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Chapter 366: Negotiating for Position

Leon sat in his workshop alone, silently contemplating what to do next. Trajan was gone, and with him, any obligation Leon felt toward the Bull Kingdom. However, he wanted to stay a while longer so he could help Minerva bring his killer to justice.

After that, well, he didn’t know.

‘Still have that whole Isynos thing to deal with…’ Leon thought to himself. He truly didn’t have that many connections to the Bull Kingdom that were preventing him from leaving. He was sure that if asked, Elise would come with him to the central Empires, where there were ruins from the Thunderbird Clan that he wanted to explore, and more resources that he might utilize to achieve Apotheosis, so with that in mind, he honestly couldn’t think of much that would keep him in the Bull Kingdom long-term.

There were his family’s archives in Teira to think about, though, as well as the ruins in the Forest of Black and White that Leon wanted to explore, but these weren’t things that he necessarily had to remain attached to the Bull Kingdom for. All told, Leon could think of little but gains if he were to leave the Bull Kingdom, and yet, the decision to go wasn’t one that he could lightly make.

Trajan had made him swear to do what he could to bring peace and justice to the Bull Kingdom. With the Prince now dead, the current peace was tenuous at best, and Leon knew that Trajan considered it his duty to keep the conflicts between August and Octavius from escalating into civil war. If Leon wanted to honor Trajan’s legacy, then he had to stay and fight for justice and peace any way he could.

Of course, in Leon’s mind, getting revenge against Trajan’s killers and bringing justice to the Bull Kingdom were conveniently essentially the same thing. It made his desire to leave the Bull Kingdom and move on to greater things that much more difficult.

It took him mere minutes to think of all of this, but in the end, these thoughts were simply distractions from his grief. Trajan was dead, completely and irrevocably gone. Leon could think of revenge and what would come after all he wanted, it wouldn’t change the fact this his mentor was gone.

He sat in his dark workshop for a long time coming to terms with that. Leon wasn’t the sort to cry in grief, but there were a few moments where he wished he was, if only to be able to express and vent what was going through his head.

Three hours or so after entering his workshop, Leon was about over the worst of it. He wasn’t quite done grieving, but the shock of how sudden it was and the work ahead of him helped him come to terms with the reality. There was a lot to be done, and even if he wasn’t going to be involved in much of it from a political standpoint, he was still going to be ready for whatever was about to come down.

Leon pushed his thoughts of Trajan out of his head for the time being and got to work. His first item was to visit Lapis. If violence was going to break out, and Leon was of the opinion that it was, then the stone giant would have to be ready, for Leon wasn’t going to ignore it anymore.

After that, he had a lot of work to do in his workshop while Minerva made what moves she could. Whenever she needed him, he’d be ready.

—

Octavius smiled as he looked out of a window of his office into a courtyard in the Royal Palace. His uncle was dead, and with him, an enormous amount of his brother’s support. August had clearly awakened his blood, increasing his standing among Bull Kingdom loyalists, but Trajan had still, by far, been his greatest pillar of support. Without the Consul of the East, he wouldn’t be able to control the Eastern Legions.

“How’s it coming along?” Octavius asked the room.

Behind him stood a small number of his closest supporters. The Earthshaker Paladin, Sapphire Paladin, and the Consul of the Central Territories were among them.

“Quite well, Your Royal Highness,” the Consul said with an obsequious smile, nakedly attempting to curry favor with the Prince by appending the ‘Royal’ to his official title. Normally, only the acknowledged heir would receive that honor, which Octavius wasn’t, making it somewhat inappropriate for him to use.

But Octavius quite liked it, and no one else had a single thought about castigating the Consul for using the term.

“When can I expect the next phase to begin?” Octavius asked, doing his best not to show his impatience on his face even if his asking the question in itself betrayed his state of mind.

“In a few days, Your Highness,” the Consul immediately answered.

“We have to let the investigators look into things before we come forward with our evidence,” said the Countess of Lindinis, an elderly woman with an excessive sense of personal pride. “If we come forward too soon, then it would be too obvious what we did for the Arbiters to ignore. However, if it seems like the proper procedures were carried out, then we’ll have an easier time leading the Arbiters to the conclusions we want them to reach.”

