The ceiling above me was carved stone with faint knotwork around the edges. Light spilled in through high, thin windows, soft and gold instead of the harsh bars you got through a barracks shutter. My room in this same castle wasn’t too bad, but this one surely was a higher grade of luxury.
Despite all that, the Valtherian princess sprawled half across my chest pleased me more than all the riches in this room.
Ragna’s hair was a red mess on my shoulder, one leg thrown over my waist, arm slung across my ribs. She’d drooled on me at some point. It felt weirdly domestic for a woman who used to yell that she’d cave my head in for fun.
On my other side, in a chair instead of the bed, sat Isolde. Her hair was down, darkened by a recent wash, falling over one shoulder in a loose wave. She wore a simple robe instead of the layers of silk she wore for the court, bare feet tucked under her.
The Crown sat on her head as always, humming with energy.
She held a cup of tea with both hands and was trying very hard to pretend she hadn’t been watching me sleep. Her grip tightened when our eyes met. A flush crept up from her collarbone to her cheeks.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Depends who you ask,” I said. My voice came out rough from overuse. My body felt pleasantly wrecked in ways that had nothing to do with sparring.
Ragna mumbled something into my chest, rolled, and blinked awake. Her eyes took in the ceiling, the room, Isolde with a cup, then me.
“Oh,” she said, grin slowly pulling at her mouth. “So all that wasn’t a nightmare.”
“Unfortunately,” Isolde muttered into her tea, which was a lie and we both knew it.
Ragna pushed herself up on her elbows, hair sticking in every direction. “Look at the Queen,” she said, squinting at Isolde. “Can’t even hold a cup steady after one proper night.”
“My hands are perfectly steady,” Isolde said. A little tea sloshed over the rim.
Ragna laughed. “In the bath you were screaming loud enough to scare the lion heads. If not for the sound wards, half of Solstara would have known exactly why their Queen valued the barbarians so much.”
Isolde went scarlet. “Ragna!”
“What?” Ragna said. “It’s not a bad thing. If anything, I’m proud. You lasted longer than some Valtherian men from what I’ve seen.”
“That is not a standard we needed to set,” I said.
Isolde made a noise halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “This is such a strange situation.”
“You like it that way,” Ragna said. She swung her legs off the bed and stretched, joints popping. She moved like she’d done hard training, which wasn’t far from the truth.
“I’m going to find breakfast before the kitchen is out of meat,” she announced. “If you start whispering sappy things, do it fast. I get bored when conversations don’t end with someone punched.”
She threw on a local Thalassarian shirt, waved the sleeves at us, and padded out of the chamber like she owned the place.
The room felt quieter after the latch clicked.
Isolde set her cup down carefully, as if it had turned into something fragile. For a second she only watched the light on her own bare toes.
“I have to sit in the hall soon,” she notified me. “There’s already a line of people who want things I can’t give them.”
“Occupational hazard,” I provided. I shifted against the pillows, feeling muscles complain in a good way. “How do you feel?”
She thought about it, then gave a half-shrug which wasn’t very Queenly. “Like someone dropped three different lives on my lap and told me to juggle with them,” she tried to explain. “Happy, of course. But a little tired too. And… a little more afraid than yesterday. But I don’t regret any of it.” Her eyes slid back to my face. “Do you?”
“No,” I said. “If I did, I wouldn’t have stayed when you asked me to.”
She let out a small breath.
“I keep thinking about all the ways power rots people,” she said quietly. “About kings and queens who took what and who they wanted because they could. I don’t want to be that.”
“Lady, stop thinking of me as a victim, I’m a Barbarian, I know how to have what I want to have,” I said. “And no, you’re not that type of Queen. You told me what you felt and risked looking foolish. That’s the opposite of what your brother did with every decision he made.”
The corner of her mouth twitched at the mention of Kaelan.
