-Eland Talia-

  -after giving Callia the residential card-

  I watched the terrifying girl who ripped apart the elite guard squad with ease and let out a sigh of relief. Giving the girl access to the palace seemed like the most reasonable solution to getting her away from the inevitable retaliation and pursuit of the town guard, and while many guards were in the hands of corrupt powers, there were also men who joined with the intent of helping the commoners. It was best to avoid that massacre preemptively. I then called a messenger to inform the residence and my overbearing mother to make arrangements for her stay. Hoping Mother wouldn’t take interest, I kept the message as vague as possible.

  In the following days the majority of the Imperial Guard were busy carefully disposing of the mana generators that had been integrated into vital sectors of the city. The whole process would’ve been a nightmare to find a runemaster skilled enough yet unaffiliated with the Earthkin and willing, but our agents discovered an urgent message to the Earthkin embassy to facilitate the removal of all mana generators in the core of the city. While the possibility of a spy among our ranks revealing our discovery of the generators was concerning, the response from the earthkin was a promising compromise. We monitored their work for key threats to ensure they were removed, and we were able to subtly clear obstacles in giving the earthkin agents access to disarm the generators.

  You can never be sure what kind of angle the earthkin were playing, but the gesture was favorable enough for our official report regarding the matter to downplay the threat report from intentionally explosive engineering to accidentally explosive engineering. A political favor that we hoped the earthkin clans would understand. Judging from the sweat coming from the envoy when I shook his hand while smiling brightly and thanking him for his assistance in safely resolving the crisis, I think we were on the same page.

  With one crisis completed, I could finally turn my attention to the other crisis that was in part responsible for me renting an apartment outside the palace the last several days. Ser Callia of Port Town. Unfortunately, my vague letter had sparked her curiosity instead of slipping past her. Even more unfortunate was the budding relationship. How the girl switched so easily from ripping living men apart to smiling innocently at me was something that lingered in my nightmares. Just the other day I accidentally flinched when my secretary was delivering a report.

  Thinking about my secretary brought that whole issue back to mind. She disguised herself as a man because she was one of my most avid pursuers. She was actually the daughter of a baron in the South, but for some reason, she thought her disguise could convince anyone. Well, it did fool Roric for a month; the man spat out his coffee when he learned the real story. Still, she did good work and had her own form of discipline and diligence, which had earned her posting as my secretary. The closer she was to me, the more of a workaholic she became. Pulling up the first note from the stack of files, I saw a letter from Mom.

  It was an invitation from Mom to participate in the Port Town mayoral transfer ceremony. Mom had apparently decided to oversee the process. However, I still wasn’t sure what that would entail. Was it an honorary transfer, or did the group have a secondary candidate? I saw the explosion that had consumed the boy Callen, who was the original candidate. I set the letter aside and notified my secretary about the planned absence. Regardless of my feelings about the delusional, scary, and likely unstable Callia, perhaps this ceremony was the shove she needed to finish her visit to the capital and find closure in Callen’s passing. If worse comes to worst, Mom should easily handle any tantrum the girl throws.

  I settled in for a relatively slow day of office paperwork that follows major activities like the earthkin bomb bust. There were also the preparations I was tasked with in uprooting associates of the slaver who had been the start of my busy week. I busied myself in the work when cries of alarm resounded in the lower building. I clearly recognized men crying out “My Queen” and “Your Highness.” I couldn't imagine my stepmothers visiting, so it must've been a surprise visit from Mom. Regardless of the reason, my gut whispered it was a huge mess I was about to get wrapped up in. I waited for Mom to bust into my office, but instead of my room, she entered the captain's room.

  I blinked in shock as, for the first time in my living memory, Mom hadn’t come to visit me but my boss. My curiosity was sparked, and I carefully moved to my wall, listening in.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I would like to bring any volunteers among the knights of the imperial guard for an emergency reinforcement of a border village. Travel to and from will be instant.” The captain’s voice rang back clearly in the affirmative, and in a short time all eight knights of the imperial guard were present, myself included.

  “Follow.” Mom turned about, leading us back to the palace when I noticed something falling from above. A shrill scream from above rang out.

