“That my people should survive was, simply put, impossible. There was no path which led to their salvation, no hope of victory, no chance that the cataclysm which descended on us could be endured. Annihilation would come. The end of all we knew and everyone we held dear. Nothing else was possible.

For three hundred years, I have shouldered an impossible burden against a hopeless tomorrow.

I froze myself and all around me in a moment of eternity so that we would not, could not, change, knowing even as I expended the whole of my life in the casting that it was a vane effort.

Tomorrow cannot be withheld forever and change will always come.

We do not speak of it, but Doxle once came to me with those words. It was not despair which drove him, but the love we share as partners in the terrible crime of rejecting the world as it is. He gave voice to the futility of what I’d done, the doubts which gnawed at the unyielding ice around my heart.

Better the whole world burn than I and our loved ones suffer eternally, especially since the ice must one day thaw and our efforts to hold our world safe fail at last.

My answer then was the same as it was to the others who approached with the same plea; I will not give up Today no matter how bleak Tomorrow may appear to be.

As greeted the dawn this morning though, I could feel it.

The change of the day.

My Tomorrow had come at last.

I just don’t know yet whether to hope that yours has too.”

– Her Eternal Majesty, Empress Mysella, Dread Tyrant and Undying Foundation of the Realm in a letter left in the hands of the ice statue of her beloved on the final day of the Empire.

The Empress Eternal smelled of both hope and despair. Projections aren’t supposed to smell of anything. Which was fine. Because she wasn’t a projection.

I think more or less everyone in the room understand that something was deeply wrong with her presence among us. From the rising scent of panic, it seemed that an ever-increasing number of them were putting the pieces together and grasping exactly how bad that was.

One silver lining though – the Speaker for House Lightstone had fallen silent and was staring open mouthed at the Empress.

“Who is that?” I heard one of the junior Speakers say. Because of course people had forgotten what the long “dead” Empress looked like.

His answer was a dagger at his throat and a whispered “Do. No. Speak.” from his senior companion, because there were also people who knew exactly what she looked like.

“Time is not our ally, Speakers,” the Empress said. “We would hear this dispute and see it settled before the sun passes it’s zenith.”

“Why?” Lightstone asked, the scent of existential despair rising from him sharp as smoke from a bonfire.

“You would question your Empress when charged instead to answer?” the Empress said, malicious delight bouncing off each syllable.

“You cannot be here,” Lightstone said. “If you are here, we are undone.”

“What are you saying?” Ironbriar asked, the only one among the Great Houses who seemed ignorant of the doom the Empress’s presence presaged.

“More questions?” the Empress said. “May we assume then the High Council has presented its evidence and offered its advice to the Imperial Throne? We are willing to decide the matter of the War between the Houses on the fact as we understand them if so.”

“What? No! No, I have evidence! There are rules and protocols. The matter still has to be voted on by a quorum of Speakers before its settled.”

“Point of order,” Doxle said. “The High Council’s vote determines what information will be presented to the Senior Grand Magistrate. It is usually considered the final verdict, but ultimate judgment and disciplinary power resides in the hands of the Senior Grand Magistrate as they are the ones who speak with the Voice of the Empire.”

“So you can just announce the verdict then?” Ironbriar said, turning to speaker for House Lightstone.

“No. There’s no point,” Lightstone said.

“My apologies but did the Speaker for House Ironbriar just suggest that someone else in this room holds more authority than our Empress?” Enika asked. “That’s technically a treasonous act, is it not?”

“Shut up,” Lightstone said. “We don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for anything. She’s doomed us all.”

“Has she?” Grammy asked. “Maybe if you ask her nicely she’ll go seal herself back up in ice for another three centuries.”

She and the Empress shared a secret smile and I was abruptly left wondering what exactly an “Imperial Terminus” did and for how many years Grammy had acted as the Empress’s agent.