“Either way, this is something that will likely require the Assembly to sign off on,” the Consul continued. “We should send out word right now for our allies to come to the capital and prepare to be summoned.”

Octavius nodded. The greatest decisions the Bull Kingdom had to make were reserved for the King, and in the absence of him, the Assembly. Not even the Prince-Regents could make certain decisions, such as going to war or revoking hereditary titles of nobility. Having another co-regent imprisoned and executed for murder, kinslaying, and treason was absolutely among those decisions.

As a result, the inevitable trial that would follow the investigation would take place before the Assembly, a conclave of the highest powers in the land. Powerful nobles, high officials in the government such as the Chancellor and certain former Exarchs, active and retired Legates and Consuls, representatives from Lineage Hall, and members of the Royal Family all made up the Assembly.

Things were going to kick off soon, and Octavius had to be ready. He’d been planning this for months, though, and he was not going to miss the opportunity he’d created with his killing of Prince Trajan.

The Second Prince turned his attention back out to the courtyard where he could see a great many people in the palace scurrying around with almost panicked haste. The entire palace complex was in an uproar after the death of Prince Trajan, and it gave him some amount of pleasure to see so many common-born officials in such states of panic after his order was carried out.

It made him truly feel like a King. In a matter of weeks, he knew that he’d be a King in name, too.

—

When Leon returned home from speaking with Lapis, he paused by the front door and glanced to his right, toward the guest rooms. Naiad wasn’t a noisy person, but for some reason, he felt like the villa felt just a little bit too empty. He doubted Naiad would mind if he checked in on her given their activities during the past year, so he released his magic senses for a brief moment, targeting her room.

It was empty, devoid of any river nymphs.

Leon was taken completely by surprise, and he hurried over to her guest rooms and walked right in. There, his eyes confirmed what his magic senses had seen: a lack of river nymphs in Naiad’s guest rooms, and no indication of where she went.

Leon couldn’t stifle a sigh of disappointment. Naiad leaving didn’t just severely weaken him, but it also spoke volumes about their relationship.

‘I guess it was just sex after all,’ Leon dejectedly thought, leaving Naiad’s rooms and shutting the door behind him. First Trajan, then Naiad. It had been a bad day, so far.

—

The next few days passed in a flash, with practically the entire capital either frozen in shock or bursting at the seams with activity. Prince Trajan was dead, and the civilian population largely kept their heads down and did their best not to step on any toes. Many even fled the city, remembering the public conflict between Octavius and August during the triumphal games and wanting to get somewhere safe before things kicked off.

The nobility, on the other hand, was far more active. Many nobles on both sides began to assemble their military forces, but since Octavius’ nobles were both far more numerous and had been assembling their retinues, levies, and mercenaries for weeks, August was at a clear disadvantage.

He needed allies, dependable allies. To that end, he kept the Brimstone Paladin and Roland around him at almost all times. They couldn’t stop August from being arrested, but August would at least be safe from any additional assassination attempts.

August also tried his best to secure allies in the palace, to varying degrees of success. Many investigators from the Arbiters had started calling his people in for questioning, and word was that the High Arbiter herself was personally involved, making his position incredibly tenuous.

—

“Who’s pledged to serve you?” Minerva asked in a deadly serious tone and with an expression to match. She gave away nothing, not even anger at Trajan’s still very recent death.

August hesitated to answer, knowing that it wouldn’t make him look good, but Minerva kept quiet and glared at him until he answered.

“Not many,” August finally admitted. “Even in the East, where my influence is strongest, after Trajan’s murder I’ve had many nobles who had pledged themselves to my cause back out. At this point, I fear even my uncle’s Legions may abandon me…”

“And that’s why you called me here? To talk to the Legions in the Eastern Territories?” Minerva asked.

“You’ve done a fantastic job keeping my uncle’s retinue together so far,” August said with a friendly and congratulatory smile. “I’m sure that keeping his Legions loyal to his memory would be fairly straightforward for someone as well respected as you…”

“His ‘memory’?” Minerva asked, raising an eyebrow in a dangerous show of interest. “And why would they need his memory? Are they going to war for him?”

