The Council Chamber had never felt so cold.
Lord Alaric Dukker sat in his assigned seat, his hands folded before him, his expression carved from stone. Around him, the lords of Aerthos had been arguing for over four hours, their voices raw, their patience frayed. The attack on the Hydrangea Festival had exposed fractures that had been hidden for years, and now those fractures were splitting open for all to see.
"The festival cannot continue," Lord Gide Baiden declared, slamming his fist against the polished oak. "We've just survived an attack that nearly killed the King! To proceed as if nothing happened is madness!"
"To cancel would be surrender," Lord Sinclair countered, his voice sharp. "The Revolutionists want us to cower. If we cancel, we give them exactly what they want. What will the people think if we, their custodians buckle under the pressure of mere mongrels?"
"Better to appear cautious than to appear foolish," Lord Vancross muttered.
"Foolish?" Sinclair snapped. "You call resilience foolish?"
"Enough!" The Speaker's gavel cracked against the desk. "We will hear the King's will."
All eyes turned to King Aldirk Zeppelin VII. He sat at the head of the chamber on the dias, his face ashen, his hands trembling against the armrests of his chair. He had been silent for most of the debate, his breathing shallow, his eyes struggling to focus. The energy he had entered the chamber with had faded and exhaustion, both as a result of the attack and the bickering of his Lords had began to set in.
He opened his mouth to speak—
And swayed.
His attendants rushed forward, hands outstretched, murmuring words of concern. Aldirk raised a trembling hand, waving them back.
"I... am fine," he said, his voice a thin rasp. "I will see this through."
The Lords exchanged glances. Some looked away, uncomfortable. Others stared openly, calculating. The King was dying.
Everyone knew it.
Everyone planned for it.
Lord Rivas Oberoi seized the moment.
"Your Majesty," he said, his voice smooth as silk, "if I may—the festival is a symptom of a larger problem. We cannot address the surface without addressing the rot beneath."
"And what rot would that be?" Lady Heidi Dahl asked, her eyes narrowing.
Rivas smiled. "The rot of negligence. Of incompetence. Of Lords who prioritize their own territories over the kingdom's stability."
He did not name Alaric. He did not need to.
Lord Baiden nodded.
"The Monetary Stabilization Act was supposed to address these issues, but it has clearly failed if things have gotten this bad. The Crown Solar was still weakening and the Standard Pound was steadily rising. Our merchants were unable to plan shipments from accross the continent because conversion rates change unpredictably and that was before this catastrophe befell us."
"The Act wasn't a failure," Heidi said, her voice calm but sharp. "It was simply being undermined by those who wanted to profit from the financial chaos. Don't try to act like saints when you are guilty of schemes against the nation."
She did not name anyone either.
But her gaze lingered on Rivas.
"We haven't even spoken about the use of the drug Black Dandy as a weapon of attack." Lord Schnieder said, attempting to steer thing back towards deliberation.
Lord Ki Lin Feng spoke next, her tone measured.
"Fellow Lords, playing the blame game will get us nowhere. The question before us is simple: what do we do now?"
"The festival continues," Lord Kingsley Amberose said.
The chamber went silent. Alaric finally spoke up.
"Lord Amberose has something to say concerning the situation. He called me aside and spoke to me of things I'm sure the council will be interested in hearing."
All eyes turned to Kingsley Amberose. Kingsley had been quiet until now, his expression unreadable. His rivalry with Alaric was well-known, his dislike for the Lord of Blackwood something everyone knew and talked about occasionally. To hear that he spoke to Alaric on account of anything was unexpected.
Lord Kingsley Amberose of House Amberose stood up. He adjusted his orange-trimmed cuffs, his expression cold and deeply displeased, but entirely steady.
"Let's get one thing straight," Kingsley began, his voice cutting through the tension. "Alaric, I despise you. I detest your way of doing things. The very sight of your face is enough to set me off. But there are times when personal hatred must be set aside for the grander scheme of survival. If we hang each other now, the kingdom dies with us."
Alaric gave a slow, respectful nod of agreement. "Agreed, Kingsley. State your proposition."
"First," Kingsley said, "the destruction of the Rustmark Trading Company warehouses has broken our financial spine. Rustmark was the anchor balancing the two currencies—the Crown Solar and the Standard Pound with thier conversion policies. Aside that, the large taxes we derived from their entreprise was able to help us to somewhat sort out the economic aspect of things. With their warehouses gone, the Solar is definately plummeting into hyper-inflation while the Pound commands all real purchasing power. As we have already established, the Monetary Stabilization Act—pegging a temporary, forced exchange rate between the two currencies—will help mitigate the bleeding, but let's not lie to ourselves: it will ultimately fail unless we restore physical trade."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the rows.
"Furthermore," Kingsley continued, "the supply chain collapse that will definately come about as a result is not exclusive to to any one region. It is a general catastrophe. Every region is suffering. The mines in Ferrum Reach, the grain fields of Novaris, the textile mills of Suryan—will all paralyzed within a matter of days. Workers in every sector extracting and processing regional resources would suddenly face mass unemployment. If we don't inject emergency coin into the provinces today, starvation will do what the revolutionists couldn't."
Lord Nova winced. "And the festival? Do we cancel the Hydrangea Festival? The people are terrified. If we push forward, they will call us tone-deaf monsters. If we cancel it..."
"We do not cancel it," Alaric spoke up. "If we cancel the festival, we surrender the capital to the underground. We signal weakness. On the other hand, if we continue as if nothing has happened, the people, not may, will, riot. The best compromise in this situation is that we carry on with the festival, however, we scale it down drastically, and we triple the security footprint We will make the knights work with the Enforcers and have the Inquisition move in the background in order to locate and quench the revolution. Of course some people will still be displeased with this and speak up regardless. Let the people protest our perceived insensitivity—alive and safe, they can curse our names all they want."
"What about the drug?" Lord Sinclair asked, his voice tight.
"The Black Dandy. The festival's theme was unity, but look at the reality: ordinary citizens watched their loved ones foam at the mouth, turn violent, and plunge into chemically induced madness. We all know how potent it is. One dose is enough to hook anyone and make them a junkie. The problem is, getting medical purification or Flow-based healing costs exorbitant resources and money we cannot freely spend due to the way things have turned out."
"That is where the crown's emergency reserves come in," Alaric stated firmly, his eyes sweeping the room.
"We establish free, state-funded detox outposts across every district. We subsidize the healers. If we leave the addicted to fend for themselves on the black market, we are handing thousands of desperate souls directly to the revolutionists on a silver platter. Though I propose we leave a few to lead us to the dealers. Yes I am aware, those funds could keep up afloat for a while but one good thing about this whole thing is the timing."
"How is the timing good?" Vancross asked
"The Congress is coming up. we already had plans to convince the other rulers to reform these prices accoss the continent. We may even use our crisis to pressure them even."
A lot of Lords nodded as it made sense.
"I see." Cavendish said.
Rivas sat back in his purple-velvet chair, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. He watched with cold, blinding fury as Alaric effortlessly rallied the lords, uniting even bitter rivals like Kingsley behind a cohesive plan of action. Rivas's narrative was shattered; his attempts to shift blame had bounced off Alaric's pragmatic shield.
'Damn him,' Rivas thought, his mind already racing to plot a darker, more violent sabotage from the shadows.
'He thinks he's saved the kingdom. Let's see how he survives what I unleash next.'
The vote was called. One by one, the regional Lords cast their assent—some out of genuine terror for the realm's survival, others out of political self-preservation. Even the most ambitious Lords realized there would be no throne left to steal if the nation collapsed into ash.
By this time, hours had passed and they were well into the early hours of the morning.