Chapter 278: Regret Came Too Late

Regret swept through the Second Legion. It made little difference now whether a Lord had helped arrange the split or merely followed orders. They could all see what their choice had cost them.

"Why did we join this damned Legion?"

"We wouldn’t even have had to do anything! Stand with the First, stay out of their way, and we’d have the same rewards. We got sixty percent extra. They got six times everything!"

"And ten National Fortune! That’s the first-place reward for the Provincial Ranking!"

"The Council ruined us. Those idiots threw away our future!"

"They were going to isolate Divine Province, weren’t they? Look at the result. We’re the ones left outside!"

Malcolm stared at the furious messages. He had never imagined an outcome like this. His own disappointment was bad enough; being made to answer for everyone else’s would be worse.

He hurried to give them another target.

[Malcolm: Calm down. Think about how this happened. Cassian has a great deal to answer for.]

[Malcolm: Even if we excluded him, couldn’t he have put the Homeworld first? Was accepting a little unfairness really too much to ask? If he’d disclosed the properties of his Mythic artifact, we would naturally have welcomed him back.]

Nerissa seized on the argument.

[Nerissa Vaust: Exactly. We wanted to teach him restraint, for his own good. Talent needs discipline. Instead, he chose to hurt everyone. After all that, this is how he repays us?]

Her indignation hid a growing fear.

For a century, the Black Banner had worked through the Jade Court to hold the Crown down. The arrangement had served them well. Now a single young Lord threatened to undo it.

Riftward Marches already stood foremost among the Crown’s Marches. Give it six times the resources, give Cassian a few years to develop, and even a descent from the upper Realms might no longer be enough to stop him.

Fortunately, the Jade Court still claimed to speak for the Crown. On the question of Cassian, it and the Black Banner wanted precisely the same thing.

Every possible ally had to be brought together. Cassian had to die, and those thirteen Provinces had to be taken from him.

For the Lords who had been forced into the Second Legion, her words were the final insult.

[Have you no shame at all?]

[You drove him out. Now he’s at fault for leaving?]

[I must have been blind to join you!]

Yet Nerissa soon found cause for relief. Plenty of Lords accepted the excuse, particularly among the western Champions who had already begun imagining what they could take.

[Malcolm has a point. Cassian bears considerable responsibility.]

[He’s young. Let’s give him a chance to make amends. Sharing the thirteen Crown Provinces would be a good start.]

[Those resources belong to the whole Homeworld. Free Will asks for only one Province.]

[Corven Talcrest: On behalf of the Jade Court, I support these reasonable requests. We ask only that Divine Province be left to us.]

Cassian had judged them correctly. They knew perfectly well what they were doing. Sixfold resources were enough to make the last scraps of decency inconvenient.

——

Most Homeworld Lords had stopped watching long before the rankings ended. There were monsters to hunt and fields to tend. Only a few had stayed to see who would win.

The final announcement gave them something worth shouting about.

"First! The Homeworld took first in the Legion Contest! Six times the resources!"

"The First Legion!" a Black Banner Lord snarled. "Why them? Why couldn’t it have been the Second? Why—"

Blood spilled from his mouth.

"Lord Torvik!"

Elsewhere, a Lord who had only just left Hidden Dragon was openly sobbing.

"Let me come back. Please. I’ll come straight back!"

Within seconds, the news filled the Homeworld Channel.

Divine Province’s officials could barely contain themselves. Some had to read the announcement several times before they trusted their own eyes. Then the joy that had left them speechless found its voice.

[Where are the people mocking the First Legion?]

[The ones laughing at our thirteen Provinces?]

[Come out! Tell us again what you think of Boss Cassian!]

Three challenges. Not one answer.

For three days, they had endured sneers, insults, and invitations to abandon the people they trusted. Every attempt to defend Cassian had brought more laughter.

Now the mockers were silent.

Several officials were crying. Even men who would have laughed at the thought earlier that morning wiped their faces as they stared at the golden announcement.

The news spread beyond the battlefields. Within minutes, it had reached the Homeworld itself and the upper Realms.

First in the Individual Contest had already seemed impossible. First in the Legion Contest too?

