser as you got closer to the center of the city, the castle had remained untouched. It stood out in the middle of the modern Arlinian infrastructure like the keel of the Ship of Theseus. One final, original piece just waiting to be replaced. However, the man who lived in that castle appreciated that dissonance. The governor of Corith was an oddly magnanimous man named Bernard who had more utopian ideals than the majority of governors.
This was notably odd for one particular reason; Bernard was the son of Minister Orven, one of the most detested nobles in all of Arlin.
It was obvious from how similar the two looked, although Bernard was far less obese and was not yet in the process of balding. Yet the similarities remained, and when positioned next to each other, the resemblance was not hard to sparse.
Bernard had cut ties with his father almost entirely, only talking with him when his family dragged him along to visit the old man in his avarice-filled mansion. Orven declared himself a collector of the beauties of Sol. Bernard called him an ego-driven hoarder.
The two hated each other so much that Bernard had actually split from his father’s faction early on, going from the Arlios faction to the Imperialos faction and never looking back. Emperor Arlin had taken a liking to him for his willingness to refute the ideas of the old and embrace the new.
When the position for Corith’s governor came forward, the Fourth Emperor chose him for the position. He took the job with glee and decided that he should start building Corith into a nation worthy of carrying the title of ‘Arlin’.
He had not realized how hard that work would actually be, for Corith was a nation that absolutely hated change. The dangers of the forest were ever imposing, and it made industrial growth extremely tenuous. If one wanted to scale up any form of industry, they either had to slowly chip away at the forest’s edges or replace pre-existing infrastructure.
Yet he stuck by his principles, supported the Magore production efforts and tried to slowly change Freiweld from a relic of the past into a nation of the future.
The people there weren’t savages, or items to be collected like how his father viewed them. They were potentially great tools of the empire who could work in tandem with Arlin, rather than simply be controlled by them.
He’d actually found their culture and history quite fascinating. It had always appeared to be such an innocuous nation, yet as he looked more into their religion and culture the more he found admirable about it.
This accursed forest had shaped the national psyche to such a degree that their customs were often related to it and were often fused with useful advice on how to best survive. A scholar of Corith had posited that the practice of burning the bodies, which the Corithian residents said allowed for the dead to reconnect with the flow, was done to prevent attracting the forest’s many predators from entering the scant few safe areas where the Corithian’s resided.
Arlin often tried to erase the history of the nation’s it conquered. This was still the case in Corith. However, Bernard had openly pushed against this process to the Emperor. Arlinian culture was superior, but the beautiful history of Corith deserved to be preserved. Instead of replacement, he wanted to try and fuse the cultures together. Emperor Arlin had turned this proposal down, although he had graciously allowed Bernard to allocate some of his budget to record the story of this nation he’d become so enamored with.
A part of him wondered whether his fascination with Corith was anything like his father’s fascination with collection, but he often stifled that thought and used work to ignore such follies. When his father was declared a traitor and was executed by the court, his grief was mixed with an odd sense of relief.
Perhaps now that the man was dead, he could move forward without being held back by such a horrid figure. After that, he would be able to simply do his best to make Corith the best Arlinian territory it could be.
That was how he thought things would be.
Now, he was staring at a piece of paper telling him that the entire military of his territory was no longer under his command.
A piece of paper given to him by Lieutenant Keagan.
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“By decree of Emperor Arlin, I am now taking emergency control of the military stationed in Corith to deal with the rebel threat.”
“You can’t be serious. You think after what you did in Toranir-”
“We’re already down a camp. And the message we got from the other camp has raised my suspicion. We need to prepare a counter-offensive.”
Keagan’s palpable rage radiated off of him like steam, enough that even Bernard was beginning to feel threatened. Even still, the governor held his ground.
“This only gives you control over the response to the attack. It doesn’t give you the right to usurp my control over this territory’s military. I am aware that you wish to stamp this threat out, as do I, but you cannot waltz into this castle and declare emergency powers. There is a system for these things, and you know it.” Bernard began to turn to walk away before Keagan’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder, locking him in place with an iron grip.
Burners were pointed at his head almost immediately as he made the motion, but he didn’t care.
“Do you have any idea what we are facing, Bernard?”
“A rebel force of freed slaves, with one of them being the infamous Elm Grayson. All of it led by another slave named North who has a rare light attunement. I read the report you wrote and am taking it into account in our plans.”
“And what military experience are you sourcing those plans from?” Keagan inquired.
“My advisors. As it turns out, half of them are accomplished veterans. I wonder why that would be the case?” Bernard said mockingly, “Surely that investigative genius of yours could find the answer to such a simple problem of statecraft.”
“Fuck you, Laurian.”
Bernard flipped around and glared at the lieutenant who physically towered over him.