“I would hope they would,” August frankly stated. “It should be no secret at this point that my brother wants me gone. Probably dead. I would like to keep on living, and I would also like it if my mother and little sister could do the same. I can’t do that if Octavius wins.”

August paused for a moment, hoping Minerva would respond positively, but she kept her expression somewhere between neutral and vaguely disinterested, dashing August’s hopes.

“Let me be completely upfront about this,” he continued, “I get how this looks, with what my people being questioned right now. But I can assure you, I had nothing

to do with my uncle’s death! When I get my hands on those who are responsible, though, you can be sure that I’ll do to them a thousand times worse than they did to my uncle!”

“Are threats supposed to endear you to me?” Minerva asked.

“I have spoken no threats,” August countered.

“Not to me, but you’re threatening those who have the capacity to assassinate a Prince,” Minerva shot back.

“They’re hardly threats when they’re certain,” August argued.

“You haven’t the capacity to follow through,” Minerva responded, killing August’s argument with a vicious riposte. “If you had that sort of power, you wouldn’t be here asking me for my help. So, I ask you once more, who’s support do you have?”

August frowned, but after a few long moments of thought, he admitted to half a dozen high nobles in the Eastern Territories, plus about two dozen more minor noble Houses. “… and all told, I’ve gotten assurances and pledges of loyalty from them all, which would bring my own forces up to about forty thousand if push came to shove.”

“Forty thousand untrained peasants and knights so worthless they serve minor castellans?” Minerva asked, barely able to keep the look of disdain off her face.

“… Yes,” August hesitantly confirmed.

“So, in effect, the only real support that you have is from the Aeneas family and your two Paladins,” Minerva bluntly stated. “Maybe five thousand worthy fighters amongst them, if you’re lucky…”

“Yes,” August once again said. “But if you can give me the Legions in the Eastern Territories, that would give me one hundred and fifty thousand trained and blooded soldiers, men and women who’ve cut their teeth on real combat, not just subjugating monsters and rebel mage guilds!”

“I’m well aware of the strengths of the East,” Minerva said, almost disinterestedly glancing away and looking around his office, and, in general, making a big deal out of thinking over the problem she faced.

August knew what she was doing. He’d been constantly trying to gather support and jockey for position since he reached his majority and formally took over the duties of a Prince-Regent, and Minerva’s show to him was just that: a show. Under normal circumstances, he might’ve indulged a bit in her politicking, but with Trajan gone, his position was now almost cataclysmically weak, and he hadn’t the time for these games.

“I will do everything I can to help find my uncle’s killers and bring them to justice,” August solemnly declared. “If I have to sacrifice all the Legions in the East to do so, I will find those monsters and make them pay in blood.”

Minerva cocked an eyebrow, then said, “A bold declaration.” She was a serious person, and her words carried great weight, but now a corner of her lips was beginning to turn upward in an awkward half-smile, so she continued before it became too apparent. “And how can I know that it wasn’t you who killed Prince Trajan? Prince Octavius seems to think it was you from what I’ve gathered after speaking to a few of his knights, something about a falling out between the two of you regarding his support for your claim?”

“If you truly believed those rumors, then you wouldn’t be here,” August drily stated. “I don’t know you too well, Dame Minerva, but I know of you. You’re rather famous for being one of my uncle’s most trusted knights, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve earned every ounce of his trust. Had you put much stock in rumors about me possibly killing my own uncle, then you would not be here now sharing words with me.”

Minerva lost control of her face and the smile she was suppressing began to creep across her face, slowly growing wider and wider until it was almost unhinged and sadistic.

“I will find the man who killed my Prince,” Minerva said as killing intent began to pour out of her, “and if I don’t kill him immediately, then I will give him to the headsman to make him a head shorter! If you can deliver on your threats, then I will support you to the best of my ability. Prince Trajan’s retinue will support you, and I believe that the Legions of the East will, too.”

“Do you know who did it?” August asked, his voice straining from his own attempts to contain his curiosity, desperation, and shared anger.

“I do,” Minerva said as she pulled Caecilius’ ruby out of a pocket. “I even have a witness…”