“But as I said, I’m not exactly weak-willed,” I added. “If I didn’t want this, I’d be in the barracks shower pretending the royal bath didn’t exist. Why are you having doubts about whether a man likes having two beauties for himself or not? You ought to be wiser than that.”
She smiled at that, a real one this time.
“Good,” she said. “I’d hate to think you were just… swept along.”
Is it because this body is just eighteen? She’s awfully worried. “Barbarians don’t get swept,” I said. “We wade in. Or we don’t.”
She glanced down at my chest where faint red crescents from her nails still marked the skin and looked quickly away, ears going pink.
“I should change,” she said. “Put on proper clothes. The crown doesn’t like being quiet for too long, it loves when I do Royal stuff.”
“Enjoying quality time with your man is royal stuff too, in my opinion, try teaching it that,” I said. “But you’re right. Go do your Queen stuff. I’ll come watch so I can feel a little reassured that I’m not abandoning you to idiots.”
“You’re not,” she said. “Even if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t let it fall apart.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I can leave.”
She stood, smoothing the robe reflexively, Crown already humming a little louder in excitement. Did that thing really have a mind of its own?
“At least pretend to be dressed when you come to the hall,” she said over her shoulder.
“I’ll wear a towel,” I said. “That seems to work wonders so far.”
The sound she made might have been a laugh. Then she let out a breath and squared her shoulders, and the woman who’d just been flustered in a bath vanished behind the Queen I’d helped put back on a throne.
****
The audience hall felt different when you weren’t the one receiving rewards and titles in it. Banners in Thalassaria’s blue and silver hung fresh and straight. Light filtered down from high windows, catching dust motes and the faint shimmer of wards.
Isolde sat the throne without fidgeting now. Crown on her head, a sturdy Mage’s staff at her side, Marius on one flanking chair and Valtor standing like an overly armed pillar on the other. Yasafina watched from near a column, hands folded behind her back, every inch of her ready for any possible threat.
Compared to our first meeting, the dark-skinned lioness somehow took everything more seriously. Which was nice. She was too strict to be fun, but I enjoyed her company, and would love to see her around for longer. If she reached Level 100, 7th Ascension, she’d earn a couple more decades to her life.
I stood along the wall with Ragna, who’d already eaten and was now chewing on a strip of something dried she’d smuggled in. A clerk’s voice echoed off the stone.
“…dispute between the Guild of Grain Factors and the Dockers’ Association…”
Two men stepped forward. One had the tidy beard and careful clothes of a guildmaster, fingers glittering with modest rings. The other looked like he’d spent most of his years hauling ropes and shouting in storms.
They bowed. The guildmaster spoke first, of course.
“Your Majesty,” he said in a smooth voice. “Our guild was ordered by the late king’s council to prepare and maintain emergency grain warehouses throughout the drought. We did so at great expense, trusting the Crown’s word that levies would be eased. Now, with imports resuming, the dockers refuse to accept our new storage rates. Without them, we cannot recoup our losses. We risk bankruptcy.”
“The rates are three times what they were, Your Majesty,” the docker cut in, anger barely banked. Somehow, the anger was directed to both the guildmaster and Isolde, which took me by surprise. Few dares to show negativity toward the new Queen.
“Even so, the guild has done its work during harsh times. Shouldn’t that much be allowed?” Isolde pointed out.
The docker looked frustrated. “But we live on trade and fish, how can we cover that, Your Majesty? We unload ships all night, my men sleep on wet planks, and if we pay what they demand, I have to cut wages to the bone. They say pass the cost to captains. Captains will just go to Velandria and leave our people hungry. They took advantage of Kaelan banning private imports and now act like it’s a favor.”
Kaelan again. His shadow really didn’t know when to stop. Although the man had worn the crown for little time, he’d been operating the kingdom during Asharion’s illness, so the effects were broader than one might expect.
Isolde listened without interrupting.
