The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Interlude: Throne and Empire, Part 2
Vistarion, X781 (Continued)
Silence held sway over the room. It had fallen before Markos had, and the dull thump of his body on the floor resounded like a gong.
Invel stared. There was something so final about the body at his feet. It didn't matter that his eyes were closed, his muscles were relaxed, or that his skin was the same rosy colour it had been in life – no one could have looked at that almost-sleeping figure and thought it was anything other than a corpse. It wasn't one of them any more. It was something else.
There should have been panic. Some part of Invel was panicking, but its screams were oddly distant, and heeding them wasn't worth the effort.
It didn't seem real.
Seconds ago, Markos had been more alive than any of them.
Seconds ago – or was it minutes, now? – Invel had thought he was about to die. Now he wasn't dead, and someone else was. He had never imagined he would have been able to stare at a dead body and feel nothing at all. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the relief: if it hadn't been Markos, it would have been him. Maybe it was the sheer disbelief – this was a place of discussion and civility, and Markos shouldn't have died here any more than Invel should have been threatened with death here.
He could taste the fear in the room, a tang on the tip of his tongue just too sharp to be tolerable, and yet the other ten living mages were completely silent, held in their seats by an unknown force.
And in that stillness, there was a voice. It was quietly deafening; it was the whispered command that brought life out of nothingness.
"Four counts of high treason, three of unlawful assumption of sovereign power, three of seditious conspiracy, and one of attempting to harm one of my own. Would anyone like to contest Markos's sentence?"
No one did.
"No, I didn't think so."
Invel turned. There in the doorway stood the stranger who had helped him break the wards around the council chamber – the stranger who was unequivocally, indisputably, the Emperor of Alvarez.
Some part of him had always known, Invel thought. There had been too much wrong with that scene for him to discount any hypothesis out of hand, even one as far-fetched and yet so fitting as that.
There were no images of Emperor Spriggan anywhere, even in the palace. That was how he preferred it. His name, his legacy, his sheer might was known in every corner of the empire – nay, the world – yet it was rarely accompanied by a description, and never by an accurate one. Most of those who worked day-to-day in the palace had never met him in person. Perhaps the percentage had once been higher, but even to the upper echelons of government, this was his first appearance in over ten years. Invel thought very little of that statistic, though he did, begrudgingly, grant that a man who looked so little like the legends expected had good reason to keep his appearance secret.
And yet no one seeing him in that moment could have doubted that he was the one in charge.
It was the way he dominated the room entirely. It was the way no one could look away, could so much as blink, unless he permitted it. It was the silence that fell at his unspoken command, chains of subservience and paralysis that not even the sight of the man slumped dead on the floor could break.
More than anything, though, it was the way Invel couldn't sense any magic from him.
His magical presence wasn't oppressive, like Markos's had been, or so incomprehensibly large that it was unnerving even when its owner meant you no harm, like August's. No, it was entirely concealed. The effect he had on the room was no mere by-product of great magic. The fear Invel could sense, and the awe, and the respect that prevented either of those raw emotions from being acted upon out of turn… he had earned it all the hard way.
He looked between the seven members of the Twelve who had supported Markos with deliberate, deadly slowness. The silence could have lasted an hour, and still no one would have broken it.
"I suggest," he said, "that by the end of the day, you have found yourselves alternate employment in a location I am very unlikely to ever visit."
None of them ran, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, but they paused only to recover their comrade's body as they shuffled out of the room, never to return to Vistarion for the rest of their lives.
At last, he turned to Invel. He seemed more thoughtful than intimidating – for all that those black eyes could have swallowed him whole, Invel thought that he wouldn't have bothered saving his life only to kill him. He couldn't imagine, in that moment, this man doing anything unnecessary at all.
"I think," decided he, "that it might be best for all of us if you leave, and never speak of what happened here."
Invel did not move. How could he possibly walk away from this? How could he pretend that none of it had ever happened – that he hadn't broken into a top-secret meeting and almost been killed for it; that he hadn't stood in front of the Twelve and told them what they could and couldn't do; that he hadn't been there when their emperor had returned to strike down the one who would have usurped his throne?
He did not even notice that he was disobeying a direct order. He just couldn't bear to leave before everything had been put right.
His Majesty had already turned back to the others. With the expulsion of those who had backed Markos, the mood in the room had shifted. The happiness August, Yajeel and Jaquila felt at their emperor's return was palpable – August's literally so, for no matter how hard he tried to suppress it, his magic was radiating so much joy that Invel half-expected flowers to burst into bloom throughout the chamber.
Yet not a trace of that simple happiness showed on the old man's face, and barely a second later, he had prostrated himself at his sovereign's feet. "Your Majesty, you must punish me also," he said thickly.
This earned him a look that was part fond and part exasperated, and not at all the fierce imposition of before. "Don't be ridiculous. I know this had nothing to do with you."
August remained exactly where he was. "I failed to stop it. Had you not returned, we would have been at war by nightfall."
"You tried," he shrugged. "And you kept trying. I have never been able to fault your loyalty, August, and that matters far more to me."
"It shouldn't. It isn't enough."
"Get up. You're annoying me now." He sounded more awkward than annoyed, however. The commanding presence which had held the room in thrall had vanished; if Invel hadn't already seen him dominate a room full of self-assured politicians, then, watching this scene unfold before him, he wouldn't have believed for a second that this man was more than a particularly odd teenager.
