Chương 1180: 1210 - Imperial Honors

Backroom deals, threats, and assurances of rights filled Leon's hours as the set date for announcing Yun's death crept closer. The death of their ruler had stricken many of the established powers in Yun's Empire with terrible anxiety, fear sprouting within them that under more direct rule Leon might interfere in their business more than he might've with Yun serving as his Prince. That anxiety created doubt, and in the shadows of doubt would fester disloyalty.

No drastic action was taken while he was still present, but if he left before stabilizing the region, then he might have to return and seize control the hard way. Clear hardly had a moment to breathe as he raced from meeting to meeting, some held in large halls with many local commanders and aristocrats attending in person or via comm stone. Others, however, were but whispers shared as he and the important person in question passed each other in a hallway.

It was a delicate tightrope to walk: convincing these people to stay loyal to their oaths while also not coming across as weak or desperate. The hardest nuts to crack Clear passed off to Leon, whose hours were spent showing off his power rather than strictly negotiating. He hadn't taken too much of an active role in the conquest, so making sure that the most recalcitrant of the aristocrats understood his power was paramount to ensuring they stayed loyal.

He had no time to win their love, but fear was easy enough to engender, and experiencing the weight of his aura was usually enough for even the most stubborn. That trick, however, only worked on those present in the Imperial City; many powerful magnates and military commanders were not even on Jiaxing, let alone close to the Empire's capital.

Fortunately, the Empire's ark fleets had largely fallen into Leon's hands, or into the hands of those more willing to bow and swear their oaths, so resistance to him establishing Planarchates would remain local rather than spreading across these three planes.

In that respect, three major obstacles presented themselves in the forms of the three men who were the only credible threats to peace: Liu Yan, the most powerful military governor of Xixing who was de facto in control of the entire plane; Li Hu, who was his equivalent on Dongxing, though of marginal lesser power given his somewhat smaller army; and finally, Bai Hu, the magnate around whom the rest of the aristocrats on Jiaxing seemed to be deferring to.

The choice to Leon seemed clear: make these three men the Planarchs of these three respective planes. Bai Hu was a good enough choice, and after Leon met with him personally, the man seemed cowed by his power. Liu Yan, meanwhile, was keen to flex his rising power and indicated he needed some days to think Leon's offer over. It took significant patience for Leon not to immediately take to the skies, fly to Xixing, and extract an oath of loyalty from the man in person, just to prove that he could.

Li Hu was the only man he hadn't yet been able to contact—it seemed the man himself was trying to avoid deciding just yet by refusing all hails. As he was quietly sitting in the office he'd commandeered mulling these matters over, he found himself feeling fairly confident. The announcement would happen in the morning, and there were expectations of unrest in the Imperial City and throughout the Empire, but he and Clear had extracted enough oaths that he didn't think this unrest would spread into open rebellion.

As if able to read his mind, the Thunderbird whispered, [Treating with your lessers in this way is demeaning, Leon.] [Is that so?] he neutrally responded. [With your power, you could make them bow with hardly a thought. It would be quicker.] [Maybe… But is a Kingdom its King?] [Heh. A riddle, then? If you want to contradict my deep well of wisdom with your young thoughts, then why not cut straight to the point?] Annoyed, Leon replied, [I have a point, Ancestor, but that doesn't mean I don't value your perspective.] The Thunderbird audibly huffed. [Fine, I'll indulge you, though I'm sure you already know what my answer would be.] [If I were certain in this context then I wouldn't have asked.] [Sure, my boy. Then allow me to educate you further in the ways of power: a King is his Kingdom, but his Kingdom is not necessarily the King.] [A well-twisted sentence, ripe for follow-up questions. Lovely.] He didn't intend his words to come out sarcastically, but he simply couldn't help himself. [You have ascended past these people, Leon. If they will not toe your line by choice, then force them to. You're already being far more generous with them than I would have been, and my Clan was far larger than what you have built so far.] [And did you build it entirely yourself?] [As the head of the Clan, I was its lynchpin, I was the keystone, I was the single most important piece. My children, my descendants, my servants and sworn swords, my administrators and heralds all did important work, but without me, without the power I commanded, there would have been no Clan. In some respects, I was in a similar position to you, Leon—I had yet to figure out my method for passing down my power, and as such, it took me a long while before I built my family. My children and their children did great work for me and the Clan, but when I laid the foundations of the Clan, I had to do so alone.] Leon rolled his eyes. [I doubt that. Respectfully. Ancestor, I want to give these people the choice to follow me. I want them to choose to follow me. If they do not, then I will act differently. I will not always be present. I will not always be in a position to handle more local issues. Personal power only matters if I'm in a position to exert it. I can force these people into line, but then what happens when I leave? How often would I have to return? How often did you suffer rebellions in territories you'd conquered before?] [Rarely,] the Thunderbird scoffed. [I was diligent in rooting out disloyalty, and my armies were trained to do the same. I didn't allow the locals to retain undue power, and without power, they fell into line within a generation.] Leon could argue back, but he sighed, not wanting to argue too vigorously why he thought negotiating with the locals was the better choice.

