Part Eight – A knife in the dark

I stood at the window in my study in the Imperial Palace, hard to believe that I've been Emperor for nearly twenty years now. My people have been enjoying prosperity with strong trade ties with the Iron Blood, Sakura Empire, and the United Kingdom, especially after we arranged for freedom of movement between our nations, that our people and kansen are free to move between our nations. Over my shoulder, I hear some papers rustle and I twist slightly to see a young woman sitting at the other side of my desk, her long red hair pulled back in a ponytail, her brow furrowed as she tapped the end of her nose with a pen. The only clue I had that it wasn't Zara sitting there, it was her grey eyes. With a smile on my face, I finish my turn and ask, "Sofia, what seems to have you so deep in thought?"

She sighs and puts down the papers before leaning back in the chair and chewing on the end of her pen before she says, "We seem to have hit a decent space on the standard of living for everyone as well as education, but I don't know, maybe we could do more?"

Ah.

With a nodding of my head I take a seat across from her and ask, "Between ourselves, and our allies, we are in a good position, but we have to be careful as our neighbors are not in as strong positions. The Iris is still having trouble pulling themselves together and the Northern Parliament is being kept in check between us, the Iron Blood, and the Sakura Empire."

Taking the pen out of her mouth and putting it on the desk as she nodded before saying to me, "Do you think there is any way to get them on our side?"

Leaning back in my chair and looking off to the side my lips press together and I sigh out, "Yeah, but it's something I'm kind of not happy with entertaining."

Sofia's brow works up and down a little before she said, "Umberto."

With a nod, I agree, "Umberto. The last time I had to ask a family member to be sold for an alliance was with your aunt Pola."

Sofia folds her arms across her chest and leans back in her chair as she says, "Maybe I should talk to Umberto about it, he might be more receptive to it that way. I know you and him have had a difficult relationship."

Again I nod, it hurt to admit, but there was truth to it. My relationship with Weser and her station as a Princess Consort, not Empress Consort, put him in a position so close to the throne, yet so far from it. I'd done what I could to never have him feel unwanted or unwelcome, but it was painfully obvious that no matter what I did, I did favor Sofia. But to be fair, I need to make Sofia ready for the crown, and at all of seventeen, she was really shaping up for it. I shake my head and sigh, "No, it's alright, I'll need to talk to Weser first and get her on board with this."

Sofia nodded before reaching forward to pick up documents, flipping through them as she asked, "If we are going to make an arrangement for this, Pappa, you'll need to figure out which faction to back and give legitimacy to."

"Well between the two factions, I'm more inclined to support Richelieu, since you know, she saved my life." I say with a slight smirk as I think back to that day when my uncle tried to kill me and Richelieu shot him with his own gun.

"Why?" my daughter asks as her head tilts to the side and she follows up with, "Why would she do that?"

I sigh and tell her how things happened that day, how I was nearly blown up, how her great grandfather died, how my uncle was about to kill me before he told Richelieu that she had been a tool for him and nothing more, right before she shot him, saving my life. Sofia's lips press together and she grumbles out, "I'm not sure I'd want to send Umberto to them then."

Bobbing my head up and down I say, "Politics are funny things, you can't let yourself get caught up in past actions with them, you have to keep an eye on the future. Honestly, getting one of the Iris factions into the alliance would lock down all of Europe, forcing the Norther Parliament to stay in their borders for good."

"What about the Eagle Union?" she asks me.

I sigh and look off to the side as I say, "They've torn themselves apart, their power has been sapped by their own shortsightedness. They refused to accept their kansen as people and as such most of them have fled that nation."

"Like Nona Yorktown." She says with a smile.

I smile back at her as I say, "Correct."

Sofia tosses the papers back on my desk before getting up and stretching as she says, "I'm going to go and find some dinner, we've been in here all day."

I nod and pick up the papers as I say, "Sure, and Sofia," I pause as she turns to look at me and I add, "you are going to make a fine Empress one day."

