The “god-king gambit” worked, and signaled the end of many of our issues. No longer did people appear to take umbrage with my leadership, and freeing the remaining Velgein slaves in the capital proved easier than ever. Few dared to withhold them after the display, offering them to the palace quickly in return for their compensation, which I had left unchanged, even if I might have been able to get away with removing it entirely. People had invested in their slaves, and I was trying to make things right, after all.
I was not planning on visiting every city and putting on such a display, and hoped that the rumor mill and, of course, respect for the crown would extend the same across the various other walled cities. We rolled out trusted criers with small troops of soldiers south, carrying the reforms as decrees that would help to start to clean up the Kingdom.
Atlessoa informed me that Giral and his family had decided to relocate to Roko. I had someone deliver a gift basket of fruit, cheese, nuts, and syrup to the family, with a card wishing them well in their new home. Perhaps I was a little petty.
I received a response from Rena, who asked if she should travel to the capital to help establish the Guild branch and corresponding farm. She insisted that Hella had Freehold in hand, and had settled down significantly after having the baby, hanging up her traveling cloak for good. I had no idea how Soren would feel, but I did need someone like Rena working for me in the capital, so I sent an affirmative response, so long as her parents approved. Even still, Rena was an adult and would make her own choices. Even if I said no, Rena could decide to come of her own volition, and after learning what had happened in the capital, that seemed likely.
Winter was swiftly settling in, and as things calmed down, I started to find some measures of comfort in my changed life. I selected some land, northeast of the grain farms that surrounded the capital in proximity to the mountains, along the road that led through the mountain pass, and took ownership of it for the Tamers Guild farm, hiring some stone mages to begin cutting blocks and building barns and structures based on my designs and carpenters to work with the lumber needed. It was a bad location should the Kingdom ever end up at war with the north again, as it would be an easy target for Velgein forces, but I was determined not to ever allow that to happen in my lifetime.
The farm would provide some employment options for the Velgein people and families who did not wish to return to the north but also felt that they could not stay in the capital. I had created some positions within the palace for freed Velgeins as well, and I had arranged some subsidized housing for those that wished to live and attempt to make their own way in the capital. The few mixed families that, once vetted, seemed to have legitimately formed and seemed promising returned to their homes.
I did not want the crown to appear to favor the Velgeins, just treat them as equals. So far, Atlessoa’s spy network was unaware of any escaped rumors about the king being the terror known as the Metaleater. There were plenty of new rumors about the king after my display, and those occupied most of the public’s attention. With no threat of war with the north, and increasingly the promise of trade, the bogeyman known as the Metaleater would hopefully fade from the collective consciousness. Still, in trying to provide for the Velgeins who wished to stay in the Kingdom through reparations and promises, we limited the number we directly employed in the palace, as it would remain a touchy subject for many years to come.
So I was pretty nervous when I got news that the ambassador from the north was arriving. I prepared to meet him, Nodel and Atlessoa joining me as part of the welcoming party. I wanted to stand as equals, so instead of being up on the throne, I stood on the carpet in front of it to greet him when he arrived.
The ambassador appeared in the entrance of the throne room, glancing around at the still-overly lavish display of wealth, then met my eyes. A dangerous grin appeared as the ambassador stalked up to me, close enough that I saw some soldiers shift and reach for their weapons. I lifted my hands to warn them off, and sighed.
“Look at you, Pilus. You’re all grown up,” the woman purred, leaning toward me exactly like she had when I was a preteen, even though she no longer had the height on me to do so. The result was a pair of upturned eyes that were equally effective at putting me on my back foot.
I felt two other pairs of eyes burn into the back of my head.
“Hi, Leiren.”
* * *
“It’s my job, you know? Forward scout. This is just… the new version of it. Golchev agreed I was right for the role.”
We had retired to my office, leaving the guards and pomp of the throne room behind, though Atlessoa and Nodel had refused to leave the two of us alone. Introductions had been made and tea had been served, though neither of them had touched theirs, sitting guardedly at my sides opposite the Velgein ambassador.
“That, and I was also one of a few people to verify that the new king actually was you,” Leiren continued, looking me up and down. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.”
“Well, it kind of took me by surprise as well, to be honest.”
“And… what precisely was your relationship with Pilus?” Nodel asked Leiren, frowning at the tall Velgein woman.
“I met Leiren when I went to the north,” I said, interrupting Leiren with a glare before she said anything out of turn. “She was a scout for the group that freed the north. I worked with them as the Metaleater, as you both already know.”
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Leiren gave me a sly smile, but kept her mouth shut.
I glanced over at Nodel and Atlessoa, who were displaying a rare, rather unified front against the interloper. Once I had finally realized that the division between them was out of jealousy, not a dislike borne of class or race but out of possessiveness of me, I had been working to start managing it and mitigating it, only to have yet another complication added to the heap in the form of Leiren. I did not need her to make any statements suggesting that I had turned against the entire Kingdom to rescue her in our youth, especially since it was, at least in part, not untrue.
