A/N: Double chapter this week! Partly because Parts 1 & 2 were supposed to be one chapter that once again got cut for length, but unlike last time, Part 1 does not stand up on its own at all... and partly because I was told to take my annual leave or lose it, so I've had a week off during our busiest period at work in the middle of a lockdown with nothing else to do. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow at the usual time. Then we'll be back to weekly chapters for the foreseeable future. ~CS
The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Interlude: Throne and Empire, Part 1
Vistarion, X781
Eight weeks ago, Invel Yura had considered himself the luckiest man alive.
How many people his age had ever received an opportunity like this? How many others in history had turned down a full scholarship to the National Institute of Law because they'd received a better offer? How many could claim that their first office had been a palace; that they had shaken hands with the second most powerful person in the Alvarez Empire within ten minutes of starting their internship; that on their obligatory first-day tour, they had stood atop that towering black wall and looked out over great Vistarion, observing that pinnacle of civilization from somewhere even higher?
As he'd walked through those gates for the very first time, he had never felt so small, and never felt so big.
But they always say not to meet your heroes, and it had taken Invel less than a week to start wondering if there wasn't equal merit in warning people not to follow their dreams either.
It wasn't the harsh reality of life as an intern that had done it. If he had a penny for every person who'd warned him that he had two months of photocopying and making coffee ahead of him, he'd have been rich enough not to have to work a day in his life… or, more likely, to pay a full-time chef and housekeeper so he could work twice as much.
Instead, cruel fortune had heaped blessing after blessing upon him, and the unexpected resignations of three assistants meant that by the end of the first week, he had run so many errands for the Chief of Staff herself that they were already on first-name terms. As someone who could recite by heart all fourteen of her Commendation of the Realm speeches, it was more than Invel could have hoped for… never realizing that the higher he climbed the tower his naivety had built, the further he had to fall.
Now, eight weeks on, he slumped back in his chair with a sigh so normal he no longer thought of it as heavy.
Somewhere beyond the library walls, the unhurried tolling of a bell marked four o'clock. That made it fifteen minutes exactly since his report had been due on Jaquila's desk. He'd always thought missing a deadline on purpose would bother him more than this, but then he'd thought a lot of things before he'd started his internship here, and very few of them were worth repeating now.
It was almost laughable how much things could change in such a short space of time. Back then, he'd taken pride in the fact that when he'd told the interviewer he was a hard worker, he of all the potential applicants truly meant it. On his first day, he'd taken note of everyone who'd left before six in the evening and relegated them several places in his list of people whose acquaintance was worth making. He himself had left at nine, after the security staff had pointed out that it was against the rules for someone of his clearance level to remain in the palace any longer without appropriate supervision. His estimation of his supervisors had dropped too, at that. How was he supposed to prove his dedication if they couldn't even be bothered to give him the opportunity?
Now, he stared at the half-finished report and wondered why he had ever thought this place worth proving himself to.
Someone lumbered by his table, adding a chorus of uneven footsteps and squeaking floorboards to an atmosphere already better suited for a haunted house than the working heart of the empire. Invel disliked everything about it. From the uninviting silence to the obligatory eye-straining dimness, from the antique wooden furniture to the layer of dust hiding generations-old stains, it was a bibliophile's paradise and an appalling place to work.
The main library at the National Institute of Law was almost as old, but that hadn't stopped it from being brightly lit, newly furnished, technologically equipped, professional. As thematic as the palace library's unadorned chairs and long, bare tables were, countless studies had proven that staff worked more productively in comfort. Rare first edition volumes might have been great for collectors and historians, but they were a waste of shelf space for anyone else the moment they were superseded.
Oh, these crumbling vaults held more treasures than every other archive on the Alvarez mainland combined – original trade agreements, case records, minutes of council meetings, every legislative document that had ever been signed into law by their emperor – but that was just it: these things belonged in some esoteric archive, not in the palace library, the first and only point of reference for the scholars, lawyers and politicians who populated the working wing of the palace. It had been designed as a private collection – the emperor's, no doubt – and had failed to adapt as Alvarez had evolved from a walled city amidst a sea of enemies to a nation that spanned an entire continent and beyond.
It wasn't the impracticality of the building that annoyed Invel, per se. It was how well it symbolized the state of the nation. From the outside, it was majestic, extraordinary, magical; enough to have demanded the allegiance of his ambitions for as long as he could remember. From the inside… sometimes he could not even work out how it was still standing.
Sometimes he felt it deserved to fall.
Invel shoved his chair back. There was something oddly satisfying about its screech of protest. He pushed aside the not-quite-finished report Jaquila had wanted fifteen minutes ago, revealing the long-since-finished document beneath – the one addressed to the Master of Admissions at the National Institute of Law. Having had time to reconsider your generous offer of a place at your prestigious institute…
He folded it twice as carefully as he had his overdue report and slipped both into his bag. He might as well go now. With any luck, by the time he reached Jaquila's office, the meeting of the Spriggan Twelve would already have started, and there would be no one around to notice if he clocked out early.
It was easy to forget, as he slouched through the corridors, that his place of work was a literal palace. While those skyward-charging spires did indeed contain a hall of audience, state dining room, ballroom, and expansive private living quarters kept optimistically free of dust in case their owner ever deigned to return, they only comprised a small part of the enormous building. Most of it was offices, meeting rooms, and debating chambers; the functional parts of the government hidden behind the grandiose architecture and towering obsidian wall.