She flushes bright red and says, "Hopefully, that's a long way, away, Pappa."

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Later that night I stood outside of a suite door and sighed to myself after so long I'd gotten used to the idea of having assigned nights with either Weser or Zara, but if I'm honest about it, I prefer Zara, mostly since that relationship was stronger than the one I have with Weser. Taking a deep breath I opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door behind me, I saw a chess set sitting on a coffee table and a couple of glasses of wine. I move and take my customary spot at the white side of the board, no sooner than my rear hit the cushion on the chair than I heard the footfalls of Weser as she came out from the bedroom in a simple white housecoat. She still looked as good as the day I saw her standing in my throne room, honestly, I was really envious of the kansen at this point, I knew I was starting to have grey in my hair now that I'm into my forties. I watch as she moves to take her spot across from me, picking up her wine and sipping from it as she smiles and asks, "How are you tonight Cristanio?"

I move the pawn in the E2 pawn to E4 as I say to her, "Dealing with a lot, you?"

She moved the F7 pawn to F8 and shrugged as she said to me, "Alright for the most part, though Umberto is being a bit of a handful, puberty with a boy is interesting."

Sliding my pawn from G2 to G4 I laugh as I say, "It can be tricky when dealing with the child of a different gender."

With another shrug, she moves from E7 to E5 with her pawn there as she says, "I think the most confusing part is he is being rather secretive as to why he's in his room so much lately."

Moving my pawn from F2 to F3 I nod as I say, "He's likely exploring his changing body."

Weser blinks a few times as she moves her bishop from F8 to B4 as she asks, "No?"

I move my knight from B1 to C3 in an attempt to bait her into a trap with her bishop and shrug as I say, "It's possible, do you know if he's showing interest in any girls, or boys?"

She moves her bishop from B4 to C5 as she says, "I don't know, he won't tell me."

Moving my knight from C3 to D5 as I respond, "Well, I'll try talking to him later."

Weser moves her bishop from C5 to take my knight in G1 as she thinks and says, "It might be a good idea."

I move my knight from D5 to F6 and say, "Check."

With a quick movement from G7 to F6 Weser smirks and says, "Close."

Moving my bishop from F1 to C4 I shrug and smirk at her as I sip some wine. Weser moves her knight from G8 to H6 before gesturing for me to move. Moving my pawn from G4 to G5 and sipped more wine and sat back. Weser was quick to take that pawn with hers that was in F6 before sitting back to sip wine. Moving my rook from H1 to G1 and sitting back I wait for Weser to make her counter move as I expected. Yet rather than doing the move I expected her to make, she moved her knight H6 to G4 and I move my rook from G1 to G4 and drank more wine. The game went on for a while, each of us whittling down our forces to just a rook, bishop, and kings left. Just as I reach for my next move, Weser gets up and takes my hand as she says, "Let's go to bed."

Looking back at the board I see that it is at a stalemate and I nod as I stand and join her in the bedroom.

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A few days after I sent missives to Richelieu in hopes that she would be receptive to the idea of a future political joining of our forces, as well as official recognition of her as the leader of the Iris, she responded with a diplomatic pouch containing the profile of one of her cruisers, Jeanne d'Arc, along with a note stating that she understands that Umberto is too young to be wed yet. After I had gotten the profile on Jeanne I had shown it to Weser and she seemed okay with it, so now I stand in my study, looking out at the rain coming down in the garden, and waited.

It didn't take long before I heard the door to my study open and a gate of a young man approaching from behind me and I started an internal count with each footstep before I heard a voice that was crackling with puberty demand, "Why?! And my mamma is fine with this?!"

I close my eyes and sigh before I turn to face my son, it was almost like looking in a mirror, his features reminded me so much of my own, but it was his short red hair that was all his mother's, giving him a smile I say, "Good morning, Umberto."