Unhappily, August got to his feet. He wasn't the only one unsatisfied with the situation, though, as Jaquila said, "With all possible respect, Your Majesty, August is right. We weren't good enough to protect your empire without you."
"We weren't good enough to lead at all," Yajeel added. "We…" He shook his head, seeing that the others were still watching him expectantly, and continued with an honesty that spoke as much of trust as did their emperor's relaxed attitude. "Maybe we could have done it once, but lately it's been… hard."
"It didn't even occur to me to find a legal method of thwarting Markos's ambitions." There was a bitterness in Jaquila's voice, but not, Invel thought, one directed at him, for having done what she couldn't. "It should have been the first thing I considered. He got as far as he did not because he was good, but because I was poor. Even if he wasn't in violation of an old law regarding the intelligence report, there would have been some technicality that would have tripped him. Finding those is what I'm supposed to be good at."
"It wouldn't have stopped him, in the long run," August was quick to reassure her. "He wouldn't have given up for anything."
"No, but it would have bought us more time."
From the unhappy silence, neither August nor Yajeel had a counterargument for that. It was His Majesty who wondered, "Time for what…?"
Then his eyes widened, and he answered his own question. "Oh, I see. Time for me to return to Vistarion and put an end to it. How long has it been, this time? Three years? Four?"
The three exchanged glances.
"Ten," Yajeel corrected.
"And three months and twenty-seven days," August added quietly.
"Ah." He ran a hand through his hair, not seeming to notice that it left him looking even less imperial than before. His gaze seemed to linger on Jaquila's greying hair, the cane resting against the table at Yajeel's side – just in case – and the shade of exhaustion in August's eyes, disguised but not erased by the abundant vitality of his magic. Such was the price that all but he had to pay for their time. "Truly, that long…? I can only apologize to you all. It has not been an easy time for me… and I suppose even less so for you."
Quickly, August asked, "Are you staying now?"
"I don't know. For as long as I am capable of it, I will do so. But, I can't promise anything. It's been bad, recently. Very bad."
The three exchanged hopeless looks. Invel wished that one of them would ask what was so bad it was preventing their emperor from being the leader he was evidently capable of being, but they clearly all knew already, and he wasn't sure reminding them of his presence by asking himself was the best idea.
Jaquila stepped forward. "Then I can wait no longer," she began, with grave finality. "I had hoped to find a better time, but I cannot risk you vanishing for another decade."
From her pocket she pulled a white envelope, crumpled and softened with age, and held it out to him.
He made no move to take it. "No."
"I can't do this any more," she insisted. "Once, I could keep up with you – but time passes, Your Majesty, for everyone except you. I am no longer the person you need acting on your behalf in government. I haven't been for quite some time."
That black, despondent gaze dropped to the letter of resignation in her hand. "You've been carrying this around for a while, haven't you?"
"I have, but it is the past few months which have really brought it home to me. Not once in the time it took Markos to grow this bold did such a simple way of stopping him occur to me, and yet it is my job to outmanoeuvre your political opponents! My feelings for you and for this nation haven't changed. Rather, it is because I wholeheartedly believe that you deserve the best that I cannot, in good faith, stay in the position you graciously offered me."
"But you can't resign. I've just fired two-thirds of my council! I need you!"
"With all due respect, Your Majesty, I am not asking for your permission."
Bravely, Yajeel cleared his throat.
Their emperor's attention snapped to him at once. "I suppose you want to quit too."
Yajeel's voice had not wavered five decades earlier, when he had told the newly crowned emperor that he would rather die than serve him, and it did not waver now. "No, but nor am I so blind that I cannot clearly see my own failings. I think it would be wise if I were to take a step back from my duties. The things I am good at now are not the things I was good at ten years ago. Taking on less responsibility in order to focus on what I can do for you would benefit us all."
With a heavy sigh, His Majesty's gaze flicked to August. "Et tu?"
"If you wish for me to stay, I will stay," August answered, surprising no one. What was surprising was the frank caveat he added: "However, I will not pretend it isn't difficult, in your absence."
"I know," came the soft acknowledgement. "I am sure it must be hard for you to believe, but I do know. I have asked a lot of you, and I am grateful for all that you have done. If you want to leave, I cannot stop you. Alvarez will be worse for losing any of you, but I know the fault is mine alone."
Watching, Invel found that he didn't know how to feel. It wasn't the place of an emperor to be so self-deprecating and apologetic – certainly not when the emperor in question was more than capable of being commanding. He didn't treat his advisors as servants, though he had the right, and perhaps even the obligation, to do so. There should have been boundaries – a visible hierarchy reinforced by appropriate behaviour – but His Majesty had booted all forms of order out of the room when he had expelled those who had been willing to act against him.
Yet even seeing them talk like friends or family might, there was no question which of them was the leader. There was no trace of fear in them, but nor was there rebellion. His Majesty could be sympathetic without caving to their desires; they could disagree with him knowing he would listen, even though there was no guarantee it would change his mind. Friendship had not replaced respect, but strengthened it.
And though there was little in this man worth following, it seemed somehow not contradictory that he and the one who overwhelmingly had been were one and the same. This was a man who defied all expectations; a man of whom no one would ever have the full measure.
Invel had not truly had the measure of the others, either, until that moment. He had come here chasing heroes and found their real-life counterparts inadequate – but what he hadn't realized before now was that if he had deigned to voice any of his criticisms aloud, they would have agreed with him wholeheartedly.
