“The priests claim that saving one soul is to save all of Creation. Too bad for them that I would rather be a spendthrift than a miser.”

― Dread Empress Massacre I

----------------------------------------

Riding through the last segment of swamp towards the city of Brus took longer than I thought it would. We marched at a snail's pace in formation. Our prisoners were escorted in front of our procession. Out of all the Lycaonese forces, ours had taken the longest to arrive. This was despite having been ahead of the other Lycaonese armies. Managing over four thousand catatonic prisoners turned out to be the kind of logistical nightmare that nobody except me was expecting to have.

Yvette sat in front of me. It was uncomfortable, but I was willing to put up with it. The girl was not important enough to rate a mount of her own. I wasn’t going to make her just walk around in the mud. Sisyphus would just have to cope.

“Look over there can you see those kingfishers sitting on the roof? And over there look at all those fish do you think we will need to eat fish again tonight I’m getting tired of fish.” She leaned forward and pointed as she spoke.

My mount turned around and stared balefully at the two of us.

“Start telling me what I taught you.”

“Do I have to there is so much to see I just want to talk about it.”

“You wanted me to teach you magic.”

“Symbolism is an important part of magic especially when doing more complex workings which is confusing because it depends on where you are for example yew trees mean life in northern Callow-”

“Death,” I interrupted her. “They symbolize death. It's because of the Deoraithe. Their longbows are made from yew.”

“Right they mean death,” she mumbled under her breath.

“And why is it important?”

“Workings will be weaker or stronger or even possible to start with depending on symbolism for example you could probably use yew to enchant arrows so they are sharper or something like that or to curse someone with death from a distance I don’t know can we talk about something else.”

“Not just yet. You mentioned enchanting. Tell me about different materials.”

“Using the right materials to achieve the right results also plays a vital role for example how lead has properties of grounding and cold iron weakens magic…”

I continued to listen with one ear as we made our way forwards. Every so often, I would prompt her with a question before continuing.

Messengers had been sent out in advance of our arrival. They had informed both the Prince of Rhenia and Klaus Papenheim about the aftermath of our fight. Having Prince Amaury’s formal surrender had made the situation both easier and more complicated to manage.

Our procession was looked at fearfully. Marching like this was uncomfortable, but I understood the need for it. All the Northern Principalities had done the same. It was a statement. They were showing they were united in purpose. They were all working to put Cordelia Hasenbach in the seat of First Prince.

That didn’t make it any less of a chore. We were all expected to wear uniforms. I was not an official part of the army. Sadly, my status as a mercenary didn’t mean that there wasn’t an official garb I was expected to wear. I had learned that only a few days after I had agreed to help Cordelia. One of her functionaries had delivered a set of elaborate dresses to me. The clothing came complete with frills and ruffles. It was also stamped with the Lycaonese Wolf. I swear they stuck the symbol on everything.

The dresses were impractical to fight in. I had raised the issue. That wasn’t enough to escape from the responsibility of wearing them. I was told they were official court garb for a member of Cordelia’s retinue.

There was nothing stopping me from protesting the issue further. I had decided not to since I was working alongside her. I would put up with the dresses, so long as she didn’t expect me to wear them when I wasn’t part of a major procession.

Sisyphus carried me on the right-hand side of the procession. I was positioned in a way so that I was not entirely a part of it. The reverent stares of some troops bored holes into my back. Somebody called out. It was a title. I focused on them. It was two people talking from the side of the procession. They weren’t asking for me, only talking loudly to a friend. I turned away.

Sovereign of the Ardent Dreams.

That was what they were calling me. The title was concerning. There were a substantial number of story strings attached to it. I also wasn’t entirely pleased with the title itself. It made me sound like some kind of prostitute. The title had caught on after the Brussians told the Neustrians what I had done. Seeing an entire army incapacitated due to religious bliss was apparently enough to convince them that I was Above’s answer to the Warlock. They had gone ahead and given me a similarly ostentatious title to mirror his own.

I had tried to correct the soldier’s assumptions. It didn’t matter. The name had already caught on. It didn’t help that news of my clash with the Sovereign of the Red Skies was well known. Even surviving an encounter with the Warlock was considered to be a win by many. I certainly didn’t feel that way. I was reasonably sure that with sufficient time to prepare, the man would trounce me with next to no effort at all. He had plenty of time to come up with the perfect box to put me in now that he was aware of my existence.

