But greed is a powerful restorative. And Webbe is a man looking for an edge.
"It is a fine vessel, Your Majesty," Webbe says, his eyes calculating. "Fast. Capable of outrunning pirates."
He turns to me.
"Princess Víl?," Webbe says, his voice straining for civility. "As a gesture of... diplomatic commerce... I am prepared to purchase that ship."
The courtyard goes quiet. The Guild Masters stop talking. Kenric crosses his arms, leaning against a pillar.
"It is a prototype, Duke Webbe," I say smoothly. "But everything has a price."
"Good," Webbe nods, pulling out a leather checkbook. "I will draft a promissory note against the Vupis Treasury. Have your man prepare the ownership papers."
He walks toward Sander Vane, who is standing by the ledger podium with Riven flanking him.
Webbe dips a quill. "How much?"
"Twelve thousand gold crowns," Sander says calmly.
Webbe flinches, but nods. "Steep. But acceptable." He starts to write.
"I am afraid," Sander interrupts, placing a hand over the parchment, "that we cannot accept a promissory note from you, My Lord."
Webbe freezes. "Excuse me? I am the Duke of Vupis. My signature is gold."
"Your signature is ink," Sander corrects, consulting his ledger. "And according to our risk assessment algorithms..."
Sander runs a finger down a column of numbers.
"...The Duchy of Vupis is currently over-leveraged. You have outstanding debts to the Royal Bank of Codegor, three mortgages on your summer palace, and... ah, yes. You have failed to pay your own soldiers for two months."
Webbe turns purple. "That is a temporary cash-flow issue! How dare you audit me?"
"We are a bank, Duke Webbe," I interject, stepping forward. "Auditing is what we do. We cannot accept credit from a high-risk borrower."
Webbe slams the quill down.
"Fine!" he roars. "Keep the hull! I will buy the sails! Just the sails! I will retrofit my own fleet!"
He reaches for his belt pouch and pulls out a heavy bag of gold. Real gold.
"Here," he slams it on the table. "Five hundred crowns. For a set of Glimmer-Flax sails. Cash. You cannot decline cash."
I look at the bag. I look at Riven, who is watching Webbe’s throat with hungry eyes.
"Sander," I ask. "Check the Export Control list. Is Vupis a signatory to the Centis Trade Alliance?"
Sander flips a page, though he doesn't need to. He knows the answer.
"They are not, Your Highness. Vupis is currently classified as a Non-Aligned Power."
"I am a guest of the King!" Webbe screams.
"You are a foreign military power," I correct him, my voice dropping the temperature in the square by ten degrees. "You threatened to burn my kingdom and enslave me not three weeks ago, Duke Webbe. Do you really think I am going to sell superior naval technology to a man who openly stated his intent to invade us?"
Webbe stares at me.
"Glimmer-Flax sails are classified as Strategic Military Assets," I explain. "We do not export them to hostile nations."
I pick up the bag of gold and toss it back to him. He catches it against his chest, the coins jingling.
"Your money is no good here, Webbe. Not for ships. Not for sails. We might make an exception for a rope to hang yourself with."
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Webbe stands there, shaking. He is holding a bag of gold that he cannot spend. He is the richest man in Vupis, and in Varpua, he is impotent.
"You will regret this," Webbe hisses. "When the war comes..."
"When the war comes," I interrupt, "my ships will outrun yours. My ropes will hold when yours snap. And my soldiers will be paid, while yours starve."
I turn to the King, who is watching this exchange with wide eyes.
"Your Majesty," I say, beaming. "Since the Duke cannot afford the Silver-Fin, and since we cannot allow such technology to fall into... unfriendly hands... perhaps the Crown would like to acquire it? As a flagship for the Royal Navy?"
Oskar’s eyes light up. "A flagship? For me?"
"We can finance it," I promise. "Low interest. Long term. It ensures that Centis maintains naval superiority over its... neighbors."
I glance at Webbe.
"Done!" Oskar cries. "I shall captain it myself! Raise the Royal Standard!"
Webbe watches as the King signs the paper, using credit provided by me, to buy the ship Webbe wanted, explicitly to use it against Webbe's own interests.
He looks at his shield. He looks at the laughter of the Guild Masters. He looks at Riven’s hand on his sword.
