Chương 71: Chapter Seventy One

At some point during the trip William had sort of been expecting to be called in for another meeting with Yelena. If only to better explain what had occurred over the capital. Sure, it might have been something we planned to have happen, he thought. But having someone explain the concept of an airship filled with fuel and other explosives going up and actually seeing it happen are two very different things. Yet that hadn't happened.

Oh, he'd certainly got a few orb calls from other nobles in the fleet asking about what exactly had just happened – calls in which he'd been both happy and obligated to tell them it was 'classified' – but Yelena herself hadn't seen fit to pass comment. Nor had Griffith. Tyana had called him to ask if the feat could be repeated, which had surprised him a little, but he'd been forced to admit that it was a little too cost prohibitive to use under normal circumstances. It really had been the perfect storm of events.

He'd had an excess of fuel and other explosives he couldn't reasonably transport. He also had access to a number of airships that were designed to be watertight. Finally, the enemy hadn't been expecting it. Now, a kamikaze airship would always be a threat – but any Admiral worth her salt would respond to one by spreading out rather than clumping around it like what had happened over Lindholm.

Honestly, they'd not exactly been given the chance to tally the number of losses the North took from that one explosion, in Shards or airships, but William had to imagine it was significant. The complete and total loss of at least three airships would be a problem for them. Usually, provided the hull was at least remotely intact, a ship could generally be recovered. Less so when the component parts of a vessel are spread over a few square miles, he thought.

As had been the case for at least two of the Northern ships – if not more. And the less said about the Shards that had attempted to fall in nearby the better. Finally, and most importantly for the North, they wouldn't even be able to recover the Trojan Horse's core.

An airship could expect to remain aloft for at least a few minutes sans its core, given the deleterious effects of aether tended to be mitigated when it was present in sufficient quantities – like an airships aether ballasts – and as such the last task of the diving suit clad palace guard who'd been piloting the craft had been to evacuate with said core. Which… would have been difficult given the ship had been filled with fuel at the time and as such visibility would have been poor to say the least.

Still, if she managed to do so before the ship went up in flames, she'd then have to glide down to the city on her suit's aether ballasts. Then the actual hard part of her job was to begin. Which would involve escaping a city under occupation and making her way South – all while keeping the airship core hidden from the Northern occupation force. Not exactly a small task, but one Yelena had assured him the woman she'd chosen would be up to.

Which made him more and more sure that the primary role of her Palace Guard was not so much guarding her person so much as spying on, assassinating, and sabotaging her enemies. He shook his head.

"You seem to be thinking hard," Olzenya opined from her position on the Jellyfish's captain's chair.

"And that worries me." The bridge of the vessel was relatively quiet as the fleet made the final leg of their journey. Apparently they'd just entered Summerfield airspace and would be coming up on the seat of the Duchy momentarily. They'd also just received some rather sad news that Lady Summerfield had finally passed away but a few days ago. And if that was a coincidence, William would eat his own foot. No, he had little doubt one of Yelena's invisible guards had had a role to play there.

She wanted the succession crisis over and done with as soon as possible – not cropping up at an inconvenient moment. Of course, that response had had the rather amusing side effect of Verity trying to offer her condolences to him – right up until he explained that his mother was the Countess of Ashfield. Lady Summerfield was the Duchess of Summerfield and House Ashfield's liege lady. Though he would privately admit that he could understand the confusion. Ashfield. Summerfield. Redwater. New Haven. Greygrass.

Blackstone. Crownlands. Southshore, he thought. Creative, the names of the many countships and duchies were not. Though given they'd mostly been made by Imperial Navy scouts literally flying over places and picking out the most visually distinctive characteristics of the region, that made some sense.

Sure, they could have just adopted the names the existing Human and Orcish populaces used and translated them to the Elvish tongue Lindholm currently used – but in typical Elvish fashion they instead just chose to rename everything. Poorly.

"That you're obviously still thinking and not answering means I'm getting more worried by the moment," his high elven teammate prompted. He shook his head, chuckling ruefully.

