Several hours had passed by the time Jadis was escorted back to Lyssandria’s High Temple. Teatime with Prince Kestil had been mentally exhausting and coupled with the lack of sleep from the night before, Jadis was feeling drained to the dregs. Before she could crawl into the very soft-looking bed in her temporary quarters, she needed to give her companions a rundown on what had been said and done at the meeting. The punch to the prince’s face could be left out for the sake of everyone else’s blood pressure, but Jadis wanted opinions on the things Kestil had said.
To that end, Jadis made sure to stop by Villthyrial’s temple to pick up Tegwyn. While the congenial Dryad was by no means conversant with imperial politics, in fact he was probably even less experienced than Jadis, he was still an intelligent man who Jadis trusted. His opinion had value to her, and she wanted him included in the discussion.
Once she was back in the temple, Jadis also made sure that Sorcha and Alex were at her impromptu meeting as well. She wasn’t sure what Sorcha might be able to offer to the conversation, but she was an official member of Fortune’s Favored so Jadis wanted her to have the opportunity to speak her mind should she have anything to say. Alex was the least suited out of anyone for politics, but that didn’t mean Jadis would exclude her. If for no other reason, Jadis wanted Alex to see that she was being included in the group as a peer, not just carried along like some kind of pet.
The sitting room of Jadis’ fancy chambers was plenty big enough for the whole group to gather in and once the doors were closed, Jadis felt assured of her privacy. Kerr and Thea had both inspected the room thoroughly for any sign of little tricks that others could employ to spy on them and had found nothing. That didn’t mean the room was completely safe to have open and unguarded conversations in since there were still magical means of spying that they had no means of defending against, but Jadis would just have to trust the word of the high priests that they were being given true privacy.
With everyone gathered, Jadis did a quick rundown of what Kestil had told her, primarily focusing on what he’d said about getting Jadis and her company out of confinement. After he’d admitted to being the one responsible for sending Severina to escort her out of the dock holding room and to the temple district, he’d given Jadis the details of what was happening with her case.
Kestil’s father, Emperor Somerulf, had been notified of Jadis’ situation and was actually quite interested in meeting her. However, Prince Hraustrekr had been using various ploys and tricks to sideline her case in favor of other reasonably important matters. Jadis was in the capital and in the custody of the temples, therefore there was no need to rush her hearing, or so the heir apparent argued. Kestil, for his part, had used his influence with his father to have Jadis and co moved to the temple district faster than Hraustrekr had wanted in order to make it seem as though he wanted to get Jadis out of custody as fast as possible.
In truth, he didn’t need Jadis to be out of custody at the moment. What he needed was for Jadis to keep the first prince’s attention focused on her so that he could continue to make other, less public moves that furthered his attempts to counter his brother’s actions. Of course, Kestil would not share what those moves were with her, but per the second prince, they were of vital importance to undermining Hraustrekr’s plans. Thus, what Kestil wanted from Jadis, at least for the moment, was to protest her confinement without pushing back too hard.
“He wants us to draw things out, basically,” Syd said as she waved her hand in what she imagined was the direction of the palace. “Make Hraustrekr expend resources on keeping me tied up in court.”
“For how long?” Aila asked, her pretty face locked in an expression of serious concentration.
“Two weeks would be the max,” Jay answered as she leaned back on the sofa. The piece of furniture had not been built with Nephilim in mind, but the cushions were sinfully soft and at the moment she wasn’t in the mood to mind the fact that her oversized body was taking up the whole thing as she stretched across it diagonally. “Any longer and he said it wouldn’t be believable and Hraustrekr would get suspicious.”
“But he wants at least a week,” Dys added as she stretched her legs out on the floor. “Any less and he risks his plans, whatever the fuck they are.”
“But, we could get out right now?” Kerr asked, her brow furrowed as she paced the room. “I mean, you could see the emperor right now and be done with this mess? P**utain de bordel, this is so fucked up.”
“He said that if I refuse to help, he’ll talk to his father and get me a hearing in the next day, maybe two. And while I feel like he’s as shady as a cave, I don’t think he was lying about that. The question is, should I demand the early hearing or wait things out to help him with whatever he’s doing?”
There was a thoughtful silence among the group as everyone considered Jay’s question. Well, Alex might not have been putting any thought into it, but Jadis wouldn’t fault the Demon for that. She was at least experimenting with tasting sweet drinks while she silently listening to the discussion, which was a step in the right direction so far as Jadis was concerned. In any case, everyone else was focused on the problem at hand. Somewhat predictably, it was Sabina who ended up speaking first.