Yet for all its supposed importance, there was no energy in these corridors. No enthusiasm. No pride. From the interns right up to the Secretaries of State, Invel could count on one hand those he thought would bother turning up tomorrow if not for their substantial government salaries. Up close, the empire's mighty heart was sickly, and its thunder rang hollow.
Jaquila's office door was closed. That was unusual; she only ever shut it when she was holding a private meeting inside. So, she hadn't gone to join the convening of the Twelve yet. And there he'd been thinking that the final debate over whether the empire should go to war was actually important.
He raised a hand and knocked without hesitation, and the door presently swung open for him.
Over the past few weeks, he had become very familiar with the Office of the Chief of Staff, with its yellow walls inoffensive to the point of banality and its carefully vetted mix of paintings depicting impersonal scenes from all across the empire. Never before, however, had he seen the four most important individuals in the palace gathered within it at once… not that that accolade was saying much. His younger self, who might have frozen, starstruck, back in the day, had been on life support for weeks now.
As always, his eyes found Jaquila Sorralo first, Chief of Staff to the Emperor of Alvarez and the one to whom he had been unofficially acting as a personal assistant for most of his internship. Meeting her had been his greatest fortune, and his greatest torment. Ever since he had first seen her on the cover of Politics Monthly, she had been his aspiration and his hero – and the one whom, had he listened to conventional wisdom, he would have stayed as far away from as possible.
She gave him a wan smile as she saw him, which etiquette demanded he return, albeit without enthusiasm. Where was the fiery grin with which she had slipped the Third Constitutional Amendment through right under her opponents' noses? Where was the passion which had taken the mediocre Commendation of the Realm of X772 and secured it a place in the history books?
The woman smiling faintly at him from behind her desk felt like half a person, and it hadn't been all that long ago that she'd possessed enough verve for ten.
Across the desk from her sat her colleague and fellow member of the Spriggan Twelve, Yajeel Ramal. If he wasn't as prominent as Jaquila, it was only because he preferred to let his work speak for him.
Growing up in a time of civil unrest, when an iron fist held together by sticky tape and prayer was the fledgling empire's only means of keeping control, Yajeel's anonymous pamphlets criticizing the regime had stirred a full third of the newly conquered nations into outright rebellion. If the rumours were to be believed, the emperor had offered an unprecedented reward to anyone who brought him in alive – and when Yajeel was finally dragged before him, the emperor had offered him a job on the spot.
Naturally, Yajeel had chosen prison over betraying his cause. Only after five years on a diet of alternating carrots and sticks – and more importantly, five years of drastic change in the political landscape – did the rebel finally agree to serve his former enemy, enacting far more change from within the government than he could ever have hoped to achieve as its foe.
It was something of a fanciful tale – too fanciful for someone like Invel to accept at face value – but, having read the devastating eloquence and impeccable reasoning of Yajeel's early writings, he thought the truth or falsehood of the story was irrelevant. Yajeel's insight did not need a dramatic origin story to be noteworthy. Or, at least, it hadn't – but Invel could not name a single notable article that the advisor had published in the last five years. It was impossible to imagine the Yajeel he had been working alongside as being passionate about anything, let alone enough so to incite a rebellion against far more powerful oppressors.
Much the same could be said for the elderly man leaning between a bland wall and a disordered bookshelf. He was known by many names on the battlefield, but only one away from it: August, by all accounts the second most influential person in the administration, after the emperor himself.
He might have been formidable, once. Undoubtedly, he still was in combat; Invel may not have had much patience for people who made a living out of hitting others with magic, but he knew a ridiculously powerful magical presence when he saw one. But, that was just it. Even in a country where magic was so venerated, there was only so far it could take a man outside of combat. Here in the centre of government, August seemed weak, tired, old. Useless. Unable to get anything done. If everyone around here held him in such high regard, it was little wonder the empire's clockwork heart beat so lethargically.
As always, August watched Invel attentively, as if deep in thought, although Invel did not know him nearly well enough to guess what he was thinking about. For all that his expression was controlled, however, his magic was the opposite. Invel despised the way it ran through the room like a new puppy, finding everything fascinating, vanishing from his senses when its attention turned elsewhere and then sneaking up scarily close to him before he noticed it again. It was infuriating how August could not control it fully; how he did not even seem to try. How could he claim to belong here, in the centre of government?
The fourth man present was the one who had opened the door for him – Markos Verde, High Commander of the army of Alvarez. Sharing the room with him felt like standing in the presence of a crocodile: perhaps somewhere back along the evolutionary chain, some hapless creatures had mistaken the mottled grey-green beast for a floating log, but there had been far too many deaths along this stretch of the river for anyone to make that mistake now. He was the only one who pretended that the fear he induced in others wasn't something engineered, but something natural – as if it were somehow nature's law that all six-feet-six-inches of him be stood in the doorway, blocking Invel's way. It wasn't a personal affront. It was simply his right as apex predator.
He was a man who liked his place in the world, and liked to use it, too. It made him formidable in a way that the others, for all their magical might or historic deeds, lacked. It might have made him worth respecting, too, if not for how obvious it was that he cared only about himself.
Markos Verde was everything that was wrong with politics. He embodied the reason for Invel's increasing estrangement from his schoolmates the more his heart had become set on moving to Vistarion; the reason why his parents were the only ones to see him off at the station, and even then only after several wasted months trying to talk him out of it.