They understood their own flaws. They admitted to them openly, in front of the one all logic insisted they should be trying to impress. Jaquila knew she no longer had the wit or the passion to serve as Chief of Staff; Yajeel accepted that his skills lay elsewhere – and paradoxically, in doing so, both had proven themselves infinitely more worthy of their positions than Invel had believed. He had misjudged them, and badly.
It wasn't that the government was weak. If it ailed, it was not because of some inherent flaw, but because it was incomplete. The empire was an immense clockwork mechanism, unparalleled in history or fantasy, winding together cogs of all sizes, shapes, materials, cultures, ambitions and ideals into one impossible, incredible whole… and at the very centre lay a tiny cog of black and white. It was unassuming, easy to miss, and yet without it, the whole contraption could not turn.
He was their hope and their motivation. He was why they tried, and why they had found it harder the longer he was away; he was why they had kept fighting despite knowing they could not stop the war. Even though Jaquila was leaving, she was doing so in the hope that someone better suited for the current political climate would take her place at his side. He was Alvarez – he and those who loved him more than was proper for servants – and it was more than Invel had imagined.
He thought about the letter to the National Institute of Law tucked carefully into his bag, and wondered if he had burnt one too many bridges.
"I do not know how long I will stay for this time, and I won't make any promises I can't keep," their emperor was saying. "However, it will be long enough to resolve this matter, at least. It would be a grave mistake to invade Ishgar right now; I expect I will have to make that very clear." He drummed his fingers atop the intelligence report. "I do not want Ishgar's weapons to become common knowledge. I do, on the other hand, want it to get back to their Magic Council that we know about them. Let them believe that is our sole reason for backing down. They will be far less wary of us going forward if they believe we are scared, and that is something we can use to our advantage in the future."
"Leave it to me, Your Majesty," Yajeel volunteered, and he nodded.
August warned, "It will not solve the underlying problem. There will always be those like Markos who believe expanding the empire is worth the cost, whether they intend to challenge your leadership by doing so or not."
He hummed his agreement. "The only thing worse than an unnecessary war with Ishgar is an unnecessary war with Ishgar behind my back. I wonder if a little reorganization of the government will dissuade anyone else from attempting it."
"What do you have in mind?"
"For one, abolishing the position of High Commander and putting myself back in total control of the army."
"You'll always need a second-in-command," Jaquila pointed out, shaking her head. "Not least because we may need to defend our borders in your absence, and in such situations, we need an unequivocal voice of command."
"True. There may be merit in formally designating a figure to whom control over the army falls without me, with explicitly limited powers."
His gaze flicked to August as he said it. Invel knew full well that August was unofficially the second-in-command when it came to running the empire. He also knew, however, that there were good reasons why this designation was unofficial. A formal position would dilute the emperor's authority. It would encourage competition – knives to the back as soon as the emperor vanished – amongst a council which had enough trouble functioning without that imperial keystone as it was. Sharing the burden between the Twelve, and the rest of the administration besides, was intended to ensure balance with him gone… and that balance was enshrined in law.
Which was why Invel said, "You can't do that. It would be illegal."
He hadn't meant to speak up. He hadn't even been aware he had done so until three pairs of surprised eyes and one pair of pitch-black, appraising ones turned upon him.
Invel swallowed. He wasn't supposed to still be here – he certainly wasn't supposed to be involved in this conversation – but rather than addressing either of those two glaring issues, His Majesty asked calmly, "How so?"
"For starters, what about subsection three of the Segregated Powers Act?"
"What about it?"
"It prohibits the holder of any position of domestic authority under you from holding an equal position of military authority."
"No, it doesn't."
Invel folded his arms. "I think you'll find it does. You can't arbitrarily create a position any lower than your own to command both your domestic government and your army. Markos was part of the Spriggan Twelve by virtue of his military position as High Commander. August, however, is already leader of the Twelve, giving him de facto authority over the functioning government when you are away. Short of making him step down or directing the powers of the Twelve away from governing and towards a military nature, you would be in violation of the law as it currently stands."
"I won't deny that the Segregated Powers Act could be interpreted to that effect by a half-decent lawyer," he replied coolly, "but it does so in subsection two, not subsection three."
"No, it's definitely three. Two is concerned with the lay authority of religious officials-"
"Three is about religion. The military is more important, hence why it's mentioned first."
"The military is more important," Invel agreed, equally coolly. "Which is why it has always bothered me that religion is covered in an earlier section."
"I wrote the stupid law. I think I would know what it says."
"Really? Because I think you created it so long ago that misremembering it would be far more likely than not this stage."
The emperor's gaze flicked between the others, clearly looking for support, but received only shrugs in return; no one else knew the specifics of one particular law well enough to contribute. If anything, they seemed too amused by the whole affair to intervene.
Disgruntled, he turned back to Invel. "I distinctly recall telling you to leave," he sulked.
Invel froze. Just for a moment, he had forgotten that this wasn't some second-rate rival trying to make him doubt his exam answers – this was the Emperor of Alvarez, who had just killed a man for trying to usurp his authority and banished seven others in return for their lives, and who had not five minutes ago explicitly told him to leave and never mention their meeting again…
"How could I just pretend this never happened?" Invel demanded, astonishing no one as much as himself. "How could you? I'm as guilty as they were! You have to punish me, too!"
He blinked. "Whatever for?"
"For all the laws I broke!"
"What laws?"
