Cross-armed, Silas paid little attention to the emergency council meeting going on around him. It had been called into session after he had shared the details of the methods of ruling with Elise. However, although this meeting was centred around him, he had so far simply recounted what had happened there to all the council members, before clamming up and sitting back. Rather, his attention was on his radar of the Sovereigns.

It wasn’t a very precise one, but he figured this was due to design and not because the System was incapable of making a better one. He could sense the direction and rough distance each Sovereign was away from him, which meant that it could only really be used to locate them and not spy on their movements from a distance. None of the Sovereigns were particularly near Riverside, but then again Silas could teleport to another settlement and go from there. From what he had seen and heard there, it seemed Elisha knew the six drakkar and the three stingtails Sovereigns, and Ajit clearly had some history with Bobby and potentially also Hokul.

The real danger came from the Sovereigns running for autocracy. At least the others Silas felt he could convince, but the autocrat runners were unlikely to be the type to change their minds from a few words. Far from it, they would need an axe in the head to stop their bids, and it was unfortunate that these people were the worst enemies to have, at least he guessed as much. He would know for sure when he saw them in person and had a feel at their auras.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the two ferocious dragons or the hideous shambler which scared him, but rather Kuraim. The fact that the Necromancer was on such close terms with Dahlia was worrying to catch sight of, much more when considering these two had been top of the leaderboards for forever. Silas didn’t need their auras to estimate how dominating they were. Lucian, too, had gone for autocracy, but Silas felt the Warlord at least had enough humanity in him to see the bigger picture and not fall headfirst for megalomania if properly spoken to.

“If these drakkar really are picking Representative Democracy just to elect those two dragons, we can’t align with them, man,” Josh said. “Like one of them is literally called the Scourge. That’s some dumb shit right there; what do these drakkar expect to happen once he’s put in charge?”

“But fighting six Sovereigns isn’t really an option,” Elise said with a frown. Rolf, sitting some seats away from her, shrugged at this comment. “That’s without considering that they’re probably the most balanced faction here with the strongest foundation. If what Amara said is true, none of these drakkar are going to turn on one another anytime soon, and they also have full race support behind them.”

“So this Elisha is friends with them?” Natalie cautiously asked Silas, who nodded. She sat between Josh and Iris. “Perhaps we can go through her to speak to them then.”

“Alternatively, kill the dragons,” Dom said. “Once they’re dead, who would these drakkar elect? Then it’ll be easier to convince them to join us in choosing a Meritocracy.”

“Hmph,” Josh hummed. “But is Meritocracy even the best option? Sure, if we say you have to be D rank to have a voice, then humans would dominate the votes, but it’s not like we’re all friends, is it?”

“Yes, but we need an option that doesn’t put us at too great a disadvantage while also giving others reason to vote for it,” Elise said. “But, of course, another option might be preferable if the Sovereign situation changes. Silas, do you know if any more Sovereigns can ascend now? We could try Dom.”

Silas checked his list, then shook his head. “I reckon a few others have already become D rank in this time, but they haven’t shown up in the list, so it’s likely just 41 Sovereigns until we decide on the ruling method. After that, I don’t know.”

Suddenly, the door to the hall flung open, and one of Elise’s assistants rushed to her and whispered in her ear. The Minister’s face steeled as she listened, before nodding and gesturing the assistant to leave again. Once the door was shut, Elise looked around and spoke with deliberation. “Lucian has just invited us to Brightmoor for the third congress. We didn’t attend the last one, but it appears he doesn’t mind that as he wants to have a chat with all the other human Sovereigns about this situation. So, he specifically called for you,” Elise said, craning her head in Silas’s direction. “He said he can explain the situation at Elisha’s, and that he thinks you will agree with him once you see the bigger picture.”

Silas perked up and looked over all the faces now directed towards him. “Well, I suppose we should go then. I mean, Elisha is working with a lot of other races, so I’m sure he had a good reason for spying on her.” He gestured vaguely, struggling on how to say the next bit. “And, uh, I reckon he’s the only autocrat picker who we can convince. I’d much rather have Brightmoor on my side when facing Kuraim’s horde.”

Before anyone else could speak, Elise raised a pausing palm, thought to herself for a moment, then spoke. “I don’t think this is a good idea. We didn’t have a great deal of information when we first went to Brightmoor, but now that we do, what we have on Lucian doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I think he’s hiding this congress’s real purpose under the covers.”

Clicking his tongue, Silas rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You don’t think he’s going to declare war against all of us Sovereigns there, do you?”

There was a tense silence as the council glanced amongst themselves, before Elise finally answered. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think he’ll do. He has enough power to take on all of our settlements, and enough guile that you shouldn’t underestimate him. Besides, all he has to do is kill you Sovereigns. After he becomes the only remaining one with all the voting power, I’m sure it’ll be a cakewalk for him to take over the rest of the world.”

