I have been waiting to write this chapter for months.
"Emperor Lycaon?" Zelda asked. "I need a favor."
"Of course. How can I help you, Lady Zelda?" Lycaon asked.
"It's Princess Zelda, actually," Zelda said. "I am the Princess of the Kingdom of Hyrule. Or...well, I suppose I'm actually the Queen now, after Father died. But...the thing is, I was never taught much about politics. My education was mostly in religion."
"That seems like an...unwise decision, on the part of your father." Lycaon said.
"He had his reasons," Zelda said awkwardly. "But as it stands, I don't know much of...anything about how to run an effective government. And a great calamity has recently destroyed most of Hyrule's established government above the level of local leaders. I have a blank slate to work with, but I also have no established infrastructure."
"I see," Lycaon mused. "Then we should get started now."
Zelda stared at the horrific conditions the Iron Dominion slavers had kept their captives in.
The smell alone was enough to make her want to vomit. The sight of the beaten and bloody prisoners, the filthy cells they were being kept in, the food that could only barely be considered edible that they were given, and that was to say nothing of what she had caught those guards doing to...
No. No, she wouldn't think about that. This scene would haunt her nightmares, but for now, she had to remain strong and authoritative. To make sure this evil would be purged. To uproot the tree, cut it to pieces, and burn it, then destroy the mold within the soil.
She turned to where Edelgard was interrogating the leader of the slavers. "We know you keep records of the people who supply you with prisoners. Tell us where you hide them, or prepare to suffer."
"I'm not telling you a thing," the slaver said. "Not unless you guarantee I get a pardon."
"You'll get the mercy of a quick death," Kronya said, snarling. "If you refuse, I know quite a few horrible tortures that I could put you through. I could flay you, or drown you in sewage, or cover you in honey and let the rats eat you alive. I've never used a breaking wheel before, but it might be worth trying. Whatever I choose to go with, I know nothing I could do to you would make me feel even the slightest bit of guilt. So why not just give us what we want? If you do, I'll cut your head off so fast, you won't feel a thing."
The slaver hesitated, thinking over his options. While he was thinking, Hilda walked up with a book. "I found his ledger."
"Then we need to track those suppliers down," Zelda said. "Kill that one, we're wasting time."
Edelgard drew a broadsword, and once Kronya stood back, she swung, bisecting the slaver at the waist.
"I noticed that you looked troubled when I ordered Grant Bartels's execution," Lycaon said.
"Yes, I...I didn't understand why you had to do it," Zelda admitted.
"Do you understand now?" Lycaon asked.
"Edelgard tried to explain it to me, but...no," Zelda admitted. "I don't understand why you and she both think it's so important for a ruler to be feared."
"You want to be a benevolent ruler," Lycaon understood. "That's understandable, commendable even. But people don't bow to benevolence. They bow to authority. And if you're not willing to meet power with power, to sacrifice others besides yourself, people like Nemesis and Ohm will see opportunity. And even if you manage to stay on your throne, there will be people like Grant Bartels who will abuse their power, because they will believe you won't be able to stop them."
The first stop on the ledger was the home of a local judge who worked in a city not far away from the slavers' den. It was in Gloucester territory, so there was no battle to get there.
"Judge Verres," Ferdinand said. "You are under arrest for slave trading."
"What?" the judge asked.
"We know you have been selling criminals that you sentenced to Iron Dominion slavers," Ferdinand continued. "We found the bills of sale. That's a very serious crime."
"But I..." the judge tried to think of an excuse. "Forced labor is a sentence that I was allowed to pass. It's a legal sentence in the Adrestian Empire, too! I was just...outsourcing their sentences! And they were just criminals!"
