Negotiations among the Prophets continued in the dream for the rest of the cycle and well into the next one. The fundantal nature of their agreents hadn’t changed, nor had the challenges, but where before the etings had felt like verbal battles, complete with maneuvering and probing attacks, now, it felt more like a strained business eting.
Ibrahim t in the dream, but he otherwise took the cycle off to be with his wife. Mirian expected no less. He was happier now. Like Mirian, he’d lived with a deep furnace of rage burning in his chest, but now, those flas had cooled.
Mirian had rescued Arenthia early in the cycle and spent plenty of ti with the Cult of Zomalator, reminiscing about her ti in hiding with them as she’d learned soul magic. Lecne and Arenthia bickered as always. It was nostalgic. She wished, as she always did, that they could rember all the ti they’d already spent together, but she didn’t need to let that yearning overwhelm her. It could simply exist; another piece of who she was. After all, without the loop, even if she’d been saved from execution, Arenthia would have likely passed on from old age by now. She had to weigh the advantages she was blessed with, not just the disadvantages.
She explored parts of the city she’d never visited, inviting strangers to eat at different restaurants, then inviting anyone who seed interested to join her table. When she had seen the different neighborhoods, she found her way into Fort Aegrire. She talked with General Hanaran, who no longer left until near the end of the cycle as the other Prophets grew better at delaying the war, and got to know Commander Hirte better. Mirian even reunited with the Westfellow Syndicate mbers. Ravatha was still loath to open up, but Mirian shared good conversation with Numo and so of the other career criminals.
One day, walking along the port market with no particular destination, she recognized a man. She stared at him, trying to place him. Then it ca to her.
“I rember now! I learned your face well, but I don’t think I caught your na. You tried to rob a few decades back. I think I was cursed at the ti. It’s good to see you again!”
“I… what? I didn’t rob nobody, I’m as honest as they—”
“Oh, don’t worry, it didn’t happen in this continuum,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Can I buy you dinner?”
***
The loop after that, she spent most of her ti in Palendurio. This ti, she spent far less ti in the stuffy rooms of joint stock companies and rchant guilds. She spent her days visiting the actual factories where steel was fabricated by furnaces and sorcerers, or the ones where artificers worked on the large spell engines needed for trains and construction. She spent ti learning more about the work, talking across long tables over good food. The more she got to know them, the more she began to pick out natural leaders, well-respected workers, and specialists who had so key expertise. She t the editors and writers of her favorite broadsheets. She caught up with Rostal and the friendly folks of his neighborhood. She told him that Ibrahim was doing better now.
It was nice to talk to everyday people. Yes, there was greed and cruelty, but most of the ti, most people were mostly pleasant.
Mirian revisited the Grand Sanctum, too. She had little patience for the corrupt bishops there, but she tried to understand why they were doing what they were doing all the sa. Though they claid it was for Baracuel’s renewal and their actions lined up with the holy texts, it seed to her they had veiled their greed and ambition even from themselves. She spent long hours pondering what to do about so of the people and problems she knew about. She could easily order Pontiff Oculo to imprison Bishop Lancel for his corruption, but if she could turn Pontiff Oculo to her side, why not also turn Lancel? Or did imprisoning him create more benefits collectively for the Luminate Order than attempting to redeem him?
There were so many little decisions like that, and it was impossible to asure them.
Reconnecting with other parts of the Order was much more pleasant. Mirian invited Everad, the steadfast guard of the Grand Sanctum’s vault, a special feast. It brought warmth to her heart to see him happy.
As the cycle progressed, though, the politics of Baracuel beca less and less easy for her to manipulate. Politicians and businessn alike connived. The Departnt of Public Security squird about in the shadows. The logistics bottlenecks continued. Despite their leaders being imprisoned and Akana Praediar’s aggression being tempered, the Pure Blade and soldiers loyal to Corrmier moved about the city, attempting to reestablish their plan for dominating Baracuel. She let them skulk about while she took her notes.
Then Mirian sought out an old thorn that had been in her side for far too long.
***
General Kallin Corrmier was let out of his prison cell beneath Charlem Palace and brought to a large chamber overlooking Palendurio. Mirian sat in a comfortable chair and, having taken a page out of Gabriel’s book, was snacking on eclairs and sipping tea.
The general had a prominent chin and a back straight enough to be used as a ruler. She imdiately saw the contempt in his eyes, and the poorly buried fury. She gestured for him to sit, but he remained standing.
“What?” he sneered. “Have you co to gloat?”
Charming, Mirian thought. “No. I’m giving you a chance to convince .”
“Convince you what?”
“Anything you’d like. That your ‘restoration’ of Baracuel will work, perhaps. That you can be useful to . That you can help save Enteria, or deliver soldiers, or help with the construction of the project at Mayat Shadr—anything, really.”
Corrmier’s lip twitched slightly. “You should be the one convincing ,” he said, and turned back for the door. “Take back to my cell,” he told the guards. “I don’t—”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He walked straight into a force wall, his nose making a satisfying crunch as he did. Corrmier bit back a curse and turned, blood dripping onto his fancy shirt.
“I see the problem,” Mirian said. “You think I’m asking you this because you’re too valuable to kill. You think you have leverage. Maybe you think your supporters are putting pressure on , or your political connections are important. That’s not the case at all. Right now, I’m letting your supporters run around so my informants can map them all. What they do this cycle doesn’t matter to in the slightest. With your entire networked mapped out, I can destroy anyone in it before they even know I exist. When my priests debriefed you on the situation with the loops, it must not have sunken properly into your head. This isn’t the final cycle. It won’t be until I decide it is. This is a trial for your life in the future in which Enteria survives.”
