The day of my public coronation finally arrived.

Horns blared, banners were hung, and pomp abounded around the palace and in the capital. It was much more of a celebration than I wanted, but my closest advisors recommended that we treat it as something to celebrate rather than the hostile takeover that it actually was. That made enough sense to me that I rolled along with it.

I had followed that same line of thinking with regards to what I planned to say to the people present. Big, potentially unwelcome changes would have to wait, and instead, I needed to focus on the things I was going to bring to the Kingdom to better it.

Privately, I was already working with advisors on the reforms I wanted to make and arranging the trusted crown criers who would be deployed with soldiers to the walled cities to spread the information. As a world in its middle ages, there just was no better way to spread information. Once my Guild expanded our methods of taming a bit wider through the Kingdom, I could probably create a messaging network a bit like how the Guild used razoravens to pass information between Freehold and Gurt, but there was still a huge amount of land between the walled cities which complicated that. The Kingdom needed to formalize smaller outposts in some way to ensure it had the on-ground resources to handle the dispensation of information.

I put thoughts of information networks out of my mind and refocused on my coronation speech. I had to be careful about toeing the line between setting a dangerous precedent, one where people decided they too should have the right to seize power ruthlessly with their own strength, and still somehow inform the people of the Kingdom that my doing so was both valid and would lead to the betterment of all. Of course, it would not be; it would be to the betterment of many, maybe even most, but there would be people that would end up suffering as a result. They would grow angry, resentful, and possibly violent.

That was one of the main reasons I needed Atlessoa and had her working to expand her spy network. Watching for malcontents and ensuring they did not cause real trouble was a key part of her work.

I had been pretty surprised to discover that the previous king and his family of leaders that came before him did not have a formalized system already in place for this. Spycraft, it seemed, was relatively underutilized in this world. The palace did some basic information gathering, and it had surprisingly excellent record keeping—which I was still diving into whenever I got the chance—but Atlessoa’s new division was relatively novel and would be a huge help to avoiding disaster.

Nodel was also a massive help, quickly becoming my lead advisor and managing the other advisors through this changeover. She had told me that she was predominantly a magical advisor before, limited to only contributing to the conversation when it came to what the Kingdom could do with its mages, which had been a massive underutilization of her talents. She had received an excellent education in running a walled city from her parents in Mirut, and continued learning in the capital and then the palace, and her intelligence and application of information was superb.

It had seemed a little odd that the previous king had kept her so close on hand when she was only a magical advisor. Had she been another one of his magical bodyguards? He had kept a priestess nearby as well, presumably for healing. I’ll have to ask Nodel about that later.

A horn blared, and signaled that it was time for me to step forward. I listened to the crier that had been selected as he continued to announce me to the gathered crowd.

“As victor of the Tournament of Talents, he was granted a unique challenge by the former king: a duel! The tournament champion tried to decline, but the former king was confident in his power, having seized his crown through the strength of his fist. Yet upon dueling, the former king learned that our champion was not just the greatest tamer in the Kingdom, but also, a phenomenal mage and a mighty warrior! We had only seen a glimpse of his skill in the tournament, and on this fateful day, the former king was defeated!

“Our champion was left with no choice! His power is that of a leader! Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but we can believe in our champion, and it is not just in his strength we can trust! How much good has he already done, expediting trade between the cities with the guild he built out of nothing? As a skilled merchant and exceptional businessman, our champion was already working to improve the Kingdom, before he ever stepped foot in the capital!

“Now, our champion will help usher in a new era for our Horuth Kingdom, an era of peace and prosperity like never before! I give you: mighty warrior, keen merchant, beastmaster, and magus supreme, King Pilus Horuth!”

It’s a bit much, even if we really do need to sell this, I thought as I stepped forward. We were trying to downplay and obscure the details of the power transfer to avoid setting us up to constantly field challengers for the crown. I was not worried about whether or not I could win—it was reasonably clear to me now that, face to face in a fair fight, I was relatively unbeatable if I did not hold back to hide secrets—but I also wanted to push the Kingdom towards an ideal of better leadership through positive change rather than through right of might. To that end, I would have to lead by example, once we moved past this bump in the road where I did, in fact, become leader through right of might, hence the twisting of the actual truth.

Atlessoa’s growing spy network was also tasked with making sure that none of the witnesses ever let that truth slip. I had vetted them as best as I could with 3-point magic and I was keeping those people close, as I wanted to earn their respect with my actions so that they felt honorbound to keep the secret for the Kingdom, but these early days would be critical to how this all played out. One drunken rumor could create a whole slew of new issues to deal with. At least in that regard, the slow speed of information in this world worked in my favor. At the moment, we controlled the narrative and could shape this story.

A crown was placed upon my head, and I looked out at the cheering crowd. I was a bit surprised at the positive turnout. In part, it seemed that I had gained a positive following from the tournament, but another large component was that Rugnor had not been winning the hearts of the Kingdom with his limited reign. Those in the know had been privy to the fact that he was dead-set on invading the north as part of his legacy, and the peoples’ memories were not so short that they forgot the losses faced when the Kingdom was forced to withdraw.

My popularity was also, possibly, due in part to the fact that various new goods were being spoken about around town. The new dairy products of cheese and butter, which were changing the gastronomical landscape, were being lauded across the capital. An ice making enchantment was being spoken of allowing for better food storage and the transport of fresh goods. The largest splash was the saddle and how it allowed people to ride certain beasts, allowing individuals to travel farther, faster, with less fatigue. In each case, the same rumor was being spoken: “did you know that the new king was the one who invented this?”

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Atlessoa was really, really good at her job.