"I don't know how the Kingdom of Liberation litigates forced labor, but in Adrestia, a forced labor sentence cannot be onsold," Constance said. "Furthermore, it comes with a number of legal protections. Most notably, a guarantee that any criminal may not be made to serve more than six years of forced labor within his or her lifetime, and must be released once the sentence expires. I doubt you had any guarantee that the Order of Iron planned to release them. And at least three criminals were sold to the Order of Iron after Jonathan Gloucester swore allegiance to Emperor Lycaon. Even if they were not, though, slave trading is one of the few crimes that can be tried and sentenced according to Adrestian law even if it took place before the perpetrator became a citizen of the Adrestian Empire."
"I...figured that either Nemesis or Lycaon would crush the Order and free the sl-er, workers, before six years were up?" the judge said.
Ferdinand sneered at that. "Nice try."
The judge, realizing he wouldn't be able to talk his way out, picked up a dagger and tried to stab Ferdinand. He didn't get within reach before Ferdinand stabbed him with his spear.
"Your power isn't something to be feared, Zelda," Lycaon told her. "You need to be decisive and authoritative."
"But isn't it true that power corrupts?" Zelda asked.
"Not in the way you think," Lycaon said. "Power doesn't corrupt a person who has it. It only reveals who they always were. But it can be said that power corrupts itself. Institutions of power will eventually fall into the hands of the corrupt, who will make them easier to abuse, until the institution itself is entirely corrupt and has to be overthrown. That's why I rejected Hubert's suggestion of a senate of elected representatives. They would inevitably become a body that represents only themselves, who would try to destroy anyone who wanted to use the position for the benefit of the people. A hereditary monarchy is not a perfect system, but at least there is just as much chance of a good Emperor succeeding a bad one as there is of a bad Emperor succeeding a good one."
"I see," Zelda said. "That's something to think about."
"There's another problem with treating benevolence as the most important aspect of rulership beyond that," Lycaon told her. "Sometimes, as a ruler, you will have to do things that might not feel like the right thing."
"What do you mean?" Zelda asked.
"Suppose a plague breaks out in a town," Lycaon said. "It's highly contagious and only one person out of every ten who has contracted it has recovered, but you institute a quarantine and get it contained. But the doctors' attempts to treat it aren't working, and the infected are getting restless. They want to break the quarantine, which will cause the plague to spread further. There are one hundred infected, and one thousand people in the town who are not infected but will be if they break the quarantine. You have one way to put a stop to the plague: to have someone who is immune to it, such as your Zora, or Gorons, go in, kill the infected, and burn the corpses. Do you kill the hundred, or let the thousand be infected knowing that nine hundred of them will die?"
"I...I don't know!" Zelda asked.
"No one else is going to make the hard decision for you, Zelda," Lycaon told her. "You have to give the order before the infected break the quarantine, or if you don't...well, that's a choice in itself."
After the Company had hunted down and killed most of the slavers' suppliers, there was only one left. A woman by the name of Dana who had sold only one slave to them, her teenage daughter.
They had finally found Dana, but unlike all of the other suppliers, who had been mercenaries, bandits, and a corrupt judge, they found Dana on a small farm, along with her two young sons. A struggling farm at that, it looked like.
"I suppose there's no sense in hiding the truth any longer," Dana said regretfully. "My husband Tom was drafted into the war five years ago. And then he tried to desert, and that got him executed. They stopped paying us his pension, because he tried to desert, and I had to run the farm on my own. And then the next year, the harvest failed. We were about to starve...I would have sold myself instead, but the kids wouldn't have been able to run the farm themselves...and the money has almost run out...I didn't know what I was going to do this winter..." She broke down in tears.
Zelda had to hold back tears of her own. "I'm sorry. I wish I could have helped you then. And I can't imagine how bad things must have gotten. I do sympathize. But I can't let you live. I can't open that door and risk more slavers being given mercy. I can't risk undermining the Empire's eradication of the practice. But I'll make you a promise. I know Saint Seiros. I will see that the Church of Seiros takes your sons in. I promise you, they will never have to face the prospect of starving to death again."