Looking back at Leiren, it was clear to me now why the woman had flustered me so much when my body was entering adulthood. Even now, all these years later, I might be a stuttering mess seeing her, had I not already fallen for Seranedra, I admitted to myself.
The twenty-three year old’s Velgein hair was white, not blonde. Leiren was platinum to Seranedra’s gold, and it was hard to deny that she was not also lovely. Instead of emeralds, her pale green eyes were like jade. She stood tall and strong like most of her people, Amazonian in stature and figure.
It was not only that my sights had set and my feelings reserved for another. I was able to maintain some level of professionalism, and if Leiren was going to be staying in the capital as an official ambassador to the north, I had to maintain the correct distance from her as leader of the Kingdom.
“Now, about the Velgein families who have elected to continue their lives here,” I began, and the conversation was pulled back to official business.
Not long after, we guided Leiren to where we had been staging the freed slaves before arranging their transport back north, and introduced her to several of the families with children. Fortunately, there was no teasing with pointed glances and comments from her about having mixed babies of her own one day, and really nothing untoward at all, just a cool professionalism as she spoke with the Velgein women and greeted their families.
“I’m working with the Church on some reforms regarding the documentation of children born from Velgein descent within the Kingdom to ensure they gain full citizenship,” I explained to Leiren as we walked back through the palace. “Their parents will be considered permanent residents, at least until we create some measures to formally gain adult citizenship.”
“That would apply to other Velgein people who wished to relocate?”
“It would,” I said, pausing. “Do you think that’s likely?”
Leiren frowned slightly as though weighing what to say. “I suspect not at first, particularly with those who were forced here largely returning home. There will be some time needed for healing from old wounds, but there are also already children halfway grown to adulthood who will not even remember Horuth’s occupation, only hearing stories.”
We came to a stop near a window, and Leiren gestured outside at the capital which stretched below.
“You know what the north is like, Pilus. It’s hard living, even at the best of times. This is luxury by comparison. A decade of being ground down by the heel of oppression has left us in a bad way, with just enough of our ways of living displaced and difficult to recover that there is a new kind of struggle to survive, which is why so many now flock to Freigel. Many children have already grown up to prefer bread to tubers, and with ongoing trade and possible open borders in the future… I would say it’s only a matter of time.”
I nodded. Many families would stay in their homeland, and there would always be a presence in the north for steel manufacturing, but over the next generation or two it was quite possible that, given the opportunity, many Velgein people would immigrate to the Kingdom.
Food and comfort would be enough, but there was the magic factor to consider as well. The half-Velgein, half-Horuthian children all had some magic in them already—often the barest minimum, which would be difficult for them to train up as mages, but enough to tame—and after breeding generations of rockstalkers, quadhorns, and tarands in Freehold, I had begun to see young born with 1 MP instead of 0 MP, suggesting that full Velgein families that settled south of the mountains might eventually regain magic as well.
In a world like this one, that could be a powerful draw for families that wanted to give their children the best opportunities. It would be my job, so long as I lived, to ensure that they received fair treatment if they decided to reach out for that potential. There was the issue of reeducating the locals that northerners were not barbarians, but much of that had been crown propaganda in the first place, since there was no history of Velgeins raiding south of the mountain to create a true stereotype for that.
“Well then, I’m glad to have you on board. We’ll continue to work together to ensure that every Velgein person born here or who chooses to live here gets fair treatment and the same rights and opportunities as anyone else.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” Leiren said to me with a tired smile. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to get some rest.”
“Sure. You’ve been put up in some guest quarters while we arrange something more permanent for you. I’ll show you the way.”
After guiding Leiren back to her quarters, I paused before departing. A quick scry told me that she still had the single-use 3-point magic enchanted necklace I had given her all those years ago to summon me back to the fighting. I had never anticipated it making its way back into the Kingdom when I gave it to her, but now that it was here, it was a potential problem, a way to expose one of the things I was still trying to keep secret.
“Before I go… Do you still have that pendant I gave you when we were younger?”
Leiren raised an eyebrow at me, debated her answer, and then nodded.
“Could I see it, please?”
To her credit, she did not blush when she pulled the chain out from under her shirt, the small artifact dangling from it. I wondered if she disassociated the jewelry from the source, simply keeping it because it was a piece of valuable gold.
Palming an 8-point magic circle, I touched the pendant, and smoothed out the engraving, dispersing the enchantment.
Leiren frowned down at it. “What did you do?”
I debated how to answer. “Some secrets need to stay in the north. That was one of them.”
“It’s rather plain now,” she mused, but then she glanced at me with mischievous eyes, the professional ambassador demeanor slipping back into one reminiscent of the girl who had set me on edge all those years ago. A teasing grin appeared on her face. “You’ll have to give me another accessory to make up for it.”
“Of course. I’ll see that an official ambassador’s badge is made up for you,” I said, stoney faced.
Leiren laughed, and stepped back towards the door to her room, tucking the pendant back into her shirt. “That’ll have to do. Goodnight, your highness.”