Herald of Steel

In Adhanian parties, it was customary for elder lords to praise young ladies wearing their mother’s or grandmother’s jewelry and saying how she looked just like them.

This would be then followed by some exaggerated recount of how the man remembered seeing them for the first time and reminiscing how long time has passed since then, thus drawing attention to the long time their families had known each other.

And such things happened with the Queen Mother as well.

Alozmer had gifted her with some very precious royal heirlooms, with one of them even belonging to multiple generations of queens going back almost two centuries.

Hence it tore her heart to pawn even a single one of them. She felt she was committing some kind of sacrilege against the royal family.

Not to mention all the accompanying guilt of how she was going to explain all this to Ptolomy.

The only excuse she could think of right now was claiming that much of her jewellry had been looted by the Thesian mercenaries when they had raided the palace.

As for whether he believed her… well that was another matter. After all, it was too strange that the Queen Mother had stayed quite about such a huge loss for so many years. Logically, she was expected to speak up.

However, now that Alexander was offering her his filthy rich hands, most of such worries appeared to have been solved. Till now, the Queen Mother could still get away with the limited pieces she had ‘lost’.

Hence she was just about to graciously accept Alexander’s generous offer with a glowing face when her dear friend, Lady Inayah, suddenly stepped forward to ruin her day,

“I do not think that is a wise idea, my lord. People will talk.” She pointedly proposed, flattering her lips, “Once before Seelima was only lightly helped by Pasha Farzah. It was really nothing by itself but even just that was enough to cause quite an immense stir in the court. If not for Alozmer single handedly quashing those voices down, I even fear Seelima might have lost her rank.”

The lady’s voice shook with slight trepidation as she said this was clear, something that surprised Alexander. He truly did not think it was a big deal, as such ‘lobbying’ was as natural as breathing in his previous world’s most powerful country.

And it was perhaps sensing this skepticism that Lady Inayah’s tone suddenly changed to a sort of erudite, edifying type, deciding to give Alexander a small lesson on their history,

“Lord Alexander, I would do you very well to remember that we nobles absolutely detest anyone putting such overt influence on the royal family. We learned this great lesson from history- anytime this happenes, it always leads to all sorts of meddling, chaos and eventually war.”

“It starts with one family trying to cozy up to the royal family, slowly becoming very powerful. Then they work to slowly erode everyone else’s influence in court, and finally they wish to replace the royal family for themselves.”

“When they try to do really do this, it leads to a full fledged war with everyone else and huge loss of life and material.”

“This set of events has happened over and over again in Adhania history, until we collectively decided to ban this practice the last time it happened. That was when the previous family that ruled Adhania got destroyed.”

As Lady Inayah alluded to that important part of their history, there was a clear change in the sharpness of her voice, the edge of it becoming much sharper. It was like she was subconsciously urging Alexander to be wary of the consequences.

“The previous royal family, over generations, had allowed themselves to become diluted, constantly selling themselves to the highest bidder, until brothers, uncles, and sons all found themselves standing opposite of each other, each faction supported by their army of retainers.”

“This soon and inevitably led to was and what an unimaginable war it was! The whole thing lasted for a whole sixty years and by the time it ended, we were so devastated that it nearly shattered our lands. I believe it was only through the direct divine grace of Lord Ramuh that we were saved us from simply disappearing.”

“We were so devastated in fact that we don’t even have an exact death toll for it. Some estimates put it as high as half the populace of the country died, but a much more reasonable number say it was around a fifth, with more than half of the adult male being dead via battle, starvation or disease.”

“And it was from those remaining ashes that the current Adhanian royal family clawed out of as the ultimate victors… no survivor.”

“They were formerly the stewards of Adhan, and as the majority of the former royal family was off fighting all the ‘rebels’, a death defying plague hit the capital, killing most of the remaning royals and thus letting Ptolomy’s ancestors take the throne through regency.”

“Then with some clever politics, the rest of the male survivors of the royal family were dealt with and thus finally, as the ones with the thickest connection to the throne out of all remaining noble families, and given they held the capital, they got the prized crown.”

As Lady Inayah finished her recount, Alexander had to put some effort into keeping a straight face. Because although he did not doubt the first part of her speech, the latter parts were highly dubious. And it was clear to see why he thought like that.

A plague that mysteriously hit just at the right time, and then oh so conveniently killed only the royal families while leaving Ptolomy’s family safe.

Alexander was pretty sure ‘plague’ was simply a euphemism for something much more sinister. It was just dressed up like that to make it pretty for the history books and give the current ruling family much more legitimacy.

And speaking of history books, it should be noted that Adhanians were really proud of their history. They claimed to have two thousand years of uninterrupted recount of all that has happened within these lands, so Alexander also did not dare poke Lady Inayah with his doubts regarding their authenticity.

More so also because much of the board strokes were indeed authentic, that great war indeed happened and many of the events were indeed horrific. Its scars were so deep that sometimes it was visible even to this day, for example- some remote villages have remained abandoned to this day, having turned into ghost graveyards.

Alexander had also once tried to read out this interesting period of history out of curiosity but quickly put it down the books after finding that it was so full of plots, schemes, backstabs and political shenemianges that his head hurt just to try and keep track of it all.

So many names were thrown all around the place haphazardly with no regard for the reader, so many of them sounded so similar that many got easily confused and so many of the nobles’ actions seemed so utterly bizarre without additional context that perhaps existed in a completely different book.

No one had tried to make sense of that great conflict in a smooth chronological order thus Alexander felt he was like a fish swimming in pitch dark water. So even though he was quite interested in that period of history, he decided to shelve the topic for now, promising to get back to it when his Azhak was better.

Hence it really helped for the black lady to summarise the whole thing so succinctly.

Once again, it showed how erudite a woman she was and that her title of ‘Royal Tutor’ was well earned.

In addition, it also opened Alexander’s eyes to the fact that one could not always navigate his way through the complex world of Adhanian politics with logic alone. Because everyone’s logic was different, as it was formed via previous experiences and contexts.

Thus you really needed a guide, a teacher to show you the way.

Alexander was very grateful to the lady for her free service, and frankly expressed so, “I see. I never thought about it like that, my lady. Thank you.”

Before turning to pose to the Queen Mother ruminatively, “Your Highness, what do you suggest we do now?”

“….” If there was one loser amidst this frank exchange, it was Seelima, and the proof was clear for all to see- the face that had been glowing just a while ago now had now gone pitch black, like someone had switched off the lights.

And finally, in response to Alexander’s question, the regal lady clenched her fists and slowly gritted out, “That was then! Now it is different! We are at war. Perhaps…”

The Queen Mother was really, really reluctant to let go of this lifeline, not when she had found it after so long and when she was so close to having it. Thus her eyes blazed with determination as she turned to look at her friend.

“Seeli… No! Just… don’t. Trust on this. It will do you more harm than good.”

But although it really hurt her heart to deny her desperate friend, Lady Inayah still gritted her teeth and gave the negative answer.

Her family had been part of that great war, and being part of the nobility knew the kind of hatred the elites had for another of such things. This would be a really bad move in her mind.

Not to mention,

“Alexander has also just gotten out of trouble with Nanazin. That matter is not even settled yet. Let’s not give our enemies even more arrows in their quivers.”

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