A true servant of the empire ought never to lose their sense of duty, of serving something far greater than themselves. The Alvarez Empire was immense, incredible, unparalleled in past and present – and they were the ones who kept it safe, who guided it, who wove that discordant patchwork of city-states, islands, deserts, tribes and peoples into a single great nation. The empire's fate hinged on their decisions – their arguments, their concessions, their devotion, their courage. They were Alvarez.
But Markos Verde was only Markos Verde.
Then again, Invel thought, if I'd committed my soul to the empire only to find it so decrepit, I'd probably start caring only about myself too.
Well, it wouldn't be his problem for much longer. Not if that carefully worded letter to the National Institute of Law had anything to say about it. And even if the smouldering wreckage of that bridge would no longer take his weight, there were a thousand more routes he'd consider before agreeing to stay on this side of the river. One more week, and his internship would be over… and he would be far, far away from this place.
Invel glanced once again around the room, at the four most powerful individuals beneath the ever-absent emperor – and him, only eighteen years old and in the same room as them! – and he wondered how it was possible that they could not sense his contempt.
"Invel, isn't it?" Markos purred, with a smile that flashed the white tombstones of his prey in Invel's direction. There was no doubt that he knew who Invel was; the point was simply to remind him that he was under no obligation to remember a lowly intern's name – but oh, wasn't he kind for doing so anyway?
"Yes, sir," Invel said, staring evenly back at the man who had not yet stepped aside to allow him entry.
After a moment, Jaquila called, "Come in, Invel."
Markos took a slow step backwards, which deliberately carried him to a place that would have forced Invel to squeeze past him uncomfortably close if he wanted to approach his boss's desk. It was petty, but at the same time, it was a vital power play – a struggle Jaquila had lost the moment she had allowed Markos to open the door to her guest, Invel thought disdainfully.
It wasn't the game that bothered him. They all danced these steps through an environment where what was said meant far less than how it was said, and where dropping one's guard around a certain crocodile was a mistake everyone present should have been too good to make. It was necessary, and far more civil a way to resolve disputes than repeatedly hitting each other with sharp objects.
It was revealing, though. Those unwritten rules made the standoff within obvious to anyone who understood them. They were arguing, three against one. No, it was more than that – Jaquila had called Markos to her office before the formal meeting of the Twelve, no doubt to try and talk him out of it, and had brought her allies along for support… and they had still lost, if the weight of the High Commander's presence was anything to go by.
Well, not that any of them could hope to meet Markos's conviction. He knew what he wanted and how to get it, and the others, it seemed, had lost that long ago.
One more week, and then I'm gone, Invel reminded himself, and not a hint of his internal sneer touched his lips.
There was only one matter in which those three were so vehemently opposed to Markos, and they had been so lax about whom they argued in front of recently that Invel was barely taken aback at all when Markos looked directly at him and asked, without preamble, "And what is your opinion on the invasion of Ishgar?"
Invel almost laughed. As if there was any way he could answer that in front of this audience. It wasn't a choice between right and wrong so much as a choice between three lacklustre enemies and one very dangerous one. Even if securing a job here at the end of his internship had been scrubbed off his to-do list – and the to-do list burned to ash, just in case – speaking out was too tactless to even be considered.
"Speak freely, boy," Markos commanded, amused by his hesitation. "There is no crime in possessing an opinion."
There was nothing to be gained from it either, in a situation like this. But then Markos knew that, or he wouldn't have asked.
"I am in favour of conquering Ishgar, of course," he answered coolly. As was Markos Verde. As was almost everyone in Alvarez, save the other three individuals in this room, who would once have been able to turn that tide of opinion easily and now – if the mood he had walked in on was anything to go by – were proving helpless against it.
Nothing so childish as joy showed on the High Commander's face. "Why?" he pressed.
"Because we are meant to rule. Because we alone have the power to bring all the world's people together under one banner. Because in Ishgar, they do not use magic or technology to their full potential, and under our guidance, both will improve to everyone's benefit. Because it will unify our government, give us purpose, and give us enemies against whom to turn the ill will we bear towards each other."
If another crocodilian grin parted the other's lips at that, Invel pretended not to notice. "But most of all?" he continued. "Because we can. We'll win and win easily, and for the first time in heaven knows how long, we'll have taken a step towards our destiny rather than sat around waiting for it to come to us!"
"Perfectly put," Markos said, like silk sliding over velvet, like water parting around scales. "And a sentiment shared by many beyond the bubble built here by your three- uh, conservative selves."
Men like him never stumbled over words. He paused to imply an insult the situation would not have permitted him to make out loud.
Jaquila should have known better than to take the bait – she was supposed to be good at this! – but she did so. "For the last time, you don't have the authority to make a decision like that, Markos!"
"I think you'll find that I do. I am High Commander of the army, am I not? I do believe that instructing said army to destroy our nation's enemies thus falls within my jurisdiction."
In the eight weeks he had been here, Invel could have sworn that they had argued over nothing else. He had, naturally, set about determining the legality of Markos's intent the moment he had discovered that conquering Ishgar was not so far-fetched a dream as most outside the palace believed – and to his dismay, he had come no closer to a concrete answer than anyone else.
The problem was twofold: unclear legislation and lack of precedent. Just as it wasn't entirely clear what the position of High Commander entailed in the absence of the emperor, never in Alvarez's history had any member of the Spriggan Twelve attempted something so ambitious, so extreme, without their emperor's express permission. The chance of the Supreme Court ruling in favour of their absent emperor had decreased the longer said absence continued, until Invel was certain that no legal challenge to the invasion would stick. By the time His Majesty came back, if ever, it would be too late.