That did nothing to dispel the high I was riding. The smile on my face had probably been there for a few days at this point. I hadn’t bothered trying to suppress it. It was nice being appreciated for having done something simply good.

I was sure that the people in charge weren’t happy about it, but the soldiers certainly were. None of them were looking forward to losing friends or family.

I’d even heard a mother from among the camp followers tell her kid not to worry because, “the Sovereign of the Ardent Dreams will chase away any nightmares.”

My actual Name was less well known.

I was sure that there would be repercussions. There was almost certainly something I could have done better. That didn’t make me feel any less happy about it. Being able to go to sleep after doing something momentous and not have to worry about nightmares felt so good.

I did my best to ignore the reverent looks and instead focused on the town we were passing through.

It was constructed in a shallow region of swampland. There were roads built on long sections of dry land. Most of the houses were made of wood and built on stilts that had been raised out of the bog. They were strewn between different islands. The islands were all connected by narrow bridges. I imagined from above that they looked like stars in the night sky. Groups of raised landmasses that had been clustered loosely into constellations.

There were patchwork walls that barely counted as a defence. Large blocks of limestone that were stacked haphazardly and then joined together with mortar served as a barrier into the region. There was nothing else built with the material nearby. It was likely to be imported from somewhere else. The makeshift wall blocked off parts of the swamp that were shallow enough to cross. The city’s inhabitants hadn’t bothered to wall off the deeper sections. It didn’t surprise me. Those could only be entered by boat.

Armies of small fishing boats made their way out onto the swamp water. I had been told that fishing was a big industry here. My eyes roamed over the teeming fleets of boats. It certainly looked that way.

We kept moving closer towards the city of Brus. Our mounts crossed out of the swampland and onto solid ground.

The city finally became visible through the canopies of trees. Cordelia had long since taken it.

Prince Amaury truly had stripped away almost all the city’s defenders to fight against us. Only the bare skeleton of a garrison had remained behind. Taking the place had been nothing more than a formality. This would have been true even without his surrender. If Cordelia’s coalition had been forced into sieging the place, it would have fallen in a matter of hours.

There simply wasn’t enough manpower around to defend it.

We made our way across two more islands and arrived at the mainland. Most of the army was pulled away by the arrival of Klaus. Those of us remaining headed towards the city itself. I had been directed towards the palace. It was an easy building to identify. It was one of the few buildings made almost entirely out of painted white stone.

I paused in my journey and took a moment to drink in the view.

The palace sprawled out and occupied an obscene amount of lateral space. It was contained within a walled off compound. There were rows of carefully maintained apple trees leading up to the gated entrance. Three stone towers reached up like fingers towards the sky.

Sisyphus started to move forward again after I dug in my knees. We arrived at the gate not long after. A servant let us in.

My boots hit the ground. I handed the reins of my mount to a stable attendant not long after. I took a moment to ask for directions. Without them, I was almost certain to end up lost. Leaving the stables, I made my way through extravagant doors into the palace itself.

Yvette followed behind. Eventually, she split off from me at what would apparently be our temporary quarters. I was led elsewhere.

Moving through corridors of the palace took some time. The structure was a maze of stairways and passages. They were decorated with extravagant tapestries and carpets. A servant guided the way. Not long after entering the building, I reached my destination. The door to the room we stopped at was shut. I could hear the murmuring of voices from inside. Opening it, I stepped in.

Seated in the parlour on a comfortable chair was Cordelia Hasenbach. She was hunched over a desk and appeared to be carefully sorting through one of many piles of letters. They were stacked neatly in rows. Each pile was weighted down. Shadowing Cordelia were two guards. She looked up as I entered.

“Please be seated. Our discussion will commence shortly.”

There were two chairs on the opposite side of the desk. I sat on the one closer to the stained-glass window. On it was a depiction of chubby naked sexless sprites putting a crown on someone’s head.

“They don’t look like that,” I muttered under my breath.

“You have observed the cherubim?”

“I have. They don’t really look like anything. It’s easier to describe them in terms of impressions.” I smiled fondly. “They are like family to me. They are always there for you. If I was to describe them physically… I’d say they are like a sea of lights radiating warmth in an ocean of darkness.”