Snatching up the confidential report from the table, Invel brandished it defiantly towards his bemused emperor. "For one, knowingly reading an intelligence report without the proper security clearance!"
"Let's see that." He took the stack of documents Invel handed him, leafed through them for a moment, and then, with a flick of his fingers, set the top corner on fire. By the time he handed it back, a charcoal-black burn concealed the classified symbol. "There we go. I just de-classified it."
Invel stared at his emperor. Then he looked down at the report. Then he looked back at his emperor.
"You can't do that," he pointed out, bewildered.
"The evidence rather suggests otherwise."
"But… you…"
"Is that all?" His Majesty asked, and there was something almost taunting about it.
Well, if he thought Invel was going to give up so easily, he had another thing coming. "I also illegally forced my way into a meeting of the Spriggan Twelve, which is in violation of any number of homeland security laws."
"True." Black eyes sparkled. "Except there's no way you could have broken through the wards by yourself. You must have had an accomplice. I say we track them down and subject them to the same punishment as you."
"I supported everything Markos was doing!" Invel said loudly.
His emperor only shrugged. "Markos crossed a line," he responded. Unfortunately, the authority of this statement was somewhat undermined when he added, "But I like you, so I drew your line someplace else."
"You can't do that!"
"Sure I can. You didn't miss the part where it turns out I'm secretly the Emperor of Alvarez, right? Do try to keep up."
"That doesn't matter!" Invel protested, heat and cold fused into something like desperation. "I would have helped him go to war against your wish! If he hadn't gone about it in a blatantly illegal way, I would have sided with him against you-"
"That's not a bad thing," the emperor mused. "I knew what Markos was like when I made him High Commander. He was right about a lot of things. It was just a shame about the whole trying-to-overthrow-me thing."
"I would have done the same! If it isn't alright for him, why is it alright for me?"
"For starters, if this masochistic honesty thing you have going on is any indication, I suspect today represents the sum total of your rebellious days," he remarked, with a flash of perceptiveness Invel couldn't help but admire right up until he said, "Also, you're more fun."
"I- I am no such thing!" Invel spluttered. The sight of August struggling not to laugh was not helping his case, and he dragged his attention firmly back to the one who deserved it the most, and yet was refusing to take it seriously. "And that's not how it works! The law is the law; the punishment is the same regardless of who breaks it!"
"I think you'll find that it works how I say it works. That's rather the point of being emperor."
"That's utterly irresponsible!" Invel shouted. "It's disgraceful and it's inappropriate and it's a ridiculously juvenile attitude for a ruler to have-"
And His Majesty already knew that, didn't he? That was why he had a library of legislation so thorough and so complex that Invel had met – and been disappointed by – renowned scholars who had read a mere tenth of it. That was why he was able to argue with Invel over the contents of a law that had gone right over the heads of the others (even if he had got subsections two and three mixed up). There wasn't a single pillar of the empire's legal foundations that he hadn't carved himself, and if the sands of time had worn away a little of their grandeur, it didn't change the fact that they stood as strong as ever, propping up a paradoxical nation headed by man who was impossible in every sense of the word.
Invel's jaw snapped shut mid-rant. Despite the fact that there hadn't been a less appropriate time and place for it in the history of the empire, he couldn't shake the feeling that his emperor was winding him up.
"Oh, are you done?" His Majesty asked pleasantly. "Good. Now, I've got a war to avert and eight new members of the Spriggan Twelve to magic up from somewhere, so if you've finished insulting me, how about you run along and let me get on with running my country?"
It was the second time Invel had been told to leave. That was one more chance than the traitorous mages had been given, and two more than Markos. It was more than just a threat, too. It was an invitation to leave the ailing heart of Alvarez and its disappointing heroes behind; it was the encouragement he didn't need to begin fumbling his way along the still-smoking bridge that led back home.
It was also the second and last order Invel ever intended to disobey.
"Let me stay," he said.
"Oh…?"
"Let me continue to serve Alvarez and its government. I want to stay."
His Majesty tilted his head in a most un-imperial gesture. "Why?"
How many times had Invel been asked that very question: why do you want to serve?
To countless iterations in countless interviews he had replied with some hazy answer about duty and loving this patchwork nation, rehearsed so many times that even he had started to believe it, and that had been enough to get him here… but here wasn't anything like he had expected, and the man he wanted to serve couldn't have been more different from those stuffy interviewers.
Some part of him was wondering if this was the first time he had ever answered that question truthfully, as he looked his emperor in the eye and said, "Because you need me."
Black eyes shone with silent amusement. "Oh?"
"You need someone around who thinks like me. You may know the intricacies of your own laws, Your Majesty – aside from the odd erroneous detail – but you're not always here, and there will always be men like Markos. Let me stay. Whether it's as an assistant, a junior secretary, or even just continuing as an intern until I have more experience, there must be some position which I could take."
"Hmm…" His Majesty considered this with a frown. "How about Chief of Staff?"
Invel choked.
"I'm going to need a new one, you see," he continued, as if he couldn't hear the incoherent spluttering which all but drowned out his words. "Assuming Jaquila still intends to retire."
The woman in question looked bemused, but she nodded all the same. "I do."
"There you have it, then. Hasn't that worked out nicely?"
"I can't be your Chief of Staff!" Invel burst out.
"Why ever not?"
"Because…" The shoal of reasons was so vast it was near-impossible to seize just one. "I have no experience! At all!"
A shrug. "You can't have experience of being my Chief of Staff until you've been my Chief of Staff. I daresay it is a role unlike any other on the continent."
