Of the many factions of the Towers Empire who fought for control during the Civil War, the Redtower's branch was the most legitimate. As a result, they had the support of many of the existing nobility who fled the capital after the usurpation of the Blacktowers branch. This was a good thing during the Civil War, but following the Civil War, it became a weakness, especially as the territory of the Kingdom of Redtowers started to decline. This would ultimately result in the Antlatur revolt, and the kingdom of Redtowers would never recover or have a chance of rebuilding the empire.

~Dominic Black

Interlude: The Kingdom of Redtowers

THE MONTH OF NINSUM DAY 25 YEAR 675 OF THE SECOND HOLY CALENDAR

Felix lifted his head from the unreasonable documents piled on his desk. Felix Towers was greeted with the unpleasant sight of middle-aged men who hadn't shaved or slept properly in days. Felix reflected on why women were even attracted to men. “If I were a woman, I'd be a lesbian.” That only seemed to sink in more as he looked around. The men around him were Nobles of the highest caliber. They knew how to dress, they knew how to talk, they knew how to perfume themselves before a ball, and yet they all looked like shit. Of course, it might be a bit unfair to judge how they look now.

He looked down at the following document but couldn't get his mind to process it. Looking back up, instead of looking at the faces of his subordinates, he looked at their desks. Every single one was covered in documents. He sighed deeply. There was no point forcing themselves to go through work they could hardly do. He was about to halt their work for the day when a guard entered.

“Your Highness, Her Majesty is outside and requests an audience with you, " the guard said. If he specifically said Her Majesty, it's not my mother or one of my stepmothers, meaning it could only be my sister-in-law.

“You can tell my Honorable sister to come in.” He turned to the office workers, “You can all take a short break but be back in 5 hours.” At the bitter look he received, he shrugged. “I know you probably need more rest, but this work needs to get done. Of course, I won't hold it against you if you don't return, but you can find new employment.” They all filed out, still with bitter looks on their faces. Felix wanted to give them a full day of rest, but he couldn't and knew that they would return anyway; he was sure as he knew that there were two moons in the night sky.

Once they were done filing out, he noticed the guard entering before he announced, “Her Majesty the Queen of the Towers Kingdom, Beatrice Eliana Crimson Towers.” The guard bowed before departing, closing the door behind him. He revealed Beatrice Eliana Antonine Antlatur—that was who she was. Her name may have changed, but she was Antlatur to her core. Her golden hair fell around her soft-featured face, highlighting her emerald eyes, which glinted sharply in contrast. She was graceful and well-endowed. She wore a full-length dark green gown in the style of the tower's Empire, which looked strange on her.

The nobles of the Towers Empire mocked her from behind her back. For the way she looked and acted. A fake princess from a fake kingdom, they would say. But they didn't understand that the Kingdom of Antlatur was well on its way to becoming a significant power. In comparison, the Kingdom of Redtowers was only known as another remnant of the tower's Empire. They viewed the Kingdom of Antlatur as the source of many of their problems, and mocking its princess behind her back gave them a sense of emotional satisfaction. This was another problem with the Kingdom of Redtowers that Felix understood but couldn't stop or fix.

Bringing himself back from his thoughts, he stood but almost fell over because he'd been sitting too long. Discreetly holding himself up with the desk, he bowed. “Thank you for visiting me, Honorable sister. How may I be of service?” Felix made it a point to be polite to everyone but was extra polite with his sister-in-law. A part of this was out of genuine respect, out of fear, and a part just because he didn't want to get her angry since it was annoying to deal with.

“Good day to you, Felix,” Beatrice said, bobbing her head. Felix felt his eyebrows twitch. Although he was her younger brother by marriage, it would have been polite for her to return his bow with a curtsy, but letting his anger flash and fade, he promptly ignored it and returned to his seat.

“Have a seat. If you would like some tea, I could ring a maid.”

“There's no need,” Sophia said before gracefully taking her seat.