He realizes he has been utterly defeated without a single drop of blood being spilled.
He turns and marches to his horse. He mounts awkwardly, the shield banging against the saddle.
"We are leaving!" Webbe shouts to his men. "Now!"
As he rides out of the square, a group of dockworkers, fresh from the Blue Bowl, their bellies full of my stew, raise their mugs in a mock toast.
"Safe travels, Buttercup!" one of them yells.
I stand on the steps with Kenric.
"He will try to kill you for this," Kenric says quietly. "He can't let this stand. Vupis needs a win."
"Let him try," I say, watching the dust settle. "He has to get through the road toll first. And I believe Viscount Tolly just raised the rates for 'Non-Aligned Powers'."
Kenric laughs. He takes my hand.
"The Bank is open," Kenric says. "The Guilds are loyal. The King is indebted. And the enemy is humiliated."
"A good week's work," I agree. "Now, husband... let's go home. I believe that we need to prepare you for an increase in rank."
I turn to Riven."Commander. The city is yours."
Riven bows low. "It will be safe, my Queen. The wind watches."
I step into the carriage. We leave Varpua not as exiles, but as conquerors.
And in the distance, the Killing Wind begins to blow.
The victory over Webbe was loud. But the victory over the Earl of Padma happens in silence, behind a heavy oak door that smells of sickness and cedar smoke. We are in Padma, not far from Varpua, at the Dower House. It is smaller than the main Padma keep and easier to maintain. It requires fewer staff, and in this case, it's also easier for Eamon to navigate because it has fewer stairs.
I am not in the room. Neither is Kenric.
Duke Jellema insisted on going in alone first.
"Eamon is old school," Jellema told us in the hallway. "He remembers when your father lost his head, Kenric. He needs to know this isn't a conquest. It has to be a conversation between peers."
So, Kenric and I wait in the drafty corridor of the Dower House, watching the Earl’s nieces pacing nervously.
Inside the room, the conversation, as Jellema would later recount it to us word-for-word, begins not with business, but with the rattling sound of dying lungs.
Earl Eamon sits in a high-backed chair near the fire, wrapped in a quilt that has seen better days. He is eighty-two years old, and every one of those years is etched into the map of his face.
He coughs, a wet, hacking sound known as the "Miner's Cough," the curse of men who spend their youth in the deep silver veins of the North.
Jellema pours him a glass of water from the bedside table.
"You look terrible, Eamon," Jellema says gently, handing him the glass.
"And you look fat, Hedde," Eamon rasps, taking a sip. "Prosperity has softened your middle."
"Better soft than dead," Jellema sits in the chair opposite him. "The winter has been hard on you."
"The winter is fine," Eamon waves a spotted hand. "It’s the King that’s killing me. Or rather, his perfume. I can smell him from the harbor. Does he bathe in lavender and rose water? He reeks like a cheap brothel."
"It covers the smell of incompetence," Jellema replies dryly.
Eamon chuckles, which turns into another cough. When he recovers, his blue flint eyes sharpen. "Why are you here, Hedde? You hold the notes on the southern mines. Are you here to foreclose? Is the Bank calling in the debt before the earth is even over my coffin?"
"The Bank is willing to forgive the debt entirely," Jellema says.
The silence in the room is heavy. The log in the fireplace cracks.
"Entirely?" Eamon whispers. "That is... forty thousand crowns. What is the price? My soul?"
"Your successor." Jellema says evenly.
Eamon slumps back, the energy draining out of him. "We have discussed this. The law is clear. Centis Law. It goes to my cousin, Stephen. That preening idiot is already measuring the curtains for new drapes. He will turn Padma into a brothel within a month."
"Stephen has debts too," Jellema says softly. "To the wrong people. If he inherits, he will sell the land piecemeal to pay them. He will evict your nieces, Eamon. He has said as much. He wants the Dower House for his kennels."
Eamon’s hand grips the armrest until his knuckles turn white. "I know. God help me, I know. But I have no son. The mines took him."
"There is another way," Jellema says. "Adopt an heir. A man of noble blood, approved by the Crown."
"Who?" Eamon spits. "One of Oskar’s favorites? Some velvet-clad fop who thinks a mine runs on magic and good wishes?"