“I suppose it depends on whether or not you think he’s telling you the truth about what the First Prince is doing,” the smith said as she fiddled with a spoon between her fingers. “I mean, he could be lying, or he could be telling the truth, or he could be telling you only half the story which I guess is kind of a lie of omission as well but I’m not sure if that’s better or worse, but also I think it might be up to the idea of whether or not you think what he’s doing is wrong. Prince Hraustrekr, I mean. Not Prince Kestil. Well, I guess I mean that too, since I guess Prince Kestil could be in the wrong, but what I meant at first was that you might not think Prince Hraustrekr is wrong for trying to weaken other nations so he can invade them after the demons are gone because you want the empire to expand too or something, which I guess is sort of reasonable in a way though I personally think it’s really awful to let all those people get hurt just for the sake of making it easy for the empire to take control of their territory.”
When Sabina finally paused to take a breath, she looked around at the gathering of friends who were all staring at her with mixed expressions. Shrinking a little, she set the spoon down with a light clatter and folded her hands together.
“That’s just my take, I guess.”
“That is actually a good point,” Aila said as she nodded in Sabina’s direction. “About whether or not even trying to disrupt Prince Hraustrekr’s plans is desirable, if those are his actual plans. Is a takeover of other nations that bad?”
“I’d say it fucking is!” Kerr growled as she continued to stalk back and forth. “I’m not from the empire like you, Freckles. I’m from the Verdant Sea. You think I want to see my neighbors getting slaughtered in some stupid war that cock-sucking prince wants to start because he’s an egotistical prick?”
Aila looked slightly abashed by Kerr’s outburst. Leaning back, she shook her head slightly and offered an apology.
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said calmly. “But wars happen. Emperor Sumerulf’s reign has been relatively peaceful up to this point, but peace doesn’t last forever. And I’m not sure we would want to do anything to undermine the position of the first prince when he’s likely to remain the heir. What if by aiding Prince Kestil, we accomplish nothing more than weaking the empire’s military strength and make it vulnerable to attack from other nations once the invasion is over? It’s a possible outcome, one I don’t want us to overlook.”
Once more Jadis felt as though she had swum into a pool whose depths she had no idea to. The empire’s history was alien to her. Further, she didn’t know anything about the surrounding nations or what their dispositions were towards the empire. Was Alfhilderunn even well thought of on an international scale? She’d always assumed that the nation was a good one, but what if they were known to others as warmongering imperialists?
“If I can interject,” Tegwyn said as he tapped his chin thoughtfully with one finger. “I think it would be better to focus on whether Kestil’s words are trustworthy. For myself, I see no point in getting my sap congealed in clumps over a lie. Now, I don’t know much about either man. So I must turn the question back onto you all, my friends: does what Kestil says seem like something his older brother would do?”
“I do not believe so,” Eir hesitantly said with a small frown. “I find it hard to believe that any of the imperial line would choose to allow demons so much free reign to harm others. It is the emperor’s sworn duty to bring any demonic invasions to an end as quickly as possible for the safety of the people.”
“Yeah, but that’s the trick, isn’t it?” Sorcha scoffed as she picked at a piece of bread she held between her two hands.
When the small goblin women didn’t elaborate further, Syd poked her in the side with one finger.
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, well,” Sorcha startled, almost as though she didn’t expect to have been listened to. “I mean, he’s not the emperor yet, is he? He can bloody well do whatever he wants, can’t he? He’s not sworn, so he isn’t breaking any oaths.”
“Besides,” Kerr pointed out as she stopped to waggle a finger at the general group. “That oath is for the protection of imperial citizens. I don’t think the rules of that shiny oath give a damn about what happens to people from other countries.”
Eir seemed bothered by Kerr’s assertion, but before she could speak up, Tegwyn asked another question.
“But has the man done anything in the past to support the idea he would be doing these nefarious deeds today? The tree shows its true colors when its flowers bloom, and those flowers don’t change from year to year.”
“Not that I can think of,” Aila said with contemplative frown.
“There hasn’t been a proper war in like, what, sixty years?” Bridget said as she scratched at the top of her head. “Not since the war with the Rubaline Dominion, and that ended in a truce, didn’t it?”
