Iorweth Morgan had never wanted to be King of Kutrad. He had grown up watching his mother, the last ruler, slowly break down from the never-ending parade of aggravations and arguments, and now he could feel the same thing happening to him. He often found himself envying rulers like the Emperor of the Ubran Empire. All he had to do was decree something and everybody around would get in line. Such was not the case in Kutrad, a country founded by a collection of rich clans who decided to break away from their southern neighbor, Eterium. Unlike most other places, power in Kutrad was still largely in the hands of those houses. Sure, he, as King, had far more power than a single house and could enforce his will upon any one of them, but such actions carried a price. Should most of the nobility decide to work together and oppose him, there was little doubt in his mind that there was no chance of victory in the war that would follow.

That was why being the king of Kutrad was wearing him out — every single day was an exhausting exercise in political intrigue and petty rivalries, all with the goal of keeping the nobles divided and distracted so that he could actually work towards the betterment of his country. A concession here, a demerit there (but not too harsh of one or they’d start complaining)... It was as if he were dealing with spoiled children. Sometimes, he literally was.

Iorweth was good at his role, as much as he didn’t like it. Years of watching his parents had taught him well, and his own experience had only added to that. He’d learned many important strategies as a child simply by paying attention to what they did to resolve crisis after crisis. They’d dealt with trade disputes, diplomatic disasters, and anything else that the world could throw at a ruler other than an actual full-blown war — or so he had believed. They’d never had to deal with something like this.

The first report had come in just six days ago, and he’d been unable to believe it. An entire city, wiped out? The very idea seemed impossible. To do such a thing would require a massive army, and even then you’d have to take that army through the entire nation before reaching Zrukhora. Even so, he’d sent a team with a Many to Zrukhora to investigate. What he witnessed when they’d arrived two days later still boggled his mind. The city was gone. He had assumed, should the report actually prove factual, that he’d see shells of burned-out buildings and the like in the Many’s projection. Instead, he simply saw a hole. No castle stood in the distance, no strong stone walls surrounding piles of smoking rubble, nothing. Just a hole in the earth where the third-largest metropolis in his country had stood just a week before.

Just under fifty thousand people had survived, as far as his men could tell. The entire country was reeling in shock at the death of over three hundred and fifty thousand souls. With that many deaths, pretty much every citizen in the nation knew at least one person who had passed away, leaving all of Kutrad in a state of mourning.

It seemed that some unknown creature of great power was the source of this disaster, as hard as it was to believe. His teams had found no actual traces of the beast, as not even its skeleton remained after the explosion, but nearly every single story from the survivors had been consistent even down to details like size and color, so he had no choice but to accept it as fact. Where the creature had come from was unknown, and that disturbed him. The idea that there might be others disturbed him even more.

The prospect of another creature was a chilling thought, but such an idea still existed in the realm of hypothetical threats, rather than confirmed ones. The confirmed threats were what really worried him. Zrukhora had been incredibly vital to the country’s economic viability, as well as its future. With the city gone, the country would be perceived as weak and vulnerable. The other nations would begin to throw their weight around in negotiations soon, knowing that they had more leverage and could squeeze Kutrad for better terms. On one hand, he thanked the spirits that Kutrad was a peninsula, meaning it only shared a border with a single other nation. On the other hand, that nation was the Republic of Eterium, economic capital of the continent. Their markets were perpetually hungry for more resources, always looking for ways to get more and more.

Dealing with the threat of an Eterian invasion was one of the most critical aspects of being the King of Kutrad, and had been since the country first established itself. The Eterian decision makers, the Council of Guilds, were a bunch of coin-grubbing merchants who viewed everything in terms of profit and loss. If they viewed an invasion and annexation of Kutrad to be the most profitable move, the question wasn’t if they would attack, it was when. That’s why Kutrad’s strategy for centuries had consisted of two parts. First they had built up their military and continued to spend a good chunk of the nation’s funds on improving and strengthening it. Then they had gone to the Eterians with a simple message: “You might be able to defeat us, but it will cost you far more than you’ll make from an occupation. Instead, let us find a deal that will enrich us both.” The Eterians had agreed, instead signing a series of trade deals over the years that had helped catapult Kutrad into respectability.

All that might have suddenly changed. Kutrad was undeniably weaker now than it had been in a long time, and their markets were soon going to be furious at a sudden unexpected resource drought. The question was, did that change the equation in the Council’s minds enough to tip the scales? He didn’t know.

