The imperial gold coin contains in truth very little gold. It is mainly made of an alloy name imperium, almost unbreakable but extremely malleable. This is what lets the imperial coin be ‘broken down’ (it is the commonly used expression, although ‘to rip it’ would be the more accurate depiction of it) in four smaller parts for trade exchanges of lower value. It also lets any smith reforge the parts together quickly and easily. Because of this, the appearance of an imperial coin is always in flux, the face of the Imperatrix on it almost always deformed. What determines its authenticity and value is the content of imperium in it. As only coin makers in Leïn are privy to the secrets of gallium, they are the only ones who mint imperial coins. The other much more common currency is the simple gold coin inherited from before the War, its value greatly lower, and this one is minted in all the big cities of the Empire.

Internal Politics of the Empire, Chapter Two: Culture and Economics.

“Nay.”

“Mhh…”

“Nay!”

The young woman stripped herself out of her dreams with difficulty, even though she had already forgotten most of them. The only picture in her mind remaining was that boulder cut in two. She paused to think for a moment, questioning if she hadn’t gone ten years back in the past. It had been a long time since her mother hadn’t woken her up like that.

“M’a?” She asked, still half-asleep. The room in the church of Lebe was far from luxurious, but the bed was nice. She still wasn’t sleeping well, but that was because she hadn’t slept on her own in more than a year.

“Get up and put on your armour. They spotted a sail. They are waiting for you on the Plateau.”

That announcement made her wake up fully. “Bia…” She stopped, feeling the dark gaze of her mother on her. “Really? The war is coming M’a!”

“And I could be stuck inside a Tertia’s maw, I would expect you to stay polite.”

Nay shook her head left from right, preferring to get her equipment on as fast as possible rather than argue with her mother about that.

Nay took twenty minutes or so to reach the Plateau, the sky was just now losing its dawning colours. Activity on top was more than buzzing, servants running around everywhere, soldiers descending the road she was climbing in a close march, most likely going to the city ramparts, and everywhere she went, she heard shouted orders in a chaotic hubbub, but paradoxically still an organized one.

She hadn’t taken two steps on top of the Plateau before being met with a man in plate armour.

“Darae. Please follow me, the Duchess is waiting for you.”

Nay examined his armour for a second. She hadn’t seen plate armour often, only in official ceremonies, and it meant that the man in front of her was a noble officer or a very high-ranked military officer. She sighed. He was talking to her with deference, and she would never get used to it.

“I’m following you…?”

“Caporal Gratier.”

A noble then. Nay nodded, and followed the man through the roads of the Ducal Plateau. She was still filled with bitterness and horror as she watched the many remnants of building on the side or the ones that were being rebuilt.

She quickly noticed where she was being led though. The Ja fields had been left to abandon, but the accursed, still beautiful, flowers, had to have been the thing that had survived the best to the coming of the Angel.

The half-manor that had served as an Assini hideout was in ruins, and the tree that stood on the edge of the cliff was gone. Most likely it had fallen in the sea of the lightning that had unrooted it. Still, even with the changes, there was no possibility for Nay not to recognize where she was. She clenched her teeth, but continued walking behind the noble towards a large tent that had been placed not very far from the edge of the precipice. A dozen soldiers or so, three of them with field glasses, were staring at the horizon.

Nay grimaced. She could actually feel the residue of her own Rreico here, and the feeling was unpleasant, the memories even worse.

An enormous war horn, as well as a city warning bell, had been brought here. Nay had seen the strange bell only once before but had never heard it being used. The metallic object was the height of two grown men, and made of a gigantic concave piece stuck on a chariot, and a much thinner metal tube extending to the sky. In the middle of the field struck by Nay’s power, were sitting Trinne and Jarl. They were the only ones with chairs, the generals and the two Archbishops, Defin and the Archbishop of Patrex, were standing around them. All the expressions were grim, but they were conversing calmly.