"You shouldn't be. Mostly I'm just thinking about how quiet the last few days have been. Some part of me was expecting to be spending this entire trip under Yelena's interrogation after 'Operation Trojan Horse'. I've mostly just been helping fix up the Corsairs we recovered." A task that was significantly easier than making new craft, given the magic in the metal 'remembered' its old shape, which meant the Jellyfish would soon have a full complement of aircraft once more. Olzenya rolled her eyes.

"I still have no idea where you got that name from – but I can guess." He supposed she could, now that she knew he was harrowed. Though given it was still a secret to the public at large and they were on a crowded bridge, he made a mental note to remind her to keep her references to it as small as possible. Even if her current one was rather oblique to begin with. The last thing he needed was for his future in-laws – or his betrothed – to find out he was technically insane prior to him tying the knot.

Was that wrong of him? Undoubtedly, but given everything else he'd done and planned to do, lying to secure a more advantageous political match barely even registered.

"And as for interrogations, well, you said you explained your plan to them prior to it happening, right?" she continued.

"I did."

"Alright, so why do you think they'd start hounding you about it if they knew what was going to happen?" He shrugged.

"I don't know, I just thought they might be surprised or something when it actually worked. There'd be little shock. Maybe some awe. Then they'd start demanding I explain it in more detail." Admittedly there'd been a lot of that amongst the captains and crews of the fleet, but little from the people who'd been involved in the operation. From the alchemists to his own team, the reaction to the massive explosion had been decidedly nonplussed.

"Aw, are you upset that we're getting used to your particular brand of insanity?" The High Elf smirked.

"There's only so many times you could pull off something completely beyond our conventional understanding of how the world works before we come to expect it from you. You said you were going to do something insane. Something insane happened. And it'll happen again." William's mouth opened. Then closed.

"I mean, I guess."

"What, is your ego really that stung that us 'primitives' are getting used to your 'genius'?" Olzenya asked with amusement.

"It's not that." He shook his head.

"It's just that if you guys are slowly getting used to my shenanigans then it means it won't be too long before our enemies do too. And then they'll start to adapt. They'll start to expect the unexpected." The Corsair was an example of that. It was an excellent machine that he'd chosen specifically to counter the current air doctrine of this world, but it wasn't infallible. Superior speed and firepower could be defeated with the correct positioning and a well-timed follow up.

And he didn't doubt that it wouldn't be long before the North figured out how to do exactly that. And while he had a lot more surprises he could pull out to keep the North off-balance – those surprises each took time to set up, and on a strategic level, would require production time. And training programs. And logistical chains. Actually on that front, I need to swear that geas to Yelena the moment we touch down in Summerfield, he thought.

"Perhaps," Olzenya allowed in a moment of surprising softness.

"But remember that the entire war doesn't rest on your noggin. If you run out of tricks? Well, I suppose we'll just have to finish the war the old fashioned way. With blood and grit." Then, as if remembering herself, she coughed.

"Provided you don't get us all killed in some hairbrained scheme before we reach that point." He laughed.

"I'll try not to. And thanks." She snorted, before deliberately turning her attention back to the bridge windows.

"Looks like we're coming up on Summerfield City." She turned to her XO.

"Instruct the crew to make ready for landing within the hour."

"Aye Captain," the ship's XO, a former Royal Navy woman who'd once been Olzenya's tutor and the captain of the Jellyfish in her own right, turned to speak into the ship's enchanted communication system. Never did catch her name, he thought.

"An hour?" he asked. Olzenya turned to him.

"Huh, sometimes I forget that you're not a genius about everything and we're only second years. We might only be twenty minutes out, but there's a whole ceremony to landing as part of a fleet containing the Queen. She lands first, and Admiral Tyana will likely be next, but there's going to be a lot of jockeying for who gets the 'honour and privilege' of landing after her. And a few people won't care about that, but they will care about getting to land before their political rivals."

William glanced out at the distant city that was growing with each passing moment – and the many visibly empty sky-docks that dominated the skyline. The skyscraper sized structures had plenty of empty berthing and connecting bridges. And sighed.

"Alright, I guess. Try to get us somewhere in the middle of the pack, if we're going to be doing this one by one." Olzenya nodded and said nothing. He settled in with the expectation he'd be suffering a boring hour of doing nothing, which meant he was pleasantly surprised when the twins bustled onto the bridge. Something that had Olzenya clearing her throat to chastise them for, before he sent her a commiserating look and stood up, intercepting them.