What he did know was that the country was falling into chaos when it needed unity more than ever, thanks in no small part to its nobility. To say that they weren’t taking this well was the understatement of the millennium. Every house had invested heavily in Zrukhora. All that money vanishing into thin air was more than enough to enrage the entire lot, but what really riled them up was the loss of their kin. Each clan had stationed at least one member of their brood in Zrukhora to manage their investments, and most of them had not made it out. It was a king’s worst nightmare — with something in common to be angry about, the nobles were beginning to come together and agree with one another, one by one turning their eyes his way.

None of the houses were louder and angrier than House Maddock, the clan that had brought the insufferable Cadfael Maddock into the world, and in doing so vaulted themselves to the top of his list of enemies. Iorweth Morgan hated Cadfael Maddock with a passion hot enough to boil the ocean. The Maddock clan, being one of the most powerful and influential noble families in Kutrad, had always been a pain to deal with, but Cadfael was the mountain to their molehill. He’d appointed the man as the magistrate to Zrukhora under extreme political duress at the time, thinking it a way to resolve a particularly sticky situation. At the time, Maddock had just been an annoying man, pompous and self-important like all of the rest. All Iorweth had to do was place capable administrators around him and leave the man to think himself the world’s greatest magistrate while others made sure the city actually functioned. The plan had worked. It’s just that it had worked too well. Surrounded by sycophantic merchants and nobles sweet-talking him, and watching the money roll in from the mines, Cadfael had at some point decided that he was the world’s greatest magistrate after all.

It had started with a few “suggestions”, the simpleton apparently thinking that Iorweth needed some advice on how to govern. He’d ignored the fool at first, thinking the man would take the hint, but Maddock had not. Instead, as Zrukhora flourished, Cadfael’s arrogance had merged with his rampant paranoia and Iorweth’s nightmare began. The man saw enemies everywhere, and he felt the need to inform his king over every. Single. One. Not a day went by without one of the idiot’s exhaustively long-winded “intelligence reports” taking up a precious Many and wasting his time. Maddock had even started including artist’s renditions of his suspects, ready for a wanted poster. It had gotten so bad that he’d needed to send more of the precious Manys to Zrukhora for his officials to secretly use, since the official ones were being wasted on such nonsense.

And nonsense it was. Every “report” focused on some poor soul that had simply had the unfortunate luck to attract his notice. They were all innocent, of course. Maybe not literally innocent, but they certainly weren’t plotting the destruction of a major city, that much was certain. The person who had the “honor” of being the final individual singled out for a report was a young mercenary leader by the name of Arlette Demirt. Morgan had noticed that name pop up in the lists of survivors and had taken a perverse satisfaction from the idea that she still lived and Cadfael Maddock did not.

And yet it seemed that the moron would haunt him even now. The Maddock clan was apoplectic over their son’s death to the point that they were beyond reason. They didn’t seem to care that Zrukhora’s destruction was practically a natural disaster. They didn’t want an investigation. They didn’t want answers. They wanted blood. They wanted somebody to blame. They were rallying the other nobles, and, if he couldn’t find a way to appease them soon, they would eventually stick that blame on him.

A fractured nation, a possible riot of the powerful, and a neighbor to the south licking its lips as it watched the chaos. If there actually was somebody to blame for all this, Iorweth would have gladly thrown that person to the wolves. It would have solved all the problems at once. The nobles would get their vengeance, the populace would unite in their enmity towards the perpetrator, and a suddenly unified country would once again become unpalatable to the Eterians. But no such person actually existed. You’d have to be as paranoid and stupid as the late magistrate of Zrukhora himself to think otherwise. Were he still alive, Cadfael would surely be pinning the blame for all of this on some unfortunate person who’d just so happened to catch the man’s eye at the wrong time. It was a shame he couldn’t do that... or could he?

Iorweth Morgan liked to consider himself a moral person. As a king he would always be forced to take some arguably immoral actions, but he also thought that to be the supreme arbiter of law and justice required a commitment to those ideals. What he was now contemplating broke almost everything that he professed to stand for, but the more the thought about it, the more he became convinced that it had to be done. How could the lives of a few outweigh an entire nation?

Maybe because of his recent encounter with her name, he first thought of Arlette Demirt. A quick search located Maddock’s latest “urgent report” sitting near the fireplace, ready to be burned like all the ones before. A quick glance told him that she fit what he needed: foreign and expendable. Nobody in Gustil would care if a mercenary died; dying for money was basically their job description. Those of her band that had survived were also foreign. She was basically perfect.

With a heavy heart, King Iorweth Morgan, leader of Kutrad, summoned an aide and gave a series of orders, then retired for the night. There, alone in his bed chambers, he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep, and silently asked the spirits of his mother and father for their forgiveness. He had crossed a line now that could never be un-crossed, but he’d do it again and again, a hundred times over if necessary, if it meant the survival of his country and his people. As long as he lived, Kutrad would stand tall. He would make sure of it.