Lightstone shot a look at Grammy that was so filled with hated I was pretty sure he would have killed her on the spot if he had the power.

Narla threw her hand in front of Grammy, catching something invisible in response to Yarrin’s quick poke, because it seemed Lightstone did have the ability to kill with a glance.

Not Narla though.

Her magic crushed whatever ugly invisible thing Lightstone has cast forth into a small glob of purple goo that she whipped onto the floor.

Lightstone could have tried again of course, except for the knife that Mellina was holding to his throat.

I wasn’t sure when she’d disappeared, but she had Lightstone’s full attention as she dragged the tip of her blade a couple of inches towards the center of his neck, leaving a thin blood trail behind as she did.

“It would be advisable to remain calm,” Mellina said. “I assure you, this day will be much worse if you do not.”

“Do you know, we have long imagined what our return to the Council’s chambers might be like? This is proving to be everything we hoped for and more. Now if someone would only call for an assassin or two,” the Empress said.

The timing was too perfect. I snapped my fingers, and from the rafters, one hundred and twenty assassins descended. One hundred and twenty assassins who were lacking Loyalty Brands. One hundred and twenty assassins who were, as of this morning, official members of House Riverbond.

“You called M’Lady?” Genevieve, the oldest and presumably most deadly of the assassins asked as she landed beside me clad in a special sort of armor.

“The Empress requested your services. If you wish to provide them, I will see you compensated properly, as a gift from House Riverbond to the Imperial Throne.”

Even Grammy was struck silent at that.

For moment.

But she was the first one to bust out laughing.

House Ironbriar on the other hand had been struck so silent that I had to wonder if he’d ever regain the ability to speak.

He recognized the armor we’d given to the assassins.

And the weapons.

The Clockwork arms.

Or more precisely, the next generation of Clockwork arms.

We delayed long enough for my friends plan to work!

“It doesn’t matter,” Lightstone said. “Kill me now, or let me die later. None of us will see the next dawn rise.”

“I thought it was House Astrologia who still dabbled in precognition?” Doxle said.

“What is going on? Why are we doomed?” the Speaker for House Kilnfire asked.

“She died for us,” Lightstone said. “And in her death she held the Transcendent Realms in stasis so that we might prosper from them. That she is here, now, means that the Realms are no longer bound. They will crash against each other in a cataclysm of annihilation. Nothing and no one will survive!”

“I don’t understand? Why? Why would she do that?” Kilnfire asked.

“Perhaps three centuries was long enough to endure dealing with you ungrateful lot?” Doxle suggested.

“That would suppose that anything the Speaker of House Lightstone was correct,” the Empress said. “For those we have not formally greeted to our service yet,” she nodded at Kilnfire and a few others, “We did not die, nor did we adopt our previous state so that the Houses could prosper for the Transcendent Realms. That was the result of a betrayal by all of the Houses here. We must confess there is a great temptation to make use of House Riverbond’s gift to extract a measure of vengeance for that, but sadly none present can be held accountable for the actions of their long dead ancestors.”

“They’re guilty of plenty of other insults to you and your Empire, Your Majesty,” Genevieve the Assassin said.

“As we well know,” the Empress said. “And as we shall bear in mind in decreeing the terms to end the current War between the Houses.”

It was nice to hear that she hadn’t forgotten about us, but I was beginning to feel my magic changing and growing stronger. That was not a comforting sign. There was really only one reason for my magic to rise and it suggested that the discussion I’d had in my dreams had been more convincing than I’d dared hope or fear.

That the Empress was present was proof that I’d convinced the dwellers in the Bathypelagic Zone to speak at least a few words with the Clockwork Cosmos. 

Part of me had hoped that those would be the only two realms drawn into my mad plan.

Part of me had embraced the true depths of the madness though and yearned to see things pushed further.

That was part which seemed to be getting its wish.

