The day before the great gala, I was in my former office, now taken over by my father, sitting on a couch with the man himself front-to-front. The ministry of interior and a few other officers stood to our side, flanking an enormous political map of the Empire.
The [Emperor]’s gaze attempted to bore a hole through my forehead. I silently wished him good luck and stared back.
“Do you wish to fight me, son?”
“I am grateful for your time and willingness to train me, father,” I replied without blinking.
The [Emperor] guffawed. “You are truly fierce, Percival, my son. Beware to not let it go to your head.”
Sighs of relief came from the officials in the room with us.
“I’ll take your advice to heart, father,” I bowed. “Praise the [Emperor].”
I had hours of 40k gameplay and codex books under my belt, with tons of lore to quote. Maybe making people think this [Emperor] was a deity would be fun. But the pot called the kettle back because the cult of personality around him surely went up to his head.
The method of upbringing Imperial scions didn’t change in a thousand years. I had to remind myself that the man before me was raised exactly the same way my brothers and I were. He too once was a spoiled [Prince] who never heard no.
I wished to ask what happened to the Tabards Silverstreak wove for the Mad Empress’ husband, may her pussy be always chilly, and the Crown Prince. The history of the Empire had little to no records of that time, specifically. It was as if someone carved that section out and forgot to replace it with fake information, leaving a gap.
Laila and Princess Hannah had just vanished from the annals. No history book, not even the records inside the pillaged vault contained information about the werecat princesses. I was itching to ask but I doubt he would tell me. My eyes wandered to the gaudy and ridiculously strong storage ring in my father’s hand. Maybe the truth was in there.
“We aren’t fighting today,” he decreed then chuckled. “Unless you try to kill me, then I’ll have to defend myself.”
I smiled, “I won’t attempt to kill you today, father.” The men in the room with us held their breaths. “Or ever.”
The [Emperor]’s aura flared at full power. The minister and the other officials braced themselves. I closed my eyes and studied it. It wasn’t {Royal Aura} but it felt similar. The details were clouded to me as I got no notification, indicating I’d resisted it fully. Maybe it was like someone with 100 Ego would suffer no ill effect from the Attribute-sapping aspect of my {Eldritch Aura}. The aura vanished and the [Emperor] was amused.
“I’d be glad for you not trying to kill me ever. But I also accept the challenge. Come at me anytime. Maybe a lesser man would nip the problem in the bud but I will kill no child of mine on mere suspicion.”
“Your mercy is boundless, father,” I said with a straight face, with the unsaid addendum of ‘when you exercise it’. “I have no desire to kill you anyway. Or anyone in our family.”
“Yet your brother Bertram died by your blade,” he pointed out with a perfect poker face. Unreadable.
I stared at him as H.R. Haldeman stared at the Senate during Watergate, “He knocked on my gates with rams, insulted and challenged me. What should I do, let him kill me? It would be a waste. I did the [Empire] a favor, father. Bertram and his soldiers were a waste of gold.”
“Do you consider your other brothers also a waste of gold? Do you seek the throne?” The [Emperor] asked, amused by my answer.
If the Empire was a realm in the Dungeons and Dragons universe, it would be thoroughly Lawful Evil. Their nobility suffered from a twisted and misnamed social Darwinism. I say misnamed because inter-generational conflicts where the stronger survives is just the law of the jungle without any relation to the works of the British naturalist. Darwinism happened over long generations. The nobles weren’t a distinct species neither they were improving despite all the evolutionary pressure on them.
I mourned Bertram more than our father, the [Emperor]. I had no idea why he bothered raising offspring. This man murdered his daughters without batting an eyelid, for crying out loud. Maybe it was to have some excitement, to stave the boredom of his life on the throne. Maybe one of the [Princes] would rise to be a worthy challenge to a man who knew no defeats in the last three centuries.
Maybe that’s why he’s been provoking me at the beginning. To see how I would react. To him, I might look like a brat spouting nonsense with a misguided sense of self-worth. Or he was seeing his reflection, a little psychopath just like himself. He was probing me and I didn’t doubt his mirth was fake.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I don’t know them. Only time will tell. What I can tell you? I won't allow nobody to trample over me.”
He narrowed his eyes, and a bit of his aura seeped out. “What about me?”
“A lion tramples not the cub. Instead, he drops the young kitten down a cliff so it can fend for himself.”
“Do you wish to be dropped off a cliff?” He pressed on.
I met his gaze inch by inch, without any auras, “If the [Emperor] so decrees, I’ll jump on my own.”
“I always knew you were fierce, Percival. Let me tell you a little secret. I sent that doctor here with that humiliating chair to silence some nobles and you passed the test with flying colors. I saw your manhood with my own eyes and did not find it wanting.”