“Does she not want anyone to overhear our conversation?” Felix wondered. Sophia would usually be accompanied by at least one hired female bodyguard and attendant. Felix would have expected she would have brought them into the room with her if nothing else than to prevent rumors of infidelity from spreading. But she hadn't done that, indicating she didn't trust her guards. Considering they were spies planted by Reginald, the king of Redtowers and Felix's brother, she had every right to distrust them.

Sophia looked at him and commented on his rough appearance: “You should take better care of your health. Maybe you should try sleeping sometimes.”

Felix rubbed his jaw. It was an unconscious action copied from the office workers constantly checking their stubble. Felix had no stubble; he couldn't grow a beard even if he wanted to. This was due to his Noble bloodline and early Age Awakening. Gaining magic prevented physical flaws such as pimples or sleep habits from affecting one's face. As a result of this, nobles with average-looking facial structures to the commoners appeared quite good-looking. Those with naturally good looks and particularly prominent bloodlines were almost always exceptionally good-looking. Felix had both of these on his side, which were quite popular among the women at court for his so-called Baby Face. That said, even his magic couldn't hide his lack of sleep.

“I'll take a few days' vacation once this is over. Besides, I know from personal experience that I can go for at least a few days without sleep.” Felix smiled at her reassuringly, not that she actually cared, nor did he want to reassure her. “I would rather be sleeping right now,” Felix thought.

Seemingly picking up on his exasperation, Beatrice got to the point: “I wanted to ask about my beloved husband. Is he all right after the battle?” The Kingdom of Redtowers had received word of the disastrous defeat only 2 days ago. There was limited information at the moment about loved ones in the army if they've been captured or killed during the battle. Of course, Felix knew that Reginald had survived as he'd received a letter from his brother detailing the course of the battle. In war, it was sometimes difficult to tell who died, who'd been captured, and who'd gone Missing. The Kingdom of Black would quickly burn all of the bodies to prevent the disease from spreading or from them reanimating as Undead, excluding obviously high ranking Nobles and generals. However, if it weren't obvious, they would just burn the body, and all the commoners would just be burned. This meant that the only way to know if someone was dead or alive was if they returned with the army. If they didn't, they would be presumed dead. But it wasn't uncommon for someone to be declared dead and then be found actually to be a prisoner or still alive.

The Kingdom of Redtowers faced one critical problem: an excess of nobility, specifically titled nobility. The tower's Empire had created an ingenious system of managing its nobility. Nobles were crucial to the operation of the state; they served as bureaucrats, military officers, Mages, and knights. Any task involving high levels of education was a task that a noble had to accomplish. The sheer expense of establishing a national education system that gave even commoners access to education was far too much for any country. It would expose the nation to unnecessary danger due to the accessibility of knowledge. The Second Empire of Man, led by Eleanor Lantar, had done away with the feudal system in the central and southern continents. Later, the Aszore Kingdom, fleeing the Lantar empire, had copied their system and conquered parts of the western continent States descending from them, such as the kingdom of Triton, and the Tower's Empire continued their legacy of denying feudalism.

The Lanter Empire and its successors created the system of registered nobility to address the need for educated people. A registered noble was required to provide several things to a country, and although that differed from country to country and even from era to era, the principles remained the same. The registered noble would give the government educated people in exchange for status and privileges. The problem the system created was that this registered nobility wasn't loyal to the crown or existing government. Kings created parliamentarian systems and oligarchies to prevent them from revolting, but there was still the possibility of betrayal or defection to foreign nations. The Tower's Empire was the nation that came up with a solution for this, and that was the system of titled nobility. They were nobles who received hereditary titles, allowing them to keep their status and power even if they could no longer fulfill their obligations.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

On a certain level, this took them back to feudalism, but it also created a group of staunch supporters of the crown and the nation that would stand with it and die with it as if the country fell and they would lose their hereditary status. However, this did come with a critical problem that registered nobles were self-enforcing on the number of Nobles that existed. Training and educating their own children or other people's children costs money. That money came from government jobs or property in a business owned by that family. This artificially kept the number of registered Nobles at an amount the government could handle. However, titled Nobles were hereditary. To maintain their obligation, they required government jobs or another form of money; otherwise, they were just people with fancy titles who offered no value to the country.