Their perspective might have been completely inhuman, but that didn’t really matter. Family members didn’t need to all think the same thoughts, just be there for each other. They had chosen me, and I was happy to stick with them.

“I’m certain that many of the priests in the House of Light would find the very idea blasphemous.”

“They would be wrong. The Choir of Compassion certainly doesn’t mind. They would adopt everyone if they could get away with it.”

Cordelia said nothing in response.

Despite it being just after noon, the light in the room was still dim. She kept leafing through letters, otherwise ignoring my presence. I squinted at them. It was difficult to see in such poor light. Now that I was closer, I could make out what they were. Most of them appeared to be accounts and bills of sale. As she read over them, she made annotations on another page.

The clanging of metal boots on stone disrupted my mental wandering. The door opened again. An unfairly handsome youth was escorted in by some of Cordelia’s guards. Despite looking to be about fourteen to fifteen years old, it was obvious that with time he was only going to become more appealing to look at. He wore extravagant clothing. It was obvious to me that he was someone important.

He looked around wildly as he entered the room. His blue eyes roamed over me and dismissed me entirely. The expression on his face gave the impression that he felt he was taking a step onto the gallows.

Cordelia looked up again.

“Do you intend to have your Chosen force me to confront the Angels as well?” the boy said bitterly. He tossed his fair hair from side to side as he spoke.

He ignored me entirely. Clearly he didn’t realize who I was.

“The Aspirant has already been castigated for her actions.” Cordelia informed him. She didn’t even look my way. Neither did she make any indication as to my identity.

That was news to me.

Why is she making me watch this?

I didn’t know who this boy was. Despite being singled out, I felt that this drama didn’t actually concern me at all.

“My uncle’s defeat was foul. It was dealt to him by sorceries from afar. There was no honour in his loss. Would that he have faced your troops on the field of battle instead. Denouncing the Chosen does not undo this.” the boy declared.

Wait, this kid was upset because I prevented a slaughter?

“And her actions were not sanctioned, neither by me nor by Princess Mathilda,” Cordelia replied, turning over a page as she did so.

… That was only technically true. It would be more accurate to say that I hadn’t asked for permission. If I had done so, I would likely have been told to go right ahead with my plan.

“ Would you have her face high justice then?” the boy challenged.

“I invite you to petition the House of Light on the matter,” Cordelia answered drily. “Do you believe they would stand idly by while the attempt is made to execute one of their own? Especially since no harm was done to any of your men.”

Wait, what?

“And so justice goes unfulfilled.” His tone was flat. The boy sounded as if he expected nothing else.

Cordelia changed the topic then.

“In other matters,” she told him in a pleasant tone of voice, “Nathanael Goethal was fourteen thousand thrones in debt to the Pravus Bank. Your uncle’s debts were even deeper.”

The picture was starting to piece itself together. I didn’t know who the boy was. Actually, maybe I did. Prince Amaury had mentioned a name. Frederick, wasn’t it? It was likely the boy was his heir. The Prince had been made to drink poison after his defeat.

I didn’t like killing one's enemies being an accepted part of the Proceran succession. In my mind, it encouraged the Princes to show no restraint. If they knew they were going to die, then why hold anything back? Despite that, I was willing to make an exception for Prince Amaury.

The man had actually earned his death.

I didn’t know what had happened to Nathanael. It was likely that he had died as well. I had no proof of that other than suspicion alone. I expected him to be in this room with us. He wasn’t. That was enough to convince me that he was probably dead.

“I owe no debts,” the youth replied.

“You would owe one,” Cordelia Hasenbach coolly corrected.

“I would not swear myself to the woman who orchestrated my uncle’s defeat in such an unseemly fashion,” the boy snapped back. His muscled arms clenched as spoke.

“You misunderstand me, Frederic Goethal,” the Prince of Rhenia said. She brushed a strand of golden hair out of her eyes in the process.

“A crown is not a privilege,” Cordelia Hasenbach calmly declared, “it is a duty. You will owe a debt to your people. A debt to Procer itself. See that it is paid back in full, Prince Frederic.”

The two of them continued to verbally spar. I listened with one ear as they did so. Slowly, I was coming to understand what Cordelia was trying to show me. She had lost a potential ally here. It was likely he would have sided with her if I hadn’t chosen to fight. The conversation was important, but most of it was lost on me. My attention started to drift.

