Chapter IV | The World Riptide

The Minister of Church, Lord Baron August Caecilius.

In the seconds before the making of history, he found himself stroking the shiny gold surface of the king’s crown. Then the crowd of people before him reappeared in his vision with his trance ended, and the Throne Hall came back to life. Members of the King’s Court, knights and nobles from houses across the nation—they all came to see the first crowning of a new king in two centuries. The Lord August prayed no one had noticed his nigh heretical act, but he knew there was no point in prayer, so he stopped and continued on.

He was dressed in his religious garb for the occasion, a robe made of linen ribbons that curled up from the ankles and joined at the waist. These ribbons dragged across the dusty floor of the Throne Hall as he moved from the throne itself down to the ground floor, where the Crown Prince stood in waiting. Three long years had passed since the previous King’s Carnation had declared his nephew to be their next monarch, and only now that he was eighteen could they finally crown him a king.

And Claude himself, at present the most important man in the world, found the entire affair to be dreadfully droll. Despite the fact that the ceremony had not been done in over two centuries, the Church missed not a single beat, as if they had been practicing for this moment every day since the coronation of Finryd himself. “The paradox of tradition,” the Kid King thought. “Somehow both striking and dull at the same time.”

Finally, when it was done hours later, and he was seated in that old throne, a seat as pristine as the day it was chiselled from the rock wall behind, the country once at standstill could finally begin to move again.

“Your Grace,” were the first words uttered at noon then. They were uttered by Sir Nico Calista, High Lejindir of the RINGKNIGHTs, an order of the GUARDs formed to dedicate themselves to the king and nothing but. There were nine of them, including Sir Nico, each one representing a city of Purily, and as well a ring on the king’s hands, paid as tribute from each of the eight kings who bent the knee and the last for House Morsylis itself. “I would have died in your service, if the Holy Lady instructed it to be.”

Claude crossed his legs over an armrest on the throne and took a bite out of an apple he had squirreled away into a pocket before arriving. “Good sir, I must admit that a dead knight is of very little use to me. I’m very proud of you for realizing that.” His uncle narrowed his eyes at Claude, unamused by the quip. And another he noticed, was a Lana Rose who sat at the far end of the hall with the squat Minister of Transport, barely restraining her laughter with an arm slung over her stomach. “I jest, of course. A good RINGKNIGHT is meant to die for their king, but old Finryd took too long. How many generations of High Lejindir precede you, Sir Nico?”

“I am technically the fourth, Your Grace.”

“The fourth lejindir of the First Order,” Claude elaborated. “Almost comical, if you think about it. I’m assuming you want to retire now? I recommend City Midia; I’ve heard both their girls and their summers are gorgeous beyond compare.”

“I wish to retire to the HUNTERs. Your Grace.” He almost tacked the honor at the end as if it were a burden to do so.

Claude brought his feet back to the ground and sat in his throne proper, taking one more bite of his apple before stuffing it into his pocket. And as he chewed, he examined the old knight, with his white hair and deepening lines. Jokes aside, Nico Calista was known as the greatest knight in history, and in his youth, the years before the Old King had lost his wits, he singlehandedly quashed a Midtown rebellion in the Western Wing. A rebellion worth cannons and rootsteel. He traveled from city to city putting rebellions to rest, it was said. Twelve in total, each one in fewer than an hour. “I don’t recommend it,” he finally said.

“Alas, it is my desire.”

“You are a duke’s brother,” Claude continued. “Once retired of your oath, you may return home with riches to spare. A life in Layer 1 without worry or responsibility, there to bask in the world’s pleasures in every breath until your last. Who in their right mind would choose to join the HUNTERs?”

Sir Nico cracked a smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I am not the only one with this wish. The Peach RINGKNIGHT, Sir Hiroaki Chiyoda, will join me there as well. The First RINGKNIGHT, Sir Cassius March, too. And finally, the Wraith RINGKNIGHT, your fifth cousin I believe, Sir Aquila Caecilius.”

“Lords and youths…” Claude muttered. “Fine. Throw your lives away as you please. I’ve already found a replacement for you, Nico, and with your lejindir gone, the rest of you have no obligation to remain. Who else has plans to leave, by the way?”

The Throne RINGKNIGHT stepped up next, then, beside Sir Nico who glanced concernedly at the young man. “I’ve heard a great many rumors that your Minister of Intelligence has of late shuffled off his mortal coil, which leaves his position unfilled. My king, I would like to request to fill that very position. If you would do me the honor.”

“Timothy Tom,” Claude mused. “By the holy lady, what a stupid name. Your entire house is near a joke, sir knight. Why would I name you a position of such great responsibility?”

“If I may, Your Grace,” Sir Nico interjected. “Timothy is a bright young man. Strong and intelligent, and earnest to a fault. He would be a blessing to your court.”