Not that legal certainty would be enough to satisfy some people. August did not growl, but there was no better word to describe the jagged vibrations which ran through his magical presence. "His Majesty has not authorized an invasion."
"His Majesty has not forbidden one, either," Markos countered.
"This is nothing short of a military coup!"
The general's face was a perfect picture of outrage. "What? Strengthening our nation is an act of treason, now? I would not dream of threatening our dear emperor's rule – but since he isn't doing any ruling right now, someone else needs to step up!"
"Interfering with His Majesty's long-term plans will cause more harm than good," Yajeel warned.
"He can be the judge of that, when he returns to find his nation doubled in size and wealth, and stronger than ever before."
"That is your dream, not his," August spat. "Thousands will die – not for the sake of the nation they love, but to further your own lust for power!"
Calmly – for in his natural environment, the crocodile had no predators – Markos replied, "I do not believe our victory is in doubt."
"Perhaps not, but the price of challenging Ishgar now that they have-"
"August," Yajeel interrupted quietly, glancing at Invel, and August fell silent at once. Before Invel could make sense of it, Markos smirked, and the game was over.
"It is clear that there is nothing to be gained by discussing the matter further," he declared. He spread his arms wide, a faux innocence that the wading birds had long since learned not to trust. "I have yet to hear a novel argument this afternoon, and if we are about to repeat the same old routine in front of the rest of the Twelve, I foresee nothing but tedium in the immediate future."
"Is that all this nation is to you?" Jaquila hissed. "A game, whose only purpose is to keep you entertained?"
"Better that than what you'd make of it," Invel said quietly, and was satisfied to see them start; they had not thought he would dare. "A worthless empire, bereft of ambition, afraid of action, unable to do a single thing in the absence of an emperor who is more than happy to let his nation stagnate!"
There was silence. No one seemed to know how to respond, not even Markos.
Another man's heart might have been pounding, but not Invel's; ice ran thick and deliberate through his veins. This was no passionate outburst. It was eight weeks' worth of scorn so cold it seared the skin – scorn for their petty arguments and their trivial viewpoints and the ailing heart of the nation he had once loved.
"You would not say that, if you'd met him," August told him solemnly.
"Well, I haven't met him, have I?" Invel retorted. "And nor has anyone else for the past ten years! How long are we going to spend waiting for a man who may or may not return? Who may or may not care? We are strong without him! There is more to the Alvarez Empire than him, and it is about time we started acting like it!"
This strike opened up another chasm of silence, although Invel judged this one too dangerous to let grow. Letting his gaze drop a little, a gesture of shyness that could not be mistaken for submission, he added, "Forgive me. That was out of line."
"There is no crime in giving an opinion we have asked to hear, whether we like it or not," came Jaquila's quiet lament. "If only you were the only person in Alvarez to feel that way…"
"But as we all know, he is far from it," Markos interjected smoothly, grinning as if he'd just watched a canoe full of tourists lose their paddle. "Even if precious few would be so bold as to put it forth in this very building."
It was all Invel could do to hold back a laugh. This building, and the institution it housed, had lost his respect many weeks ago. As far as he was concerned, nothing he said here could be out of line.
"Still," Markos breezed, "if you will excuse us, we need to go and have this very same argument again, this time with all of the Twelve involved." With a wink and a stage whisper that made Invel's hackles rise, he added, "We'll have voted to invade Ishgar by the end of the day, don't you worry."
Biting back his natural reaction with the ease of practice, Invel stepped politely aside, just as the High Commander had not done for him, and watched as the others reluctantly got to their feet. As they filed past him, Yajeel did not meet his gaze. August's expression had gone back to being unreadable, though that inexplicable curiosity rippled once more through his presence.
Only Jaquila stopped. She looked like she was about to say something important, but in the end, the Chief of Staff said simply, "Please leave your report on my desk, Invel."
"Yes, ma'am."
Then they were gone, off to the assembly that would decide whether or not to go to war – and on that matter, Invel had no doubt that Markos would get his way – and he was left alone. The Office of the Chief of Staff seemed suddenly quiet, suddenly hollow, suddenly cold.
Well, what they were doing was none of his business.
War would be his business, of course. Even as a law student, the military recruiters would not overlook a man of his magical ability. But the final debate amongst the Twelve that would inevitably lead to a declaration of war – and all the important decisions they made thereafter – that was none of his business.
It was as he was carefully separating the letter he had drafted to the National Institute of Law from the notes he'd made for Jaquila that his eyes fell upon the document that would make it his business.
There was no shortage of paper painting her desk in a thick coat of white. Agendas, draft legislation, and reports like the one he was supposed to be delivering merged into one hopeless pile of disorganization. The one on the very top looked no different at first glance – except for the small rune sketched in the top corner.
Sixth order security clearance. Invel wasn't even allowed to know that that document existed.
Which left him in a bit of a tricky situation, really.
He couldn't pretend he'd not seen it if he put his own report right on top of it. Equally, if he deliberately didn't put his report over it, it would be in such an awkward place on the desk that it would be obvious he was avoiding it, and thus that he'd seen it. Putting it somewhere other than the desk would invite suspicion when she had only just given him that exact instruction. He could take it away with him and pretend that he'd never written it, and so never approached her desk to submit it, but then he'd be reprimanded, and that wasn't fair at all. She was the one who had left classified documents out where anyone could see them. If everyone else could just follow the exceedingly simple rules, he wouldn't be forced into awkward situations like this.
