Book Three - Prologue (Patreon)

“Redraw them.”

“Governor Williams, this is the fourth revision—”

“And there will be a fifth, and a sixth. Perhaps even a seventh if it takes the architects that long to follow such basic instructions,” Williams scowled. “The dimensions are a third less than what was ordered, and I asked for Ashadi influences, not an Ashadi building. Flourishes, not something ripped out of the old city.”

“Governor, the expense—”

“Is my concern, not yours.” Williams tossed his reading glasses dismissively atop the pile of blueprints that covered his desk. “The new wing is being funded privately, not out of the provincial coffers.”

The Ordinate knew better than to press further, though the words rang hollow in the well-appointed office. It was true, technically, that Williams and his circle of sycophants were footing the bill for construction; that every brick, every beam, and every expensive flourish would be paid for with private funds. The Governor had made certain that fact appeared prominently in every newspaper, alongside every other announcement of his recent philanthropic largesse.

What remained unspoken—by the true Vitrian art of the omission—was everything that came before the first shovel broke ground. The new wing required land—several city blocks of it. Land that was occupied by a major government office, along with six estates and several high-end private businesses, all of which would have to be purchased.

At the taxpayer’s expense.

And that was before accounting for all the little costs that no one ever thought about. The surveyors, the lawyers, the clerks and assessors. All of it would be paid for from the same coffers Williams claimed he wasn’t touching. By the time he cut the ribbon on his ‘privately funded’ vanity project, Ashad would have spent nearly as much as Williams had. And they would have nothing to show for it.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, Governor,” the Ordinate replied, bowing deeply. “I will convey your displeasure.”

“See that you do,” Williams said with the self-satisfied smile of a man whose fortunes had finally turned.

It had not been that long ago that Williams had been at his lowest point—abandoned by his supporters and by his patron. He’d relinquished the seat of his father and been forced to the fringes of the Empire in a desperate gamble to avoid bankruptcy or worse—his fate seemingly sealed by the stupidity of a now dead Imperator.

Then the Orphan fell into his lap and everything changed.

That one small moment of notoriety spiraled. Williams had assigned the right boy to the right job and in doing so he’d kept the province from collapsing into anarchy. Alarion’s actions at Shae-Yomag and Carling Hill not only saved thousands of lives but also raised Williams’ stature right when the table was set in his favor.

The major houses of the Empire had never shown interest in the governance of Ashad, leaving the minor houses to squabble over it while they focused their attention on the jewels of the Empire. But in the aftermath of the widespread attacks and rebellion even the minor houses balked at spending their political capital on the province. Ashad was more trouble than it was worth, or so the consensus went.

As such, Williams secured the Governorship with a bit of flattery and a few promises.

Five years to the Governorship—that had been his ideal plan when he’d first stepped foot in Ashad. Perhaps a decade, if his luck had continued its downward spiral. Instead, he claimed it in a matter of months.

Just in time for the Grand Awakening. The sudden and unprecedented Awakening and growth of thousands of otherwise low Aptitude Ashadi.

Williams was not a religious man, but it all felt like providence. As though some divine being had seen his plight and reached down through the clouds to right the wrongs of the world. To make him whole again and put his life back on the path of glory, where it always belonged.

It was an explanation as good as any other. Nearly two years of inquiry—Mothers, had it already been that long—had failed to locate the origin of the Grand Awakening. The now mostly slain Bones of Ashad had claimed credit, but few believed them. Even fewer believed that it was a natural phenomenon, like the origin of the System, or that the timing was coincidental. Something had shifted in Ashad after the Insurrection of Bones.

And that shift was valuable.

The last two years had seen an endless procession of supposed experts pass through Williams’ halls. Scientists from VISIT who were certain that their statistical modelling could determine the source. Mother-worshiping fanatics from Throne, Kel-Taran Sympathetics and even Steelborn had all come to study the phenomenon, all certain they would have answers within months. And they had all left empty-handed.

It wasn’t that the mechanics were difficult to understand—or so he had been told. The Grand Awakening was sympathetic in nature and heavily tied to the concept of martyrdom, but it had become so entrenched among the Ashadi—and Ashad itself—that the threads of sympathy were impossible to unravel.

Huge swaths of the sympathetic ties linked back to the Orphan, for example, but that was to be expected. Whatever caused the Awakening was tied to nationalism, to Ashad and to martyrdom, and he was worshiped by the Ashadi as the face of all three. Those connections fed power to Alarion—and the Martyrs of the 238th—spurring their growth while further reinforcing the loop.

Whether divine intervention, a powerful ritual or some heretofore unknown quirk of the System, the answer was at once immensely important and utterly irrelevant. Until they could understand and reproduce it, Ashad was the only place on Ilun where the traditional shackles of Aptitude did not fully apply. For those hoping to grow in power, the why simply didn’t matter.

The girl, Lilith Hart, had shown that the effect was not limited to the Ashadi. With an Aptitude of 2% she had been destined to remain flawed, unawakened, not even fit to serve as an Ordinate. Her proximity to the Orphan and that self-reinforcing loop had changed that, and in doing so it had opened the first floodgate.

In the months that followed, Williams fielded thousands of volunteer requests from those hoping to join the 238th, including scions from prestigious and powerful families alike. With so many competing interests and Alarion vehemently opposed to replacing their losses with Vitrian volunteers, Williams made the hard choice to impose a blanket ban. Better to upset every house a little rather than all houses a lot.