Claude almost chortled. “Odd, I never thought earnestness to be a desirable trait for spies and gossip-wielders.”

“On the other hand!” Tristan called out from across the hall. “House Tom has been known to lie and cheat for almost their entire history.”

“You make a fine point, little minister!” Claude called back. “Fine then, Lord Timothy. I accept your request. The court is dismissed!”

Nico Calista cleared his throat. “One last thing, my king. I was wondering, who is to be my replacement?”

Claude paused. He had known Nico would retire for nearly a month now, long before his coronation was to be had, and since learning it, he struggled to find a half-decent replacement. Nico the Steel had been his hero since he first heard the name, and no matter the swaths of knights he investigated, not a single one came close to the prestige of the one he admired most.

“What’s on your mind?” Lana Rose had asked him a week before. They were still in class together at Fallryn Academy, just the two of them after the rest had cleared out, eager to get home and away from everyone else. Yes, the silence of his classmates unnerved him, but for some reason, the charm of this girl who wouldn’t shut up unnerved him even more. He was Crown Prince, for heaven’s sake. And she spoke to him like he was a little plaything, like a wad of dough to be kneaded with her words. When he realized his threats of violence would do nothing, he tried then to best her in conversation, again to no avail. And that smile. Like she always had something up her sleeve, perhaps evil, perhaps kind. He could never tell. But now, her eyes showed concern, real concern the likes of which he had never seen, even from his parents. The closest came from his uncle, who he hated in return. But he didn’t like Lana either, so what was the difference? Because she was pretty?

“I need to choose a new High Lejindir once I become king,” Claude admitted. “But I can’t seem to find anyone worthy.”

“Worthy of you?” Lana guffawed. “Half my neighbors with sticks are worth your lejindir whats-it.”

“I could kill half your neighbors armed with guns just by breathing.”

Lana sat back and smiled. The evening light made her auburn hair glow like fire. “True. But think about it, Claude. If you’re the strongest guy in the world, why go looking for someone who’s not nearly as strong as you to be your bodyguard? That’s not what you need. They may call you the Kid King now, but sooner or later, they’ll call you by a name that not even Finryd the Old was worth: Claude the Immortal. How’s that?”

“I think you’ve been reading too many books,” he scoffed.

“And you, not enough. Keep your wits up, little prince. The moment you’re outwitted is the moment you lose, immortal or not.”

“Then who would you have me name?”

“A girl,” Lana said.

“Not you.”

“Not me,” she agreed. “No, someone like an enemy, but too good to really be an enemy. Someone clever, too. You don’t need physical power, Claude. Your uncle made certain of that. You need political power. Choose a girl. A girl someone cares about.”

The memory ended there, and Claude sat back in his throne again, a knuckle to his lip in consideration. His eyes swept the room, one by one until they found the girl he was looking for. Nearly every royal and noble worth anything sat or stood in the Throne Hall that day, so he knew she would be there. And she was, standing right beside her father with perfect posture, curly black hair cut so short, one could mistake her for a boy if it weren’t for her figure and her dress. Her eyelashes were so long, they shimmered like lines of ink yet to dry. He continued to stare until she finally met his gaze. “I name Lady Lilya Caecilius,” he muttered. The court quieted then, to hear the king whose voice barely grew above a whisper. “To be the first lady knight of Purily, I hereby name the Lady Lilya as High Lejindir to the Second Order of the King’s RINGKNIGHTs.”

The court exploded in uproar, and Claude simply sat and basked in it, wondering if he’d made the right decision. Lilya stared at her king, bewildered and bright-eyed, but it was Lana he looked at now. The lucky wore an inscrutable expression where she would usually put on a smile, and he couldn’t help but wonder why as the clammoring voices drowned out everything else around him, and she turned her back to him and left the hall.

“The internet is like a bacterial web, reaching from one colony to the next to spread like wildfire until it consumes everything.” Jericho March sketched out the basic concept on a whiteboard, there in Tristan’s living room to the man himself. “Paris, the red marker please.”

The dark-skinned girl nodded and then fumbled through her tin pail of markers until she found the right color.

“You’ve already taught her to speak in Purilyn Standard?” Tristan asked, lounging on his vinyl sofa as he watched the presentation.

“Hardly,” Jericho scoffed, taking the marker from her lucky’s hands. “The girl’s a bona fide super-genius. Three days after I took her in from that shipwreck, she could already understand me. A month later, and she could make basic conversation. It’s been three years now. She’s already fluent, and I couldn’t teach her a thing.”

“You overestimate me, my lady,” Paris said, hands clasped sweetly in front of her.

Jericho flicked her on the forehead. “I overestimate nothing. You’re lucky you’re so pretty, else a complex of mine would’ve had you flogged.”