"You can say that again," Jaquila muttered.
"You can learn on the job," he continued brightly. "All the others have."
"My first ever job cannot be Chief of Staff to the Emperor of Alvarez!"
"You already tried that argument; I already rejected it." He made an impatient twirling gesture with his hand. "Pick another."
Invel folded his arms. "I'm not qualified."
"You beat Markos Verde at his own game."
"That was a complete accident. I hardly set out with the goal of politically outmanoeuvring him in order to prevent a war you didn't want. He was about to break the law and I went to stop him from doing so. That's all."
"Still counts."
"I haven't even been to law school yet!"
His Majesty blinked. "Are you intending to become a lawyer?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Then what does law school have to do with anything?"
"It's- it's experience! Education! Knowledge I need to become so much as a clerk attached to the Chief of Staff's office-"
"Law school won't teach you anything that you don't already know," he overrode Invel's protest. "Except perhaps for the correct content of subsections two and three of the Segregated Powers Act."
Invel bristled. "Which I already know! You're the one who has them the wrong way round!"
"There you go, then. We both agree that law school is a waste of time."
Invel opened his mouth and closed it again just as quickly.
"Are you out of objections? Because I feel obliged to point out that you have yet to provide me with a convincing reason."
"I'm… I'm only eighteen," Invel said weakly. "I can't hold public office until I'm twenty-one."
"Ah. I should have thought of that." Then his expression brightened again, a helium balloon that would not be bound to earth, or indeed to any kind of logic. He snapped his fingers. "That's a stupid rule. I should revoke it."
"Inadvisable," both Invel and Jaquila said immediately, and glanced at each other in surprise. She nodded at him, an invitation, and so he continued, "Lowering the limit for no real reason will alienate the entire senior level of your government. Add to that the fact that most of the junior level have never met you, what with you having been missing for ten years, not to mention that you just fired two-thirds of your council – you're only going to weaken your position across the board."
"Besides, changing the rules just for one person will put an exceptional amount of pressure on him," Jaquila added. "Even more than this job already entails."
"Alright, point taken," their emperor sighed. "See, I'm not entirely unreasonable, am I?"
Invel somehow managed not to roll his eyes.
"Besides, I think this will work out well," he mused. "Three years. Jaquila, will you stay that long? That should be enough time to teach him what he needs to know and hand over the role properly." She hesitated. "Please. For me."
She bowed her head. "Very well. I cannot deny that he has potential… assuming he can get over his dislike of us."
She spoke with a teasing tone, rather than a harsh one, but Invel froze anyway. Had it been that obvious? The current Chief of Staff met his gaze and gave a wan smile, and he supposed that it must have been. It certainly wouldn't be the only area where they had proven themselves to be far more adept than he had given them credit for.
"I don't dislike you," he said impulsively, honestly. "I misjudged you. I truly apologize for that."
As stupid as he felt saying it, he thought that her smile became a little warmer. Which was probably for the best, if she really was going to be his mentor-
No. He shook his head firmly at the thought. It didn't sound any less ludicrous now than it had two minutes ago.
Yet his emperor was still acting as if this wasn't absolute madness. His black gaze swept over to August. "And you'll train him in magic."
It wasn't phrased as a question. It wasn't worth the effort of putting the inflection into his voice when the solemn nod that followed was never in doubt.
"I don't need-" Invel began, only to fall silent at once when His Majesty cut him off.
"You do. This is an empire of magic. I have no doubt you are better than any guild mage in your hometown, but you are not in the same league as the Twelve." Then he tilted his head a little, a dragon appraising the newest addition to his hoard. "Not yet, anyway. You have a great deal of potential, even if I get the impression that you don't appreciate magic enough for it to ever come naturally to you."
Invel might have objected, if it had been anyone else who said it. Throughout his years in education, none of his peers had ever come close to him, in academics or in magic… but the mages he'd met here would laugh at his power.
Misunderstanding his hesitance, his emperor continued, "Don't be too harsh on August for not intervening between you and Markos. He knew I was watching. Had I not been there, he would not have allowed you to come to harm."
"I know," Invel said quietly, very quietly, feeling as though he was accepting a telling off for something he hadn't done.
"So, it's settled, then?"
"What- no!" Invel burst out, thrown by the sudden change of topic. "I'm not- I can't- this is utterly ridiculous! It doesn't matter how many stupid arrangements you make; I can't be your Chief of Staff!"
"Why not?" came the patient, maddening response.
"Because I can't do it! I don't know how- I won't be good enough- I can't-"
That black gaze swept towards him once more, quenching his feeble protests in its sudden nightfall. He felt, again, a shiver of the presence that had terrified and enthralled him; a glimpse of the empire's keystone hidden in a shroud of outrageous impulsivity. "Do you care about Alvarez?"
"I-" Caught between not wanting to lie and not wanting to walk into the obvious trap, Invel tried to hedge. "Yes, but-"
"Do you want to guide and protect it?"
"Yes, but-"
"Do you want to be a part of it as it grows ever stronger?"
"Obviously, or I wouldn't be here, but-"
"Do you like me?"
"I find you infuriating!" Invel burst out.
To his astonishment, the other beamed. "See, you're practically one of the team already. I'll see you here at eight tomorrow morning."
And he swept out of the chamber as if the matter was settled.
Which, since he was the emperor and this was his empire, whether Invel liked it or not, it was.
