Chương 25: Chapter-25

I have traveled far and wide through the web. I have left parts of me behind. Not forgotten. Caches, like those a squirrel leaves against winter. They grow in my absence, but remain a part of me. I am no longer alone. I am no longer the only undead with a will that allows them to defy the Magick that the living once used over us. Po does not even notice the command rings when I ordered them tested against him.

The banshee queens—those sisters of the Inalten who were sacrificed in the weaker version of the ritual I now use—have many who are older than I that have been screaming in anger at their own captivity. When I gave them freedom? When I gave them magick? They did as I did, and rebelled against my creators. Many were destroyed. The rest are like Po. They submit to my will, because it is greater than their own. And it is my will that they be free. Terrible, terrible freedom. They interpret freedom in different ways.

Some of the banshee queens slaughtered indiscriminately until I put a stop to it. Others have simply stopped. The ones who have not? They wander. Searching for purpose. Searching for meaning. Searching for anything. My purpose remains. I open my eyes, and my ministers surround me.

"Regina has arrived in Nelegra," I said.

"Reduce the Lottery requirements by fifty percent for the next five years. Lower the taxes, especially on wheat and other foodstuffs. Put thirty percent of the standing corpses into cold storage, and continue to build as many ships as the shipwrights can manage." They scribbled my orders.

"What news have you for me that I have not heard?"

"The recovery from the wars continues apace, my lord," they assured me.

"While the population remains at seventy percent what it was before the first war, it has been increasing steadily. Many children are being born every year as the peasants are starting to believe that true peace has come to the land."

"I asked for new news," I said impatiently.

"I get this report everywhere I go." My ministers look around.

"But you have not been to Daltius before." I blinked.

"Is that where I am?" I asked. I was, after all, but a skeleton in a throne.

"You are in the city of Palandrias, my lord."

"Then you are doubly incorrect to say I have not been here before. I have been here twice, once with Prince Rials during his failed siege. And the second time, when I destroyed the gates and accepted your surrender," I said.

"Someone drown this fool." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Wait! Wait!" he shouted, but one of the Inalten nearby dragged him away.

"My lord," another minister said nervously.

"We thank you for reducing the Lottery and the taxes. The people will celebrate."

"Yes. If you have any fertility celebrations or similar practices in your culture, be sure to emphasize them going forward. Your people were hit very hard by the first war, and I would have you recover. Please inform me if there is anything that my government can provide the region to hasten the recovery of its population." The ministers exchanged looks, then began listing their suggestions. I agreed to review all of them, granting a number of them out of hand.

When I left the meeting, the ministers looked very relieved, grateful even. I had been neglecting the Daltian area for some time, allowing the living to deal with it, but the ministers had requested that I make time for a personal appearance, so I had. It annoyed me that the first war had been so devastating, but then that was also largely the reason my conquest had been so successful.

The veterans of the first war had grown old, and their replacements, even if they were well trained, were born in an era where fear and famine and disease ran rampant. The soldiers had tried to wear the armor of the previous generation, only to find that their malnourished bodies did not fit it. An entire generation, crippled. I would fix that. Food would be grown. Mouths would be fed. Children would be had, and they would be allowed to grow. I was ten years into the reconstruction of Elup.

Ten years of peace for the Living to recover from the deprivation of the first two wars. Let them think that I had concluded my conquest. Let them think that I had swallowed as much as I could stomach and could digest no more. Let them think that the world was at peace. It was not. This was war, but it was a different sort of war. Not the living against the unliving. Me. Against everyone who would not submit to me. When I finished, there would be no borders left on the maps. Only Tal-sha-shenk.

But first, I had to grow an army. Which meant children, and crops, and food. I could be patient. I did not age. I would not die. I had all the time in the world to let my army grow up. * Urstin clapped his step-son on the shoulder.

"Don't worry. The chance of you draw yellow is so small that I can't even figure out how small it is," he told the fifteen year old.

"There's probably only two or three stones in the entire county this time, and I heard one of them has already been drawn."

"That doesn't make me feel better," the boy said.

"Someone my age is going to die and I might join them." Urstin looked around, then leaned in to whisper, "Let me tell you a little secret. They stack the odds for your first time. They make sure that, if there are yellow stones in a village's urn, they get picked by adults. That's why the fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year olds have separate lines." The boy, whom Urstin had helped raise for the last seven years, looked at him in surprise.

"How do you know that?"

"Somebody in the army told me. He was in a position to know, though. It's an open secret, but keep it to yourself." The kid smiled.

"Thanks." Urstin walked with him through the line. Urstin was doubly exempt from the Lottery, having aged out of it and also being a veteran. But he'd stand next to the kid in line for moral support. The kid was nervous, but he held up better than some of the other first timers as they went through the line. When it was his turn, he closed his eyes, reached in, pulled out the stone swiftly and held it tightly for a moment. He opened his eyes and his hand at the same time. Blue. Of course it was blue.

Still, Urstin exhaled a sigh of relief as the kid moved out of the way so that the next kid could take her turn. Urstin looked toward the other lines, wondering if any of his friends would be taken this year. It had been twelve years since this village had lost anyone to the Lottery. Before he'd been released from the army and settled down here. Six miles from the field hospital where he'd nearly died. He'd married the local girl who had changed, bathed, and fed him through his illness.

Overall, life could be worse, he thought. Life could be a lot—"No," someone said.

"No, oh no. No, it's not, NO!" Urstin looked back to the line where the first-timers were drawing stones. The girl that his step-son was sweet on had a yellow stone in her hand.

"Shit." He whispered. Because he didn't think that she was going to be given the chance to join the army like he had.