“I would like nothing more than the honor to be flogged by Your Highness.” Paris pushed a strand of hair back away from her cheek as if waiting to be slapped there, barely concealing a playful smirk from her lips. Jericho’s eye twitched and she uncapped the marker to ignore her. Paris made an exaggerated pout, to which Tristan couldn’t help but explode with laughter.

“You two are a riot,” he said. “What name did your baroness give you, girl?”

She took a step back and turned to the minister, suddenly formal. Jericho had dressed her in the old traditional garb of House March’s servants and in their colors, white and mint green. She curtised, lifting her skirt a touch while crossing her ankles. “I am Paris of Hall Astrantia, serving House March from now until my death.”

Tristan stroked his neck where his major arteries pulsed under his skin, amazed. “The Lord Duke March let his lastborn daughter form a hall for two foreigners? How in the world did you manage that?”

“That’s not all I managed,” she said, returning to the whiteboard. “The internet is like a web of bacteria, right? In that case, each colony is like a node of sorts. The only way to tame the consumption is to control these nodes.” In her bacterial diagram, she circled the concentrated growths in red. “And it just so happens that for my thirteenth birthday, my lord father has gifted me one such thing. I can broadcast, post, and stream anything for anyone at any time from now until he chooses to pay attention to me again.”

“And you want me to help manage this node?” Tristan laughed. “Very well. Then in hopes of overturning the social order, consider me to be at your beck and call.”

Jericho smiled and tossed the marker in the air only for it to disappear from view by a whistle and thud. Across the room, a metal fork had impaled the thing through and into the drywall.

“Even for non-combatives, you three are particularly unaware about yourselves, aren’t you?” Lord Timothy Tom, Minister of Intel, leaned against the open doorframe while spinning another utensil between his fingers. He wore his freshly tailored ministerial long coat, black but trimmed with royal purple, the color of his house. “I have a message for Tristan the Train. Clear out, ladies.”

Jericho stepped in between the line of sight between Tristan and Timothy, hands on her hips and head held high. Then as if to intentionally ruin her moment, Paris stepped in and smacked Jericho’s chest with a wool duster before slinking back into the background. Her eye twitched at the interruption, but she still continued. “And what message is that?”

Timothy stepped toward the young lady, but Tristan raised a hand to stop him. “Let’s let her listen,” he said.

He seemed apprehensive, but relented, closing the door behind him to ensure they were not overheard. “Lord Baron Jean Kavesta has informed me, indirectly, that a blueprint has been stolen from their database. And before you ask, it wasn’t some silly invention that can be merely mourned and forgotten, no. It’s far more important than that. The engineers call the thing a nanoelectric pulse device, or NEP. They’re fully capable of disabling body augments.”

Tristan went to his feet, knocking the sofa back in his haste. “You’re telling me the Baron has technology capable of killing the king?”

“Well, not anymore. The project was considered low-priority, and was given to a single researcher who was killed in the theft.”

“Have you informed the king yet?” Jericho said. “Surely you have, lord of the yeti.”

Timothy gave the girl a measured look. And after gathering his thoughts, he retracted an arm through the sleeve of his jacket and began to unbutton it from the inside out until he exposed the rows of knives fitted along the lining. “You have Tristan’s trust and are a bastard daughter from across the sea, so doubtless I need threaten you, Lady March, but do tell me your honest opinion. With the king dallying about as he does while seducing his lowborn ladies in the streets, do you really believe that House Morsylis could give eight shits about the people?”

He fingered the knife nearest his little finger, and Paris stepped before Jericho, a frigid glare cast his way. “I don’t think you know well enough to decide whether he lives or dies,” she said.

“And the servant speaks before the lady.”

The hateful shelf across her brows sharpened. “And the ass speaks before the mouth. Your words stink worse than the shits you say the king couldn’t give, and I’m repulsed you would direct them at the grace of the Lady Baroness, descendent of the First Girl and future queen of all Purily.”

“Paris!” Jericho exclaimed, skin red from the base of her neck up in blush. Paris almost smiled as she turned to her lady then, but then Jericho slapped her hard across the cheek. “You have no right to claim such things in front of stranger lords!”

Paris seemed stunned by the hit, and she touched the bruise gingerly as if confirming that it had actually happened. It stung when she did. For a moment, Timothy thought the girl would break out into tears and apologize. That is, until her shock visibly turned to anger, and the servant tackled her own lady to the ground. The two continued to shout and tussle across Tristan’s living room floor while the squat minister took to his feet and straightened his garments.

“I have my doubts, same as you, about whether the king can be relied upon or should remain in his seat. But Timothy, to not tell him is treason.”

“But is it treason we must commit?”

Tristan looked again to the squabbling girls on his floor. “The girls speak truth. But as do we. What truth to rely on? Which to ignore? It’s an impossible choice to make without learning more first.” He waddled over to the tall lord and tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t tell him for now. Not until I make certain of some things first.”

Timothy cracked a smile. “One could almost mistake your job for mine.”