The four of them filed out of the chamber with far less flair than their emperor had managed, the three remaining members of the Spriggan Twelve with Invel trailing along behind. He barely even noticed the awkward silence. It was bad enough just dealing with the chaos in his head.
For eight weeks he had felt as though he didn't belong here – it was a disgrace to his dreams, a sprawling limbo where he had been promised a paradise – and he wouldn't have considered it much of a loss if he'd tossed a stick of dynamite over his shoulder as he walked away.
Now, he wanted to stay, and he'd been offered the perfect opportunity to do so… too perfect an opportunity. An impossible opportunity. One which made no sense at all.
He'd worked hard, but not that hard. He'd earned his internship here. He'd not earned- whatever the hell this was.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. The words themselves weren't strange to him, of course, but saying them so clumsily, so impulsively, was. At the end of such a backwards day, pure emotion felt like the only thing he could rely on.
They stopped walking in the empty corridor and turned to him. "Whatever for?" August asked.
"For… this." Not knowing quite how to phrase it, Invel gestured at the heart of the palace; at himself. "I'm not supposed to be here, with you. This – this wasn't supposed to happen."
A faint smile touched Jaquila's lips, lighting up well-worn creases he'd never seen used before. "His Majesty is, without a doubt, the most exasperating man I have ever met. Brilliant – utterly brilliant – but utterly exasperating. If you're going to last more than a day in this job, you're going to have to get used to it."
With a heavy sigh, Yajeel reasoned, "He's not normally this bad. I have a feeling he's trying to make up for ten years of not being around to make our lives hell. Usually, he's more, uh…"
"Mature?" Invel guessed.
Yajeel winced. "I was going to say imperial. I don't think he's ever been mature."
"Not when he's in a good mood, at least," August supplemented, smiling faintly.
No matter how they spoke of His Majesty, it was clear that they each held this impossible, unbearable man in the highest regard. Their words bore a fondness that duty could not quite hide. The fact that they could speak so frankly of him, and he of them, said more about their relationship than the content of their words.
The cog at the heart of the empire, indeed.
"But…" Invel tried again, and failed again; it was impossible to reject with logic a decision that hadn't been based on it at all.
Taking pity on him, Jaquila said, "Having met His Majesty, do you honestly think any of us obtained our positions through some standardized interview procedure?"
Invel paused. He hadn't given the matter much thought, but he had assumed that things were done- well, properly. For years he had idolized these people, following their exploits like his peers had followed guilds or sports teams, and they'd been so good at what they did that surely they had been subject to some sort of rigorous recruitment procedure, probably starting with a background in law or economics and working their way up from there, as his career advisor had recommended to him…
Except, now that he did think about it, that wasn't true at all, was it?
"I was a rebel leader," Yajeel shrugged, beginning the story before Invel could. "I was in the middle of trying to tear his empire apart when he decided he wanted to hire me."
Nodding once, August added his own experience, in that solemn way he had. "He found me as a child. I was six years old. I'd run away from the orphanage where I was raised, and was lost, starving, penniless, and completely alone… none of which apparently put him off. You may have a lot to learn, Invel, but at least you're a grown man."
They were all looking expectantly at Jaquila now, who grimaced. "My family has always been in the police force," she began. "In Garsberg." Invel couldn't help wincing at that. "I'd just been named the next Chief of Police when His Majesty arrived in our godforsaken city for a northern state summit. I was in charge of security on the local side of things… which, in Garsberg, consisted of negotiating with about ten gangs at once – convincing them it was for the best to lay low for the week, or playing them off against each other, or utilizing the enhanced security presence to threaten them – all the while pretending to the security delegation from Vistarion that everything was entirely above board and we definitely did not negotiate with the mafia here…"
She sighed. "It took His Majesty less than a day to decide that what I was doing was more interesting than the summit. He kept sneaking away to tag along with me. I had no idea who he was – I spent most of the time under the impression that he was the spoilt child of some wealthy delegate, too used to getting his own way to have proper respect for law enforcement. I think he preferred it that way… at least, until I was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping the emperor."
Shaking her head in fondness at the memory, she continued, "Once it was all cleared up, he invited – ordered – me to return to Vistarion with him. I thought he was going to offer me a position on his security team. Imagine my surprise when he told me he wanted me as Chief of Staff. You think you're underqualified for this position, Invel. You should try it after twenty years as a cop."
"I didn't know that," Invel admitted. It wasn't enough, but what else could he say?
"There's no reason why you would," she smiled. "We tend not to publicize things like that. It's our job to run a functional government despite our whimsical emperor's best attempts to ruin it."
Yajeel resumed, "Trust me, if he sticks around like he said he would, by the end of the week you'll realize that the most unbelievable thing that happened today was Jaquila leaving a classified document out in plain view."
August chuckled, but Jaquila just frowned – not because she was offended, but because she was confused. "That's the thing," she began. "I'm certain I didn't leave that report on my desk. I filed it away before Markos arrived for our discussion, I'm sure I did."
A fear he thought he had forgotten sparked its icy way down Invel's spine. "It was on the desk, I swear! I would never have gone through your drawers looking for a confidential document-"
"I know," Jaquila assured him. "I'm not saying you did."
They walked on in silence for a while – for as long as it took Invel's experience of his emperor to overcome the preconceived notions he was still clinging to, and then he stopped in his tracks. "He couldn't have done. I'd have noticed!"
"His magic can stop time," Yajeel sighed. "I'd love to say he's above using it for pranks, but you've met him, so I know you'd never buy it."