Now that he was alone, he didn't bother trying to suppress his frustrated sigh as he picked up the classified document and opened the desk's top drawer. He'd undoubtedly get in trouble for moving it, but at least this way it was out of sight of assistants like him who lacked the appropriate security clearance. It was so typical of his time here – the sheer lack of care; the disorganization at the highest level; the way that he, the intern, was the only one who noticed whether things were being done properly…
Then he froze.
Despite his best attempts not to, his gaze had drifted to the title of the report, the abstract… and there he had found an ice to stifle even his heartbeats.
It may have been sixth-order classified, but if he was right about its contents, it wasn't allowed to be sixth-order classified.
In fact, with war on the horizon, it shouldn't have been confidential at all.
Flipping over the cover, he skimmed through one page, and then another.
Jaquila knew about this. She must have done. It was right there on her desk. Then again, there was no organization whatsoever to the papers on her desk, and maybe the reason why she hadn't put it away with the other confidential papers was because she didn't know she had it…
Maybe she knew, maybe she didn't. It didn't change what he had to do.
He didn't run to the chamber where the Twelve were gathered – he was better than that – but he strode with more purpose than had guided his footsteps in eight weeks.
There were no guards standing outside the council chamber. That did strike him as unusual, but then again, sporadic adherence to protocol was in fact completely usual for this place. Still, the lack of guards was little more than a two-fingered gesture to formality when an enormous vivid-green circle of magic sealed the doors shut. Someone didn't want their meeting to be disturbed – and didn't care who knew it, either. Markos Verde. No one else held the crocodile's fearless confidence.
We'll see how confident he is once that barrier is in pieces on the floor, Invel thought, with a grim smile. Ice spiralled around his right arm and he drove the spearpoint into the dead centre of the seal.
With a sound like a crashing chandelier, the ice burst apart.
The barrier did not so much as tremble.
Invel clicked his tongue. This time, he took three steady breaths as he let the blizzard build, and when he could no longer bear the strain, he let it go. The elastic snap of his magic sent a frozen shockwave through the air – which disintegrated against the seal with no greater impact than before.
There was a scowl upon Invel's face, now. Twice the winner of the North-Western Annual Duelling Tournament, scouted by no fewer than five guilds before he'd even come to Vistarion, and for what? He'd never cared much for magic; he excelled at it simply because he excelled at everything – because he didn't know how not to work hard – and the one time he actually needed it in his chosen, civilized career… he wasn't good enough at it.
There was someone as much stronger than him here as he had been to everyone in the town where he'd lived, and it was so sudden that it didn't even have time to scare him, as his thudding heart reached straight for resentment.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Not in this place, where magic power wasn't supposed to matter. Again and again he struck at the seal, until the frost was so heavy that it had turned the windows opaque and the carpet was crisp with it and surely some guard must have noticed the disturbance by now-
"You're wasting your time," a cool voice remarked. It was utterly relaxed, and yet somehow it rang out above the sound of smashing ice, as if the chaos of nature had quietened just for him. "Markos is a stronger mage than you can ever hope to be."
A lone figure strolled down the corridor towards him. At first, Invel had assumed he was a man, but a glance over his shoulder suggested that he was too slight of build to be more than a teenager… but that couldn't be right, because Invel was the youngest person to have ever been offered an internship here. He had checked.
His eyes narrowed a little, flagging all the anomalies of the other's appearance as known unknowns and withholding judgement appropriately.
The black-haired stranger didn't seem to care that the heart of the palace had been turned into a frosty grotto. He didn't even seem to care that he had walked in on an intern attempting to smash his way into a meeting of the Spriggan Twelve. Combined, these two facts made him a much lower priority than getting through that barrier, so Invel snapped, "I do not recall asking for your opinion. I am going to break his barrier, whether you believe I will or not."
"I never said you wouldn't," came the amused response. "I said that he was stronger than you, not that he was better." Then he considered this for a moment, head tilted in a curious gesture, before amending, "Although, if I have to watch you try and brute-force your way through a thirty-layered resonant seal once more, I might just take that back."
"I'm- I'm sorry?" Invel choked. After eight weeks of immersion in the delicate political dance, where the slightest inflection could separate a compliment from a power play or a request for help from an outright threat, this barefaced rudeness was like a slap to the face.
Yet the other seemed oblivious to it. Ignoring Invel completely, he stepped up to the radiant green pattern and tapped it twice. "Resonant seals become stronger the more layers are added," he explained, in response to a question no one had asked. "But, as every layer must be vibrating at the same magical frequency, they also become more susceptible to imperfections. The more layers there are in the system, the higher the chance that one will be vibrating sufficiently out of phase for an enemy to exploit."
To Invel's astonishment, the stranger leaned forward and turned his ear to the seal, as if listening to the magic. "Markos has always lacked finesse," he mused, eyes closed. "His magic has plenty of flaws. Can you sense them?"
A frown touched Invel's lips, revealing only a fraction of the increasing displeasure he was feeling towards this situation. He was still withholding judgement on the peculiar man, whose presence here made as little sense as his archaic robes – although Invel had given up paying much attention to his new colleagues' outfits as soon as it had become clear that few bothered to dress as formally as he. Besides, as unpleasant as it was to admit, Invel wasn't getting anywhere with the barrier, and he had little desire to resume trying in front of such a critical audience.