“Do not mistake my hospitality to you and your men as any form of subservience, lieutenant. I know what you have lost, and I sympathize greatly. That does not mean you are allowed to treat me without the respect my office holds. Leave this castle now, and do not come back until you have returned to your senses. And do it before I have my guard make that decision for you.”
Keagan exhaled through his nostrils as he looked down at the governor just before pivoting and leaving.
The governor made his way towards his advisors with a creeping sense of dread tightening around his throat. He’d need to deal with the rogue variable in Keagan eventually, even if it meant going against the Emperor’s wishes.
An assistant of his walked next to him, carrying a sheet of paper describing the losses they’d experienced at their western camp. Bernard bit his lip, remembering the trust that had been placed in him to perform his role and lead this archaic nation into the future.
“Keep any of this new information from the First Lieutenant for now.” He said, handing back the sheet and watching the assistant scamper off into some other area of the castle.
It was not reassuring to say the least. Killing off half of the rebellion had only done so much, especially now that the threat had grown in number. Corith’s innate proclivities made movement slow and limited, although that did apply to the rebels as well.
Most of the land was connected only by a scant few roads. Being the capital, Freiweld had the largest number of roads that connected to it, but most had only two or three connections to other places.
Keagan couldn’t be allowed to be in control, not now when so much was at stake. The best scenario, at least in Bernard’s mind, was to just give control to Keagan over the protections to Freiweld for any future attack. It wasn’t out of possibility, although the capital was already rather defensible on its own from any direct attack.
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Bernard wasn’t going to lose his power. Not like his pathetic father.
As he made his way into his war room and pushed open the double doors, Bernard reminded himself to punch Keagan in the face the next time he decided to call him Laurian.
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The barracks were dark that night as the sounds of the forest echoed out all around Freiweld. Cassobans, which were warded off by the city's street lamps, still cried out in a terrible symphony as though they were announcing a horror yet to come.
Keagan, with only a lamp to see in the dark, looked into a mirror and hated what he saw. He imagined what Theodore would say to his decrepit state, how he would chastise him for not taking care of himself.
His hair was a mess, his skin bruised and unhealed. Anger and rage had started to crease his cheeks into a permanent grimace.
Dark bags had become permanent additions under his eyes, as sleep rarely came to him. Every time he tried to sleep, he saw Theodore’s horrified face in his final moments. He’d get brief moments of rest before bolting up in a cold sweat, the shame of being the one left alive tying knots in his stomach.
He wished that he had died with Theo. But he knew that Theo would have hated him for thinking that and would have wanted to live.
Keagan’s life, ever since North had taken the life of his lover, had been in a state of constant contradiction.
His fractured mind believed the only way it could return to being hole was to kill North and all the other disgusting little slaves who believed they were above their station in life. Who believed they had the right to take Theo away from him.
He knew North was alive. There was no way he would separate from Elm Grayson. A part of him believed that the party sent on the eastern route acted as a distraction play for the real individuals to come to fight.
Yet that message from the eastern camp, the one next to Haven Lake, seemed off.
He’d been watching over the messages from all of the soundlines like a bird of prey. And the idea that one of the soundlines was going to go down for a bit for repairs stirred his mind. He believed that if he had Theo to bounce things off of, he would have cracked this already.
Something was very, very wrong. Not just with him, but with this situation as a whole. The empire was treating this situation far more flippantly than they should and he knew it.
The Emperor had his problems, that was for sure. But he’d been underestimating this threat. Emperor Arlin was a powerful man, and Keagan believed wholeheartedly that if he were to take control of the response to this rebel threat himself, the Empire would win hastily.
But that wasn’t going to be the case. It never was. After all, that was why he’d given Keagan the ability to control the response to the rebel threat.
He’d had trust put into him. But trust meant little in the terms of statecraft, just as Bernard had happily pointed out to him. If the man denied him again, he was going to punch him in the face.
I’d have to hold back. Don’t want the Governor to lose a nose.
He was good at solving problems and making deductions. His bet on the ambush had paid off and crippled their forces for the time being, but there wasn’t enough time. The roads were risky to fight on with the forest’s wrath.
Images of fire flashed through his mind, with the screams to accompany them. They were not screaming because of the fire.
Toranir…
It was useful data, no matter how bloodsoaked.
Keagan needed a drink. He needed something to relax his analytical mind.
Unwanted thoughts screamed at him as he looked for meaning. His gut was screaming to him that North was alive. And if he was, they were losing.
He was a powerful light attuned that was only going to get stronger. Not only could he use light, he’d somehow been able to use his attunement to interact with magore. His report had been treated like a joke. Most assumed that he’d just managed to find another scrap of magore to use as the primer, but he knew what he saw.
I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him before he is able to reach his peak.
He’d do it for Theodore. Although he could only wonder whether such a suicidal revenge mission was the type of thing his love would have wanted for him.