Blessedly, the wave of discontent abated only a few months later when it was discovered by some of the Vitrian regulars that ‘going native’ was enough to trigger the effect, at least in part. The rules and edges of the effect were opaque compared to the System’s usual clarity, but it seemed that those who embraced Ashadi culture and worked toward the betterment of the province saw an increase in their growth commensurate with their zeal and contribution.

That realization had opened the second floodgate.

Ashad’s population surged almost overnight as the news spread. They came from every province, state and culture, Vitrians and Imurians, Steelborn and Godborn alike, all in search of opportunity or power. Many were left disappointed, their ambition or ego too blatant for the Grand Awakening. Others, particularly those of old Celesian lineage, embraced their cousins and helped spur not only a recovery from the horrors of war, but an Ashadi golden age.

Wealth poured into Ashad as those with money sought to buy their way into the System’s good graces. Others were less interested in skills and levels, but no less greedy. Millions of Vitrian marks changed hands as investors sought to capitalize on the tremendous opportunity.

Williams’ next appointment, Lyna Porte-Ath, was one such slithering eel.

She arrived, as she always did, precisely on time while behaving as though she were terribly late. It was an affectation Williams had noted early in their acquaintance, a gift for manufacturing an air of humility while making others concede that she’d done nothing wrong.

Lyna Porte-Ath was a woman who had once stopped conversations simply by entering the room. Williams had seen portraits and photos of her in her younger years, many of them commissioned by the string of wealthy husbands and suitors who had each, in their own way, failed to hold her attention or her loyalty. She’d been extraordinary in those days, a provincial beauty almost without peer. Smoldering eyes, platinum hair and an inquisitive, mischievous smile.

That woman still existed. She simply required more… infrastructure than she had in her youth.

The cosmetics alone must have cost a small fortune. Williams had cringed when he learned the cost of the Alephian foundation he had promised his mistresses, but Lyna wore it as though it were no more expensive than kohl. Her eyes were heavily lined in the Karath fashion, dark and deliberate, her lips painted a deep, declarative red. Her arcane enhancements were just as bold and far more expensive: perfectly silken hair, a pristine smile and a literal glow in those uncanny emerald-green eyes.

And that dress. It skirted the line between style and Ashadi obscenity laws.

He’d liked the woman from the moment he’d met her, but he’d never once let himself mistake her for anything but what she was. A fabulously wealthy merchant born in the Principalities, she’d bought her way into the good graces of several prominent houses over the last two decades and established enough influence that her conglomerate was informally known as the seventy-eighty house.

No market in the Empire escaped her notice, and no economic decisions were made in the Curia without her input. She was no puppet master, as some would describe her—no one was wealthy enough to control the numbered houses in their entirety—but she maintained that reputation by using her power when it mattered.

Hers was the voice behind the temporary hold on immigration these last three months, Williams was sure of that. That she’d come to see him in person was… concerning.

“Lyna, it has been too long,” Williams said, standing to greet his guest as she entered—a courtesy he offered to almost no one in his domain.

“Months and months,” she agreed as though it were the world’s most hideous tragedy. With that said, Lyna extended one slender arm clad in an elbow-length glove. She did not offer the back of her wrist in the Vitrian tuluus, as one might expect. Instead, her wrist was angled down, an offer from her own homeland, one Williams indulged as he clasped her fingers and kissed the back of her palm. “Ah, Governor, you are so forward.”

“As if you are any different. What brings you to me?”

“Business,” she heaved a put-upon sigh. “It is always business, no matter where I go.”

“You have my tremendous sympathies.”

“I should hope so.” Lyna laid a hand over her heart, no doubt intentionally drawing attention to her rather brazen cleavage. “Though I will confess that I may have scheduled my visit to coincide with the opening of your new theatre. It has been a decade since the original cast have come together for Flight from Zephyr. And a trip from Vitria to Ashad is considerably faster than a visit to Aleph for their show in the spring.”

“And you are looking for an escort?”

“Among other things.” She smiled. “A tour of the city perhaps, there is so much more to see than on my last visit. There are always new avenues for investment. Though if your new wing is as large as I hear, there may not be much room left in the city proper. Or so I hear.”

“Why are you here, Lyna?”

Her gaze sharpened as it met his, annoyed by the faux pas. There was a way these things were done, and it seldom involved cutting to the chase. Especially when speaking with the woman who owned a quarter of his personal debt.

“The South Seas will come together before the end of the month,” she said, strolling past him to run gloved fingers across the mahogany of his desk. “I have done what I can to delay it, but they’re scared.”

“And the Empire?”

“The Curia favors a wait and see approach.” Lyna took a moment to stare out the window behind Williams’ desk, looking out across the chaotic tangle of development that was Ashad-Vitri. “Seric wants a show of force.”

Williams frowned. “War?”

“Nothing so gauche. Blue Ex.”

“Ah. Ashad is at the Imperator’s disposal, then.”

“As ever,” Lyna flashed him a smile full of unnaturally straight, unnaturally white teeth. “That is not the only reason I am here.”

“I thought not,” Williams admitted. The information was confidential, but any Ordinate could have safely conveyed the message. “You need a favor.”

“Your Orphan. I need him to find something. Preferably with someone.”