Her face didn’t show much, but I’d spent enough time watching her to see the small things. Initially, she seemed to favor the guildmaster, but the more she heard, the more I thought she leaned toward the docker. I noticed the slight tightening of her jaw when “trusting the Crown’s word” came up; the way her fingers flexed once on the armrest when Kaelan’s decree was mentioned.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Guildmaster Teren,” she said eventually. “What exactly did my father’s council promise you in return for preparing those warehouses?”
“A reduced levy on guild profits for five years,” he said promptly. “In writing. Signed and sealed. We have not seen a single copper of that reduction.”
“And yet you kept the warehouses ready,” she noted.
“Because we are loyal,” he said. “And because we believed the Crown would honor its pledge.”
“Dockmaster Joren,” she turned. “If I ordered the guild to return to the old rates entirely, what would you do?”
He met his own boots for a second, then looked up. “We’d pay them,” he said. “Same as before. We just don’t want to be skinned alive on top of breaking our backs.”
She nodded once.
Her finger snapped, and mana surged.
A thin pane of glass shimmered into being between the dais and the petitioners. It hung upright like a window. At first it was cloudy, then it cleared to show a slightly warped reflection of the two men.
“Speak to yourselves,” Isolde said. “Not to me. Let the Mirror listen.”
The docker frowned at his own face but didn’t back away. The guildmaster looked like someone had just handed him a live viper.
“Guildmaster,” Isolde said. “Tell yourself why you set the new rates where you did.”
Teren swallowed, stared at his reflection and said, “Because the risk is greater now. We don’t know when other sources will dry up. We must–”
His mirror-self shook its head slowly. The real Teren flinched as if slapped.
“Your reflection disagrees. Don’t lie to yourself. Again,” Isolde said, voice cool.
I hadn’t seen her use this spell before, so it must be something she unlocked after reaching 6th Ascension. A lie detector was a must in a court like this.
He tried to hedge a few more times until he realized all credibility had been lost. In the end, under the whispers of nobles and merchants, he finally gave up. “Because we had the only space ready when Kaelan outlawed private imports,” he said to his own eyes. “And I saw a chance to profit. If we set it high now, we could lower it later and still gain.”
The reflection nodded. The hall muttered.
“Dockmaster Joren,” Isolde said. “If I ruled entirely in your favor including old rates, and no levy changes, what would you do about your men’s wages?”
He looked at his own reflection like it might bite him. “I’d keep them the same,” he said slowly. “If I don’t have to bleed silver into warehouses, there’s no reason to take it from them. Maybe buy them better boots.”
His mirror-self tilted its head once, then agreed.
The glass pane dissolved a heartbeat later, folding back into faint light that ran along the Crown’s edge.
“Teren,” Isolde said. “You took on a risk at the Crown’s request and did not receive what was promised. For that, you are owed. You also used that to try to wring blood from people who have none to spare. For that, you are… less owed.”
A few nobles shifted. Ragna snickered quietly beside me.
“Here is my ruling,” she continued. “For the next three years, the guild will charge the old rates for grain storage. The Crown will reduce your levies by half for the same period, on condition that Marquis Goldhaven’s auditors may review your books. If you have been fair, the reduction stands. If you have been creative, we will revisit this with irons.”
Teren looked like he’d bitten into something sour, but he bowed. “As you command, Your Majesty.”
“Joren,” she said. “You will pay the old rates, sign a binding contract to that effect, and provide your men with one hot meal at the end of each double shift while this crisis lasts. If the Crown finds you cheating them, you and Teren can debate fairness from neighboring cells.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, relief obvious in the way his shoulders slumped.
I started clapping for her, which got me looks, before people awkwardly started clapping too because the barbarian hero had done it. Nobody clapped in court, but I was starting to love the feeling of breaking rules.
That was one problem. There were more. Captains demanding extra pay for dangerous routes, a bailiff skimming coin off fines, a priest wanting funds to rebuild a shrine on land three families claimed. And more. Turns out, most of a Queen’s time went by in solving problems rather than enjoying her hot bath. Isolde worked through them, sometimes pulling a Mirror up, sometimes not needing one.