Dana sobbed at that.
Zelda placed her hands next to Dana's temples, and they started to glow. But Zelda hesitated. This would be the first time she killed someone who wasn't trying to kill her. She breathed in and out, trying to gather the will to cast.
Link noticed her hesitation. "Zelda, I can-"
There was a flash of light, and Dana's body fell to the floor, dead.
"Or that works too," Link said.
The two boys looked at their mother's body. The younger one started crying, while the older one, with tears in his eyes, stared at Zelda. "Why did you do that? Why?"
"At the same time, though, don't think I'm saying you shouldn't feel guilty over giving that order," Lycaon told Zelda. "Giving the order to kill the infected and burn the bodies is the right choice, but there were still ten people who would have recovered from the plague. Their blood is on your hands."
"So, what, I have to be a tyrant?" Zelda asked.
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Lycaon said. "That's what being a ruler is. Innocent people die if you make the wrong choice. Often, there will be innocent people who will die even if you make the right choice. Perhaps I have had too many conversations with Cato, but the way I believe he would phrase it is this. 'Your kingdom is your canvas and your crown is your brush. And your paint is the blood, sweat, and tears of your citizens. You have to paint the brightest possible future for your kingdom while using the least amount of paint possible.' There will always be blood on your hands. You have to always remember that, let it motivate you to try to do better."
"This sounds like a miserable life," Zelda said.
"It is," Lycaon agreed. "And it should be. If you start enjoying it too much, then your citizens are the ones who suffer."
"You asked why," Zelda said to Dana's sons, who had just finished speaking with several former slaves who had told them about the horrible things that had happened to them. "That's why. I didn't want to kill your mother. But there can be no mercy for slave traders, or it will never end."
The two boys stared at the ground, ashamed.
"You can hate me, if you want," Zelda said. "But I will not apologize for killing your mother. I did what I had to do, nothing more."
"And how do I know I'm still making the right calls?" Zelda asked. "How do I make sure I don't make so many compromises that I lose sight of what's right?"
Lycaon mulled that over. "I'm afraid I don't have an answer that I can guarantee will work. But I do have two pieces of advice. The first is to have a clearly defined code that you believe in. You received a thorough education in religion, right? If you're a true believer, use that. Sometimes you won't get to do what your scriptures say is right, but you should always be mindful of what that would be."
"And the second?" Zelda asked.
"Have someone by your side who won't let you go too far," Lycaon suggested.
Link held Zelda's hair away from her face as she vomited into a bucket.
"I still don't understand why you had to be the one to execute her," Link said.
"I need to get used to this," Zelda said. "Link, I'm going to need to make more decisions like that someday. I'm not the Hero. I'm the Princess. And that means I need to be able to use my authority when hard choices have to be made.
"And if I could have let someone else kill her, it would have been Edelgard, or Lysithea, or Lorenz, any of them other than you," she continued. "You need to be the Hero, someone who won't compromise your stance on justice. I need you to make sure I don't lose myself along the way."
"I will, I promise," Link said.
"Do you think I did the right thing?" Zelda asked.
Link hestitated for several seconds, but finally answered. "You? Yes. But I think Lycaon made a mistake.
"Lycaon made it so the only sentence that a slave trader can get is death," he explained. "You wouldn't have done her any favors by bringing her in alive, and the only other options would be to leave her and her sons to starve, or to take her sons but let her go free, which would lead to people finding out that you let a slave trader go unpunished. But I think in this case that execution wasn't the right sentence to pass. I think prison would have been more appropriate. After all," he looked her in the eyes, "she made a hard choice to ruin one life to save two. By Lycaon's definition, she was acting like a queen."
"I see," Zelda said. "Something to think about."
He turned to leave her room, but she placed her hand on his shoulder. "No, please, stay. I don't want to sleep alone tonight."
Link paused. "Well...I wouldn't be much of a hero if I left a lady in distress."