I focused on the stacks of correspondence once more. My gaze eventually settled on two of them. The sheets on top of both were marked with my name.

* Taylor – communications.

* Taylor – politics.

The first pile was small. It would contain news from her informants about Roland’s whereabouts. The second heap was huge. The top of the pile was just below eye level. It teetered on the edge of falling over and somehow remained standing upright. I expected that the stack contained Cordelia’s efforts to uphold our agreement. The urge to reach over and grab them both came over me. I suppressed it. There was no need to hurry. I could read over it all later.

With some effort, I brought my focus back onto the discussion. It took a while longer before their argument concluded, but eventually Frederick was escorted out.

A servant brought in a pot of tea and two cups on a tray. It took some effort to make space for both on the desk. Somehow, they managed. They left after pouring both of us cups. Both of us picked up our cups and inhaled the fragrant aroma before taking a sip.

There was a moment of tranquillity in the room. It didn’t last for long before conversation picked up again.

“I take it that the lesson I am attempting to impart has sunk in?” Cordelia asked.

“Yeah. He’s upset because of what I did.”

“That is not precisely the case. Prince Frederick has a strong seasoning of naïveté to his character. He truly believes in the duty of Princes and would find no fault with the purpose you strive for.”

“Then why is he angry?”

“Prince Frederick also values the appearance of honour. Great fights between Princes on the field of battle play a part in that. For the outcome of the clash to have been determined at your hand instead has undermined that belief.”

“There is nothing honourable about it. The idea is a lie.”

“Nonetheless, it is what the boy has been taught.”

“Then what should I have done?”

She paused for only a heartbeat. I still caught it.

“You should have found a solution that preserved the cultural expectations of the Princes of Procer. This situation can be salvaged, but I would have preferred an outcome where it need not be.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Don’t let this sour your good mood today.

“How would I do that?” I challenged. She probably wanted me to allow the fight to go ahead.

“You once used duels as an example of something you would be capable of enforcing. You were fully capable of arranging for a duel between one Prince and the other. Once the fight began, you could subtly tip the scales in Prince Mathilda’s favour. This would have achieved the desired outcome.”

It amused me how careful she was being in how she worded what she said. She might not have proposed letting the fight go ahead, but there was no way she didn’t think it. I didn’t need her to agree with my views on politics. Expecting her to would be unreasonable. That didn’t mean I needed to leave the situation as is. Perhaps I could help her understand where I was coming from?

“Can I show you something?”

She looked up from the papers before her, her eyes narrowing on me in thought.

“That depends on the nature of what you wish to demonstrate.”

“I want to show you some of my memories. It will only be pictures, sounds, and smells, but it should be enough.”

“Explain to me why I should entertain this request.”

“Perspective.”

“You will have to elaborate what you mean by that. You have a penchant for single word responses where you assume that much additional context is inferred by the interlocutor.”

“We come from different places. They are different worlds. Knowing that isn’t enough to understand. Let me show you the difference.”

I hoped she didn’t refuse. While I doubted she would come to share the same opinions as me, it would at least help properly contextualize our conversations. I was in her world, interacting with cultures, opinions, and beliefs formed in response to its rules. That didn’t mean I had a good understanding of Calernia, but I had a better impression than having no impression at all.

“What do you hope to achieve in doing so?”

“To make working together easier. There are things neither of the two of us are ever going to agree on. Some you can probably guess, others we will work out. I want to give you a frame of reference. We keep talking past each other, instead of to each other. I’m trying to fix that.”

“You have my permission to show me what you believe I need to see.”

I started to manipulate the light in the parlour. Slowly, a scene from my memories coalesced. Thousands upon thousands of hexagons, spread across innumerable worlds. I filled in for the other senses next. The blasting of offensive powers. The smell of blood and smoke. It was impossible to truly capture the fight. This was especially true considering how many additional senses I had at the time. I was showing Cordelia at best an approximation of the conflict. But as a demonstration, it would have to do.

“This was what the end of my world looked like,” I began. “I can’t provide you with the true experience. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. This is enough. If every person on Calernia died right now, it would be only a fraction of the scale of the tragedy you are watching. It wouldn’t make the death of everyone here any less awful, but the comparison helps to contextualize.”