  “I WILL RIP YOU TO PIECES!” I recognized the voice but struggled to understand what could elicit that response from Queen Harlanou. However, it did draw my attention to the giant tree falling from the sky. Mom immediately picked up the pace, moving to the courtyard. As we got closer, another scream echoed out, “Seize her NOW!” Mom started moving so fast the slower knights on the team struggled to keep up. Moments later, we arrived at the courtyard, and a muffled scream echoed out of it. I looked in and saw Callia collapsing, bleeding from the various orifices of her body. Queen Harlanou wasted no time in grabbing the body even before it hit the ground. A completely manic expression, unlike her usual paranoia.

  Before I had time to even contemplate what her intention was, Mom burst forward, crashing through an invisible barrier, grabbing Harlanou by the face, and slamming her skull into the pavement. Callia limply fell to the ground as Mom used her other arm to crush Harlanou’s wrist. I noticed Harlanou squirming under Mom’s grasp, but her arm was desperately reaching for Callia. Mom carried her by the face away from Callia, only briefly turning to us and demanding.

  “Heal Callia now and then continue on to my audience chambers with the girl. I have business to resolve.”

  At that moment I remembered the real reason why Callia was so unsettling to me. It’s because her demeanor reminded me too much of Mom! Still, orders were given, and none of us were qualified or capable of restraining a pissed-off high noble. Borin, a knight and healer, immediately started treating Callia while we moved as a group to the Shifting Plate. Before we vanished, I heard the sound of something being repeatedly hammered into the ground. Memories of one of Mom’s punishments when I got too cocky for hitting level 100 surfaced. I did not envy stepmom, but I could empathize with her. Not that she didn’t deserve whatever was coming. It took a special kind of difficult to get Mom homicidally angry, like targeting me with assassins.

  We reached the chambers and found the chunks of what was previously a paladin sprayed out in front of a door in the middle of the room and a broken window. It wasn’t hard to recognize the chunks as the result of Queen Harlanou's evisceration spell. The woman had a tendency to be trigger-happy when servants displeased her. Still, it was hard to imagine her using it on a paladin; the woman usually had enough composure to leave important people alone. Without further guidance, we checked out the door, recognizing it as an affinity-type enchantment. Meaning we had to sit in place while Borin finished his treatment.

  “I’ve done everything I can, but she’ll likely need time to wake up. I estimate in the range of one or two hours.”

  Earthkin Embassy

  Ambassador Ferrous felt incredibly flustered when a priority message from the grand council arrived. Ever since he facilitated the installation of explosives throughout the city, he dreaded the day he received a message like this. In his opinion taking an action like this was just a single step shy of launching an invasion, and as ambassador to that nation, he would likely get left for dead. With trembling hands he opened the letter and sighed in relief as it didn’t contain the secret code to activate the explosive. Instead, the visible part of the message was instructions to have all “defective generators maintained,” and in hidden runes was a secondary instruction regarding the imminent arrival of a person of the highest priority. Callen of Port Town and his companions were to be aided at every opportunity without directly reaching out.

  He was to let the humans alienate the boy with their tallism and xenophobia but be ready to step in and shield the boy under diplomatic immunity if necessary. In preparation for his arrival, all mana generators needed to be disarmed. The boy's perception was extremely keen, and his knowledge more than sufficient to recognize the purpose of the generators. Maintaining relations with the boy was a higher priority than maintaining contingency plans in the capital.

  Ferrous felt even more relieved than he expected. Not only would he get to remove the most stressful aspect of his stay in the capital, but soon he would get to meet a human considered extremely precious by the grandmasters. He called in his men and immediately sent them to disarm all of the mana generators. It was a political nightmare smoothing the visits and getting his agents access, but despite that, in the end, nearly every owner was distracted or convinced. A complete success, but as he finished, he was invited by the captain of the imperial guard for an award ceremony. The topic was the successful and quiet maintenance of the explosion problem on the mana generators. The way the vice captain congratulated him carried all the weight of blackmail. Somehow despite their careful efforts, the Imperial Guard had caught on to the bombs, but because they had taken initiative in their removal, the matter was being dropped.

  Ferrous silently swore to never get on the Imperial Guard's bad side so long as he worked as ambassador and even planned to leave a detailed document to his eventual successor warning them the same. He thought he had done an excellent job keeping the issue quiet, but he had severely underestimated the humans. It seemed even the grand council had underestimated them as well. A complete reevaluation was necessary on all levels. He penned an urgent notice of such and sent it off to the council.

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