Stiffly, he raised his hand and pressed his palm against the barrier. He wasn't entirely convinced that it was possible, but when he concentrated on the vibrations he could feel, he began to understand where the other was coming from. There were thirty separate layers, working together to repel his magic – yet not as efficiently as they ought to have been. The more he focussed on the pattern of their motion, the more obvious it became that one was oscillating out of time.
"The thirteenth one is out," he declared without hesitation. And when he isolated that one in his mind, maintaining both rhythms simultaneously, it was easy to pick up the fluttering of another that didn't quite fit either of them. "So is twenty-four." Mentally, he extracted that pattern too, searching for further disturbances. "Number three is slightly out, too." There – such a slight time lag that the buzzing of the others would have masked it, if not for his ruthlessly logical approach to dissecting the pattern. "And fourteen, just a little…"
He opened his eyes in time to see the other's eyebrows raise minutely, although his words came as easily as ever. "One weak point will be sufficient," said he. "Use the greatest error – the one on the thirteenth layer – to break the whole seal apart."
"How?" Invel demanded.
"However you like."
Well, that was about the least helpful advice Invel had ever received. Yet it was deliberately unhelpful, a clear challenge, and one didn't win prizes for one's exam results by backing down from challenges. He could do this on his own.
Closing his eyes again, he let his awareness fade into the tangle of rhythms trembling like drumskins beneath his fingertips. What did an imperfect system have that a perfectly resonant one didn't? If the thirteenth layer was vibrating out of sync with the fourteenth, then their separation, rather than being constant, must cycle from a minimum to maximum, and if he could find that moment- there!
At the instant of greatest separation, he snapped a command to his magic and filled the gap with ice. Both layers tried to vibrate back together, and couldn't.
A shockwave pulsed through the entire system. He gasped at the sudden drain on his magical core; his ice splintered, and for a moment, it felt like his will was the only thing holding it together.
It shuddered, quavered, and then – like a hailstorm of pianos – the entire seal burst apart in a wailing crescendo of magic. The slick sheen of it faded from his senses, leaving a ringing in his ears and nothing beneath his fingers but the door itself.
He opened his eyes. The barrier was gone. So too was the not-quite-man who had helped him break it, although Invel found that that didn't surprise him. It was yet another anomaly to add to the tally he would analyse at a more appropriate time.
It was the second time that afternoon that a door had been opened for him by Markos Verde, but this time, there was no grin upon his grizzled face. All pretence of harmlessness was gone. Magic poured from him like water from surfacing scales; yellow eyes glinted with a fury that would have sent his prey scurrying inland.
All of which Invel neatly ignored, as he forced his way past the general with no more than a cold, "Excuse me."
Chaos was too strong a word to describe the situation within; it implied an energy that the entire palace lacked. Invel's entrance wasn't entirely without reaction, though. There was outrage – how dare a lowly intern interrupt a meeting of the Twelve? – and shock, for they had seen the barrier Markos had placed upon the door, and more than one of them had equated its collapse to an enemy attack.
Jaquila, alarmed, had made it halfway to her feet when, to Invel's surprise, he saw August place his hand upon her arm. Invel did not catch the soft words he spoke to her over the shouting, but it was enough to make her eyes widen. She returned to her seat, and although she fixed Invel with a troubled expression, neither she, August nor Yajeel joined in with the protest.
"How dare you?" Markos hissed, dragging Invel's attention back to him. Power still swirled around him, a hot wind that would have been oppressive even if the discrepancy in their magical strengths hadn't been evident from the barrier, but it was an empty threat. Physical power meant nothing in this room of words and politics. It was difficult to be afraid of someone he did not respect.
"You can't do this," Invel stated, a command for silence. "You can't declare war on Ishgar."
"I think you'll find I can," Markos retorted, with a condescending laugh that did not fool Invel.
"You cannot. Since you do not seem to have realized it yourself, I have come to inform you before you make a grave mistake."
His eyes narrowed. All attempts to play the situation off as amusing sank back beneath the muddy water. "You are out of line, boy."
"I am exactly where the law states I should be." Invel tossed the report he had taken from Jaquila's desk onto the round table in the room's centre. The sheets slid apart; state secrets and brutal truths spilled out upon the wood. "I've read it. All of it."
"This is a level-six classified document." Sly suns shimmered in the High Commander's eyes. "You've just confessed to a crime for which you could be executed."
"Only if I'd knowingly stolen it, with the intention to commit treason," Invel rebuffed him easily. "But as it was left out in the open for anyone to see, and as I have no intention of removing it from the building – and, in fact, have brought it to your attention as soon as possible – we both know that no court would find in favour of execution." He'd be in trouble for admitting to reading it, certainly, and Markos would no doubt push for the most severe punishment possible, but execution was very rarely used these days, even where the old laws still allowed it. "Besides, my own transgression is nothing compared to that which you will commit, if you leave this room to march straight to war."
Markos challenged, "What's that supposed to mean, boy?"
"This is an intelligence report from two days ago. Perhaps it contains entirely new information, or perhaps you have known the truth for some time, and this merely quantifies it. As you say, I lack the security clearance to know for sure, since nothing it contains has even been hinted at before the rest of the administration, let alone the general public. I have worked alongside you for eight weeks, and I would have been as ignorant as everyone else had I not stumbled across it."