"Kenric Finstaad," Jellema says.
Eamon freezes. He looks at Jellema. "Finstaad? The son of the traitor?"
"The son of a man who was executed for speaking the truth," Jellema corrects. "And a man who has spent the last year managing the most volatile asset in the kingdom without losing his head or his honor."
"He married that Fey creature," Eamon says, his voice suspicious. "The Witch of the Bank."
"He married a force of nature, Eamon," Jellema says. "And he didn't just survive her. He tempered her. Look at Varpua. Look at Dobile. The streets are paved. The granaries are full. The soldiers are paid. That is her gold, yes. But it is Kenric’s logistics."
Jellema leans forward.
"The Princess respects strength, but she listens to kindness. Kenric is the reason she hasn't burned the capital down. He is the stabilizer."
"And my girls?" Eamon asks, his voice trembling. "Sarah, Elin, little Rho? What happens to them if a Finstaad takes the chair?"
Ahhhh, Chapter 139....
a glorious, shimmering tapestry of Webbe’s suffering, Víl?’s weaponized diplomacy, Sander’s bureaucratic wrath, Kenric’s elegant competence, and Oskar’s ongoing commitment to being the kingdom’s most decorative bystander.
Let us unpack the delight:
From the very first line, Webbe steps forward like a man who has slept poorly, lived poorly, and—most crucially—budgeted poorly.
He tries to buy a ship.
He tries to look important.
He tries to pretend Riven hasn’t been haunting his shadow for days.
And then Sander Vane—sweet, calm, cherubic Sander—
financially vivisects him in front of half the city.
Numbers don’t lie.
And in this chapter, they punch.
By the time Sander finishes:
- Webbe has been exposed for unpaid soldiers ??
- Defaulted debts ??
- Mortgaged palaces ??
- And the tragic hubris of thinking his signature means anything ??
Víl? barely had to blink.
Sander reduced him to “high?risk borrower” with the gentleness of a guillotine.
Webbe, now desperate, tries to buy the sails.
Cash.
Gold.
Actual, physical coins.
He is shaking with indignation, hope, and desperation.
And Víl??
Oh, the way she tells him “your money is no good here” with the energy of a bartender refusing service to an intoxicated raccoon—
chef’s kiss.
She slaps him with:
- International trade law
- National security protocol
- A casual reminder that he threatened to enslave her
- And a refund that hits harder than a Quietus Baton
Webbe is left holding his own bag of returned coin like a man clutching the last remains of his dignity.
Watching Oskar in this chapter is like watching someone’s confused uncle make decisions at a yard sale:
- He sees something shiny
- He wants it
- He does not understand it
- He certainly cannot pilot it
- But he signs the paperwork anyway
Except the paperwork is a financed loan arranged by the Fey Bank.
Meaning:
Víl? just sold the King a ship he will take credit for but never actually own.
Oskar proudly declares,
“A flagship? For me?”
like a toddler receiving a toy he absolutely should not swallow.
Webbe is forced to witness this.
Live.
In public.
Surrounded by dockworkers eating stew and calling him Buttercup.
I could write songs about this.
He mounts his horse.
The shield bangs awkwardly against the saddle.
Dockworkers mock?toast him.
Riven watches like a wolf sizing up slow prey.
His political career doesn’t end here.
But his pride?
Oh, that’s gone.
Dust.
Ash.
Swept away like sawdust from a Quietus Baton test.
After the fireworks with Webbe, the chapter shifts into something quieter, heavier, more emotional—
a reminder that power isn’t just gold and glory…
it’s legacy.
Without spoiling, let’s just say:
- Kenric’s future is being carved
- Eamon is facing his past
- Jellema is doing the emotional heavy lifting
- And Stephen continues to be human mildew
Oskar, naturally, is not involved.
He smells too much like perfumed incompetence.
Chapter 139 is a triumph of:
- tactical humiliation
- fiscal brutality
- royal manipulation
- and quiet succession maneuvering
Víl? and Kenric end the chapter not as survivors, not as upstarts but as conquerors.
Webbe leaves broken.
The King leaves indebted.
The Guilds leave loyal.
And Oskar leaves thinking he accomplished something which is adorable, in the way raccoons are adorable when they break into your kitchen and ruin everything.
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