Trinne instantly noticed Nay, and they met with their eyes for a heartbeat, then the Legio’s friend turned back to continue speaking to the Emperor. She wasn’t wearing the usual Gite clothing, instead of the many layers of cloth she was wearing two dresses one over the other, the style much more resembling the simple and minimalistic style of what Hyn liked. Actually, from an outside perspective, she was only wearing the simple but still beautiful beige dress, but Nay could feel enchantments on the garb underneath it. Trinne was also wearing a thick metal collar around her neck, closer to something a slave or prisoner would wear than a high fashion accessory.

The Legio raised an eyebrow, but wasn’t going to ask.

“…scouts. According to their positions, the chances that they are aiming for the coast of the Refugees, as the Duchess of Gite foresaw, are high.” Nay only heard the end of the Patrex Archbishop’s sentence. He was currently pointing at the map of Gite, more precisely on the northern part outside the city, that laid on the small table between Trinne and Jarl. It was barely able to fit the map in its entirety, and the eastern part of the city map was hanging on its side.

“What about our trenches?” Trinne asked.

“All finished yesterday, Duchess.” One of the generals responded. “Our men are ready and eager to fight.”

Nay took place behind Trinne, her right hand peacefully laying on the pommel of Lake, and she ignored the rest of the conversation. She had heard it at least half a dozen of times, with some minor alterations each time. Though the anguish in the voices of the participants was contagious this time, she preferred to stay serene for now by not listening to them. Her gaze went to where Joanna had been murdered, then she looked further away to the horizon. She could see two…no, three large sails over the ocean, to the northeast. The weather today was more than showing its leniency, letting her spot the ships with ease. She could even recognize them as caravels or small triremes, and they were without a doubt Carradin scouting ships. The red and black sails were unmistakable. If those were here, the true flotilla would not be far. The war was going to start that night, or the next morning. There was a low probability of an attack at night, but Trinne didn’t believe their enemy would attempt such an undertaking. To coordinate an attack in the dark was extremely risky for the invaders, considering their estimated numbers.

Nay did not see Quar Birrebus amongst them, but she wasn’t surprised by it, he was most likely on the northern coast already. What did bother though was that Hyn was absent. The former Imperatrix usually always participated in these meetings, and Nay had no idea why, on a day such as this one, she wasn’t there.

Luckily for her, drinks and snacks were served, and after skipping breakfast, that was what let her stay awake for the whole meeting.

She was finishing her fruit juice when a shout echoed.

“Sails at the horizon!”

The conversation around the little table ceased.

The Emperor and the Duchess of Gite stood up and went to the edge of the cliff. Everyone followed them, Nay too looked for the sails at the horizon.

A soldier brought a spying glass to the Emperor, who, without even a flinch in his expression, used it to scrutinize the ocean.

“Mhh.” He did not say anything more, passing the spying glass to Trinne.

In the same manner, Trinne observed the horizon as well. She took slightly longer, and Nay herself saw the line of red and dark appear afar when she finished.

The Legio felt the shock in her friend’s Rreico. “It seems we did not under-estimate their forces.”

The Emperor nodded, before turning back to his generals.

“To your stations! Protect the Empire of Ja!”

“Yes, oh my Emperor!”

Every general, even Defin, left immediately. Only Trinne, Nay, the Archbishop of Patrex and Jarl the Bohemian remained.

They observed the carradins creeping closer there, servants brought them chairs, and the only thing that explained why it wasn’t completely silent around them were the waves and great winds crashing on the cliff underneath them. More than two hours passed, with the regular intermittence of soldiers or messengers coming to report on the advancement of the situation.

Once the sun high in the sky, Jarl finally spoke.

“Two Carradin war ships more than our grimmest estimations. The devil be accursed, why do we not have a little storm today? Isn’t a typhoon the defining feature of the Western plains?”

“They are better sails men than we are. It is very likely that their mages have similar spells as the Trechuite pirates.” The Archbishop explained.

Jarl pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know that, but I hoped for at least one good news today…What are those scouting ships doing?” he asked.