I leaned back as if I would show it right away, “It developed splendidly, father.”
He chortled, “I know. The maids of this Palace sing only praise about you and your manly prowess,” he boasted proudly.
I forced myself to remain placid and calm but inside I had a turmoil of mixed feelings.
I didn’t tell the maids to keep silent about our nights together. It would defeat the whole purpose of the ruse. Banging a [Prince] was second in the scale of bragging rights for a woman in the Empire. I suspected they would be interviewed either directly or indirectly, maybe even solicited to sell the information outright and that was one of the reasons I had to lay with them along with others. It would tarnish my image and put undue attention on Madge and Mona if I didn’t have other women. Maybe the excitement and relentless insistence of the pageant peacocks during the week of daily court sessions was partly because of the maids’ statements.
“Enough,” he said softly. “I brought you here, Percival because we need to decide what territory you’ll control. The ones in red on the map belong to the crown or to one of your brothers. Any other territory is open to you, although you’ll need to either negotiate or defeat the local lord before you can take full control.”
The way the princes claimed territory was utterly stupid. As one could guess, there wasn’t a lot of unclaimed land in the Empire. A [Prince] with no worldly experience would pick a region, recruit some soldiers and knights, then march there to “conquer” that place. The local nobles were supposed to put up some resistance, then negotiate their surrender. It was all fake, a theatrical play staged to make the young Imperial scion feel good about himself and pump more hot air into his already overinflated ego.
The defeated noble then would enter an alliance under the Prince, managing the territory on his behalf while the prince usually returned to the capital. They usually also married their daughters to the noble, cementing the relationship and securing their fief. Understandably, most nobles prized daughters over sons. In the end, it still belonged to the prince only in name although they paid a tithe to the new lord. And the conquered fief also enjoyed protection from their greedy neighbors (spoiler alert, they were all greedy). The [Prince] would rush to the aid of his vassal the local lord.
“I want the Sunset Sea Range,” I said without looking at the map. “All of it.”
As one could guess, there wasn’t a lot of unclaimed land in the Empire. That implied that some unclaimed land remained within the borders of the Empire, uncontested and undesired by most.
Pekothas was a massive continent. Its surface area could easily fit two of each Earth continent. The Sunset Sea Range was a stretch of land the size of North Korea three thousand kilometers to the north from the Imperial capital, sandwiched between the Raswaria Highlands and the West Ocean, a place of gravel beaches, rocks, and steep cliffs but not much arable land, battered by strong winds and torrential rains. Only a few fishing villages and monster hunter camps survived there. After Raswaria was destroyed on a whim by the Imperial army under orders from the man in front of me, it descended into utter neglect and savagery. The Empire only considered it part of its territory because it was uncontested. Nobody else wanted that strip of coastal land.
It was considered a true frontier and it was perfect for my {Borderland Royalty} Perk. From there, I could use my army to invade and conquer Raswaria, completing the Quest.
“That’s too far. Some will say you are going into hiding,” my father remarked.
“Let them think whatever they want. It’s even better if they say it out loud and give offense. I’m going to cross the Empire and conquer their sorry arses for their insults.”
“We have other territories closer to the capital,” The minister of Interior said. “Some of them would be very receptive to having you as their lord, Your Highness.”
“Nah. I heard the place is crawling with monsters. I want to go there. Then I’ll come back here, conquering everything in my path. Or I’ll go further north, and bring the Empire’s borders to the edge of the world.”
A pretty bold and boastful claim but I theoretically was just a young spoiled [Prince]. Nobody wanted to go to Northern Pekothas, a land of eternal ice and giants.
The [Emperor] crossed his arms. “Nonsense. I won’t let you anywhere near Raswaria, son. You need to learn more subtlety. I can ready your true intentions as clear as day. Since you want a challenge, I’ll give you one. You will be given control of an army. Your territory to conquer and rule shall be Theria. The land of fairies and werewolves.”
I honestly froze in shock. Drawing back to my last visit to the Empire three thousand years ago, I found myself as the agent of my own prophecy.
“For three millennia, Theria remained an independent ally of the Empire, father. Are you sure you want me to conquer them? Do you understand the consequences?”
I said too much.
“What are you talking about?” The Emperor leaned forward, taunting me to over-share. Daring me to show I knew what nobody else in the Empire should know.
“Me? What should I be talking about, father? I’m just stating the facts.”
The were-cat princesses were erased from history. No mention of the Tabards Silverstreak left behind for the Emperor. The prophecy of the Mad Empress. I knew something happened between then and now when I noticed I hadn’t inherited the bloodline Perk. And now the Emperor wants me to take over the only piece of land barred from his reach.
So be it.
“I’ll do as you ordered, father. I’m going to tame that wildland for your glory.”