He had not broken eye contact with Markos this entire time. His back was straight, his head was held high; he was led if not by passion then by certainty, and he wanted the High Commander to know it. "Ishgar is nowhere near as defenceless as you and your pro-war allies have been making out. Etherion. Face. The weapons they have been developing will devastate our army… something you failed to mention at any of your public rallies."
"Alvarez's victory is still assured," the man half-sneered.
"I know," Invel accepted. "But at a far greater cost than anyone knows. You sing the invasion as a glorious conquest to strengthen the empire, and all the while you're planning to knowingly lead our people into a long and bitter bloodbath – one which could threaten the existence of magic itself, if Face is unleashed. You have come here to force through a vote authorizing the invasion, riding a wave of public support that you have stirred from slumber by baseless lies!"
Invel held the predator's gaze, daring him to respond, ready for any comeback he could give-
"Are you done?" Markos yawned.
Invel blinked, and then tore his gaze away from the High Commander, seeing the rest of his audience for the first time. There were eleven, he noticed. Not twelve. That wasn't surprising – in part because Irene Belserion spent roughly as much time here as their illustrious emperor, and in part because the dedicated council who considered things like deciding to go to war worth turning up for had proven itself to be a myth almost eight weeks ago.
Now, as he observed the eleven mages he had admired up until the point he had met them, it was disinterest, condescension, and a sheer lack of surprise that observed him back.
"You knew about this, didn't you?" he realized. Distantly, he remembered August being about to say something during their argument and Yajeel stopping him. Now, the latter would not meet his gaze, while the former seemed almost sad. Yes, they knew; they all knew. "Secret weapons that could tear through our forces, that could destroy magic itself – the very foundation of our world! – and they do not even factor into your argument."
"Of course we have factored Ishgar's weapons into our battleplans – as you would know if you had any right to be here, boy," Markos sneered. "The predicted casualties are far lower than the losses on either side during the Unifying Wars – are you going to tell me that Alvarez should never have united under a single banner? We are talking not of a single continent, but of the world! We will unite it. No matter what the cost may be."
Jaquila scowled, though she made no attempt to speak over the murmur of agreement from the table. She had already accepted that there would be no point.
"You will threaten the entire empire to satisfy your own greed," August remarked bitterly. No surprise he was bitter – were this a physical fight, Markos would be no match for him, but this was the palace, not a battlefield, and all the magic in the world could not help him here. "His Majesty would never allow this."
"He's not here." The crocodile's eyes shone the yellow-gold of victory. "He can set the future course of our new, superior empire whenever he next bothers to grace it with his presence, and until the moment he does, what he may or may not want has no traction in law. I have the votes, August. The Twelve have made their decision. You can't stop this- why are you laughing?"
That was an easy one to answer. Invel was laughing because he couldn't possibly not laugh at this situation. Magic snarled, but he was stood safely on the shore; he knew it couldn't touch him here.
"You don't see it at all, do you?" he marvelled, aware that the scorn he had been suppressing for weeks had slipped into his tone and finding that he no longer cared. "You've spent so long arguing over whether His Majesty would want the empire to go to war without him that you've overlooked the most basic things. Whatever the outcome of your vote today, and irrespective of whether our absent emperor would sanction it or not, a declaration of war against Ishgar is illegal under Alvarez law."
A murmur of confusion ran around the room, ripples in the muddy water that the hunter had not caused himself. "We've been over this," Markos snapped. "There's no point wasting time and money on a trial in the Supreme Court when we all know they will find in favour of my authority-"
"The Conquest Act of X726, Article 17, Paragraph 3," Invel interrupted.
Markos's eyes narrowed. Someone at the far end of the table whispered, "The what act?", which didn't come as a surprise to Invel, because he had learnt from his mistakes and set his expectations much lower. There were two people in the room who would definitely be familiar with the reference, though. As a young man, Yajeel had been instrumental in shaping the Conquest Act – though admittedly from the opposition – and it marked the culmination of the Unifying Wars in which August had first made his name. Yet neither of them had thought to raise the objection themselves.
Still, as rewarding as it would have been to confirm his suspicions, Invel did not glance away from Markos. The greatest predator would make the far more satisfying kill.
"You know," he continued, "that fundamental piece of legislation that underpins the entire governance structure of the Alvarez Empire? The one which legally incorporated the territories conquered in the Unifying Wars into our nation? The one which enshrines the promise made to those territories in the aftermath, that they would not be slaves or subjects, but a part of the empire in full?"
Markos looked ready to explode. But it was a sharp intake of breath from behind him that released the pressure, as Yajeel finally caught on to what Invel was saying. "We have to disclose the scale of our undertaking to every state."
"Correct," said Invel. "Under the old Conquest Act, any undertaking that threatens the empire's integrity must be disclosed to the governors of every state in full. I believe that Ishgar's Face – a weapon capable of destroying magic itself – counts as a threat to our way of life. By keeping this amongst yourselves, and playing down the danger of the invasion, you are breaking the law… sir."
"This is an empire, not a democracy," Markos scoffed. "No one outside this room has any say in whether or not we go to war. Your archaic legislation doesn't change that."
"I never said that it did. You're right; whether they continue to support your war after they know the truth doesn't matter. The fact that you haven't informed them when you were legally required to do so, however, matters a great deal."
"Secrecy has to take precedence! The last thing we want is for Ishgar's spies to find out that we know about their secret weapons! That's ludicrous!"
"That is the law," Invel told him calmly.