The three caravels, their feature very clear now, were keeping some distance from the rest of their flotilla. They had never come close to their allies, but even with Nay’s lacking knowledge of seafaring, she could see through their sails that the three ships were now edging closer to Gite.

“It seems the fighting will start tonight. This afternoon maybe even.” The Archbishop said out loud.

“…Those are the ships equipped with saltpetre powder. Close enough from their flotilla to be protected by their mages, but far enough not to be destroyed by the curse.” Trinne deduced.

Nay felt the Rreico of Jarl the Bohemian change slightly.

“Can we use our ballistae to…” the Duchess tried.

“Too far away. And if our sources are correct, the same can’t be said for them.

Minutes passed, and the three ships stopped something like a mile away from Gite’s harbour, taking extra precautions to be as far as the Ducal plateau as possible.

Nay saw the cannon fire’s glow before she heard them. Then a little cloud dust appeared over the northern rampart. From where she stood, she could barely see it, but the Legio jumped in surprise anyway.

Jarl the Bohemian rose.

“My Emperor?” The Archbishop questioned with worry in his voice.

The God-Touched of Ja turned around, a voracious smile stretching his face.

“If no good news come to us, let us create one with our own hands.”

Trinne stood up, trying to stop him. “Emperor, this is clearly a trap. Those three ships' cannon do enough damage on their own, they have clearly been set up so that you…”

“You betray your age, it is rare enough to be noted, young Trinne.” The Emperor interrupted her. “You do not always need to foil a trap with your wits, sometimes, the best answer is simply to crush it.”

Nay grabbed Trinne on the collar of her robe to force her to step back, and at the same moment, the ground underneath the Emperor’s bare feet burst into violet, supernatural flames.

A second later, he rose to the sky and immediately appeared as an obvious target, the violet unmissable even in the middle of the day. The colour was so strange it was pulling all the eyes towards it, he was a true shining star.

The burst of light was crossing the skies, until it stopped under the sun, above the ships that were shooting at the city. The second he stopped, something happened amidst the Carradin flotilla. It was hard to see, but something like cascades of water, that Nay could hear from where she stood, exploded at immense speeds straight towards the sun, straight towards the Emperor of Ja.

But he had risen too high in the sky, and the massive amounts of water only resulted in a light shower on Gite’s coast.

Then the sun grew bigger.

No, another sun was appearing, underneath the first one.

And it took only instants for the shine to become so bright that Nay could barely even look at the Carradin ships anymore. But although her sense of sight was handicapped, her Rreico was telling her everything that she needed to know.

She was supposedly invincible against the power of miracles, or magic, but as she felt this particular miracle, from that far away, with that much power, she really doubted that fact now and shivered in fear.

“By Lebe.” Trinne swore.

The Archbishop of Patrex was not hiding the awe in his answer. “I believe that, in this case, ‘By Ja’ is more accurate.

The ships underneath the Emperor and the two suns had stopped shooting. Nay supposed more than saw their sails turn and oars emerge from their hulls.

It was a paltry attempt. A minute passed. Nay felt the second sun even better now and realized that Jarl’s miracle was in reality, minuscule. The gigantic fireball five warships in size was in truth the result of a little ball of miraculous power in its middle. A little ball the size of her fist, its centre harbouring chaos itself.

Then the little ball fell, and the sky burned behind it. It was an impossibly slow meteor crossing Gite’s skies, its calm fall more terrifying than everything because it was inescapable anyway.

The ships burst into flames a few seconds before the miracle touched the seas.

It let the Carradins understand their end before the ultimate contact, where a flash existed for a single instant, blinding everything and devouring the three ships forever. A heartbeat later, and the light was gone. A second later and a terrible growl burst forth, an unspeakable explosion that made the earth and bones tremble once.

And then it was over, where ships had stood, there only remained a little cloud of fog, a sort of mist made of water and miraculous power blinding her sight and her sixth sense equally.