Having rectified the error of being entirely unpresentable to face the day, Len managed a bit of a chuckle. This day was definitely not off to the sort of roaring success she might have hoped for but it was kind of amusing all the same. She'd been through the ringer so many times lately that it was almost familiar now. She didn't exactly like being so out of sorts with things that she forgot basic details like dress code but there came a point where all you could do was laugh at the ridiculousness of your situation and she was very well past that point now.

"All right, mom, I'm dressed now. You can come in."

Keris strode into the room with a careful dignity that belied the ridiculousness of the situation. She didn't seem particularly put out, just resigned to the fact that her employer, patron, savior and potential one-day friend was in an odd mood that needed special care.

"Now then, tell me about these returning banished. We're sure there's no chance that they've bought in to whatever nonsense had the last ones ready to kill me?"

"We're sure of nothing of the sort. All we know for certain is that they're branded as banished and that they got the word that you were letting them back in. They're being held at the gate awaiting your word. You've got a lot of skeptical people who don't really want them returned and until you've given your official word they're not getting a step closer."

"Surely my blanket pardon should've been enough for this?"

"The Silver Sentinels are the ones detaining them. They're choosing to be very specific in their interpretation of your instructions and insisting on your appearance."

"Lovely. Think they're still salty about me detaining their boss indefinitely?"

"Almost certainly."

"Think it's a trap?"

"Possible, but not very likely. You have solid leverage with their commander under your power, however that works, and they're not going to push the issue. More likely than not, this is a bout of pettiness to remind you that they've got their own power too. I wouldn't rule out the chance that they've lost their minds and opt for an outright murder attempt, but it's not where I'd place my bet."

"That's somewhat less than reassuring, Kerry."

"I'm so very sorry, Lenore, I was given to understand that you wanted me to be truthful with you. If you'd rather I return to my devious ways, I could be convinced to do so. All for your benefit, of course."

"No no, this is fine. Wouldn't want to see you backsliding after you've made so much positive progress towards being a decent human being of late."

Keris offered a wry smirk in response to that and Len grinned at her. Len was tempted to say that it was an odd relationship she had with the woman but if she was honest, she didn't really have any relationships in this world that weren't odd. Not only did she have a knack for picking up such relationships, it seemed like the only knack she had going for her. Ah well, if life gave you lemons, might as well learn to squeeze the juice into the eyes of your enemies. Or something like that.

"All right, fuck it. Let's go see these poor souls that society fucked over and see if we can't set them upon the righteous path towards... well, not redemption, I suppose. They're not the ones that need redeeming. Let's set them on the path towards being members of society with the proper support and protection that any halfway decent society would provide?"

"If you say so, Head."

"Not you too, that Head stuff is creepy as hell. At least leave it at 'boss' or something."

"I can't do that. You hold a position of authority. Accept the responsibility that comes with it."

"Ugh... you're impossible some days."

"I can but try," Keris said with the faintest trace of a smile.

* * * * *

They made their way to the southernmost entrance to the city. Since the city itself was designed to be a mobile creation, the walls themselves were made of the same sorts of sleds that the interior was comprised of, though these belonged to the less well-off families and thus were less elaborate in design. What they lacked in elegance, they made up for with sturdiness, Each one did indeed fit the necessary conditions of forming a wall and had been strapped together with formidable planks to complete the design. It wasn't a conventional system as Len had seen anywhere else, but she had to admit that it seemed effective from everything she'd been able to observe. Kelvach only had the four cardinal entrances and, since status within the society was arranged outward, ALL of the exterior sleds fell into the same category. As she understood it, these sleds were maintained by the city itself rather than the families, with many of them being empty. It was another in the massive list of things she needed to address but hadn't gotten around to it.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

As they trekked through the lesser corridors that made up the streets, she took note for far from the first time just how ramshackle the buildings on these outskirts were. So many homes had been abandoned thanks to the former Head's wanton abuses and so many more were just barely hanging on thanks to near-impossible conditions that had been imposed on those who had remained. It made her sick to look at and would take years to properly address. Years that she didn't have right now. The only thing she had going for her was that now there were starting to be trickles of returning members of her society.