Cordelia said nothing in response. She simply watched as the scene played out.

I started a new slideshow as the first came to a close. This time I panned through memories of places on Earth Bet. The sound of cars at rush hour, time spent flying on Atlas, walking on the Boardwalk with Lisa. Some select moments from my time in Chicago. Some of those memories had sadly grown hazy. Time really was the greatest devil of them all.

It hurt to think about. I could no longer remember what my mom really looked like. I knew that I probably looked like her. But knowing that wasn’t the same as being able to see her or hear her voice.

How many thousands of people that I would come to love would I forget before my dreams were realised?

“This was what my home looked like before the end. There were ups and down to it. It definitely wasn’t all perfect. We had Endbringers to worry about. You don’t, but you have your own problems. Our heroes lost more often than we won. No matter what we did, it felt like we were incapable of stopping the eventual collapse.”

I let the images fade away.

“I’m immortal. Old age is not going to kill me. I think you already know that, but I am not sure if you understand what that means. You talked about the benefits of long term planning for stable governance. I’m not planning for a single lifetime. I’m planning for forever. The question of what the world will look like in a thousand years isn’t academic for me. I’m actually going to be there, and I want people’s lives to be better. I want there to be no villains. The policies and ideas I talked about aren’t new. They existed in my world. I don’t expect them to work perfectly here, but that’s okay because that isn’t what I am trying to do. That’s why I came to you for help. I need a way to achieve the same ends with acceptable means. So tell me, Cordelia, what kind of world do you want to make?”

“Are you the one responsible for Constance’s Scar?” Cordelia asked, her voice taking on a hard edge.

Well, my first attempt at a heroic speech failed.

It hadn’t occurred to me that the Gnomes would be the first detail she would take away from what I showed her.

“I arrived there. The Gnomes deciding to bomb it after I left had nothing to do with me.”

“That is a convenient story.”

“It’s the truth. I doubt I’d be a hero if I killed a city.”

I realised how wrong I was the moment the words left my mouth. There were numerous Calernian heroes who did hurt lots of people. My experience with heroism was vastly unrepresentative. Compared to many of the others I heard about, I was the nice hero.

“There are numerous cases of heroes having done just that.”

“Think about what you know about me. Would I kill an army?”

She continued to examine my face.

“I will consider the subject of Constance’s Scar further.”

“Can I read those letters?” I asked, pointing at the piles.

“They were set aside for you to peruse.”

I picked up both of the stacks and carefully moved them to my side of the table. Lifting the first page, I squinted.

Why is Cordelia reading in the dark anyhow?

Irritably, I created a ball of soft light overhead. My eyes roamed over the text. It took me a while to work my way through it all. Roland had been briefly spotted in the lands of Brus months past, before making his way further south. There wasn’t more recent news on his whereabouts. I was positive about my chances of finding him despite that. With Cordelia’s information network, it was only a matter of time until he was located.

I swear when I find him, I will find a way to make his life difficult.

It struck me that he hadn’t kept in contact with his girlfriend. The one he had been planning to marry. I couldn’t even remember her name properly. It had been a long time. Melisandre, wasn’t it? When I found him, I’d drag him all the way back to her so she could give him a piece of her mind. He should know better than to just go off on an adventure without keeping in contact with his friends.

I put aside the correspondence and turned to the larger pile. To my surprise, part of what she had put together was a thorough examination of why Cordelia believed that democracy could not work. I hadn’t asked that of her.

“Why did you work on this?” I waved it at her.

“If we are to work together in the long term, it is imperative that you understand why specific reforms are not feasible. Consider this added detail to be a gesture of goodwill.”

I turned my attention back to what she had written.

It started with the obvious. Most of the peasants were uneducated. They wouldn’t be able to make informed decisions. That would result in them voting in bad leaders. Her treatise moved on from there. It asserted that even if they were all educated, the logistics of organizing voting just wouldn’t work.

“Wouldn’t scrying make this possible?”

“Having wizards that can Scry would only alleviate the problem. You would still need to set up a system to both organize and count votes. Adding more chains of authority would sidestep the issue, but it would also introduce more points where the process could be interfered with.”

