Chapter 2

“You can’t be serious?” The question was clearly rhetorical. The woman who spoke it was sitting at an oversized wooden desk in a spacious room and entirely alone. Her voice echoing back at her, Sera drummed her fingertips lightly. She had felt the not so subtle brush of the Call rippling outwards. So, the old goat had finally done it. There was a brief and unexpected sense of sorrow and loss that flitted through her stomach at the thought. Then it was gone as she grinned. This was going to be an exciting time! Sera burst to her feet and struck the bell that would call in her secretary with significantly more force than necessary. She winced at the too loud sound and then smiled as her wolfhound Ruby bounded into the room. Sera checked herself briefly in the mirror while she awaited her secretary Ana. Her long dark hair tangled easily if not constantly cared for and Ana would scold her viciously given the chance to criticize. She had high cheekbones, tanned warm skin and green brown eyes. She was not beautiful in a normal sense but striking. Her eyes, which grew greener with intense emotion, at their calmest still had an interior light as if there was a candle hidden behind their colour.

Ana swept into the room with a quizzical expression. “Well lady First, your bell was obnoxiously loud and received. How may I help?” The admonishing tone was obvious and flippantly ignored by the unusual First of the Council. Sera DeRillia was the youngest First in history at age 35 and had only reached the post a bare year previously. She had brought with her the family Steward, Ana Eurelia to serve as her Secretary. As such the two had a lifelong connection that gave little to proprietary thinking when in private. “Bollocks that, Ana! The Sovereign has sent out the Call!” Whatever progress Sera had made in taming her unruly hair was immediately outdone by her enthusiastic exclamation the older woman. Ana’s voice was uncharacteristically small as she repeated “…the Call?” her bluff face paling at the revelation and her brown eyes going wide. Sera gave a moment of sympathy to the shock that was evident then ploughed on. “Yes. The Call has been given. Order the Keep stewards to summon the Council.” Just as she had finished this request and Ana shook herself out of her shock enough to see it done, a liveried messenger-boy sprang into the room carrying a missive. The contents were simple as she waved the boy back out with a distracted smile. The note, written in the old man’s shaky hand, read simply, ‘I’ve made the Call. Get up here.’

Her footsteps echoed off the stone flooring and up the stone walls to the stone and wooden ceiling. Sera was momentarily distracted by staring about herself wondering if there were better building materials. She considered having some sand brought up so she could blast it to the wall with fire creating a glass cladding. That could wait though. The Call. The light brightened as the corridor reached the natural light streaming onto the balcony flooring. The huge space was near empty other than a Steward standing to attention near to the door Sera would enter from, and a pair of old men sitting in armchairs. A third armchair, which had likely been hastily brought given that its angle was slightly askew to the others perfect placement in line with the mosaic flooring, sat empty and waiting. This and a thousand other small details washed over the First. The Deans trouser leg slightly folded under, likely due to the air carriage he had come in from the college. A lonely grape sat off to the side from the others on a plate beside the Sovereign. The was an anticipatory smile on the old man’s face and the Deans had a resigned expression. The First bowed then sat on the chair with her legs hanging over the right-hand arm rest, trailing towards her fellow visitor to the Sovereign. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth as she deadpanned, “You Called, My Sovereign.”

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She was immediately rewarded with a snort of laughter from the old man and a fleeting, irritated squint from the Dean. “Clever,” drawled the Sovereign, drawing the word out in a way that indicated he felt the exact opposite, “I assume you have called the Council to session so I will brief you and you will brief them. I have no time for that assembly of self-important fools.” Sera doubted he genuinely felt that way about the Council, which was made up of a cross section of the Empire that had been selected in an abbreviated version of the Call itself but she nodded in response. “You two are my favourites, which is to say that neither of you are particularly painful to deal with…for the most part. It has become inescapable that I am dying. At my age it should come as no surprise.” Indeed, it was not a surprise to either guest of the old man, however a slight involuntary tightening of the Deans jaw and an equally miniscule bob of the First’s head was elicited by the frank pronouncement. “No weeping?! Ingrates! Anyway, so yes, I have initiated the Call. Upon my right as Sovereign and in my duty as such. I have enough time in these bones to hold the seat until the Potentials arrive and their frippery is resolved.” Sera raised her eyebrows at the description ‘frippery’ and received a shaky wave of the old man’s hand in response. “To one that has already been through this…situation before. The Council will make an announcement to the Empire in my name and its own but only after you have doubled the border guard and posted internal regiments throughout the Empire in the predetermined ‘Unrest’ locations. A week should ensure the redeployments are in position before the announcement.” Suddenly the jovial prankster was gone, replaced by the snap of command. His voice was imbued by the absolute confidence of a man whose command had been assured for decades. Sera cleared her throat carefully to buy time to respond cautiously. “My Lord Sovereign. I am First among equals,” Again a snort from the old man, “and cannot guarantee their compliance. We are not at war so the armies are not technically under your direct command currently. I will try to convince them but I cannot promise you their compliance,” Hard blue eyes met the First’s as the old man leaned forward. That gaze held a tempest of power that belied his advanced age, the barely restrained energy of a cataclysm behind the azure glare. Again, his voice deepened. “I understand the position we are in and have an even stronger knowledge of the law than you, Lady First.” Chastised and realising she had been essentially preaching the law to a man who had been leader of the Empire for the better part of a century, she lowered her own eyes and nodded. Despite being in the wrong, her fierce nature burned at being chided and were it any other than the Sovereign, she would have held their stare. A smile tugged at the old man’s wrinkled face and his eyes calmed to an amused twinkle. “It is, however, imperative that the Council does as I have…. requested. The civil unrest caused by the Call being announced as well as the boldness of our neighbour countries at such a pronouncement, must be met with a firm hand. During my own Calling I witnessed how both the internal panic at losing a leader and the uncertainty of the one to follow can give rise to destructive behaviour in the populace. Mostly by troublemaker’s keen to use it as a distraction but also by foreign agents attempting to disable the Empire. Ours is the largest single Kingdom on this continent and as such it is difficult to stamp out such situations in a timely manner.” Sera quirked at his use of the term ‘continent’. The Empire was the largest kingdom in the World. This, however, was quickly overshadowed by the depth of concern washing over her as she considered the ramifications of the Call itself. She should have considered the strife that would be caused by this. There couldn’t be a person alive today that had known any other Sovereign. Uncertainty in the Kingdoms future was the devil waiting to strike.