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The cold wind brushed across Bernard’s face as he stared out the window of his bedroom and out at the city below.
“What did he see…” He whispered into the breeze.
It was a thought he had regularly. The person in question was the man who used to live and sleep in this very same room- the king of Corith.
Arlin was the conquering nation, never the conquered. Bernard’s sympathies pushed him to often ponder what the other perspective might have been like. He believed thoughts such as these humbled him and kept him grounded to the land he was given.
He’d never directly met the king of Corith, for he was already dead by the time he’d arrived in Freiweld to take the position of governor. Although, to the knowledge of very few, he’d gotten very familiar with part of the king.
Deep in the castle, inside a now locked off cellar, was a bloodstain. He’d visited the room only five times, once every single year since he became governor.
The room was musty and dusted, the stone walls now crawling with moss from neglect. Yet the blood stain that painted the floor in an oxidized brown remained almost untainted, mockingly so.
It was the king’s blood. It was the room where the king was beheaded, intentionally pulled away from the public to die alone, away from the rest of the royal family. His head would later be hoisted onto a pike and carried around the capital in a grotesque parade. He visited it every anniversary of Corith’s defeat to Arlin, and he always did it alone.
It was a literal stain from the past, forever coating the castle like an accidental brush stroke that refused to be painted over. Bernard felt an odd connection to it in a way he didn’t think others could.
Corithian death rituals were about emphasizing memory, remembering the past and enshrining the good that the person did for the world. Without a body to bury, this was the only way they could honor them. The king of Corith did not get a Corithian funeral, and his minced corpse was tossed to the forest to be consumed by its creatures. Arlinian forces actively stopped citizens from mourning the loss of their king and performing the correct rituals. They wanted him to be a part of the past, discarded and left behind.
All except for the singular bloodstain which only Bernard knew of. He believed that the conquering of Corith was righteous and would have positive benefits for the people, but what Arlin had done to the king was wrong. Bernard decided that the atonement for that sin should fall onto him, and so every single year, he forced himself to remember the king by visiting his last remnants.
He wanted to respect their culture, for he had fallen in love with this nation. As Arlin had conquered its heart, it had conquered his. In some ways, quite literally.
“Bern, you should sleep. It’s late.” called out Frey, his native Corithian wife from bed.
Marriage between Arlinians and those from the territories was rare, although not unheard of. Examples of marriage of non-Arlinians by Arlinian nobles could be counted on one hand, and Bernard was counted among those few. Frey wasn’t even from a noble lineage within Corith, evident from her lack of a last name. Her soot black hair, small frame and harmonious voice caught his attention when she was but a maidservant previously assigned to the queen. She’d been adopted into his personal retinue and before long, he decided to make their not so secret relationship into something official.
The marriage was scandalous to say the least, although Bernard didn’t care about adding any more shame to the Laurian name. He’d given up on using it long ago, casually adopting the unique Corithian quirk of only having a first name. He was happier that way, and he felt it made him closer to these people.
“Of course my dear.” He said, shuttering the windows and slipping back underneath the covers. He placed a brief kiss on her cheeks before orienting himself into a position he felt comfortable sleeping in, knowing it would not come soon.
The information he’d heard today was harrowing, and was why he’d felt more connection to the king than ever before. He’d lost his life three weeks after the invasion began, and his failure was mocked by Arlin.
He didn’t know if he was going to be mocked for what was coming. A group of slaves, coming as a small force to topple an entire territory on their own. They’d already crippled a large amount of Corith’s mining operations, which would likely take years to rebuild. Now, they seemed confident they could go for the throat and topple the entire thing on their own.
As long as he held, as long as Freiweld stood, Arlin could eventually reclaim the territory. Once Hornel was conquered, Emperor Arlin could use those forces to repair this sudden tear in Arlin’s unity.
This was winnable, even with the relatively small army located in the capital. He just needed to hold. Yet the dreadful feeling, something only paralleled by the aura of Corith’s forest, had latched itself onto him. The feeling that there was an error in his judgment, that maybe Keagan’s manic paranoia wasn’t just the rambling of a grief-stricken man.
Looking at the old castle walls, this beautiful relic of Corith’s archaic past, Bernard softly asked himself a question he believed the king had asked himself near his end.
“What did I do wrong?”
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Listening to the word of his advisors, Governor Bernard decided to take up the potential issues regarding his capital’s safety and the lieutenant’s behavior directly with Central. However, he received complete soundline silence to all of his messages.
Four days after their confrontation, Bernard would be handed a second piece of paper by First Lieutenant Keagan which was a direct transcript of a message sent from the emperor himself. It was a simple, direct order given from above that carried the weight of the heavens in every single word.
By the time he’d finished reading, Bernard realized he shared a new trait with the king he so often thought about.
He had lost control.