The Empress speaks to Sophia with utmost seriousness, a war room becoming just that once again. “Sophia, my dear, you need to listen to me. What I am about to tell you is of utmost seriousness.”

The Fourth Princess is halfway through a special red-velvet cake donut, nodding intently at her mother’s implied order of attention.

She continues. “There have been… developments in many spheres this past decade. Scientific, agricultural, military and political. Many of which have come together to create a unique time for the Empire. You know this right?”

Sophia continues to nod, the sugar rush unlocking once hidden parts of her mind.

Her mother wasn't wrong: this was the death of an Era after all. Many intellectuals and academics have long been declaring her mother the last Empress of the three hundred and five year long “Ceramic Era,” with a currently unnamed era to come in short notice.

This wasn’t a surprise of course, the Fourth Princess was already feeling the change in the air despite spending most of her time holed up in her room or dragged around the palace. In the past three hundred years the world had shifted quite dramatically: messages once from relays of horseback couriers now came with near-instantaneous radio transceivers; calvary charges with ceramic armored horses against swaths of line infantry were now obliterated by massed, incredibly accurate artillery strikes; and where at first the circumnavigation of the world was deemed impossible or a fool's errand, now was actually quite affordable (if you could stand traveling through one or two war zones).

In fact Princess Sophia could easily see the delimitation lines in even the past hundred years: the invention of the train, motor carriage, or industrial farming and factory production would have easily been justified as an era cutoff. And even more so when the first aerostatic took its maiden journey twenty one years ago almost to the day, many were surprised that there wasn’t a stronger calling for the end.

If literal flying machines couldn’t end the Ceramic Era, Sophia wondered what could.

The Empress continues. “This unique time has granted us an opportunity to cement the outcome of our most prior conflict. The entire Stygian Region, united by our economy or military, would be something that will guarantee prosperity for not only the Imperium; but for the entirety of Ensolia and beyond.”

“Do you mean… war?” Sophia throws the awful term so casually that her mother swiftly corrects her.

“No, not war. Power.” The Regent continues. “The Imperium is strong not through warfare alone my dear, not by our legionnaires alone. The Imperium’s power is through the factories of the central belt and the farmers of the Reichlands, our most brilliant intellectuals and inventors, we find it in our broadcasted music, books, and even the food we share with those around us.”

Such many Kingdoms were laid low by smutty romance novels.

Princess Sophia wondered where her mother was going with this, continuing to eat as she reaches the last two pastries in the bowl.

“In this new era where the world seems too small, we can no longer do it alone. Our Imperium needs… alliances.” The last word tasted bitter in her mouth, like a fast acting poison.

Strange that her mother detested the idea, Sophia thought she was the largest campaigner for peace she’d ever seen especially after the horrors of the Third Stygian Conflict.

“Sophia, my dearest love, I’ve never asked anything of you…”

Except for doing my homework, attending my lectures, going to court, and being forced to learn manners for all sorts of reasons.

“... but I must ask something of you now. I wished that it would never have come to this, and I prayed so hard to never allow this day to come, and I can only hope that you find it in your heart to forgive your father and I. My heart bleeds for you Sophia, and I am so sorry.”

When was the last time she saw her own mother cry, even just shed this one tear from her right eye?

Sophia tries to adjust her seating position, a wash of sudden emotion reaching her from the Empress, her own mother. Whatever she is going to ask of me is either going to result in my death, my exile, or something more awful than both combined.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Oh Goddess I’m not ready to die. Sophia panics too. I’ve got so much left to do in my life…

Yeah, like rot and read smut. Don’t lie to yourself girl.

“We have been in talks with the Tiancin Dominion.” Her mother drops the name of one of their southern neighbors, across the Wailing Fang Mountain range. “Their nation is in need of an alliance with us. Their famine and pyrrhic victories in the war has greatly weakened their hold even in their own lands. They need resources from us to secure it, to begin rebuilding.”

Quick, what do you know about Tianci?! Sophia's brain wracks itself.