I turned back to her written arguments. Other concerns were brought up as well. She considered the issue of individuals who by their very nature were more powerful than others. Wizards, Priests, Heroes, and Villains. I was dubious of those arguments. Neither Bellerophan nor the Principate itself could exist if they were as overblown as she made them out to be.

It stood out to me that it didn’t seem like she truly understood how Names worked. I knew that I had only a half formed understanding. Being self-taught, I was sure to be making mistakes. Even that was more complete than what Cordelia appeared to know. The subject would be raised when I was done reading. It was important she understood how Names fit into the world, or somewhere down the line she would make a dangerous mistake.

I continued to skim through her arguments about democracy, then moved onto her proposed alternatives. One model she outlined employed a three-way joint rulership of the Principate between a Prince, a member of the clergy and a sorcerer. She didn’t give the idea itself much credence, but it was still interesting to look at.

I had to suppress an urge to snort at a rant about the dangers of allowing priests near power. It had been neatly crossed out, but it still made her just a bit more relatable.

Cordelia’s eventual conclusion was disappointing, but understandable. She felt that another system could not function without changing other factors within the Principate first.

Setting them aside, I moved onto her proposed ideas on how to improve the lives of the peasantry. There were lots of details. Projected costs, plans that both accounted for my presence and the absence of it. Unfortunately, the documents were mostly written in shorthand. They contained references to page numbers of books, and recommendations of specific advisors I should speak to.

“Can you explain this?” I asked, passing a page across to her.

“I would be surprised if you were capable of decoding what I wrote,” Cordelia mused. She looked up from the leave and turned my way. “These proposals are still in the planning stages. Unlike the arguments I outlined for or against different systems of governance, I believe these can actually be implemented.”

“And those ideas are?…”

“Many proposals relating to urban planning. Recommendations on where to locate centres of education. A detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of educating the peasantry. I concluded that the end result can be justified.”

“You say that as if there are good reasons not to.”

“Depending on your long term objectives, there are excellent reasons not to.”

… In the interest of avoiding another argument, I left that statement alone. It seemed I would be getting what I wanted anyhow. There was no need to fight over it.

“Why do most of the plans not account for my presence?”

“I am not prepared to undertake civil reforms on this scale with a single point of failure. You are accounted for as an additional asset, not the underpinnings of my reign.”

That was fair.

“Most of this is on Rhenia specifically. Not all of Procer.”

“I would not have the authority to dictate the governance of other Principalities. This remains true even as First Prince. What I am capable of achieving is demonstrating the merit of the reforms within my own Principality, then organizing a vote for wide scale adoption of the reforms. This is not a guarantee that the vote would pass, merely proof that I will make the attempt. Furthermore, I do not have access to enough information to accurately assess the governance of other Principalities.”

“You have a note about migration. What is it referring to?”

“There are some Principalities where the farmers migrate seasonally. The farmers will live and toil in the fields during the Spring and Summer. This changes during the Winter months. The manants will then migrate to the cities themselves and remain there until the turn of the season. The Principality of Salia is an example of where this occurs. The migratory nature of large parts of the peasantry is not significant for the early stages of planning. However, accounting for it is important once the later stages of adoption are reached.”

That explained it. There would either need to be migratory teachers or seasonal teaching for this to work. I glossed over the list of costs and skipped to a section detailing the difficulty of finding enough teachers. Cordelia proposed rolling out an education system in stages. Start by offering specialized schooling in exchange for various duties performed. Once there was a high enough saturation of people educated on specific subjects, proper public school equivalents could slowly be opened.

There were annotations on everything. From what would be a proper syllabus, to the projected benefits of having more skilled workers, to the cost of proper teaching materials. Most of the ideas were nothing more than drafts. That didn’t matter to me. This was still more than enough evidence that her side of the bargain was being held. Putting all of this together would not have been easy and looked to have involved the efforts of many people, not just Cordelia herself.

The notes on the syllabus fascinated me. There were comparisons between having many specialized trade schools and a more generalized education, listing the costs and benefits of each. It wasn’t clear to me which way Cordelia was aiming, but the proposal for trade schools had much more detail filled in.

I hadn’t even considered the idea that a public education didn’t necessarily need to be a general education.

It hadn’t really sunk in until I started reading through Cordelia’s notes that just reforming a single part of a nation would be the work of a lifetime. Even though these proposals were still very clearly in the infant stages, there was enough paper for me to drown in.