Aveline broke another desk in her Steward’s office.

At the southern provincial military command, the senior officers demanded confirmation again and again. When there could be no doubt, those old soldiers wept.

In Sector 428, Celestine had just finished praising the Second Legion’s result.

"Yes, the Homeworld has paid a price. So has the Crown. But if Divine Province is held back, that price is worth paying."

Then she received the next announcement.

The thirteen Crown Provinces had won.

"I—"

She coughed up blood.

"Your Majesty! Someone fetch the physicians!"

Her palace dissolved into panic.

Everyone spoke of wanting a prosperous Homeworld. The difficulty began when someone else was about to become its strongest power. For some of its rulers, a weaker civilization was preferable to one in which they no longer held control.

Secret meetings began across the great factions. Free Will, the Concord Society, and the Skull faction in Western Beacon. The Arthur, Tudor, and Plantagenet groups of the Golden Lion. The Peacock family, the Brahman Order, and the Primal Mystics of Bharan. The Black Banner’s Vaust, Ravenscar, and Tervain houses.

The victory had been announced only minutes ago. Already, the powers threatened by it were gathering behind closed doors.

——

Third Realm. Highcrest.

Edran sat without moving.

So his suspicion had been right. Darian had not spent his vitality calling for aid for nothing. The boy’s Legion really had achieved something.

But first place?

Edran knew exactly what the Five Elements Formation could do. He had allocated a hundred billion Aether to his son to sustain it. Even so, it was a defensive formation. How had that become a victory over every Legion in the contest?

"Were this year’s Champions really so weak?"

Even Cassian had not expected to win when the contest began. Edran, watching from another Realm, had far less reason to expect it.

Then he started laughing.

"I wonder what those two will say now."

He captured the ranking announcement and sent it to the private group he shared with the Sovereign of Caerwyn and House Valcrest’s founder.

Once, five Crown rulers had belonged to that group. After the founding rulers of the Aurelian Dominion and the Jade Court ascended, their successors had declined with each generation. Eventually, Edran had lost patience and removed both powers from it.

The Sovereign of Caerwyn answered first.

[That is an obvious fake. Who generated this image for you?]

The Valcrest founder was only a moment behind him.

[It’s real! Damn it, it’s actually real! How did those little bastards do it?]

Another message followed immediately.

[A slip of the tongue, elder brother. House Frost’s children are wonderful. All the little bastards are mine.]

Edran was in too good a mood to argue. After enjoying the other two rulers’ astonishment for a while, he turned his attention back to his son.

"Merrick. Prepare a vessel for my descent. I’m going to see my nineteenth."

The steward stiffened.

"Yes, my lord."

——

Five minutes left very little time for celebration.

While waiting for the ranking, nobody had been in the mood to take pictures. Now Darian, Elara, and Nessa were hurrying from one spot to another, trying to fit the Five Elements Temple into their photographs. Seraphine was just as busy.

Cassian glanced from the Wonder to the ranking scroll overhead.

"Finish up. We’re nearly out of time."

"You aren’t taking any?" Seraphine asked. "It’s a World Wonder, Cassian. Most people never get to see one in their lives. Come here. I’ll take a picture for you."

"It’s one World Wonder. There’ll be others."

She studied his relaxed expression. Then her own turned thoughtful.

"So that’s how someone truly strong looks at it."

With sudden resolve, she deleted the photographs she had just taken.

Nessa was still staring up at the top of the Temple.

"I wanted one beside the orb." Her shoulders drooped. "There’s no time."

The sphere stood more than ten thousand meters above them. Flying there alone would take longer than the entire five-minute countdown.

Elara sighed too. Once they were forced out of Fivefold Heaven, the opportunity would be gone.

[10... 9... 8... 7...]

"We spent three days building it," Darian said. "I almost don’t want to leave."

The others nodded. Cassian raised a hand.

"Goodbye!"

They gave him puzzled looks, but waved back.

The countdown ended. Golden light swept across the ground, carrying away the Lords and their Domains.

Cassian remained.

He lowered his hand.

"All right, time for pictures! Aurelia, take one of me first."