The Fourth Princess really likes spicy food, specifically a particular pepper originally from Tiancin now grown locally in the appropriate climate of the Empire’s southern Reichlands. It was far too much spice for most of her siblings to handle (with exception to her father, who was officially a quarter Tiancin), but she herself liked the kick.

Oh, and you really like their fried seafood pancakes too right? And also… what was it called? That egg custard… something or something? Yes, with that crumbly crust that seemed to melt in your mouth. You’ll have to ask that Tiancin chef what the name of that treat was the next time you see her.

Sophia smiles at the thought of that delicious sweet thing, nearly comparable to donuts on a bad day.

Hello Sophia Elise the Eighth, it's the ancient ones again. We have lived in your soil, grown in your crops and listened to the voices of people through the howling of the mountain winds. We’re back to remind you that your official titles include DUTCHESS OF THE REICHLANDS. Did you perhaps forget that TIANCI BORDERS YOUR CEREMONIAL RULING TERRITORY?

Yes, of course I know about Tianci. Sophia declares at that voice in her head victoriously. The main characters of that cutesy ‘graphic novel,’ as they called it, “The Crane Flies through a Mercury Sky” are Tiancin.

A short pause before the internal monologue asks the more important question. That’s nice. Now do you remember anything about their culture, their politics, or their history?

Oops, maybe she was eschewing her ceremonial duties a bit too much.

Sophia snaps back to reality just in time to catch the last words of her mother’s sentence. “... weapons. Which is why this is happening.”

Sophia nods, unknowing of that ignored exchange.

“His name is Prince Zai Tianci. Only heir to the family…” She pauses, correcting herself to a more appropriate political climate. “The last surviving heir. You understand what needs to be done to secure this treaty.”

what.

“Mother…” Sophia tries not to chuckle as she denies that implication, only one donut remaining in the stack. “You don’t mean…”

Oh she does mean it.

“I’m sorry.” The Empress chokes on her own words. “If I had known you had taken a lover I would’ve never made you…”

Wat.

What was mother on about now?

“What lover?” Sophia just asks dumbly.

The last time it was this quiet in the War Room, the Empress and her War Council were listening to the transmitted radio signals from the burning of Kotimaa.

Through the humidity of a warm summer rain they all imagined that three thousand miles away from the palace and the Imperium at large, aerostatic warships hung above brilliant glass skyscrapers and arching monuments of reinforced concrete. Those shapes dropping incendiary bombs highlighted by the firelight, by the death dealt beneath them.

There was a single Bombardier aboard the cruiser Redouter who had accidentally set his radio to tie into his vessel’s hull spanning transmitter, powerful enough to literally send signals across the world. He was the one that they all tuned to in the harrowing silence. There, in this very room, the War Council listened as he described in horrible, excruciating detail of the bombing campaign. A mother, whose skin and flesh was burned to blackened charcoal, wandered aimlessly in ruined streets carrying the severed arm of her long dead child; how the river Kylmä, boiling from the heat of burning phosphorus, was filled with uncountable bodies of people, entire families trying to escape the flames.

It was that transmission of such unspeakable atrocity (it was later learned that the individual Bombardier was in fact a poet before volunteering for service to the crown) that ended in the Third Stygian War. It was that transmission that broke the Eastern Axial Powers, and made the world fear the Ensolian Imperium forever.

Back to the point.

Princess Sophia the Eighth, in the end, did not actually have a lover. In fact, she was certain if she did ever find anyone who she could speak more than five words to he would’ve most likely taken his leave the moment he stepped into her uncleaned room (which her maids very aptly described as a biological hazard) or heard one of her infamous burps after drinking far too much seltzer (a common occurrence according to her annoyed siblings).

“You have no lover?” The Empress confirms with one more question.

You can’t tell her that you’d probably never find one.

“I do not have a lover.” Sophia informs gently with utter humiliation.

A long sigh of relief from her mother, an entire nation lifted off her shoulders. She somehow still maintains her composure. “In that case, I still apologize for the suddenness of your engagement.”