Of course, not everyone believed that rumor. Another constraint of the slow spread of information was that the truth was just as hard to spread as a lie. It was not that important to me that people knew that I actually was the one who brought these things to their world, just that I was seen in a positive light. As someone with the potential to bring more good things into their lives, we hoped to reduce the likelihood that someone would want to usurp the throne in retaliation.

The crowd fell silent, and I raised up my hands.

“People of the Horuth Kingdom,” I began, as I lowered my arms. “It is my honor to stand before you today.

“Our Kingdom is mighty. Our long history tells the story of our might, as we conquered our lands and beyond. Our powerful warriors, our unmatched mages, and our brilliant healers allowed us to thrive into the great Kingdom we are today. We are strong. We should be proud!”

Cheers rang out, and I lifted my hands up again to quiet the crowd.

“But pride must never give way to folly. Tobar knew this, and the Kingdom was healing from its overreach. If it had stayed that way, we could have recovered, and we could once again display our vast might to the world.

“Rugnor failed to understand this. Rugnor failed his Kingdom. His pride was too great, and his folly became his undoing. Not only did he fail his father’s legacy, but he failed as leader of his Kingdom. He would have seen his people thrust right back into the same conflict, costing us more husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters.

“I could not let that happen. Our lives are too valuable. Our families are too precious.

“Our Kingdom will continue to grow. But to expand outwards, recklessly and without thought, would spread the Kingdom too thin. It creates a foundation that is too weak. A stem that cannot support the weight of its blooms.

“As your new king, I promise you this. Our Kingdom will grow from within. Our Kingdom will grow by the strength of each and every one of us. We will nourish the people of this Kingdom as we grow true power, through the inspiration of the people, through innovation, and through deepening our roots, so that when our Kingdom blossoms once more, it will do so proudly, reaching high into the sky, a brilliance that can be held tall.

“Our Kingdom will also grow by finding harmony. Just as the traders and merchants are able to bring fish and salt from the sea, or grain to the coast, or textiles from the south, a web of interconnectedness which helps us all thrive, so too must our Kingdom find a way to harmonize with the world we live in. If we mindlessly destroy and mindlessly die, we will fail to maximize our true value.

“Every person within the Kingdom has value, and I will ensure that each and every one of you has the potential to realize your own. To waste any life is to extinguish a candle which could light the path forward. I strive to empower us all, to be a bellows that will heat the fires in which we can forge a new kind of might.

“New forms of transportation. New forms of preservation. New forms of consumption. Perhaps you have heard some rumors about these things,” I said, pausing for effect. “And I promise you that there will be more. This is just the beginning for our new Kingdom, one in which we will all be lifted up, raised to new heights, enriched in new ways, and enjoy peace and prosperity the likes never before seen!”

* * *

“So, how do you think it went?”

“Good,” Nodel answered, nodding at me. “I doubt we’ll see or hear much beyond what we already expected from the coronation itself. We’ll see much more reprisal from the reforms once they roll out.”

I nodded. I would absolutely not budge on ending slavery in the Kingdom, and we were working to best figure out how to make that happen swiftly but firmly and completely. My main concern was the people who would continue to keep slaves in secret, likely in even worse conditions than they would have faced before, as well as people who were slaves in all but name. I had only hinted at that in my speech, that everyone would have an equal right to life and to opportunities in the Kingdom. Collecting information should help expose these types of people who fail to give up their slaves, and since it tended to be only the wealthiest class of people, it would be fairly easy to study them and expose it if it happened, but I wanted to minimize harm in the transition.

We were also working on a reform within the army, creating new codes of conduct to ensure that soldiers behaved in a way that was civilized, even to any potential future enemies. I had seen horrible things in the north—on both sides of the fighting, in truth—and while I would rather avoid warfare entirely, if it came, I wanted the Kingdom’s army to do better. We planned on offering the current soldiers a chance to exit the army with a compensation package if they did not feel like they could follow the new codes of conduct, which of course would then put them on a watch list with our spy network, though we expected that many who left would simply do so because they wanted to do other things with their lives and could use the compensation package to make a change and do so.

The fact was, our army was far larger than it needed to be, as Rugnor had been scaling up for a second northern invasion, which would not be necessary. Freeing soldiers from their army contracts would reduce upkeep costs for a large standing army, and the grain and other supplies that were being stockpiled for war could instead become bargaining chips for trade with the north, which I intended to pursue as soon as we were able to return the Velgein slaves that had been taken from their lands. It was a win-win situation, where I would enhance the overall moral caliber of the army and reduce costs while creating resources that I hoped would help create peaceful trade.

Of all the planned reformation, what I anticipated to be the most difficult was the Church. I had to break through all the religious indoctrination in order to change the institution into one that saw all people as worthy of healing, and hopefully convince them to drop the price of healing as well, putting people over profits. I also wanted more people to be able to train as healers, and in a perfect world, a healer that could operate outside the confines of the Church.

I sighed, and turned to Nodel. “How hard will it be to deal with the Church? I’ll need to speak to someone there soon.”

Nodel looked back at me quizzically, then frowned. “You could speak with Seranedra, I suppose.”

“Who?”

Nodel shook her head at me. “Seranedra, the priestess. She sat with us at the tournament,” she explained, although she tightened her lips a bit after saying that, as if swallowing something unpleasant. Perhaps she did not like the priesthood either. We had not really spoken about the Church in all the hubbub about the coronation and policy reforms. After a beat, she continued. “Perhaps she can be your bridge to the Church. I’ll arrange a meeting.”

I nodded, and then an advisor came up with a question about reforms. I had already set a precedent for getting things done over pomp. The rest of the day devolved into more meetings and preparations, no time to celebrate—not that I particularly felt like celebrating—and the topic of the Church was temporarily set aside as we continued our work to improve the Kingdom.