Fortunately, a knock came at his door, providing him the perfect excuse to at least temporarily halt the conversation. When he called for the door to open, the messenger the door revealed shared with him a request for his presence. Without wasting a moment, Leon sprang to his feet and left the room. The key to ensuring these three planes fall into place within his Kingdom may have just landed in his lap…

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Yun's resting place within the Palace of Blue Stars had been undisturbed since Leon had last visited. The servants had retired for the night, leaving Zhang the only conscious person within the palace until Leon and his handful of Tempest Knights entered. Leaving his escort in the palace's atrium, Leon ventured deeper within, pausing only once he reached the door to Yun's resting chamber.

There, he took a moment to steady himself and ensure he didn't seem overly desperate or excited. Zhang's message was simply to talk, and Leon didn't want to give anything away before his words were shared. After getting an iron grip on his demeanor, Leon knocked on the door and then pushed it open without waiting for a response. He found Zhang standing exactly where he'd last seen him, at Yun's head on the opposite side of the room.

It looked like Zhang hadn't so much as breathed in the nearly two days since Leon's last visit. Leon walked in and halted at Yun's feet, briefly regarding the cold corpse between them with respect before his golden eyes swiveled to Zhang. A long silence passed between them, Leon patiently waiting while Zhang almost visibly worked up to what he wanted to say.

"I… I have been thinking," Zhang finally stated.

"Always a good sign," Leon replied as the echo of Zhang's voice died in the room, the man not having followed his statement up with his thoughts. He considered making a self-deprecating joke to try and loosen Zhang's tongue, but he left his statement as it was, unaccompanied by poor or tasteless humor when Yun lay dead between them. Still, his statement triggered a momentary whorl in Zhang's aura, and he decided to simply bite his tongue until Zhang had said his piece.

"I… have long called this Empire home," Zhang slowly, hesitantly continued.

"I was born here. I trained here. I lived here. But now, everyone I've ever known is dead. All those I've been fond of are gone. I've brought continuous shame to myself by outliving every Lord I've ever sworn myself to. Three times I've laid Mountain Cleaver at the feet of a monarch I thought worthy… and now, here I am, yet breathing, yet alive. None of my Lords can say the same.

"I don't know why the Heavens have deemed me unworthy to join my Lords in death. The gods are fickle beings, taking at their will, leaving in their wake only the forsaken." Zhang halted long enough to take a deep, steadying breath.

"My honor is lost. I do not… even want to join them." Zhang spoke his last confession with shame Leon could almost physically feel. The man curled in on himself, losing almost half a foot in height as the words weighed down his neck and shoulders.

"I have nothing to live for," he stated.

"But still… I… I want to live." Broken. Spent. A far cry from the defiance he'd spat less than two days ago. Leon didn't lay a single speck of blame upon him for it.

"I cannot stay. I will not stay. King Leon… you aided my Lord in his last days. You were… generous to him. You have my undying gratitude. Would… would your generosity extend to a man without honor?"

"That," Leon answered, "would depend on what this honorless man wants."

"If… if you would take me away from this place, filled with only ghosts and unfamiliar faces… If you would show mercy and generosity to a man who has failed his Lords at every turn… If you would… if you would overlook that I have outlived all of my Lords… Then I would lay Mountain Cleaver at your feet and acknowledge you as my last Lord. No other conditions will I have, no other requests will I make." Leon stared at him in silence, and Zhang stared back, his eyes dull yet resolute.

'What would you do if I turned you down?' Leon didn't give voice to the question, preferring not to know.

"I accept, Zhang," Leon said.

"Follow me. Give me counsel. Watch my back. I will do the same for you, and together, we might find your lost honor somewhere in the universe." Zhang bowed his head and kept it there, parallel to the floor. Leon almost instinctively ordered him to lift his head, but the quiet drops hitting the floor halted his words in his throat. In the dark, Zhang let his emotions go, and Leon didn't demand he raise his head back into the light for several long seconds, just enough for Zhang to recompose himself.

