“I can’t believe how lucky Lily got,” Bylyrea said, putting her hands to her mouth. “It’s just the dream, right?”
Lily sat in Bylyrea’s house. It was only wooden, not the fancy marble the elves preferred. Bylyrea was recently freed from being a slave, and this was the house the government had given her—solid, would keep the weather out, and furnished. But not a lot more than that.
Bylyrea worked as a maid for the barracks, where Leo’s few professional troops trained. She was still technically single, although she was being courted by an elf from Wheat Town that had quite a few acres under plow, as well as a small mystic orb spider grove. His house was larger and marble, and he was a widower—his own wife of less than a year had been slain by a corrupted magical beast—a giant rat—that had attacked her while she helped clear the temple to Iluvin Eturia in the second district last year, leaving him with a three-month-old son.
“I know,” Laerylla, a silver-haired elf with emerald eyes that worked as a waitress at the Emerald Bee, whispered. “I dream of something just like that. Rescued by an amazing elf, and he turns out to be the bastard-prince of the old king, wrongly thrown from his kingdom as a baby, determined to rebuild the empire. Powerful, important, rich, deadly… and then he falls for her, and her only. It’s everything I ever wanted. I don’t mind working at the Emerald Bee—it beats being a slave, of course, and Iluvin Eturia knows they tip well there—but still, I would love if some rich noble elf swept me off my feet.”
Feryldaena il Mosstone, a bastard daughter of the rebel Helryn’s brother Icilryn, entered with, “ I heard that Kemi tried to sleep with him, and he rejected her by just telling her that he would be loyal to Lily forever.”
The three of them turned to Lily, looking at her expectantly.
Lily—in her new persona as Wylla Greenwater, a recently freed slave that worked for the government as a maid—nodded to the others.
Lily managed to grind out, “She’s so lucky,” and the other three nodded.
But inside, she was filled with anger and frustration. It wasn’t that she disagreed with them about Leo. She knew she was incredibly lucky, and Leo was amazing. But she still felt that she had earned her place by his side—she had even saved his life, once. Even if he had saved hers far more and first, that ought to count for something.
Instead…
Feryldaena twirled her fingers through her brass hair and continued. “Can you imagine the King, who was also the most powerful elf on the continent, telling some girl he only wanted to be with you? Things don’t happen like that, not in reality.”
Instead, every time Lily asked people for their opinion about the future queen—herself—she got… this.
Lily had been trying to find out people’s opinion of her for near a week, and she was almost more depressed to find out that the opinions of most people were ‘almost no opinion,’ and the opinions of most women her age were ‘she’s so lucky because she is with Leo.’
Almost nothing about her at all, negative or positive.
I really need to do something myself, something memorable. Maybe the university will make me somewhat famous, but I feel almost like I’m in my sister’s shadow again. Wylla and Leo were and are amazing, and never did anything against me at all, but I still feel like a toddler, waddling alongside them as they do great things, sometimes.
She sighed. I’m going to be queen, mother of the next king or queen. I’m the minister of magic and will be head of the university. I should be happier.
“Well, I should go,” Lily said, rising. The others nodded and smiled and invited her back, telling her they would miss her.
Lily left the house and small yard, deep in the outskirts of first district, and then walked to the temporary headquarters of the government, about half a mile away in a local mansion that had been refurbished for use. Lily wished that Leo would hurry up and get the palace built—the mansion always felt to her like a sign that they were still a weak nation, with barely a fraction of the power of the first Kingdom of Averia.
As she walked around the corner to the street it was on, she willed her outfit and features to return to her preferred appearance—herself, but with an intricately stitched white dress and golden circlet. Her hair became silver again, and her eyes violet. She was dressed as a queen should be, to show the realm—and Leo and her own house—in the best light possible.
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As she reached the temporary palace, a mansion of marble, the guard at the front bowed to her and admitted her to the building, holding the door open for her.
She walked into the foyer, and from there, took a short hall to the viewing room—now main hall they held the meetings in. The room had the omnieye table in it, and a huge number of chairs around that. But they only needed three chairs in total for this meeting. The group she was meeting with was the temporary appointees for the creation of the university. It included George, herself, Molly, and her old school friend Kylvenia Starwynd, an expert in early period Averian History.
But she only found Molly and Kylvenia waiting for her—George was late.