I really am going to be working on this for thousands of years, aren’t I?

I placed the notes on education beside another stack of papers and started looking at the other documentation that was present. There were a surprisingly large number of proposals relating solely to civics. The construction and maintenance of sewer systems in places that did not have them. Roadworks to encourage merchant traffic. Walls for security. Most of those suggestions seemed almost cursory. It was as if they had been pulled out of older books. Past ideas that had been considered good, but been dismissed as infeasible for one reason or another.

It made sense that there would have been existing plans that became possible simply because I had entered the stage.

Which brought me to the final set of propositions.

They all related to international relations. Almost all of them were marked in some way or another as being unworkable.

“Why won’t any of these work?”

“There is no reliable method to regulate international warfare over long periods of time.”

“Can you explain?”

“Consider the simplest example of two nations at war who are locked in a perpetual draw with each other. Should one side develop a new weapon capable of overpowering the other, they will deploy it to seize victory. This analysis becomes more complicated if you add in a third nation, however the truth remains the same. In the event that any of the groups acquires the power to enforce their victory through force of arms, they will do so.”

“Couldn’t they come to a peaceful resolution?”

“Whilst in some cases that is a possibility, in others there are either cultural or economic factors preventing such from occurring. If you consider the Kingdom of the Dead for example, even if it’s ruler offered terms of peaceful coexistence there are no good nations on Calernia that would accept it.”

“How about an organization. One composed of soldiers from every nation. Wouldn’t that work? Then everyone would have a reason to listen.”

“Creating a regulatory body to oversee the situation cannot function unless the organization is strong enough to enforce its principles. Under most circumstances, the nations of Calernia would never allow for an outside entity to operate within their borders with any degree of autonomy. In the event that a large enough tragedy were to occur, such an organization may form in the aftermath. However, it would remain inherently unstable. The regulator would only remain capable of functioning provided that it is in the interests of the members that comprise it. This would remain true during the lifetimes of those who initially establish it, but would drift with the passage of years. It is almost a certainty that the system would one day collapse.”

I was about to turn back to the notes, when Cordelia spoke again. “Are you opposed to leading a crusade against Praes in the aftermath of the civil war?”

My brain ground to a halt. This was not a topic I expected to discuss.

“You’re asking because you’re planning one?” I asked.

“I have yet to decide one way or the other.”

I mentally marked that as a lie, despite the fact that her face was a mask. Something told me she wanted this war badly. It took me a while to formulate a proper response. Making up my mind was about as hard as I thought.

“I don’t know,” I replied eventually. “There are advantages and disadvantages. I want the Calamities dead, but I’m not sure fighting them is worth the cost.”

It was easy to tally up lives lost on one path and lives lost on another, then simply do the arithmetic. I didn’t believe that was the right way to compare tragedies.

“Despite your role as a hero, you would consider leaving them in place?”

“They aren’t just going to roll over and die,” I replied bluntly. “It will be bloody and tens of thousands will die along the way. I don’t know how that compares to just leaving them in charge. The Warlock might not have fixed the problem in Liesse, but he didn’t cause it. Callow existed in a state of apathy before the Artist arrived.”

There was no way I would allow myself in the same room as the Warlock again. Not unless I was fighting him.

“The Calamities are immortal, much like yourself. How many would perish unjustly should they remain in place?”

It struck me then. Something so obvious, that it surprised me that I missed it.

“They aren’t like me. Their immortality comes from their Name. If they no longer fit their Name, they will lose it. I don’t know what a Black Knight is supposed to do, but they aren’t supposed to rule. If he keeps doing what he’s doing for another two decades, he will no longer have a Name.”

“If I understand what you are suggesting, you believe that you can merely outlast them?”

I was about to respond when I had an idea. It took only a moment before innovate advanced it. I didn’t like the suggestions. They reminded me of a speech I had once given long ago in the aftermath of the Echidna fight. Weeping heavens, I’d said some stupid things. It was shortly after the reveal of Cauldron. I had told heroes not to break away from the Protectorate over it, despite my own unwillingness to trust them.

I would still share the idea even if I thought it was a bad one. Perhaps Cordelia could make something out of it. That didn’t mean I shouldn’t preface it with a big warning. It was important that she knew I was only brainstorming.

