Chapter 4: Repetitive living

For Kira, the next few days continued with the same vague pattern. He would wake up, eat a breakfast that had already been laid out for him by servants, and then study the documents given to him whilst attempting to memorise many of the critical figures and finances associated with the crown. If he was ever confused by a figure or unsure about its validity, he could then go to the floor below to talk with the nation's treasurer. However, this he was loathe to do because he hated the idea of continually interrupting the comically stressed man in his work.

In his readings, Kira finally discovered that the name of the port he had arrived back in Anadora through was Alsport. Aside from that settlement, Neuverie and Berwick, there were only a handful of towns and villages left that were still associated with Arkadia.

At this time, his father had established somewhat peaceful relations with their neighbours and even with Krinestadt. However, the main issue that constantly highlighted itself to Kira was one that he felt very ill-equipped to address. Basically, Arkadia's tax income was decreasing each year.

This was likely down to two things: corruption and banditry, because, as people earned less and business failed as a result of the organised raids, less money was made, and so income taxes decreased. Furthermore, it would be practically impossible to eliminate the bandits with the underfunded and overworked remains of Arkadia's military. The corruption also meant that the reserves his father had taken him to see earlier were as useless as suspected because money seemingly disappeared, when spent, from every facet of the government.

As a result of this, Kira spent most of his time thinking about removing corruption in Arkadia, allowing more efficient government funding to remove barbarism from the lands. However, short of removing and replacing the majority of government officials, Kira struggled to think of a solution as this idea came with problems of its own such as who to replace the officials with? It truly seemed to him like Arkadia was in a slow decline that would be hard to escape from, and this made him further question his own qualifications to function as its leader.

During this time, Kira hardly saw Owen at all and Favian and Maria tended to stay out of his way. This meant that he had few opportunities to try and capitalise on to try and become closer to them. The only time he even spoke to Maria was after she had gotten into yet another argument with Favian about whether or not she could become a dame, a female knight, which Favian had argued was impossible based on her status.

To make matters worse, his father was nearly always out on business, and Merek was almost always with him. This meant that he mostly had to make do with conversations with servants who were wary of being near to him in the first place. After a week had passed, he was informed of the celebrations being organised for his sixteenth birthday coming up in just a fortnight. This was expected as, when a prince came of age, a celebration was normally in order and whilst he wasn't too excited about it, rather what the occasion heralded, he was looking forwards to meeting the royal manipulators coming from Krinestadt that Owen had previously mentioned.

Sometime after receiving this news, Kira, walking around the back of the keep, discovered a small walled garden guarded by a low wooden gate that he entered through. Within it was a central grassy area with a stone statue of a Marxan woman surrounded by trees. It was by this statue that his sister was playing with several dolls. Maria seemed to be his only other sibling that had taken after his father rather than his mother. Rather than Owen and Favian's fair hair and light eyes, she had darker straight hair like Kira.

Seizing this opportunity to go and talk with her, he placed himself down beside her and waited for a conversation to begin. Acutely aware that he did not know what to talk about with her and guessing that she was too young to be interested in the records he had been reading, he depended on Maria to start the conversation. After a few stretched minutes of waiting, Maria looked up at him and handed him a brightly coloured doll of some prince.

"Here," she said, "You can be the prince."

"Umm, sure," replied Kira, not sure what was expected of him.

After several awkward attempts to understand the game, he simply gave up on trying to comprehend it and instead just played along, hoping that no one older than his sister could see him.

"Favian and Owen don't like the dolls," she stated in a matter of fact way.

"They're probably just into other things."

"Nah, they're just idiots," she replied.

"Am I an idiot too?"

She glanced up at him and said "Yes." again in quite a serious tone.

Any talking seemed to steadily die out after that, with him not being able to pry any more information out of her about the likes and dislikes of his siblings.

Eventually, Kira stopped bothering to try and take part and just sat back, enjoying the warmth of the sun, taking a break from his studies. Lost in thought, his mind inevitably fell back onto the issue of corruption. However, in thinking about it, his logic just kept taking him around in circles, and he again struggled to shake the feeling that he wasn't the one to find a solution and that he should be somewhere else.

Entranced within himself, he hardly noticed when the garden's gate creaked open again. However, he did take notice and sat upright when two people walked through it. The one in front was a tall man with long, dark hair reaching his shoulders and a sharp nose. Behind him followed a woman of average height with brown eyes, and her fair coloured hair was drawn back into a ponytail. Both were wearing blue robes, and they moved with a sense of authority.

In their presence, Kira instinctively got to his feet and the man commented, "Good instinct." whilst introducing himself and the woman as Sadis and Thea respectively. They then explained that they were the royal manipulators who had come from Krinestadt to be present at his birthday celebrations as a gesture of friendship between their nations and that they had come to see him before the day itself.

His heart leaping at the chance to question them about the order to which they belonged, and he immediately introduced himself to them as the first prince of Arkadia. Seeing what was happening, Maria, not wanting to involve herself in the conversation, took the opportunity to leave and the group sat together on a bench at the side of the clearing.