"Ladies," he smiled at his two betrotheds.

"What can I do for you?" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Clarice was the first to respond, the older twin grinning at him.

"We thought we might join you as we came in to land." Marcille nodded.

"Yep. I know you're also from a Summerfield house, but I don't think you've ever visited the ducal capital, right?" A little surprised as he'd hardly given it any thought, he shook his head.

"I haven't, no."

"Then come on!" Marcille giggled as she grabbed his arm, tugging him out towards the door to the stairs to the deck. Clarice was only a second slower, and he soon found himself helplessly dragged off. And as the two bustled him out onto the deck, he saw they weren't alone in wanting to get a good view of the incoming city. Olivia and his aunt were there, as was Verity. And so were dozens of other people. Mostly families of his contingent of workers and pilots who he'd brought along for the evacuation.

Though not all of them, he thought. Indeed, he did see some venture out onto the deck, get one look at the view over the railing, before fleeing back indoors. Which he didn't really blame them for. It was a long drop and not everyone had a head for heights. As many of his 'passengers' had discovered over the course of the last week. Fortunately, none of them seemed to notice that their Lord was present – for which he was thankful – as the twins moved him towards the railing.

Glancing out towards the other ships in the fleet, he could just barely make out similarly excited figures standing at the railings of their own decks. Taking his gaze away, he finally turned his attention to the city in the distance – which was growing bigger by the moment. He could even now make out individual buildings.

"It's incredible isn't it?" Clarice breathed.

"It's almost as big as Blicland." Yes, that was true, William supposed. Which was part of why he didn't really understand why the two were so excited. To his eyes it was just a smaller version of the Royal Capital – except it didn't have the Academy. It was just another city.

"It's certainly something," he said with all the outward signs of enthusiasm. Of course, he wasn't so stupid as to say what he was really thinking when the girls were so excited to show it to him. Already they were pointing out differing cultural landmarks to him. Which were of equally little interest. Honestly, his only real interest was in the size of the crafting district. However it was as he had that thought that he realized why exactly the two were so excited. I'm an idiot, he thought.

It's going to be our city if everything goes well. Of course they're excited to show it off. He also realized that they'd changed clothes since he last saw them. Gone were the work aprons and grime-coated pants they'd been wearing while tinkering with the Basilisk – and in their place was the kind of formal wear one might expect to see a woman of their standing clad in. They'd dressed up. Of course they have, he thought. Their family will likely already be in the city waiting to meet them.

Hell, my family will be there too. He'd need to duck into his quarters for a quick change in just a few minutes if he hoped to present himself similarly, swapping out his 'work clothes' for something more befitting a Count. … Fuck, he couldn't wait to have Marline back. She'd have pointed all this out a while ago instead of letting him laser focus on getting the Jellyfish's Corsair complement back up to full strength. Eh, there's still time, he thought.

I'll nip in to make a few final adjustments to that last Corsair while everyone else is jockeying for 'landing privilege' and then I can go get changed.

"What do you think of the castle?" Marcille asked. He followed her gaze downward, taking in the full panorama unfolding beneath the Jellyfish's keel. The castle she was looking at was visible now, straddling the city walls like… well, a tumour of some kind. Yet despite that less than palatable comparison, he could freely admit that he was impressed by it. He'd been expecting something akin to the Royal Palace. Something large and pretty intended to serve as a suitably impressive seat of governance.

Summerfield Castle was none of those things.

"Why's it so… short?" he asked. Clarice laughed.

"Ah, I forgot you're from Ashfield." Of course, she got elbowed by her twin a second later. Turning to glare at her sibling, she frowned, before paling and rapidly adding.

"Not that that's a bad thing! I happen to like pre-colonization human architecture." William didn't. He didn't care about it. He just didn't know why it was relevant.

"Ah," he realized.

"It's better protected from airships that way." His own home had been built prior to the invasion of Lindholm by the Elven Imperium and thus prior to the existence of airships. It had been a human castle.

"R-right!" Clarice nodded.

"It's not as pretty, but because most of it's underground, it's harder to just knock down from the sky. You have to send people in to clear it out the old fashioned way."