“Why talk of the War now?” Lightstone asked, slumping in defeat almost enough to impale himself on Mellina’s dagger. “There will be no war. If Riverbond wants peace, let it have whatever peace it desires. Frolic in our ruin, and imagine anything will change what is to come.”

“You acknowledge your defeat then?” the Empress asked.

“What? No!” Ironbriar said. “We can…we still have…”

Lightstone laid a hand on his shoulder.

“We have nothing,” Lightstone said. “You see the armor Riverbond’s troops are clad in. You know they had suborned our control of the Clockwork realm. No force we have in this city could stand against them, so cheers, they have claimed victory, and in so doing have destroyed the whole of this world.”

“A point of clarity,” I said, following Doxle’s lead. “We do not control the Clockwork Cosmos at all. We have merely entered into a freely agreed upon partnership with both it and the ghost of those who were slain by artificially generated Reaving Storms.”

“That is a rather large partnership,” the Empress said, looking what I thought was at least mildly impressed.

“We have almost one hundred thousand armory nodes,” I said.

“And to whom have these arms been deployed?” the Empress asked.

“Um, I think everyone? Or at least everyone that your Last Guardians had contacts with. I think we got all of the cities in the Empire and most of the towns too,” I said, revealing at last how we planned to win the war.

“That’s impossible,” Ironbriar said.

“Messaging spells are cheap. Call home and find out,” I said. “Oh, except for the part where no one is probably there anymore. They’re still alive mind you, but as the families of the Great Houses were among the few we did not distribute Clockwork arms to, I’m afraid you’ll find they’ve been rather painlessly removed from power. Most of them. I imagine there were a few grudges there.”

Ironbriar was huffing in disbelief so quickly I suspected he was about to pass out from hyperventilation but he surprised me.

“So…so we are to lose our position…and you’ve destroyed our world? And we’re supposed to…supposed to go quietly? Accept this asinine outcome? Oh I think I not! I think not indeed!” He had worked himself up into a violent enough fit that he didn’t need a voice spell to project to the room. “She’s killed us you say? That dead thing that’s pretending to be our Empress? That we’ve never needed! Who’s unwanted and always has been! If we are to die then, she can die first!”

Leaping over the half wall the Council sat behind to rush at someone had not worked for the previous Speaker who’d tried it but Ironbriar was made of sterner stuff. His family was renowned as the Warrior-Elites of the Empire. With murder in his eyes and a sword summoned to his hand, he was more than capable of killing….hmm, well, maybe Ilyan?

Before he got close enough for any of the myriad people around the Empress to dispose of him for her though, he was frozen in his tracks mid stride.

In turns, part of him swelled up like a balloon while other parts compressed inwards as though he had sunk to great depths of the ocean. It would have been gruesomely comical if not for the wretched sounds which accompanied it.

“Let me have this!” Enika said, in curt, clipped syllables.

“My apologies,” Doxle said and gave her a small bow.

Ironbriar stopped exploding and imploded altogether.

It looked neither enjoyable, nor survivable, but it did have the advantage of leaving the corpse in the form of a small crimson marble instead of splatter across the length and breadth of the chamber.

“We suppose that will form House Ironbriar’s testimony,” the Empress said. “Would any other Houses like to speak.”

The wisdom of silence graced the Council Chamber and the Empress gave a satisfied nod.

“We declare the war between our Houses resolved. All who stood against House Riverbond will have their treasuries ceased and distributed according to House Riverbond’s directives. Any who would contest this verdict may speak now and may expect an answer from the Imperial Legions…though perhaps we may contract that responsibility out ot House Riverbond’s allies instead.”

“We shall be happy to donate our services Your Majesty”, Genevieve said.

“Excellent. Then with that we are concluded,” the Empress said.

“Pardon me Your Majesty, but not quite yet,” I said, dreading what was to come next.

“You would ask for more?” The Empress seemed puzzled mostly because this was as far as we’d discussed things with her. What was left was all my own insanity.

“Yes,” I said. “I need your crown.”