The Vampire & Her Witch

Empire.

The word hung heavy in the air of a Great Hall that had just received a reminder of the fall of the last great empire to rule over humanity. None had dared to call themselves an empire since the fall of the Empire of Endless Waves lest they invoke the specter of the Age of Chaos. But now, Ashlynn had just declared that they needed a new empire...

The word meant something else to the Eldritch people in the room, and High Lord Dirar looked from Ashlynn to Nyrielle in a rare moment of naked surprise when he heard the word.

”Your Eternity,” Dirar said after taking a deep breath to compose his thoughts. ”Do you mean to challenge Makya of the Thousand Spires for the throne of the Eldritch Emperor?”

For close to three hundred years, Makya of the Soaring Clan had ruled the Thousand Spires as the Eldritch Emperor, but he restricted his domain to the arid lands around the Thousand Spires themselves. He’d transformed his domain into a refuge for the smallest clans, and for the broken, displaced losers of power struggles across the Eldritch world, gathering a powerful if eclectic nation around himself in a place few would have wanted to settle.

In all that time, Makya had defeated every challenger who came to contest for the throne of the Eldritch Emperor, but Dirar had never heard of a Great Witch or a True Vampire challenging him for his throne. Moreover, rumors of Makya’s advancing age and waning power had reached as far as the Southern Steppe. If ever there had been a time to strike at Emperor Makya, the time was certainly now...

”I have no deed of Makya’s title or his throne,” Nyrielle said blandly. ”We have no desire to unify the Eldritch world beyond the mountains. Let them keep their Emperor, and when Makya falls, let others squabble over the throne. It has nothing to do with us and the order we will establish here.”

”In the Eldritch world,” Ashlynn said, explaining for the many humans in the Great Hall. ”The title of ’Emperor’ is reserved for the strongest among the Eldritch. Every Eldritch Lord, High Lord, Great Lord, and even the Eldritch Emperor has a duty to serve as the protector and champion of their people. Long ago, the Eldritch Emperor was a protector of the entire Eldritch world and all its people but... This hasn’t been true for some time.”

Months ago, in High Fen City, Ashlynn had asked Nyrielle if she intended to claim the throne of the Eldritch Emperor in order to raise the army they needed to defend the Vale against the next Crusade. At the time, she hadn’t understood the Eldritch world well enough to know the limits of the Emperor’s power.

Nyrielle had acknowledged that she might be able to gain a few thousand followers by seizing the throne, but doing so would have invited a fresh wave of new enemies to test her strength at a time when they needed to focus on the threat from across the sea. It would have caused more problems than it was worth to claim a throne held only a fraction of its former power and influence.

”Even if it were possible to claim a throne through strength alone,” Ashlynn said. ”It takes far more than simple strength to rule well and wisely. Some people, like High Lord Dirar, manage an extraordinary feat; they are learned, disciplined, and willing to share power with trusted subordinates to rule over vast territories while also possessing the overwhelming strength to secure their throne against all challengers.”

”It isn’t anything I’d call ’overwhelming,’” Dirar said with a flick of his tail. ”The difference between one man sitting on the throne and another can be as small as a single length in a race. Contests for thrones exploit moments of weakness, and even a victorious lord can suffer injuries in one challenge that make it impossible to win the next one.”

”A lord who wants to hold his throne needs to ensure that no one has a reason to challenge him,” Dirar concluded. ”Otherwise, he’s doomed to have a short reign plagued by strife and discord... Or, if he survives the constant stream of challenges, to rule from a throne built from the bones of his enemies.”

”Or he becomes a puppet of his advisors,” Ashlynn added. ”A brute on a throne who rules in name while his ministers hold the real power.”

”I’ve seen such,” Dirar said with a snort and a swish of his tail. ”City Lords who couldn’t explain why their treasuries had been emptied and Herd Masters who couldn’t understand why they received so much praise from their council while their herd descended into chaos, petty feuding, and desertion. Lords like these were the first to fall to the humans in their Crusades.”

”This is one of the advantages of the order that the Great Prophet and the Saint Teacher built,” Ashlynn acknowledged. ”Because power is meant to be inherited, an heir can be trained from birth to rule when their time comes. When a ruler prepares well, you see men like Lord Liam rising to take the reins from an equally capable father like Lord Loghlan,” Ashlynn said, smiling at both Liam and his father.

”Liam will be a better lord than I was, because he’s worked hard for it,” Loghlan said modestly. ”And because his mother has always been there to put him right when I’ve gone wrong.”

”Father,” Liam said from the table nearby. ”All the hard work in the world would have achieved very little without the opportunities and guidance you’ve given me. I’ve always had your support and mother’s too. Without that... I’d be a very different kind of lord,” he said, glancing briefly at Tulori Leufroy and Serge Otker.”

”Well said,” Ashlynn said with a smile. ”Liam is an exceptional young lord, and I’m certain he’ll grow into an even better one over the next few years. But men like Lord Liam or Lord Wes who can both administer their domains and protect them are far too rare. For every Liam Dunn we have men like my late husband who may have been a tremendous warrior but was never going to be a good ruler...”