In the days of the Towers Empire, this wasn't the problem as there were plenty of government jobs to do. If anything, it was the other way around, where there weren't enough Nobles to give titles to and too many jobs for the Nobles to do. However, that was no longer the case. The tower's Empire had been reduced to several scattered branches barely clinging on the 10% of its former territory. During the Civil War, many nobles supported the Redtowers branch as they were the most legitimate, descending from the old emperor's first cousin through the male line. However, now, it become a severe weakness in their country as the remaining territory couldn't support the number of title Nobles even after getting rid of wholly registered Nobles.

In response, the title Nobles used their positions to create more jobs within the government. As a result, the government ended up spending ridiculous amounts on government salaries for completely unnecessary positions. It was forced to tolerate an absurd amount of embezzlement in those positions so that the Nobles could maintain their lifestyles. This came at the expense of more important things like the military or the development of agricultural land. Even then, this didn't satisfy the Nobles, and they had to make a big deal about claiming that the kingdom of Redtowers was the kingdom of Towers, pretending they still had all of their territories. This severely limited the Kingdom's diplomatic options, as essentially all surrounding nations used to be territories of the Kingdom of Towers.

The prior problems only worsened as the kingdom's territory continued shrinking. They lost parts of their territory to the Kingdom of Triton. They lost even more after the Antlatur Revolt, which essentially stripped them of all territory outside of the Norost mountains. After the Antlatur invaded the Western portion of their Kingdom 70 years ago, the situation got even worse.

The Kingdom of Redtowers needed to make peace with its neighbors to develop lands like the Great Alloro River and take advantage of its iron and copper resources through trade. Instead, they engaged in foolish raiding expeditions against their neighbors, and their nobles engaged in strange conspiracies like smuggling drugs into the Kingdom of Antlatur, which not only brought the wrath of that Kingdom down in their heads, the drugs also affected them just as severely. Antlatur and Black also raided the great Alloro River. So, while their self-declared rivals developed fertile land and built their influence and power, the Kingdom of Redtowers remained the same.

All these problems were why Reginald had married the golden stallion's sister and started a war with the Kingdom of Black. By gaining foreign connections and hopefully gaining the support of the military through conquest, they hope to purge the nobles finally. Right now, the royal family was too weak to do it, and if they tried, it would most certainly start a civil war, or they would be simply coup d'etat. The plan was after the purge that, they would become the Affiliated Kingdom of Antlatur. The golden stallion promised them that they would receive the eastern part of the Kingdom of Black up to the city of Grastide, which would include Francis's planes and several iron and copper mines.

Of course, none of this would happened because they had lost the battle, although assuming that the golden stallion won and kept his promise, they would still receive the land. But glory of conquest that Reginald hoped to receive wouldn't be theirs. Reginald would just be a man who received a gift from his brother-in-law as a consolation prize. If anything, people would only mock them for it. Although it is still possible to engage in a purge due to the support of the Kingdom of Antlatur and, if nothing else, gaining additional territory would relieve the pressure on their finances.

They had to engage in a purge to become an Affiliated Kingdom, the Nobles, in their pride and egos, but they never allowed their country to bow to the rebels of Antlatur. Of course, Felix thought this was nothing but foolishness. Becoming an Affiliated Kingdom would bring many benefits, including trade, protection, and cessation of hostilities between their countries. Although the Kingdom of Redtowers would likely never become a great power, they could at least become a regional player and improve the lives of their people. It was for that Noble purpose that Felix and Reginald acted. They kept their plans so Secret that the only two who knew the full details were Felix and Reginald himself. Some of their closest Aids were aware of part of it, but they were not privy to complete information.

Felix wasn't too worried about the Nobles catching on and doing something once something existed for a hundred years. People just assumed it would exist for a hundred more, even if all signs pointed to the opposite. Even if they heard some whispers of an impending purge, sure of their positions and status, they would do nothing about it. There was only one person he seriously worried about: Beatrice. More than any other noble in the country, she invested in the return of the Towers Empire, and that was to surpass her brother, her former political rival.

