Engagements, as I knew them on Earth, did not exist in the same way on this world. The common person did not purchase a ring as a rule, though gifts were exchanged during courtship which may or may not include accessories and jewelry. Often, having grown up in the same communities, they knew each other for much of their lives and decided to marry based on a shared history. Other times, marriages sealed deals between families or businesses, and there was no waiting period or reason to delay. In some cases, people met, fell in love, and given that there were less promises in this world of safety and longevity, moved quickly from courtship to marriage. Long-term dating, as I knew it from Earth, did not really exist.

Given that I was the king, to commit to courtship had basically the same meaning as intent to marry, particularly as adults. Technically, it could be broken off, but it was a bad look for a leader, and repeated failed courtships or worse, casual dalliances, would create a poor image. Rugnor had kept the women he was debating between close at hand, but he was not actually courting them, nor was he engaged to them. Once he had decided, he would have immediately married his chosen wife.

So it was not a huge surprise that, when I told Nodel I was officially courting Seranedra, my lead advisor immediately started planning.

“Congratulations,” she said, still slightly cold after the emotional outpouring in the throne room. “We can begin planning a ceremony right away.”

“Uh, well. No need to rush,” I said, and Nodel raised an eyebrow at me. “I just mean… well, there are people I would like to be able to attend from far away, and the travel time…”

Nodel nodded, taking me at my word. My words were true, and I was excited to start a life with Seranedra, but it was still difficult for me to mentally take in the idea of going from nothing-to-marriage in such short order. I wanted to actually experience the engagement period and acclimate a bit more.

“If your allies from the Tamers Guild have tarands, they should be able to arrive by late summer, assuming you can contact them with your flying beasts. Would that suffice?”

They would not all be able to come—Soren needed to be there to run the settlement, and someone needed to stay and manage the Guild branches, after all—and some would simply not want to spend months of their lives on the road just to attend a wedding in the capital, but it would be nice to see those who could make it.

If I were getting married and thinking about starting a family, though, there was something I needed to resolve from my past, a guilt I had carried for years.

“Late summer should be fine,” I said slowly. “But we’re going to need to hire a ship.”

* * *

Winter passed and spring began, and work on the farm north of the capital resumed in earnest, ensuring it would be prepared in time for the Tamers Guild members who were coming to get everything ready for a new branch. It would no longer just be Rena making the trip, but also additional tamers and friends who had been invited for the wedding. In the meantime, they would also be able to help jumpstart the capital’s Guild branch.

Golchev, through Leiren, had been able to come through on securing a herd of quadhorns from the north before they migrated away, and they were delivered once the barns and pastures were assembled enough to hold them. With no Guild tamers around, they were just kept wild but contained. In the time Golchev had needed to hold the beasts for me, he had come to consider how keeping beasts could help his own people, and they were making plans to capture additional quadhorns for Freigel, keeping them protected from predation in the south through the summer.

Velgeins had no magic and could not tame, but they were big and strong enough that they could simply handle the low rank beasts manually, and I advised them to just keep breeding the most easily handled of the herd while dispatching the aggressive ones. In time, perhaps, it would result in actual domestication, though I could not explain to the Velgein leader that particular detail.

With significantly more tamers headed to the capital from Freehold than initially expected, I decided to get them to bring a portion of the breeding stock of tarands to the capital. Splitting the herd would slow the growth and what was available in the east, but after supplying the east for so many years, there was less of a need for the beasts around Gurt aside from the people who had been forced to travel east just to get a tarand or wagon of their own. It would be more convenient, then, for those people to get supplied from the capital, and so it was worth shrinking the available stock in Freehold to begin expanding the numbers in the capital region.

Getting wagons developed in the capital was even more straightforward. I had already tasked my advisor team with hiring in crafters of all types, as there were many things which we needed to ramp up production on.

The icebox prototype I had provided for Marshan had been a game-changer for transport, as I knew it would be, and other merchants were clamoring for their own, especially those who wanted to ship fish from the coast. I had improved the design, which hopefully would reduce the magic cost to preserve food for transport significantly, and also developed a version which could operate off a deepwater pearl as a magical energy source.

Unlike many of my secrets, refrigeration was something I intended on sharing. The magic needed was a fairly minor improvement on high level 4-point magic that did not inherently expose the main secrets of oxidation, only really relying on the knowledge I had obtained about converting raw silica into organized quartz. Most of the additional utility from that required either understanding elemental and molecular science, knowing about oxidation, or having access to 8-point magic.

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Strong mages who were skilled in 4-point magic would, likely, be able to study the enchantment and learn to cast ice magic, but I saw that as a positive change overall. Those mages would already be able to throw around large chunks of stone, so adding more magically expensive ice to their repertoire was not a huge boost in power, just utility.