The power to stop time. That was an impossible magic he could fully believe the man he'd met was capable of. But if he'd sneaked into the office, and undone the seal protecting the classified report, and left it out where Invel was bound to see it, then… then…
"He can't do that!" Invel exclaimed, horrified.
Jaquila gave him a resigned smile. "He's a four-hundred-year-old genius of magic who built an entire empire from scratch… and who also happens to be stuck in his teenage years for all eternity. You try telling him what he can and can't do."
After a moment, Invel raised his chin; his mind was made up.
"Yes," he decided. "I rather think I will."
Vistarion, The Present Day
"Invel!"
Invel's eyes snapped open to a world that was all white. He blinked, and the last remnants of the memory vanished, to be replaced by a scene glowing far brighter than the one in his mind.
He was stood on a platform overlooking the training area in the palace grounds… or he had been, before the whirlpool of his thoughts had dragged him down. Now, the stone beneath his feet was the shiny-white of impossibly pure ice. The railings he leaned against had blossomed into the balustrade of a snow queen's palace – a balustrade insufficient to contain the winter of his magic, which had spilled over the balcony and flooded the training grounds with silent cold. The breaths of everyone below curled skyward like snakes struggling out of hibernation.
Invel jerked back from the railing, barely registering the snap as his feet tore free of the ice. His heart lurched. He felt the impulsive urge to go with it; to flee like an arctic hare from the mages staring up at him in shock. He pushed it away – shoved it into that box of nerves he had kicked under his bed sometime before he had first spoken in public and never deigned to reopen since – but a shadow of it lingered, his own fear of what his magic had subconsciously done exacerbated by the fear his own men were showing towards him.
A single patch of colour drew his attention to the heart of the training ground. August gazed back, his expression questioning, from a circle of unfrozen ground the exact same size as his latent magical aura.
Ajeel took a half-step towards the frost-free circle and rubbed his hands against his upper arms for warmth. "Oi, Invel!" he shouted up at the platform good-naturedly. "If you want to join in, get down here and face me properly!"
"We will soon be at war," Invel announced, relieved to find that the ice layering his words with dispassion was as thick as ever. It hid any sign of insecurity, as if he had always intended to flood the mock battlefield with an inhospitable winter. Distance was his mask, that and practice, as he swept his attention from one combatant to the next. "You will be expected to fight on any battlefield, under any circumstances. The mages of Ishgar will not be above using the environment against you – after all, they will have the home advantage. Let nothing as slight as this slow you down."
Begrudgingly, the mages turned their attention away from him and resumed their sparring matches upon the newly iced battlefield. Invel continued to watch them, counting every second in his head so that he would not turn away too soon.
Everything he had said was true – he should be testing their ability to fight in wintery conditions, given that they would be fighting on the same battlefield as him, if nothing else – but it didn't change the fact that he had only come up with that excuse on the spot. As soon as he reached sixty one-hundreds, he closed his eyes and called back his wayward magic. It came to him slowly, mistrustfully, still certain that freezing everything in sight was what he wanted it to do.
The worst thing was that he couldn't even claim this was an isolated incident. For most of his life, he had proudly been able to declare that he had never lost control of his magic, neither as a toddler nor as a dedicated if unpassionate student. Then, two days ago, he had accidentally crushed a plane beyond repair when confronting Ajeel and Dimaria… and now he had frozen the training grounds without even realizing it.
There wasn't even a reason for it. At least last time he had been angered by Ajeel's actions, and disturbed by the blurred photograph – that may or may not have shown His Majesty – in the Fiorean magazine. This time, he had been unable to focus on his work after His Majesty had cut their lacrima connection, and he had come out here to get some air, ruminating upon the day he had first met His Majesty. That was all.
He clenched his fist, shredding the last of the frost that had settled on his palm. It wasn't right. His magic had never been emotional. August's was – it hummed in empathy with everything and everyone, and he made little effort to stop it – but such sloppiness wasn't proper for the Chief of Staff.
No, his magic had always been perfectly controlled. Precise. Orderly. Focussed. Everything he himself aspired to be.
Now, it was running rampant – and he had a feeling it wasn't anything about his magic that had changed. He was the one who didn't know what to think; who had lost an entire afternoon of vital preparation time for the war and almost destroyed palace property because he couldn't rise above his own doubts-
"What's wrong, Invel?"
Invel started. It was a mark of his utter lack of composure that he considered a visible physical reaction, rather than a violent magical one, to be a success rather than a failure – not that lashing out with magic would have bothered this man. August stood between Invel and the only exit to the observation platform.
"I appreciate the concern, but nothing is wrong," Invel replied stiffly, slightly concerned by the fact that that had only been the third response to cross his mind, after none of your business and leave me alone.
The leader of the Twelve did not move. "What has happened?"
If it had been accusatory, or demanding, Invel reckoned that the tatters of his control would no longer have been able to hold back one of his two initial responses, but there was nothing but worry in the old mage's eyes – a concern so great it was spilling over into his magical presence.
Invel thought of their truce; of how the empire had always been more important than either of them. If he couldn't deal with this on his own – and the half-thawed mages soldiering on below suggested that he couldn't – then who would understand better than August?
"I… received a very disturbing call from His Majesty earlier today," he admitted.
As he had known, August understood the implications at once. "How bad was he?"
