Arc 5 | Chapter 190: Introductions

⸂Gino jur Wren.⸃

⸂Phino jur Wren.⸃

“Myr wyn Bur.”

“Hyr syn Bur.”

“Z–Zyrex xy– ah… hy Lwyn.”

⸂Fiona… I won’t be giving my last name…⸃ said one of the two members of Hetexia’s group who didn’t seem to be from the Northern Tribes. Indeed, a moment later, the other introduced himself as, “Bread,” before falling silent.

“And of course, you know me! Hetexia hy Gru!” Hetexia finished with a laugh.

So many names, so many people from the Northern Tribes. Two sets of siblings and another hy. Emilia sized up the young man—Zyrex hy Lwyn—who had been clumsy with the sword but brutal as fuck with her dagger—his dagger now, the hy having seamlessly slipped it into his belt at the end of the battle. He was a strange guy, and as she watched him, Emilia could see the ruler within him, but he was clearly still young and inexperienced, fumbling over his words and title.

As though he could sense her watching him, his eyes snapped up to her, sharpening slightly before looking away. He said nothing, but Emilia could guess what he was thinking—probably something along the lines of

people never take my role as leader of my tribe seriously.

Unlike in Baalphoria, where rulers were elected—although there were certainly a number of families who had near constant power in parliament, such as her own and the Daymarks—a number of Free Colonies were still ruled through power dispensed through blood or other means.

Some, such as Norvel, Dion and the Atrium, were ruled by a royal family, with nobles filling in most of the important roles in governance, although regular civilians could rise in the ranks if they worked hard enough, not to mention had a lot of luck. Others, like Byshire, had no royal family, and were instead run by a collective of noble families, but their roles were hereditary, parents passing their right to power and obligations onto their children.

In each of those cases, if someone died, leaving behind only a child heir, another adult was assigned to take over their responsibilities until they came of age. In theory, this allowed the child to grow and learn to be a good leader before taking over the throne or seat of governance. In practice, however, it wasn’t uncommon for the assigned adult to misuse their power, trying to seize power for themself.

In the case of Norvel, these people were known as the Beholder of the Crown, and were chosen when the heir was born, spells burned into their core to stop them from attempting a coup. Known for its brutal Dread Coliseum, it wasn’t uncommon for the current ruler of the realm to be killed in combat, and such measures had been deemed necessary after a few too many royal children had been killed by temporary rulers. It wasn’t a perfect system—being a Beholder came with a whole host of issues, directly tied to the spells within them—but it worked to keep the often bloody country from destroying itself.

In contrast, the Northern Tribes assigned roles to children upon their birth, based on a

seeing

of the child’s future by the synat—the organization to which the one northerner, Hyr syn Bur, belonged. Parentage had no part in determining the child’s future, only what most Baalphorians would consider

fortune telling.

While children started at the lowest rank of their destined profession, slowly learning and rising in rank, if a tribe’s current hy died, their heir would become the new hy, regardless of their age. From that moment on, they were expected to rule their tribe to the best of their abilities, with their guardians and advisors filling in what they could not reasonably be expected to do. No one expected a baby to make rulings—at least, not that Emilia knew of—but a five-year-old? They could have an opinion, and what they say went.

It was part of why much of the continent viewed the Northern Tribes as uncivilized. According to legend, once, a child ruler had ordered their people to search for the vil that killed their parents, to neither sleep nor eat until it was found. It was never found, and the tribe descended into madness as their minds broke under sleep deprivation.

Emilia had no idea if this story were true or simply a story to scare Baalphorian children away from northerners and young rulers out of using their power for ridiculous things—Hetexia had once confirmed for Emilia that this story also existed in the north. Still, it demonstrated the sort of near-blind loyalty northerners had for their hy. It was the sort of loyalty that had led to no member of Hetexia’s tribe complaining about joining the war effort, even before it became a threat to their land.

Hetexia said they were joining, and that was the end of it.

It was also the sort of loyalty that inspired fear, and Emilia could easily imagine this clumsy little leader being looked at by the Baalphorian’s they met in raids as both someone to be feared—no one wanted to piss off a hy, even a young one—and someone with too much power for their young mind. It wasn’t until most Baalphorians were in their 70s, if not their 100s, that they would dare run for political office. Even in other professions, only someone like Olivier, raised from birth to know his worth and be confident in himself, had the fortitude to stand in front of people thrice their age without batting an eye.

While someone like Olivier was respected—fuck, even perhaps

revered

—in Baalphoria for having made such a name for himself when he’d barely been out of university, everyone had looked at Hetexia with scorn and concern when she joined the military, despite her being only a few years younger than Olivier was now at the time.

Double standards. There was a reason Hetexia and her entire tribe had ended up attached to their unit, and it wasn’t just how fucking powerful she was.

Emilia didn’t want to encourage that sort of double standard. Baalphoria might not have royals, but she hadn’t seen much of a reason to not show them as much respect as she’d show a leader of her own country—which granted, wasn’t a lot—since she was a teenager, sneaking through the halls of the Dion Summer Palace and witnessing the terrible tutoring that their royal family was forced into. Those children had barely been allowed to be children, their tutors working them hard to make sure they were perfect specimens—making sure that if they needed to step into the role of leader, they would be prepared.

The same was true in every other Free Colony Emilia had been able to learn the intricacies of: children of the rich and powerful were forced into their assigned roles from practically the moment they were born. It was the same in the Penns, to an extent. From everything she’d ever seen, most Penn families gave their children more freedom than an equivalent class in Free Colonies like Norvel, Dion or Byshire did, but there was still a different flavour of

extra

education that went along with their opulent lifestyles—a price for the doors that were opened to them by name alone.