She said yes when she could. She said no more often than people liked. She never said “come back when I’m less tired.”
Once, between petitioners, her gaze drifted to where I stood. Her eyes asked a question she didn’t voice.
Good? they said.
Good, I answered with a small jerk of my chin.
She turned back to the hall and kept ruling with a smile.
When the clerk’s voice finally cracked and the line had thinned, I slipped out before someone decided to drag me into a new argument. She didn’t need me there to balance ledgers and state who owned what piece of dirt. She had enough spine for that herself.
Before yesterday, it didn’t matter much. Now it did. It made leaving easier.
****
The lower gardens wrapped around the palace in terraces, a mix of manicured hedges and stubborn wild growth that had survived Kaelan’s neglect. Evening light turned the stone warm and the sea beyond the walls into a sheet of burnished metal.
I leaned on a balustrade overlooking one of the practice yards where a squad ran spear drills. Their sergeant barked orders I could almost have recited myself.
Footsteps, lighter than a soldier’s, crunched on the gravel behind me.
“I see you found the best view,” Isolde said, coming to stand beside me.
“I thought the best view was in the bath,” I argued.
Color rose in her cheeks again. “That is… a different kind of view. Can you please stop mentioning it?”
We stood in silence for a moment, looking out over Solstara. Smoke from cook fires curled up in a dozen different quarters. The harbor masts made a dark forest against the fading sky.
“The Teleportation Circle is ready,” she said eventually. “My best magic engineers have triple-checked the sigils. The mages drew enough power to wake the old stones. You can reach their first city in one jump. From there, it’ll be two more transfers and a ride along the border road to Ethenia. I’ve already conveyed orders to the first city’s station, so you won’t need to spend more than ten minutes there.”
I pondered over that. The time had come. “I think tomorrow morning is a good time.”
“Yes.” She held the word like it weighed something. “Tomorrow, if you choose to.”
“You keep saying that like I might decide to stay and open a bakery, my dearest Princess,” I said.
“You could,” she said. “People would line up just to see you swing a loaf. And it’s Queen now, you already corrected yourself last time.”
“Can’t I call you my princess?” I asked, and she closed her eyes.
“You didn’t use to talk like this before, but I should have known that mouth of yours is capable,” she muttered before smiling. “A part of me wishes you would, really, open a bakery,” she admitted. “Or something else. Be my Stormblade, scare nobles at my side, keep Ragna from punching ambassadors.”
“I’d be good at two of those,” I said.
“But if I asked that,” she went on, “I’d be asking you to walk away from your mother and the glorious spirit of your people. I don’t have the right.”
“You really have lovely qualities, Isolde,” I said.
She looked at me sideways. “Such as what?”
“Such as not grabbing because you’re scared you’ll lose something,” I said. “That puts you ahead of most rulers in the stories. And history.”
“Hm.” She rested her arms on the stone. The Crown hummed softly on her head. “Will you write?”
“As a barbarian, you should assume I’m bad at that,” I said.
“Don’t lie. Besides, I have a cheat,” she murmured, lifting a hand.
A small square of light formed above her palm, then firmed into a glass framed in silver. Its surface was blank until she brushed it; then our tiny distorted reflections appeared.
“New Skill,” she said. “Mirror Communication. I can link two. Write on one, the words appear on the other. If you use mana, only I see it. If you use ink, anyone with eyes can. Pick your poison.”
She conjured a twin and pressed it into my hand. Cold at first, then warming as my mana brushed it.
“This way,” she added, “if you find a dragon in Ethenia or a clue about your mother or some ridiculous new scar, you can tell me without waiting on ships.”
Mages used Mana. Knights, or in a broader sense, brawlers, used Aura. It was the same thing, from what I knew, except Mana came from the center of the chest, circling outside the heart, while Aura circled within. Aura was much more aggressive compared to Mana, too. Thankfully I learned how to be gentle with it in a very peculiar situation, or maybe the Mantle helped, but I could focus it on a finger.