"Good morning, papa. But can you answer my question?!" he says as he folds his arms across his chest.

Taking a seat at my desk I gesture to the chair across from me as I say, "Yes, Weser is okay with this. She was used in much the same way to build a relationship between the Empire and the Iron-Blood. Now the Iris is nearly stable after so much instability and I cannot have them fall back into a civil war or continue to be unstable on our border."

"So I'm being sold to secure that?" Umberto responds as he sits and gives me a sideways look.

"Sadly, yes. I hate that I'm doing this, I hated it the first time I had to do it with Pola." I pause and reach over to fill my coffee cup from the coffee pot on my desk before adding, "Sometimes politics demand we do things we don't want to do."

"You always say that, 'sometimes, Umberto, you have to do things you don't want to do.'" He pauses and rolls his grey eyes before adding, "Just once, I'd like to have the option to do something I want to do."

I laugh and lean back in my chair as I say, "Then you should've been born into another family."

He tilts his head to the side and asks, "How so? We have money and power, we can do what we want."

Laughing harder and wiping an eye I break it down for him, "Honestly, no. Because we have money and power is exactly why we can't. We can hold power only so long as the people want us to. If we are selfish and short-sighted, then we will not last long." Pausing to pick up my coffee and sip it I add, "Looking back on things, I had much more freedom to do what I wanted before I came to the Empire and found out who I am. I was free to choose what I wanted to do, true, I never had the power or wealth I have now, but I could do more then."

He sighs and nods before asking, "Is she at least pretty?"

Opening my desk drawer I take out the document pouch and it hits me how familiar this feels, I imagine my grandfather likely felt somewhat similar when he did this to me. Pausing for a moment before I put the pouch on the desk I say, "I think that's a trait of all kansen."

I watch as he takes out the profile and starts to read it as he says, "She sure is pretty."

With a nod I say to him, "Go, study that profile, she is expected to arrive for the first meeting with you by the end of next week."

Watching as he stands and starts to walk away, eyes glued to the picture of the blond-haired woman that was in that document pouch, I couldn't help but smile as I whisper to myself, "Perhaps you'll have better luck with this than I have."

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Later that week in the evening I was walking through the garden at night, thankful for a moment to myself, sort of. I mean I still had palace guards as well as several kansen that were on the grounds at all times. I really enjoyed the rainy nights here, the sound of the rain hitting the glass in the gazebo. I almost jumped out of my chair with the flash of lightning; out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a robed figure in the garden.

Moving to the edge of the gazebo and squinting my eyes I started to scan the night, keeping the light behind me to avoid blinding myself. I held my breath trying to listen for movement, but due to the rain coming down I couldn't hear anything. Another flash of lightning and I saw out of the corner of my eye the edge of a robe flicking, held almost motionless in the instant of light. Turning around and moving to the other side of the gazebo I tried to estimate where they had gone to, and again I repeated trying to see or listen for them.

Pressing my lips together, I take a step out into the rain and call out, "Hello?" I'm not sure if they heard me or not, the rain was coming down hard after all. After taking a couple of steps out of the shelter, I stopped and waited, on the off chance they tried to call out to me as well. When no answer came I continued to make my way to the last place I saw them heading to. As soon as I get there, another flash of lightning and I see leaves at my feet and a reflection in the water behind me a robbed figure. Closing my eyes I take a deep breath just as I feel a knife get driven into my back, between the ribs on my left side. As the knife is drawn out quickly a woman's voice whispers, "Jean Bart sends her regards."

As I fall to my knees, I reach inside my jacket and push my panic button. When I start to fall forward into the puddle I say, "I only want France to be strong, again."

No response came, but my eyes had adjusted to the dark and I saw her leap to a balcony on the second floor, then turn and leap to the fourth floor, before going to the roof. I feel my eyelids get heavy and I slip into the black.

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A/N: Stay tuned for chapter nine and the fallout of a knife in the dark!