After putting the pleasantries behind them, the woman asked directly, "As the future king of Arkadia, I'm sure that you have some wonderful plans for the future, care to share any ideas."

"That's way too forward, Thea," replied Sadis before Kira could say anything.

"Don't worry about it," said Kira, to both of them, "I'm in quite a unique position here, so it's only natural for people to want to know what the future may hold." He then continued, whilst cursing himself for how arrogant he sounded, "I'm really just hoping for a continuation of the status quo here in the west. We in Arkadia will naturally continue trying to free the lands of barbarians and restore the prosperity of the port cities that we possess."

"No mention of Krinestadt?" said Thea, almost sounding like she was saying it directly to herself.

"I was hoping to continue our current period of friendly relations with Krinestadt." responded Kira, not caring if the question had been rhetorical or not; he added, "If you would be willing to explain, I'm curious about how your own order works within Krinestadt."

Sadis responded to this before Thea could, "Essentially, all new manipulators are trained by those loyal to the Crown, and so the Crown maintains control over them in Krinestadt. The manipulators are then tolerated within society because the Crown puts us to use doing jobs that suit our abilities, such as healing in hospitals or helping with lifting in construction. All new manipulators end up belonging to the Crown too because most people only get to be manipulators by being taught by others, and the few who discover the power on their own tend to be reported to us."

"How does the Crown maintain control over such a number of manipulators that are kept so close to them?" Kira had wanted this question answered above any other because it had seemed to him that the manipulators could just try and take control for themselves.

Sadis was going to reply, but Thea got there first, saying, "Contracts."

"Thea!" exclaimed Sadis, being the most animated that he had been since the start of the conversation.

"Oh! You stop that." Thea continued to chastise him, "He's going to be a king, so this could be useful for him." she then turned to Kira, "Basically, manipulators manipulate aura; so we can manipulate our own to put conditions on it. These conditions can strengthen our abilities if used to constrain them to fewer applications proportional to the level of the constraint. But they can be used for other things. For example, all manipulators in Krinestadt must place the condition on themselves that they will follow all Krinestadt's monarch's orders and do everything in their power to protect them or die on the spot."

"Die on the spot?" repeated Kira.

"Yes, that's the contract, and so if our oath is violated our aura is forcefully removed from our bodies and returned to the overall flow of aura through the world, effectively killing us."

"What removes your aura?"

"Aura is never truly ours," said Sadis, "If we violate the rules, it is removed from us as simple as that."

"That doesn't answer the question." pressed Kira, sensing that they weren't certain either. This suspicion was seemingly confirmed when Sadis simply shrugged in response, and the two said hurried goodbyes and headed off with Thea again being pulled to the side and chastised by Sadis for running her mouth. At this sight, Kira resolved to talk more with Thea about the inner workings of aura; perhaps he could even become a manipulator himself one day.

Once they had gone, Kira was left alone in the garden and, once the sun had reached its zenith, he stood and left to get back to studying. Arriving back in his room, having nodded a greeting to Favian, he sat down with more papers, but he could not stop a particular thought from growing within his mind.

Simply put, it was: what if he could make some manipulators put a condition upon themselves with him at the centre? That would certainly help solve the corruption issue if people had to be loyal to him or face immediate death, and having a loyal guild of manipulators would also help combat the barbarians. Having thought it through that far, he decided to speak to Merek about it feeling excited at having found a potential solution to Arkadia's problems.

Later that day, Kira decided to go and try to find Merek as he was fairly certain that, if he didn't actively seek him out, the man wouldn't talk to him until he actually became king at his eighteenth. Kira knocked three times on the door to Merek's study, having received directions from a patrolling guard, and after a few moments, the door swung open inwards. The person standing on the other side (strangely enough) was Thea, and further back Sadis was sat in a chair drawn up to Merek's desk. It appeared that the three of them had been in some sort of conversation.

Feeling suspicious, to say the least, Kira allowed Thea to excuse herself from the others and lead him over to a window overlooking the city where she sat down on the ledge and asked him if he had wanted to talk with her further. Whilst she certainly wasn't a cold and brooding Merek, Kira still had plenty to ask her so, keeping reservations to one side, he prepared several questions. Before he had a chance to ask them, Thea contradicted herself by asking him a question instead, "I've heard that you're going to be made king at eighteen."

"Its tradition," replied Kira, well aware of his situation.

"Tradition?"

"Arkadian tradition states that when a prince becomes sixteen, they spend two years governing some portion of the territory as an apprenticeship for leadership. Then, when they're eighteen, they become king, and the current king resigns thus allowing the ruling king to be always somewhat more in touch with the realities of the nation."

"So, the siblings of the first prince tend to get ignored generation after generation?" Thea asked and then continued, "And, wouldn't this method of succession cause friction within the royal family?"

"Yes to both," responded Kira thinking of the distance at which his siblings seemed to hold him, "But I don't think that my father has a problem with it at least."

"He and Merek have high hopes for you."

"Merek does? I haven't ever even talked to him."

"Even so, he's heard only great things about you." she then stopped herself short as Sadis called her back from down the hallway. "Anyway, it's always nice chatting," she said, smiling broadly, and walked back to Merek's study.