Silas blew out an exasperated breath with a half-smile. It wasn’t that he didn’t know that Lucian was dangerous, but more that everyone seemed to take it that Lucian only cared about killing and breaking. From what Silas had seen of Brightmoor, he knew that couldn’t be further from the truth; the Warlord truly wanted to make Idroa a safe haven for humanity, and sometimes that meant taking unsavoury paths to reach the end. Killing Conan and replacing him had been one of those times. But the thing was, Silas felt he and Lucian could help each other since they both had the same end goal.

Mia, who had been sitting silently beside him all this time, finally leaned into him and spoke in a hushed voice. “Do you remember Roxanne’s prophecy? About your corpse being paraded through the streets, about how the crowds cheered for it? The people in Brightmoor love Lucian enough to support him on anything - you remember the crowd at his speech. If he made you appear like a villain, then they would certainly cheer for your corpse.”

Gulping, Silas met her gaze. “But there’s no reason for him to kill me.” His voice was tight, defensive.

“But there is,” she asserted, her expression confident. “Ajit, Aengus, Vivienne, and on, they’ve all come around you. You’re allied with the prophet, with shaerds, with Elisha who’s further linked to the drakkar and stingtails. The Meritocracy faction wouldn’t shatter if you died, but you are a central cog, so it would, without a doubt, face difficulties after your death.” Seeing he was on the edge of being convinced, she pushed him over the last step. “Remember what Roxanne said: listen to your friends. They’ll have the right idea about something, where you’ll have the wrong idea. That’s right now, Silas.”

It was the intensity with which she said his name at the end which made him pause and consider the situation. Could it be? But he and Lucian could help each… Silas stopped, his eyes finally seeing the light. Sometimes, Lucian treaded unsavoury paths to arrive at his noble ending, and it could just be that Silas Wycliffe’s corpse lay on one of these unsavoury paths.

****

Kedlllt waited in the clearing, her seven heads swerving from side to side in the air. Some of them said advancing into the forest was the right thing to do, but the others argued against this, saying their heads would get stuck in the trees if the fighting got too intense. Better she waited here and let the creature approach by itself.

Kedlllt hissed and tasted the air with her forked tongues, sensing it was close now. She had another sense, a new and foreign one, which agreed with this assessment, but Kedlllt wasn’t familiar with this new sense, so she ignored it. Finally, the creature emerged from the undergrowth, a dark, lean thing which bared its cute teeth at Kedlllt. It had stolen a far larger fang from something else and stuck it to a holding stick, and Kedlllt knew this was where the true danger lay.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” said the creature, not hesitating for even a second on seeing her. “Waiting so patiently for me.”

Hissing threateningly, Kedlllt slowed the swerving of her heads to a hypnotic pace, waiting until the creature stepped into snapping distance before lunging in. All seven of her heads shot forwards, but only two went for the creature’s current position while two more made for the sides and the last three headed a bit above. Kedlllt would not give this creature a chance to dodge and escape.

To her surprise, however, the creature maintained its slow forward trajectory. If Kedlllt could laugh, she would have, but instead she only felt a deeper hunger, so her two heads going directly for it unlatched their jaws, swinging wide open with enough breadth to engulf the creature whole. Expecting to taste tangy, tough flesh, Kedlllt was instead hit by an explosion of pain and her reeling senses.

Her other heads glanced in to see what had happened, and their giblet eyes widened as they saw two of their kin split open, ragged flesh lining a giant cut which had sliced through both of them. In comparison to the bright purple blood and sagging heads, the dark creature was hard to spot, but it looked downright demonic once it was seen.

Kedlllt fled, her four feet crashing into the ground as she tried to create space. While two heads looked behind to see where she was going, the three remaining ones watched the dark creature to keep track of it. The two bisected heads would grow back in a day, so it wasn’t too severe a loss, but Kedlllt needed to make sure she didn’t lose anymore. But before her brain could even make sense of it, she had crashed into some invisible barrier behind her, her two flanking heads squishing into it while her legs bumped against it and bounced back.

“Sorry, but I can’t have you running,” the dark creature said, its voice hardly audible over Kedlllt’s own raspy breaths. The hydra didn’t understand what was happening, but she knew that if she couldn’t go back, then she would run to the side. Without warning, however, the three heads watching the dark creature flared with piercing pain, then fell off, dropping down with wet thuds.

“How about you just stop for a second?” the dark creature said, and Kedlllt did, her whole body seizing up.

No, not fully. She forced it into motion, albeit painfully sluggish motion, turning her last two heads around to glare upon this creature. What she saw was not the diminutive dark morsel from before but a towering beast with a maw which opened up until it encompassed Kedlllt’s whole body, dark saliva dripping from the ridiculously sized teeth. It was a monster! Petrified, Kedlllt’s legs gave in and buckled, plummeting her body to the ground.

Kedlllt’s remaining eyes snapped shut, and in the darkness came great pain before it all vanished in a stretched moment of serenity. She had never experienced it before, but she very much liked the feeling of it. Then she was no longer.

Lavanya Sanghvi (human), the Monster Bane, has killed Kedlllt (hydra).

40 Sovereigns remaining.