That wasn’t to say they somehow had more expectations than the poor and middle class, despite what Emilia’s compulsory education classmates might have claimed, as they complained about various extra lessons. Those

below them

had their own problems and expectations, like Faylyn, expected to support her father at the cost of her happiness. The same way Faylyn didn’t deserve for people to come in and cause problems for her—although Emilia was fully aware that she’d done that a few times while drunk—this young man didn’t deserve for anyone to think less of him simply due to the circumstances of his birth and predecessor’s death.

⸂hy Lwyn ur’v vy Starrberg,⸃ Emilia greeted the hy. Her own status—regardless of whether she chose to use it or not—didn’t demand she do more than politely greet the boy. High ranking military officers weren’t expected to bow to foreign leaders in the Northern Tribes, not unless they were asking to be killed for a weak showing, anyways.

The northerner blinked at her, his eyes just as pitch black as Hetexia’s. In the real world, they would be black as well, ink pricked into the whites on the day of their ascension to the throne—a sign of power that would chase them into death itself, when their eyes would be removed and preserved, placed onto one of the holy sites of their religion to watch their tribe grow and flourish for many centuries to come… hopefully.

Zyrex swallowed, glanced at Hetexia as though looking for some sort of instruction as to what he should or shouldn’t do. That would explain why they were together, perhaps. Emilia didn’t know much about the Lwyn, other than that they hadn’t joined the war until it threatened the northern borders, and then remained north to defend their land, as opposed to going where they were most needed. A large number had died, if she wasn’t mistaken, all but abandoned by the military they barely supported, but she had no idea if the late hy had been among them.

Hetexia was one of the most respected of the hy, both for her showings in the Dread Coliseum and the war. Perhaps she had been entrusted with teaching this young hy some of the ins and outs of being a leader? If so, Emilia couldn’t help but think that was a terrible idea. The woman was an abysmal teacher, tending towards a

toss them into banun infested waters and hope they don’t die

approach!

Indeed, Hetexia did nothing more than stare the young man down. Her expression didn’t even have the decency to read as

figure it out yourself!

Poor kid. Emilia wondered how long he’d been with her. Either it hadn’t been long, and he had yet to figure out that he was just expected to go for it, or he was a bit of a lost cause, to still be looking to such a hard woman for support.

The young ruler swallowed again and straightened his spine, the pairs of siblings each looked to him, each wearing different expressions: tired, annoyed, amused, unfocused. They all made quite a group, and while Emilia wouldn’t interrupt Zyrex while he tried to figure out what to say, she really wanted to ask how they’d ended up with such a strange group, composed of people from four different tribes.

It wasn’t that the tribes didn’t interact—although Emilia had definitely seen

a lot

of tension between the Gru and Wren during the war—it was just that before the war they had largely kept to their tribes, only interacting when necessary. Maybe too many people had died? Too many children left orphans? Other than Hetexia, the members of this group were definitely giving vibes of being on the younger side, even if it was impossible to tell for sure while they were wearing avatars, although Emilia had a feeling their real bodies were nearly identical to their avatars.

“hy Lwyn ur vy Starrberg,” Zyrex finally said. He swallowed again, eyes flicking between Emilia and Hetexia, likely trying to judge who between them was the most important. After several long seconds, he asked, “vy’da hy Gru’si kryll?”

⸂Mn. Pro’da Het’si vy, afra’pra vro’ma krysa,⸃ Emilia agreed, fighting down a laugh when the young hy swallowed down the nerves that had been hounding him as she confirmed she could speak Brylish—the common tongue Nur’tha—wondering if he was speaking to her in a language she could only introduce herself in without the help of her Censor. That said, she was a bit out of a practice, and when he next spoke, his words fast and enthusiastic, it took her a moment to process what he was saying—or, what he was asking: for them to exchange proper names and drop the formality.

Behind him, Hyr tensed, their training as an upper noble of the Bur likely telling them that to drop titles so early in a relationship was a bad omen. Maybe it was. Emilia wasn’t wandering around listening to someone call her

vy Starrberg

for the rest of the raid, however, and after a few, slightly stilted conversations she had convinced everyone to use their proper names, although Hyr had probably only agreed because Hetexia was death glaring them.

Still, the syn’s resistance was interesting, and as Hetexia encouraged everyone to relax, she couldn’t help but wonder if it really was just due to their synat etiquette training or if something else was going on. She’d never really been one to believe in the synat’s fortune-telling, but after what she’d experienced in this world—how she’d seen and felt the locals reading the universe—she wondered if the young syn was doing just that: reading something about her through the aether, something that was making them uncomfortable.

“Well!” Hetexia cheered, clapping Zyrex on the back—probably the only acknowledgement he’d receive that he hadn’t fucked things up and just started a war between Baalphoria and the Lwyn. “Now that that’s over with, figure we should do something about all this.” Her foot dragged through the gore covering the ground, the energy within it vibrating the aether so strongly it was fading in and out of visible existence. “You wanna do the honours, vy?”

Only Hyr showed any real reaction to Hetexia offering her the honour of creating the blood weapon, their jaw tensing and honey gold eyes seem to burn with a mixture of concern and outrage, but another sharp look from the hy Gru seemed to tie Hyr’s tongue, leaving Emilia to step forward and… just breathe. There hadn’t really been anything she’d done to create blood weapons before, expect exist within the blood’s sphere of influence and—

There was the slightest click. She hadn’t felt it before, but it had probably been there with the previous, weaker weapons as well; a key turning within her core and the smallest wisp of energy dragging out of her, connecting to the curse that plagued this world.

The world swelled, flexed, exploded into a flurry of red death.