But she could get the information she needed without wasting George’s time if he was running a touch late. He was really only here as a financial advisor, to detail the realm’s treasury and ability to borrow.
“How goes the search?” Lily asked Kylvenia.
Her friend shrugged her slim shoulders and tossed her head, her platinum hair swishing. “It’s going… okay. A couple elves that have come back know history to a degree. But the only real professor I found is Emerynd Whiteberry.”
“The head of history at the old Collegium at Calasti?” Lily asked, excitement coursing through her.
Kylvenia nodded, but she didn’t smile. “Yeah. He’s frail now, the very end of his life. Senescence has set in, to the point he has wrinkles. I don’t sense the same vibrance from him that was described to me. But I think he probably has a decade or two left, so he could help organize and train the history department, at the least.”
Lily frowned. She had never met him, but his works had been taught even in the Havi Imperium at her own alma mater, the Lakeside University. It was troubling to hear he was so close to his end.
Kylvenia continued. “But in the magics, we’re sorely missing. Ratham, that dwarf that runs the equipment shop, agreed to be the Imbuing instructor, and another dwarf named Uthrum Rubyhewer agreed to teach the Earth magic school, but that’s it.”
Lily knew Ratham well, and he was a solid Imbuer. But not a great one, nor an amazing teacher. And she knew Uthrum not at all.
Lily sighed. “So two elves, you and Whiteberry, in history, and two dwarves teaching magic?” Lily asked. “No one else from your deparments?”
Kylvenia dipped her head. “I’m sorry, no. Everyone else lacks the skills and levels, even if they’re enthusiastic and training hard. I asked George to put feelers out to Steelport and some other cities to see about hiring professors from outside, but obviously…” Kylvenia motioned to George’s empty chair.
Lily was worried—George had cancer, rather advanced, and they had never found an Entropy mage advanced enough to do what they wanted to cure it. She hoped he was okay.
Molly interrupted Lily’s thoughts, leaning forward in her chair. “Judge Petrelli says he is willing to teach and organize the school of jurisprudence as well, and teach history of legal systems and governments. I know quite a deal about religious matters, and would be willing to teach either the religious courses and oversee that, or, if you would prefer, I would oversee flora and fauna classes, as well as alchemy.”
“I can handle the alchemy classes, as well as the magical alchemy classes,” Lily said. “I would prefer you in religious matters. Although are we all okay taking on an extra job?”
Molly and Kylvenia nodded. Since George wasn’t going to be teaching, she didn’t need his imput on that.
Lily was suspicious of the long-term viability of what they were proposing, but she only needed the university to work long enough to raise people up to replace the people working both jobs at one job or the other—and she figured they could make it work that long, at least.
“And the structure itself?” she asked Kylvenia.
“Well… we have two possibilities. We can either open a third district—the University district—and we can fix the Collegium.”
Lily shuddered, and Molly nodded. Leo wasn’t likely to approve that soon. The various districts of the ruins that surrounded Star Port were all filled with corrupted magical beasts—very dangerous indeed. Opening the gates and purging a district was a huge and complicated process, involving soldiers and adventurers. They had lost a few citizens last time they had done it, and their population didn’t force them to need more space now. Leo would object.
“The second option?” Lily asked.
“Hire some architect mages from Steelport, and truck stone from the east bank ruins across the bridges to the west bank, and build it just north of Green Apple Grove.”
“How much would that cost?” Lily asked. “And can we afford it?”
Everyone glanced over at the space George would normally occupy.
I hope he’s not really sick, Lily thought to herself.
“Let’s just go hold the rest of the meeting in his office,” Lily said, standing from her chair.
Molly nodded, and she and Kylvenia stood, and followed Lily out of the room.
Lily led them down the hall to George’s office—a converted bedroom—and knocked on the door. Their wasn’t an answer.
Lily felt her pulse quickening—something wasn’t right.
She knocked again, then glanced at Molly.
Molly glanced at the doorknob and motioned her head to it.
Lily reached out, took it, turned, and pushed the door in.
The smell of blood and decay hit her immediately, and she knew the scene would be forever etched in her mind. George and his secretary, the elf girl Cuwylla, were there. Both had their throats slashed open so hard the bone had been severed as well, but their heads still hung from the body by a strip of flesh, dead beyond all doubt whatsoever.
By Iluvin Eturia, how am I supposed to handle this?