"Or starve the defenders out," Marcille added casually.

"That tends to be the more common option." Huh, that was actually kind of cool.

"And you say most elven castles are built like that?" Marcille nodded.

"Yep." He frowned.

"Redwater wasn't." The other twin chuckled.

"William, you did great things with that place, but when Yelena gave it to you, Redwater was barely a County. It didn't have a castle."

"It had a mansion," he felt compelled to point out.

"I'd argue that it was more of a townhouse," Marcille said.

"Either way," Clarice continued.

"Redwater was close enough to the capital that there wasn't really a need for a 'proper castle'."

"If you're under siege that close to the Capital itself, then the country's kind of fucked anyway," Marcille opined.

"So it wouldn't have been worth it to install one. That's also why the palace was built in the pre-colonization way. No one ever really expected it to come under attack." William supposed he could see the logic in that. Sort of. If he squinted.

"With that said, I'm pretty sure the Palace had a lot of underground defences too, we just don't know about them," Clarice said. Ah, that made more sense to him. Still, he was somewhat happy to know his new home wouldn't be knocked over by any airship that just so happened to get overhead.

"Hopefully it's still in good repair. Summerfield Castle that is. It should be, but I know the Summerfield family moved into the Summer Manse nearly a generation ago and they might have let things slip." William didn't whack his head against the railing of his ship, but it was difficult.

"The Summer Manse?" he asked. Clarice smirked, clearly reading his thoughts, before she gestured to a building inside the city next to where the castle bulged out of the walls. He hated it. Even from this distance he could see the thing was a sprawling complex filled with manicured gardens, statues, pools, fountains and sports fields. He dreaded to think what it looked like inside.

Because that money could have been invested in upgrading the Ducal Fleet, he thought as his attention turned to the fleet floating over the city. And the contrast between them and the incoming Royal Fleet couldn't have been more stark. For one thing, almost all of them were wooden. For another, many of them had about half as many cannon ports as the ship nearest to him. For a second, he had to wonder if that was because some of them dated back to the initial Imperial invasion.

A time in which ships were crewed entirely by Elves and made minimal to no use of cannon in favor of oversized mage boarding parties. … Hopefully the Shards on those ships will be more impressive, he thought. Those, at least, most nobles would keep in top shape so as to avoid being shamed by their peers when their heirs went to compete at the Academy.

His eyes swept over the array of vessels as the Jellyfish got closer to the city and he noted that not only were the colours of the late duchess's personal armada present, but also those of her vassals. Squinting a little, it didn't take him long to pick out the familiar shape of the Indomitable amongst those craft. His mother's ship, or more properly, that of the Ashfield dynasty. He sighed, even as he heard a small eep of excitement from further down the railing.

One he had no doubt belonged to his younger sister. She'd likely seen the ship too. As the Royal Navy flew closer, a series of pops rang out above the Ducal Fleets as the vessels started firing enchanted bundles of coloured dye into the air on puffs of aether, where they exploded into large puffs of coloured smoke. Even as the crowd on his ship oohed and ahed at the admittedly pretty sight, William couldn't help but grind his teeth.

"…We need every explosive shell we can get and they're wasting magical charges on enchanting sky flowers," Clarice said quietly. Huh, it was actually nice to hear someone else echo his own concerns.

"It's possible they pulled them out of storage, sister," Marcille said – though it didn't sound like she believed it. The trio were silent as the forward elements of both fleets got close enough to raise their flags at each other, ripples of color dancing across their hulls as they communicated. Though that was mostly for show at this point, as just about every ship in the fleet had access to a communication orb.

Nearly a minute later, William turned as a smartly dressed comms officer strode up to them, quietly, before clearing her throat to draw his attention.

"Message from the Queen, milord. All shipboard nobles are to prepare for immediate departure upon docking. She also instructs that the Admiral's ship will land second, with Count Redwater's vessel third in sequence." William nodded, a quiet flicker of gratitude warming him from within. Given what he'd literally just learned from Yelena, that was no small show of support for him. It would also serve to show in no uncertain terms who she endorsed as her preferred candidate for the upcoming succession of the Duchy.