Corrmier glared at her. He was too proud to use a napkin from the table to stem the blood trickling from his nose. “You can’t—”
“Prophet’s Dictum. And if I didn’t have that, I have this,” Mirian said, letting her soulbound spellbook materialize into view before she let it vanish again. “I can do whatever I want. As my priests have explained to you, I wish to save Enteria. So convince .”
Ah, there it is, Mirian thought. The slightest shift in his aura. The look in his eyes had changed. Doubt and fear had crept into him. But also, understanding. He was beginning to realize that the ga he was playing now wasn’t in front of him, but on a board miles away.
“Let the restoration of Baracuel go forward, and you’ll get that. We can purge the parasites that are sucking away the lifeblood of this country, and co away stronger for it. With a reforged alliance with Akana, and with a central council, there won’t be a parliant to impede you. We can—”
Mirian held up a hand. “You tried that already. Your reliance on Akana’s support poisons you in the eyes of too many people. Civil war between the west and east erupts, and your campaign is bogged down trying to push along the Ibaihan River. Persama sides with Alkazaria—and that’s after Ibrahim’s rebellion is put down. Which it won’t be, in the final cycle. So, no, that plan doesn’t work, and what’s more, it impedes the movent of goods and ties up labor resources so the leyline regulator can’t be built. Try again.”
Corrmier’s brow furrowed. Yes, he was having trouble following. “I command the largest army in Baracuel. My soldiers are loyal to . My brother commands the largest and best trained rcenary—”
“This helps … how? I need you to rember, the world ends soon. You have six months to help save it. How will you help do this? My priests gave you quite a detailed explanation of what happens and what I need.” She looked at him. “Are you stuck on the whole ‘apocalypse’ thing? Denial is one of the most common responses. Here, let show you how this all ends,” she said, and reached out with her aura.
She pushed mories of the devastation of Palendurio at him, of leyline eruptions, and then of moonfall.
He fell to his knees. It took a while for him to stop screaming, and longer to recover. Mirian pulled out a book and waited.
When he stood, she could see his confidence was shaken. “I can easily change the plan. I have the backing of the Allards, the Sacristars, and the rest of my house. We depose the Palamas family, cripple parliant—”
“No. Stop. Again, you’re just provoking a civil war with eastern Baracuel. You’ve tried it. It. Does. Not Work.”
Kallin Corrmier was not a man who was used to being interrupted. He clenched his teeth, then steadied himself. “I can call off my forces. Together, my house and the Allards have a fortune. We can invest it in your project at below market interest rates—”
Mirian burst out laughing. “Kallin, I just showed you the end of the world. If you don’t invest, you die. Your brother dies. Your family dies. Everyone you know dies. You want a return on investnt?”
Then he finally started to put together the pieces. He was so focused on what should happen, and how all the things he planned would go right and that Mirian must be lying about them going wrong, that it took so ti for him to realize that he needed a totally different strategy. Mirian finished her platter of snacks and used a quick spell to clean her hands and returned to reading her book.
“I can… my house and the Allards can get the money you need. The Palamas—” He paused, then cleared his head. “The Palamas and Bardas families have controlling stakes in several key factories you want, but we have leverage over the guilds and sway with the rchants. The Allards can get Florin City’s banks to start moving money. The army and the Pure Blade can enforce Prophet’s Dictum and make sure the money is making it where it needs to go, and the rchant guilds are manipulating things behind your back.”
“Good, now we’re starting to make so progress,” Mirian said.
Corrmier continued, and she could see his experience as a general and logistician at work. He established how a chain of command might be built up, and how it would be enforced. In essence, the Prophet was above the law, able to command things be done, but any dictator needed enforcent of their power. He could do that for her.
Or so he claid.
“Great,” Mirian said. “Two last things. One, I need to know how to convince you of this plan at the beginning of Solem. Then, we’ll do a test run.”
“A test… what?”
“I’ll try it out. Next cycle, maybe, or maybe the one after that. And if it works, you’ve proven that you can be redeed and that you should live. If it doesn’t work, or you try to betray , or you sabotage things because you don’t like believing things that contradict your ambition, then the sentence is death. So I do hope you can figure out how to convince yourself.”
Kallin Corrmier, who liked to present himself as unshakable, began to sweat.
After their eting concluded, Mirian checked her notes. Decian Corrmier and the leading mbers of the Allard family were next on her list to talk with. Gabriel and Liuan had each given her advice, and she was willing to give their plan one last try.
***
On the 1st of Solem, Mirian’s zephyr falcons flashed into the sky, one by one, each carrying a letter for five prominent mbers of the conspiracy. Each letter was stuffed full of code words, facts, and instructions. She had herself declared Prophet by the 5th, and had etings with the conspirators shortly after. And at first, things went like she’d hoped.
The assassination attempt ca in mid-Duala, far earlier than she’d anticipated. The assassins attempted to poison her with bloodleaf, as if she was stupid enough not to cast basic divinations for a poison so dangerous especially to her. Not only did she catch it, she had sensed the poison being moved into position in Charlem palace a full three days before the actual attempt, which ant by the ti the conspirators knew they’d failed, she’d already investigated how the assassins had moved the materials into position and where they’d sourced it from. That task was made easier by the fact that she already had a map of the Corrmier and Allard networks.
As usual, it wasn’t one faction or one person. A confluence of interests all aligned. Decian Corrmier had his little rcenaries involved, but the Allards were using their contacts in the Departnt of Public Security. A rich rchant looked the other way as the extra crate was put on one of his spellcarts. One of the guilds was easily swayed by promises of a lucrative military contract. Mirian pieced it all together.
Either General Kallin Corrmier couldn’t be convinced to help her, or he was unable to stop the sinister forces he was part of.
Whatever it was, she would waste no more ti with him. She had promised him to death, and that was a promise she would keep.
Reviews
All reviews (0)