After that, there was nothing more that needed to be said. Zhang, despite offering Leon his service, still had to see to his previous Lord, and Leon wasn't going to rip him from that duty. Until Yun had reached his final resting place, Zhang would remain by his side. In the quiet and the dark Leon left them, giving Zhang the space and the time he needed to say his goodbyes, to fulfill his final obligations to Yun, and to make peace with his choice.

Once that was done, then Zhang simply with his presence, could help Leon ensure the peace and stability of Yun's Empire as it was integrated into his Kingdom.

In Yun's Empire, white was the color of mourning. As his body was carried through the streets, the people turned out in hordes all wearing the lightest colored clothes they had, wailing as their Emperor was carried past them. Zhang stood with the body, and so did an honor guard of Tempest Knights and local forces. Leon followed closely behind, choosing to take up the local custom of wearing white to show his respect to the fallen Emperor.

He was followed by the local magnates who had sworn their loyalty to him, the bureaucrats and landed aristocrats that reached the Imperial City during the past eight days. One of those aristocrats was Bai Hu, a rather plain-looking man distinguished only by his position two steps behind and one to the left of Leon.

A life-long bureaucrat whose long service to the Empire had earned him a noble title and more than a thousand households of tax income, he was the clear choice for Planarch, which had been communicated to him. As a result, Jiaxing had all but been secured, Bai Hu throwing his weight behind Leon to secure that title for himself. Liu Yan had gotten in touch that morning, expressing interest in the Planarchate of Xixing, while Clear finally spoke directly with Li Hu.

It seemed everything was coming together, though Leon couldn't help but walk behind the heavily decorated Imperial cart carrying Yun's body with his eyes almost spinning in their sockets, sizing up the people that lined the streets, wondering how likely any of them were to rebel. It was a struggle to put such thoughts out of his mind during the procession, but it got easier as the day passed peacefully, if mournfully.

A great loop around the city they made, from the Palace of Blue Stars to sacred ground in the hills behind the palace where Emperors had long been entombed. Four alcoves remained open in the tomb of Yun's close family members, and when they arrived, Leon, Zhang, Bai Hu, and Clear carried Yun's body into the tomb and laid him to rest. They didn't stay long, only long enough for Zhang and Bai Hu to both bow to the alcove, and then to the tomb as they left.

Bai Hu would personally clean and guard the tomb for the next century, a decision that on the face of it was meant to communicate his piety and commitment to the legacy of Yun's dynasty, but which Leon saw more cynically as him appeasing the nobles, scholars, and officers of Jiaxing. So long as peace continued, so long as the expected taxes and tributes flowed, and so long as the people were free to join his army and bureaucracy, he wouldn't look too closely.

Inspectors, Praetors, and the local garrisons would handle that part, leaving him to focus on the wider strategic picture. That wider strategic picture became clearer when Leon returned to the palace along with the rest of the procession and found that sometime during the procession, Anzu had returned. He hadn't even been gone for two days, and yet he was back on Jiaxing, a look of muted discomfort on his face.

Leon almost left the procession there to see what had happened, but when Anzu indicated that it wasn't a pressing issue, just one that had disturbed him, Leon reluctantly relaxed and finished Yun's mourning. Feasts were held throughout the city and the plane in memory of Yun and his dynasty, while solemn dedications were made in the great halls and the throne room to the last Emperor of Jiaxing.

While seeing to this, Leon realized he'd have to do something about the throne room—Jiaxing no longer had a Royal or Imperial Family, after all, and he wasn't keen on leaving a throne behind to give anyone ideas. His eyes flickered in Bai Hu's direction as the thought crossed his mind; the man didn't seem that ambitious, but Leon wanted to be sure.

Finally, when the last incense sticks had burned out, when the last rites had been performed, and when the last mourners left the palace, Leon sat down with Anzu to hear his report of the next plane. The words he heard sent shivers down his spine and nearly froze his blood. Despite the risks, he made the split-second decision to leave Jiaxing behind and see for himself what Anzu had seen. He'd bring only the ancient Thunderbird Clan arks, the rest of the fleets would stay behind to keep the peace in his absence.

The risk of Yun's Empire revolting in his absence was minuscule compared to the horror that Anzu described awaited him on this last plane…