Felix didn't know all the details but understood the gist of the previous Antlatur succession crisis. Prince Higgsbury, who was her full brother, died. Polygamy was allowed in most countries, and it was customary for powerful men to take multiple wives. It was similarly acceptable for a powerful woman to take multiple husbands. This was all based on the power between the related parties. For example, Reginald hadn't married an additional wife out of respect for the kingdom of Antlatur. But if a princess of Redtowers were to marry the king of Antlatur, he would be expected to take additional wives. All that being said, regardless of status, one was still restricted to marrying only four wives, although they could have an unlimited number of concubines. The previous king of Antlatur had married his maximum of four wives and had seven children.

His first wife had given birth to Higgsbury and Beatrice. With the death of Higgsbury, Beatrice entered the race for the throne. However, she lost to her brother Andrew, who would promptly send her into exile. This primarily comes as Andrew's mother, despite not being the third wife and not the first wife, had managed to out-influence the first wife, securing her son the throne. He knew Beatrice held a grudge against her brother and her former kingdom. Although Reginald's marriage was an exile given to her by the golden stallion, she had no intention of accepting it. She took an interest in national politics, particularly the expansion process. Felix was relieved by the nobles' attitude, even if it was the same stupidity that plagued the nation at the moment. He was also relieved that Reginald disliked his wife and frequently cheated on her. This caused her pride to be hurt, which caused her to hate Reginald and shun him even more, which caused only further cheating and more hatred. Felix had no intention of allowing his sister-in-law to hijack the State systems to pursue her own personal Vendetta.

Once again pulling himself out of his thoughts, he responded to his sister: " Yes, he is quite safe. I've received a letter from him in his handwriting, but the same cannot be said for many of our soldiers.” Felix watched her reaction intently. She barely reacted when he mentioned that Reginald was safe, but her eyes narrowed slightly when he mentioned the fate of their soldiers.

“How tragic,” she said with an expressionless face. “I suppose we'll do something for the deceased families?”

“What do you think I'm doing?” Felix said, gesturing at the pile of documents. In reality, the pile of documents had nothing to do with the families of the deceased soldiers. They hadn't even figured out who was dead or captured yet. Felix was acting King while his brother was away, and so mostly it was that work plus all of the work of maintaining an army, and now all of the work accompanied by losing a battle.

“Anyways, honored sister, how's my niece doing.”

“She's quite well. Is the war going to continue?”

Felix thought about what he should tell her and decided to tell her the truth. She figured it out anyway, and doing this might build a bit of trust between them. “No, not likely. The battle halved the army, so we'll just attempt to ransom our prisoners at the earliest opportunity. Of course, if his majesty Andrew were to claim victory, we would aid him in whatever remained of the fighting.”

“I see,” she said coldly. “May I ask what's happening in the east?”

“You mean with the army of the dawn?” she nodded, and he continued. “Well, we've only recently found out that that's their name, but they're essentially a group of Bandits Raiders, and tribesmen have all formed a collective.” The region east of the Kingdom of Redtowers was a complicated place filled with multiple colliding interests. The region had no valuable resources, but various nations were still interested in controlling it. It was to unite for cultural and religious reasons, primarily for geographical reasons.

After the fall of the Towers Empire, multiple Regional governors claimed dominion and began feuding over the territory. However, to this day, their conflict only bred death and destruction, and no one had ever come close to actually unifying the region. A few powerful regional powers, including the Kingdom of Redtowers, had invaded in the past, but they were only met with fierce resistance and gained little for their efforts. However, the region has been unifying recently under a single warlord or warlady known only as The Iron Lady. Little else was known about her or her Army besides that they were unifying the region and named themselves the Army of the Dawn. The Kingdom of Redtowers had sent spies and scouts into the area, but they had yet to discover much.

“That's it, nothing else?” Beatrice asked. Unwilling to tell her anymore, Felix shrugged.