The problem with that conversation, thought Kira, was that nothing had been said to explain what the three of them had been doing together in private and her hurrying back to them hadn't really helped to ease any concerns. However, Kira made himself dismiss these worrying thoughts, after all they were fellow manipulators and probably had many intellectual topics to discuss. He would just have to trust his father with the organisation and security of the coming celebrations.

The next few days then came and went with few opportunities to talk with Merek. The only meaningful difference now was that he would occasionally get the chance to speak with Thea. These conversations often deviated from the topics that held interest to Kira, such as how conditions for manipulators worked, and so little came of them. For Kira, they were just a welcome change from the somewhat tense and mute atmosphere around the dinner table as his father had now started taking the time to eat with Kira and his siblings.

Besides his studies, Kira began to notice how carts laden with food and barrels of beverages alongside decorations and performers for the coming celebrations arrived. Soon enough, the keep was full to bursting with the new food, and chefs had already started work preparing some courses ahead of time. They seemed to delight in having so many new dishes to prepare and not having to just go through the motions of producing routine meals every day. As such, a generally cheery atmosphere hung over the castle and Kira was even allowed to help in some preparations to take his mind off studying whilst attracting only the faintest of odd looks.

On the eve of his birthday, having just finished helping the servants lay a finely decorated cloth over one of the long tables taking shape in the central courtyard, Kira passed by Merek's office once more. He hadn't been expecting to be able to speak to Merek before the celebration as a result of the manipulator's somewhat elusive nature. However, on this day, the door to the study was slightly ajar. Within, Merek sat at his desk hunched over many scrolls decorated with symbols that Kira could not recognise and that were haphazardly draped over one another. Approaching it, Kira knocked a few times and pushed it fully open. At this point, Merek had no excuse to hide from the prince and so bade him enter and gestured to a stool for Kira to pull up to the desk.

When properly seated and settled, Kira asked, "As a manipulator, I'm assuming that you know about conditions."

"I do," replied Merek, briefly looking up at Kira from his scrolls and along a hooked nose.

"Then, have you had conditions placed upon you in service to Arkadia?"

"A manipulator places conditions upon themselves," he responded, sounding as though he had already decided that the conversation was over.

"So have you placed conditions on yourself?" pressed Kira.

"I am loyal to the king if that's what you're asking."

"I was thinking that if I become king, or when, that I might like to set up an order of manipulators much like in Krinestadt."

At this Merek somewhat broke his usual calm and said with something of a smirk, "And your father hasn't tried? Where will you find the manipulators?"

"As my father's trusted manipulator, I thought that you could help answer that particular question."

Merek nodded to a side door, "Through there are two more - both my assistants - and both of them are ruddy useless. The only others who grace Neuverie with their presence are tied up in the army and, as I'm sure that you can imagine, they are rather busy at the moment. Manipulators are just too rare; there simply aren't any to make up such an order here in Arkadia."

Kira had read about this in the manuscripts that he had been given. However, worryingly there did seem to be plenty of manipulators going around with the bandits and what's worse was that they were well versed in the art of combat. In Kira's mind, this had led to a single conclusion that these manipulators must have come from elsewhere. "Krinestadt is involved in no foreign conflicts at the moment, is it?" he questioned Merek to confirm at least this before pushing forwards.

"Correct."

"So, could the manipulators found with the bandits be being supplied by Krinestadt," he said, finally voicing this suspicion.

Putting down his pen with a sigh of finality, Merek looked up once more at Kira to rebuke him, saying, "You are completely underestimating the organisational capabilities of the bandits. If I were you, I'd think of them as enemy armies ravaging the landscape rather than simple highway robbers. Not just that, but what you're saying goes against the friendly relations that your father has worked hard to create with Krinestadt. Must I spell it out for you? There are two manipulators here from Krinestadt right now; you absolutely cannot be heard saying such things by them. Understood?"

"Yeah," responded Kira, somewhat shaken as he was unused to being spoken to like this and with that, he left the room and, closing the door behind him, leant heavily against a nearby wall. He was pretty certain by now of Krinestadt's involvement with the rebels, and so the need for Arkadia to field an order of manipulators of its own had increased.

This, along with his conversation with Merek, gave him a somewhat devilish idea. If he could ask all the present manipulators to place a condition on themselves to serve him at a time that they couldn't refuse, then they would have no choice but to go along with his plans. His two-year project before becoming king could then be focused on developing and demonstrating the merits of such an agency. Fortunately for him, such a time to ask for the conditions to be placed was almost upon him.

At his birthday celebration with anyone who was anyone left in Arkadia in attendance, they could hardly refuse him. At this thought, he felt almost giddy with excitement but he forced himself to come to terms with reality. At the very least, he couldn't force the Krinestadt manipulators to take such a condition on themselves and instead, he could ask them to place a condition meaning that they could never harm him. That way they would be forced to accept to maintain their friendly relations, or pretence of friendly relations, with Arkadia in view of so many people.

With these ideas in mind, he went back up to the royal apartment, ate a hurried dinner, and prepared for bed.