I needed crafters, engravers, and ultimately enchanters to work on the project if I intended to mass-market refrigeration for the people of the Kingdom. I knew that revealing the methods of powering enchantments with deepwater pearls could have a startling effect on the Kingdom, and that future enchanters might use this in dangerous ways, but that was a price of progress. I hoped that it would instead result in even more positive change I had not considered by getting more brains working on the technology.

Given the personnel needs for mass market refrigeration, the crown was on a hiring spree, and some portion of those crafters could also be assigned to manufacturing the improved wagon designs that were needed to benefit from the speed of tarands. While I selfishly did not want to break up the monopoly that Freehold currently held on some of these designs and the wealth that funneled into the settlement, the fact was that enough wagons had been sold that surely, somewhere, aspiring manufacturers had taken them apart, studied the changes, and were likely on the way to becoming competitors. Freehold’s head start could not be taken away, even with capital competition.

Still, in an attempt not to become my own worst competitor, I decided that the wagons made in the capital would have a slightly different utility. Instead of the simpler wagons of trade convoys, made for ruggedness and shipping, the predominant creations in the capital would be on the higher-end, more like enclosed carriages, as well as single-drawn phaetons or personal transports for those not trained in the saddle.

There were countless more projects I had in mind for the people we were hiring, but progress could only happen so fast. Before I knew it, spring was wrapping up and summer was upon us, and soon after, the Tamers Guild arrived in the capital.

* * *

“It’s so good to see you again,” I said to my friends, after a round of hugs and claps on the back. We had needed to meet in private, away from the probing and curious eyes of the public, and for a moment I felt like my old self again, before I had been hauled out of Freehold for a tournament by a mad king determined to return to war.

I took in the grinning faces of the people who had made the trip to the capital. Rena had become even more of an adult since I had last seen her, exuding a confidence as the de facto leader of the Tamers Guild with my absence. As expected, she had a whole pack of various adorable beasts with her. Bortag had come with for the journey, his ‘barg Lubi with him, still walking with a minor limp from when he had broken his leg in the battle against the dracosaur. Lemora, a hunter who had helped with that same battle, had also come with her husband, helping to wrangle additional tarands and getting to see more of the world along the way.

Forn and Lussel had made the trip, with their three kids. Sadly, Hella, Len, and their new baby could not make the trip, the road too difficult for a child that young and the Guild in Freehold requiring a steady hand. One of Bilgus’s sons, who had been a huge help on the farm in Freehold, had also come with his family, delivering the sad news that Bilgus’s health was in decline and he could not make the trip.

“It’s good to see you too,” Bortag said, laughing and shaking his head. “I suppose after seeing everything you accomplished in Freehold, it isn’t as much of a surprise, but still, Pilus… king? How does that even happen?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, exhaling deeply, then looking up and grinning at my friends. “But forget about that. How’re things back home? Tell me everything.”

I spent the day catching up with the people I had come to care about in Freehold, then had the pleasure of introducing them to the people I cared about in the capital. It was a bit of an awkward meeting between two very different groups of people, but even Nodel began to warm up to the kind villagers after a while.

After catching up, I brought those interested in combat taming down to visit the beasts I had tamed and evolved for the tournament. I hated how little time I was able to spend with these companions of mine, but despite being the king, I was still told not to allow beasts to, quote, rampage through the palace. Rika was the only beast who regularly joined me in the palace, and I rode Horsey around outside, but I was only able to spend time with my full pack of beasts in the training yards when I could find the time to get some practice in. I was helping Atlessoa train up her taming skill further in order to eventually hand over the nocturne urstrig and lightning collus for her to use in her spywork.

After a night in the lavish guest suites of the palace, I joined the group from Freehold on a trip out to the new farm. Aside from some scrying, I had hardly seen it being developed, and we looked out at the work in progress together.

“It’s a start,” Rena grunted.

Bortag laughed. “You said you’ve been building this since the fall? After seeing what you built north of the village in no time, I expected… uh, more?”

“I mean, I have been busy doing, you know, king stuff. Had to hire laborers for this.”

Still, it is a bit lackluster. Well, since I’m here now…

After walking around with my friends and examining the buildings so far, I found my way to where the stone mages had been quarrying bricks from the mountain. I was not going to use my inventory with people around to watch, but I did make short work of cutting and assembling a large stack of additional stone with my full magic pool. I made a show of checking my magic meter towards the end, stopping when I hit one percent remaining, and nodded.

“Show off,” Rena said with a cheeky grin.

With hired help, a lot of the construction was actually being made with lumber instead of stone, but some of the enclosures needed to be strong enough to contain strong beasts.

“Let me know when you get the enclosures built. I’ll probably transfer over the mossen headpounder and strongjaw mecrokotas to you,” I said to Rena.

“And the alcewing?” Rena said with a gleam in her eye.

I chuckled, and shook my head. “If you want a flying mount, you can tame one yourself.”

She stuck her tongue out at me, and embracing my inner child, I stuck my tongue out back at her.