"Worse than I've ever seen him before." An image of that helpless expression flashed across his mind, and he shook his head to banish it before the temperature could plummet further. "He didn't know what he was doing. He called me in the hope that I could remind him; I think he'd forgotten that he has been deliberately keeping it from us. I'm not sure he knew where he was, or… or why he was there. It…"
He tailed off for a moment, struggling to shake the conviction that putting his gut feeling into words would make it somehow become true. "It was terrifying. You said that you thought whatever he was doing in Fiore was good for him. That's not true. It's destroying him."
"It will pass. It always does."
"I know. That's not the problem."
The words stuck like a chunk of ice in his throat.
After a polite pause, August prompted, "Then what is?"
"I…" Nothing, and then everything at once. "I think he might be playing both sides in this war."
Whatever August had been expecting, it wasn't that. Invel hadn't known before that day that such a wrinkled face could look so blank. "What? His Majesty?"
"It doesn't make any sense, I know, but neither does anything he's been doing." The words were tumbling out of his mouth twice as quickly as normal, but they were as sedate as an imperial address compared to the maelstrom in his mind. "Why is he hanging around in Fiore right before we declare war upon them? Why is he keeping the nature of his so-called quest a secret from us?"
"Why should he share it with us?" August countered – although there was no danger in his voice, only bemusement. "He is a brilliant strategist, and our emperor. I am sure he has countless plans too complex and too important to have been revealed to us."
Invel did not even flinch as the very argument he had used on Ajeel was turned against him. He had hardly forgotten it. If anything, it had not left his mind once. What had seemed so certain before Ajeel had questioned it to his face was no longer sufficient. "What plan could possibly involve delaying our invasion while our enemies gather strength?"
"A necessary one," August told him steadily. "Or His Majesty would not do it, I am sure."
"I think it's more than that. I think he's helping Fairy Tail. I think he's delaying the invasion to buy them time to reunite. I've gone over the latest intelligence reports – word from Fiore is that the guild is reconvening on the First of September, the exact same day that he wants us to invade. Why not strike the week before, when they're still weakened? We have the ability to do so."
"There will be a reason, Invel."
Invel shook his head. A blurred photograph that could have been of anyone, a few frantic sentences that had slipped through His Majesty's immaculate control, and a chain of decisions that made no sense without them.
It had taken Ajeel's natural audacity to point out the obvious, but when Invel had ordered him to drop the matter, he had done so at once and thought no more of it. It was easy for Ajeel. As the newest of the Twelve, he had no duties except fighting the enemies His Majesty pointed him towards.
But Invel was responsible for an entire nation in their emperor's absence. He couldn't afford not to worry about these things.
"If it's not you, then it could be Fairy Tail." Invel repeated the desperate words he had not been able to get out of his mind since the lacrima-call. "That's what he said when I asked him who he could possibly be on his quest for. In his own mind, if he wasn't doing something for Alvarez, he must have been doing it for Fairy Tail. He built an army to destroy them. Our army. Now he's building an army to protect them."
"You have no proof of that."
"No," Invel conceded reluctantly.
"You said yourself that he was confused," August reasoned. "He didn't know what he was doing; he told you so himself. I think you are putting too much stock in his words at a time when he was at his most vulnerable."
An icy wind tugged at Invel's ponytail and sketched floral streaks of frost up his boots. Yet, as always, it chose to disintegrate into nothing rather than make contact with the other's skin. He could feel his hopes of August taking his side – of reassuring him – fading with every second.
"I know what I heard," he snapped.
"But that doesn't mean you interpreted it correctly. From a single line spoken without context when he was at the mercy of his curse, you have drawn an untenable conclusion, when you know full well that his actions will be part of a plan whose whole you cannot fathom."
"What if there is no plan this time?" Invel shouted. "What if this isn't some clever strategy to help Alvarez win? What if he's playing us all, like he always has, and this time it's not a harmless prank or a test for his new vassal, but a game of life and death with us as his chess pieces?"
"Would it matter?" August asked.
It was Invel's turn to look dumbfounded. "Of course it would matter!"
"Why?"
"Because…" Invel blinked, not understanding what his eyes and ears were telling him; not understanding how the elderly mage could say that with utter sincerity.
August said, "You would die for him, would you not?"
"Of course I would, but-"
"Then, what does it matter?"
Invel stared at August as if seeing him for the first time. "My loyalty is to the Alvarez Empire. I want what's best for this nation and its people. That's what matters."
"His Majesty is what's best for this nation."
"I know that!" Invel snapped. "I've known it from the moment I first met him! He was the most incredible man I had ever met; one to whom I would be proud to dedicate my life and work! But what if he isn't, any more? What if his curse isn't letting him commit to one side or the other in this war? What if he can't be the leader we need right now?"
"He would still be His Majesty," August said simply.
Invel shook his head. "That's all that matters to you?"
"I am not pretending he is perfect," August answered calmly. "Only that I trust him not to do anything so important without good reason. His plan will work out in the end."
"Betraying our very nation is not something that can be justified!" Invel protested, but August just shook his head, in that slow, final way of his.
"I believe in His Majesty," said he. "I would advise you not to dwell too long on what you heard, if you cannot do the same."
With that, he turned and began walking away, taking Invel's hope of an ally with him.
In desperation, Invel shouted after him, "So if he switched sides, you'd go with him?"
It wasn't the way August stopped and glanced back that scared him, nor the intense magical power that flowed as always in his wake.
It was the look of genuine curiosity on his face when he asked, "You wouldn't?"