“There might be a better option. This is entirely hypothetical. I don’t like it. I’m posing it anyway. Please don’t implement the idea. I’m only suggesting it to see what you think.”

“The degree to which you are warning me against whatever it is you are about to propose suggests that I am unlikely to approve of it,” she stated drily.

“You could form an unofficial alliance with Dread Empress Malicia,” I admitted. “It couldn’t ever be done publicly. Agree not to set foot in Callow if she leaves the Principate alone. Then start trading different concessions. The Calamities clearly only tolerate certain kinds of names within their borders. Help remove the villains they dislike. Bargain for favours, or goods and services.”

“Have you considered the current state of the Principate, and the part Dread Empress Malicia’s played in orchestrating it?”

“That’s part of why I said it’s a bad idea.”

“I would find myself unseated as First Prince were such an agreement ever to come to light. Furthermore, I fail to see the advantages of doing so.”

“It’s rewarding good behaviour. Nobody wants the Calamities around, but the other types of villains are even worse. The old stories will die with enough time because they no longer worked. We would just need to wait. The new stories would be less awful.”

“What makes you believe they would honour such an agreement?”

“Nothing,” I answered truthfully. “I don’t even like the idea. It feels like letting Evil walk free and doing nothing about it. The only reason I proposed it is to see what you would think.”

“So you are not opposed to standing at the forefront of a crusade?”

“I’m undecided. Give me time to think about it. It also depends on how much thought you put into the aftermath. How well will people be treated? What will you do about refugees? What weapons are you planning to use? All of those are important questions to me.”

There was a lull in the conversation for a few hundred heartbeats. Eventually, it resumed.

“In other matters, news from Aisne suggests that their internal conflict has escalated even further. There is open conflict between the peasants and the Princes. The civil war cannot be concluded satisfactorily without a resolution to their internal conflict as well.” She had picked up another letter in the process of her speech and had started reading over it.

That was a very roundabout way of asking me to go to Aisne.

With the request, came the pointed tug of a story.

“You want me to go on my own? Why aren’t you stepping in?”

“The politics in Aisne are much more delicate than other Principalities. They have secluded themselves from the civil war at large and turned their attention entirely inwards. Involving myself in their troubles would likely prove deleterious to my broader goals.”

“I can’t promise this ends the way you like. I’m not just going to support a Prince or Princess unless they seem like the best option.”

“You mistake my intent in making this request. Whilst I have my preferred candidate, the choice of who governs Aisne is largely irrelevant in the current political climate. What I consider far more imperative is that there is an individual able to make decisions at all. That is currently not the case in Aisne at this present moment in time.”

That made me far more comfortable helping out.

“I can make my way to Aisne, although I will probably need support.”

I wasn’t about to just start ordering people around. If she expected me to resolve this amiably, I needed proper help.

Cordelia retrieved a document beside her and passed it to me. I looked down at it. I was directed to speak with Princess Mathilda about an outstanding situation involving me. Apparently, one of her attendants wished to resign her commission and formally join my staff. The description of their skills was somewhat vague, and mentally I catalogued it under communications. Princess Mathilda had approved the request.

How did this even come about? I don’t have a staff.

“Why was this approved?”

“I imagine that in the aftermath of the fight, Princess Mathilda decided it would be wise to court your approval.”

That made sense. It was more likely there wasn’t a request at all. She probably saw how much I wanted to involve myself in politics and how bad I was at it. Deciding to foist someone with those talents onto me was a good way to influence my opinions while also putting me in her debt.

“I’m going to need to offer her something for this, won’t I?”

“That would be the most prudent course of action.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Klaus is organizing the soldiers for the march on the capital of Lange.”

“You don’t want me there?”

“Whilst your presence would be appreciated, there are too many currently ongoing conflicts within the Principate at present for us to resolve them without separating before Winter sets in.”

Figuring all of this out was unnecessarily complicated.

“I’ll talk to Princess Mathilda, then head to Aisne.”

I hoped that the problem turned out to be something easy to fix, but I doubted it. My understanding of the situation there was that Aisne had turned itself into a microcosm of the Civil War. Family members all fighting with each other. They were trying to determine who should remain in charge. No matter what I ended up doing there, it wasn’t going to be solved over the course of a day.

And if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that things could always get worse.