Something that wasn't lost on the twins either as they were beaming when he turned to them after dismissing the officer.

"Right, I suppose if that's the case I should slip away and get changed into something more fitting for the occasion. I'm sure I packed my finery... somewhere in my quarters, so I won't be long."

"Of course," Marcille said.

"We'll be waiting." Though just as he was about to leave, a second officer appeared, looking almost out of breath.

"Apologies milord, a second message came in while our first runner was out. This time from the Indomitable. In it, your mother commands you to attend her post-haste upon our arrival at the sky-dock." William raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. My, my, he thought. I go out of contact for a week and we forget our relative positions.

Because for all that the Jellyfish was equipped with a communications orb capable of communicating the vast distance between the capital and Ashfield – he'd not chosen to make use of it during the journey. He could have, he supposed, if he'd been willing to lean on Yelena a bit, but he'd chosen not to. Not least of all because Lindholm's wayfinder network was what allowed communication orbs to communicate cross country – and it was already being used to its maximum capacity by Yelena herself.

'Abandoning' the capital hadn't exactly been a small loss after all, and as such she was near constantly busy assuring her more distant allies that this was just the start of the war and not the end. Not to mention organizing and rallying a response. Hell, that was part of why he'd not been able to find a chance to swear the geas that promised her the secrets behind 'every bit of technology currently aboard the Jellyfish or in Redwater county'.

Admittedly, that last factor had become a bit irrelevant with the evacuation, but he really wanted to get it sworn anyway so he could start producing things not covered by that rather specific promise. So no, he hadn't seen much need to contact his mother – and in doing so take up valuable air-time. Taking a breath, he made sure to keep his voice level.

"Please politely remind the Indomitable that while they may request my presence at my discretion, they hold no authority to command a Peer of the Realm to do anything." Because that was the crux of it - he was his mother's peer now as Count Redwater. Even if she happened to be his mother. Their blood ties didn't supersede the protocols of nobility. He'd deign to speak with her, certainly, but strictly on his own timetable and terms. And not just because of filial piety.

The primary agenda for that conversation would be to make sure they were going to withdraw Olivia's tenuous claim to the Summerfield Duchy. Because things are going to get very ugly indeed if that particular ambition chooses to reignite itself, he thought. And he was almost certain it would. The twins, obviously caught a little off-guard by his words, shifted awkwardly on their feet. Which was why he made sure to favor them with a smile as the officer scarpered away.

"Sorry about that," he said.

"Family drama." Marcille recovered quickly.

"Ah, I can imagine. Our own mother and aunts can also be a bit overbearing. If I was a Countess I'm sure I'd be doing the same thing at times."

"On that front," Clarice continued.

"I'm sure our family is hoping to meet you at some point after we land. Would it be possible for us to set some time aside for that?"

"And drama aside, we'd love to meet your own family," Marcille jumped in again, effortlessly taking over for her twin.

"We've met Olivia and your aunt and they're both lovely." William stifled a smirk at that. The twins had indeed met Olivia and his aunt Karla and he sincerely doubted either party found the other 'lovely'. He loved his sister, but she could be a brat. Especially when dealing with her older brother's two betrothed – who'd replaced Tala, a girl she actually liked – and were now set to inherit a Duchy she herself had been primed to take. No, there wasn't much love lost there at all. Still, he smiled politely.

"That sounds lovely," he said.

"I can't promise it'll be the first thing, but I can promise you that we will have a proper meeting between the whole family before long." Not least of all because he'd kind of need to get married to them… pretty much immediately. Yelena's going to want this succession sorted as soon as possible and I don't disagree, he thought. … Even if some part of him still felt a little off about the whole… marriage. Sure, it was a political beast first and foremost, but it still felt strange.

And only got stranger the closer it got to actually happening.

"We'd like that," Clarice said, smiling softly, while Marcille nodded.

"And… to hopefully spend more time together." William nodded.

"Yeah. That sounds good." …Even if he didn't know how possible that was going to be. Things had been busy back in the capital. They'd been busier on the flight over here. And they were likely to get busier still now that they were here. Still…

"I'll try to make time," he said.

"I promise." And even if he felt part of him desperately trying to argue against that promise – he fought to believe he'd keep it.