I dragged a fingertip across the glass. A faint line of light followed, forming an ugly attempt at my name. The same ugly attempt appeared in her mirror.
“This is… texting,” I muttered.
“Is that an insult?” she asked.
“Ah, no it’s a term, take it as a compliment,” I said.
“Hey guys!” Ragna’s arrival was announced by the sound of someone finishing chewing before talking. “Oh, more toys,” she said, eyeing the mirror in my hand. “Did the Queen give you a shiny without giving me one?”
“Yes,” I said. “She hates you, it seems.”
Isolde quickly conjured another pair with a sigh and handed one over. Ragna traced a crude wolf on it; the same wolf scratched itself on Isolde’s copy.
“This is…” It took Ragna a moment to believe. “This is so fun!” She burst out into a laugh, her face bright. “Now I can tell you when Thorvyn is being stupid even from another continent.”
“I look forward to it,” Isolde said with a smile.
Ragna tucked the mirror somewhere in the shirt she’d stolen and turned her face to the west where the light was fading.
“So, when are we leaving?” she asked.
I watched the same light. “Tomorrow.”
She grinned, sharp and eager. “New lands, new monsters, new stories. Maybe new dragons. If they don’t have any dragons, I’m turning around.”
“I promise nothing,” I said. “But Ethenia has many millennia of history. I’m sure we’ll find something worth hitting.”
Isolde’s fingers brushed the back of my hand briefly where it rested on the stone, a light touch that would look like nothing to anyone watching from afar.
“Just… make sure to come back with more than trouble,” she said. “Scars and stories. Not just a name someone reads off in a temple. The Trials will be harsh.”
“I’ll aim for that,” I said. “Dying in a Trial arena sounds a boring way to go.”
She smiled, soft and small. “And if you meet someone in Ethenia who thinks they can claim you away from me…”
Ragna snorted. “I’ll deal with them, don’t worry,” she said. “You can rely on me. But nah, he’ll be too busy dealing with his mother, the Trials, the remaining Black Concord, and whatever else wants a bite.”
“Sounds like a long list,” I said.
“I thought rulers like lists,” Ragna said. “They keep you thinking you’re in control.”
I looked out at the city one last time. The rooftops, the harbor, the cracked places Isolde had half-mended. A girl who’d once clutched a jewel in Seagard now wore a Crown and ruled from the same hall where her undead father had sat. A Valtherian princess who’d once called me Thorvyn the Weakling now called me hers with a straight face.
Who’d have known this world would be so fun? I pulled up my Status.
°°°°°°
Name: Thorvyn Valteria
Age: 18 years
Race: Barbarī??
Mana: 7200/7200
Level: 55 | 08% EXP
°°°
Class: Draconis Stormborn
Class Level: [3/10]
Class Skills:
- Elemental Fury [Passive]
- Tempest Strike [Active]
- Dragon’s Eye [Passive]
- Storm Call [Active]
- Thunderclap Crash [Active]
- Storm Sovereign’s Edict [Active]
°°°
Bloodline Ability:
- Valtherian Physique – [A?]
- Osmotic Evolution – [X]
- Royal Mantle of Valteria – [A]
- LOCKED – [?]
General Skills:
- Endure – [C]
- Slam – [C]
- Leap – [C]
°°°°°°
I’d come a long way, overthrowing a kingdom and making a Queen. And yet the Valtherian Physique hadn’t reached its truest rank. I wondered how far it’d go.
“Can’t believe I tangled myself with a whole kingdom’s history,” I said. “Now I’ve got to stay alive just to keep my reputation.”
“See that you do,” Isolde giggled.
Ragna bumped her shoulder against mine. We stood there until the sun dipped and the lamps in the courtyards below flared to life. Tomorrow there’d be circles and humming stones and a jump that would throw us halfway across the continent.
West was waiting
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