Of the many sins that the former leader of this city had perpetrated on his people had been the system of Banishment. Once it had been the most extreme punishment their society had short of outright execution. The Banished family would lose all of their holdings and be cast out into a harsh tundra with nothing to sustain them beyond the very basics that they could carry with them. All of their property was ceded to the city or, more accurately, the Head who could then distribute as he saw fit. Since the Head was a corrupt son of a bitch, he'd been able to twist that system into one that served him and his cronies exclusively. Forcing out political threats or even just mildly inconvenient individuals who irritated him. He'd also used it to enrich several of his closest allies based on their direct requests. It had been wholly disgusting and Len was only just beginning to track down all the monstrous deeds that had been done for the sake of enriching a few.

She'd wanted to just have done with it and kill them all, but had ruled that out quickly because it would've been essentially chopping the head off of what little remained of the bureaucracy that the city needed to function on even a basic level. She'd left it at a single kill of the most heinous of the options. It hadn't been entirely satisfying, but she'd come to grips with the fact that leadership often meant sacrificing one's preferred outcome for the needs of the moment. The others had been put on notice and would be watched closely. If they stepped out of line, accidents could be arranged.

Len paused. One of the terrible things about being connected to the shadowy entities was that her way of thinking had been changing. She was quite certain that when she'd actually arranged for that single death she hadn't been quite as eager to allow the murder as she was now. It wasn't a terribly good thing, in her mind, how easy it was getting to think about extinguishing life on a whim and yet here she was doing it (the considering, not so much the murdering just yet) with increasing frequency. A part of it was the world around her. Life wasn't exactly cheaper here, but the consequences for taking it were less severe. More than that, she held more power now than she'd ever held in her old world and the more power one holds, the easier this sort of thing becomes. It was a pretty terrifying cycle that she really thought she ought to be more concerned about than she was.

"Are you all right, Lenore?" Keris asked, snapping the Dark Elf out of her reverie.

"Hrm? Oh yeah, sure. Just thinking about things. How many did you say we'd gotten to come back?"

"Nearly a hundred, if the report is accurate. Apparently they've been trickling in for a few days now."

"And the Sentinels are only now telling us of them?"

"Correct. I'm sure they have a lovely excuse for it but it all boils down to pettiness. They wanted them to suffer and they wanted them to hate you. Pretty easy way to do that is keeping them out as long as they could reasonably get away with it."

"Well, that's just keen. I'm really gonna have to have a chat with their interim boss shortly. She's not earning any brownie points from me."

"I'm sure she'll be just heartbroken about that fact."

"Can the snark, time to put our game faces on."

Len ignored the blank look on Keris' face at the use of an idiom that she had no way of understanding. There'd been a time when Len had felt self-conscious about her tendency to use terms that made no sense to the denizens of this world. That time was long past. One of the perks of holding a not-small amount of power was that folks tended to let you get away with a quirk or two so long as it didn't directly interfere with the rest of what they expected you to do and mangling idioms for her own amusement was one of the ways she blew off steam.

It didn't take much longer to arrive at the gate. No less than the acting commander of the Silver Sentinels herself stood at the ready waiting for her. Len hadn't bothered to remember the name of the woman. She was the daughter of the actual commander, a man named Jerent who'd made the extremely unwise decision of pushing Len a little too far in his urge to flex his strenght and had discovered the hard way that Len had access to powers far darker than he'd imagined. He was currently sitting in some pocket of Pitch's shadow dimension waiting for Len to decide to show him some leniency. She still wasn't there yet.

"Greetings, Head," the woman said stiffly. There was hatred in her eyes, but Len ignored it.

"Greetings. Care to tell me why I'm only just now hearing that you've got a hundred people camped out who should've been brought inside the safety of the city?"

"I felt it prudent to wait until we could assess the threat they posed."

"The threat that people I explicitly instructed be allowed into the city? Treading a mighty fine line there, aren't you m'dear?"

"Forgive me, Head," the woman said icily. "But these are dangerous criminals that could very well bear the citizens of Kelvach ill will."

"Oh, I'm quite certain they've got very good cause to bear the citizens of Kelvach ill will. They're going to have to get over it, just like you're going to have to get that stick out of your ass and do your job. You remember the stakes, don't you?"

"How could I possibly not?" the woman asked through gritted teeth. "You've made it explicitly clear what happens to my father if I fail to obey your instructions. That is why I informed you as soon as I had determined that these newcomers won't be a threat to any of us."

Len glared at the woman but relented. There wasn't anything to be gained by pressing the issue and for the moment, this was the best that she could hope for in terms of cooperation from a woman she was blackmailing with the promise of her father's safety.