A flash of bone-white teeth; a ravenous, desperate hunger. The magic in the room roiled with it, no longer drifting lazily by but focussed fully on him, and even though the law was on his side – protecting him like a pane of glass at the zoo – Invel could not help feeling a trickle of relief as Yajeel spoke up again, and Markos's attention turned to him instead.
"He's right," the elderly politician pronounced – and he wasn't quite at Invel's level of scorn, but there was an acid to it that Invel had never heard from him before. "Even if the vote goes your way, we can't legally authorize the invasion until the leaders of all the states and territories covered by the Conquest Act have been informed."
"And you're certainly correct to say that this is sensitive information." Jaquila picked up the argument without missing a beat. "So sensitive, in fact, that I doubt we can trust anyone not of the Twelve to convey it. Either we will have to travel ourselves – which, even splitting up, is a lot of ground to cover – or we'll have to call a conference with all the governors here in Vistarion, and how long do you think it will take to organize that? A month? Two?"
"Two, easily." Yajeel nodded sagely. "After all, what are the odds of finding a day when they're all free at this kind of notice?"
Wood splintered where Markos's fingers rested upon the table. "So we'll invade in two months!" he snarled. "It doesn't change anything! The final decision will still be mine-"
"Do you think so?" August asked softly. "Because I think all those judges who are currently prepared to support your claim to absolute military power in His Majesty's absence might not be so keen once they hear how reluctant you were to follow proper protocol."
The High Commander gnashed his teeth. Despite himself, Invel felt a tiny flicker of respect for the three of them, who had wielded the weapon he had given them to far greater effect than he might have managed himself. Markos must have sensed it too, because the full weight of his frustration turned once more to Invel.
"You told me that you believed invading Ishgar was the right decision for our empire," he hissed.
"I do," Invel told him steadily. "Even with Ishgar's weapons in play, I still believe that the gains for our empire – nay, for the world under our rule – outweigh the potential losses."
"Then why-?"
"Because my opinion doesn't matter any more than yours," Invel answered simply. "This isn't a subjective issue. It's black or white. Right or wrong. The invasion as you propose it is illegal; it's as simple as that."
A step closer. The river surged with rage as thick as silt, and Invel held firm.
"Illegal according to an outdated law no one even remembers," Markos spat.
"The age of the law hardly matters."
"Oh, I think you'll find that it matters a great deal."
He took another step closer, over the boundary of what could have been considered polite and into Invel's personal space. He was tall, Invel realized distantly. Taller than he'd given the man credit for. Bigger, too. Up close, all the things he'd been so adamant didn't matter in this room of politics suddenly seemed to press down upon him.
"It matters," the crocodile purred, "because the reality is that no one cares for obsolete laws except obsessive little brats, who read the rulebook once and think they understand how the game is played."
Invel scowled. It did little to hide the blood rushing to his cheeks; the hunter could smell it.
"It matters," Markos continued, "because the vote will pass and I will lead Alvarez to victory, and by the time anyone unearths your stupid rule, I will have added so much territory to the empire that anyone who even thinks about challenging me on a technicality will be silenced by the masses."
Magic flared with the finality of opening jaws.
It doesn't matter, Invel told himself fiercely. He can't touch me here. This is a civilized place of discussion, not a battlefield. There's a room full of witnesses. He wouldn't dare.
But all he could think about was how impossibly strong Markos's barrier had felt against his magic.
If he had glanced over his shoulder, he might have noticed that August was holding Jaquila's forearm in a white-knuckled grip, and Yajeel's in another, preventing either from interfering.
But Invel did not glance back. He didn't have to be an experienced combatant to know that looking away from Markos in that moment would be suicide. There were skeletons preserved in the amber of his eyes.
"It matters," Markos said, in little more than a whisper, "in the same way that you don't. You think it's important because our estranged emperor wrote it down in an obscure tome that has only ever been opened by historians and yourself. It isn't. You think you're important because you're standing in this room, waving around a document you have no right to look at. You're not. You think that being the least disappointing of all the snot-nosed brats who applied for our PR stunt of an internship gives you the right to interfere with my conquest of Ishgar, and you are wrong."
"No," Invel told him. "I have the right to interfere with your conquest of Ishgar because I clearly know the law better than you do."
The river froze mid-ripple; the crickets' chorus fell silent mid-beat. The noonday sun watched with bated breath.
"I see," Markos remarked, quiet words that somehow jarred with the abnormal stillness. "Well, since you are such a big fan of following the rules, I imagine you will have no complaints if I carry out your punishment for stealing a classified document, breaking into a confidential meeting, and threatening members of the Twelve here and now."
Magic flashed like the sky was cracking open, and Invel realized that he should have started running a long, long time ago.
There was no reinforced glass protecting him from the river's king. The shore offered no safety from a beast bursting out of the shallows as an explosion of scaled fury. He was the apex predator, and he hunted where he pleased, whether that was the battlefields to which he yearned to drag his nation, or these supposedly hallowed halls of order and debate.
If this is what the empire has become, then I'm glad I shan't have to be a part of it, Invel thought.
It was a pointless thing to think, and he was glad that no one recorded final thoughts in the way that they did last words. Not that the omniscient they would have any reason to take note of his passing. After all, he had jumped into the pit of claws and teeth and found himself in way over his head.
Something streaked past him.
It was black like the night incarnate; the ripples it left brushed his cheek like the wingtip of a hawk.
Then he blinked, and it was gone. The soft tingling of his cheek was the only indication that it had ever existed – that, and the man lying dead at his feet.