Aila and Eir both nodded their heads to Bridget’s statement, but Thea quietly disagreed with a shake of her own.
“Thassia and B—Bastoc.”
“Bastoc?” Jay asked, perking up at the familiar word.
She remembered from a few days earlier that Noll had told her that he was a native of Bastoc, a place that didn’t exist anymore. He’d said that the place had been conquered by the empire some time ago.
“Ah, yeah, that’s right,” Bridget said as she nodded vigorously at Thea’s words. “I forgot about them. That was, what, thirty years ago?”
“I believe that was in the year twenty-seven eighty-eight,” Aila answered slowly as she thought it over. “So, almost forty years ago now.”
“What year is it now?” Syd asked.
Everyone in the room stared at her. Even Alex did, though Jadis was fairly certain that was because the Demon just liked to look at her.
“I forget about your ignorance to common knowledge sometimes,” Aila said with no reproach in her tone. “It is currently the year two thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, I.E.”
At Syd’s questioning look, Aila added, “The I.E. stands for Imperial Era.”
“Okay, so, what’s the deal with Thassia and Bastoc?” Jay prompted while looking between Thea and Bridget.
“They were city states in the southeast part of the central continent,” Bridget explained after seeing Thea motion for her to continue. “There were actually a bunch of them over there, I think.”
“Still are,” Kerr interjected. “Whole bunch of tiny kingdoms, most of them no more than a city with a few surrounding towns or villages. Some of them are pretty wild.”
“That part of the continent tends to be hit by demonic invasions frequently due to its location,” Aila added. “At least, historically. So there isn’t a large population, but the people living there usually have higher than average CLRs.”
“Yeah,” Bridget nodded, warming up to the story. “All that is that. Anyway, Thassia and Bastoc got into some kind of a war. Big deal at the time. I remember my grandfather telling stories about how some high level, elite warriors were causing a ton of damage to the land around those cities with all the fighting. Real nasty stuff that spilled over into the neighboring territories.
“The fighting went on for more than a year with lots of death and destruction. Then, when some of the fighting spilled over the imperial border and, I think it was a small village, was destroyed, Prince Hraustrekr led a force of soldiers to Thassia and Bastoc. They killed the high CLR fighters that were causing most of the damage, then took control of the two cities.”
“They were annexed,” Eir clarified. “The war between the two cities was so destructive that leaving them to their own devices wasn’t an option. They would have been easy prey for the other city states in the area, which likely would have led to further warfare if those kingdoms decided to fight over who took control.”
“The imperial army, led by the first prince, absorbed Thassia and Bastoc into the empire,” Aila further added. “It was generally praised by leaders of the time as a wise move since it settled a ruinous conflict with minimal casualties to the empire. I’ve read books about Hraustrekr’s actions back then and the military genius he’s said to have displayed at the time.”
As her companions finished their explanations, talking amongst themselves for a few moments as they discussed some of the minor details of the decades old history, Jay turned her gaze to meet Tegwyn’s. The Dryad raised one eyebrow as the two of them seemed to share the same thought. She motioned one hand towards him, but he motioned back at her for her to take the lead.
“Okay, so, correct me if I’m wrong,” Jay said as the others immediately quieted down to hear what she had to say. “But isn’t that whole thing with Thassia and Bastoc exactly the same thing as what Kestil is saying Hraustrekr is doing right now? Basically letting other nations exhaust themselves in a war against powerful enemies so that he can come through after to sweep up the pieces?”
The others paused, thinking over Jadis’ point. Eventually, Aila huffed and turned to face Jay.
“Possibly. But all Hraustrekr did with Thassia and Bastoc was put an end to an already ongoing conflict. You could argue that he took advantage of the situation, but most scholars I’ve read have said that his actions were reasonable and hardly the work of a man power-hungry enough to let demons slaughter innocents for the sake of some dream of conquest.”
“Yeah, but I bet those were all books written by imperial scholars,” Kerr said before heavily thumping down on top of Jay’s stomach as she took a seat. “Totally not biased or anything, right?”
Kerr’s sarcasm was not lost on Jadis. That was a good point. Propaganda could have easily been used to reframe Hraustrekr’s actions to be more benevolent than they actually were, especially since the invasion had happened four decades prior. No one in the room had even been alive at the time except for Tegwyn, and he certainly wasn’t a source for imperial history. But there was one person who Jadis knew and trusted implicitly who was.
“Anyone know where Noll went?”
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