Chapter 252

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Author (FF)

springpoweredtoaster

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Volumen VII(7)

Bloody Crown.

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Jircniv sat alone in his quarters. Other than the bed, the only things upright was the desk at which he sat, and the dresser on which the broad mirror sat secured. His elbows were on the desk and his head in his hands. A few strands of his once beautiful head of hair fell away and his body was shaking.

Beside his arm sat a stack of petitions, half of which were unread. His eyes were covered by his hands, 'I don't want to read them… I don't…' Jircniv thought. He'd tried several times, but it was harder and harder to do his job well, and now?

'If only I'd listened to the foreigner's request! If I hadn't fought that battle?!' He cursed the fell fate to overcome his Empire… the financial disaster of losing so much territory, the loss of the slave population of dark elves, and then…

'The damn frogmen and their raids on top of everything else… no sooner do I manage to scrape together the funds to raise some soldiers to deal with it, then I find out that the damn caster has already done it! The raids stopped but my border with that bastard has grown!'

At his right sat other documents, also unread. The Emperor didn't need to read them to know what they were. Mutiny reports.

Every unit assigned to go to the border shared with the Kingdom of Nazarick had mutinied. So he stopped trying to send units, the result was that bandits and thieves, necromancers, and other undesirables essentially took over large swaths of territory.

'And even getting rid of the damn useless nobles didn't work… no scapegoats were enough…' He cursed as he recollected the dreadful day he realized it was only a matter of time.

When a group of nobles objected, openly, to his face, in the throne room itself, it was not because they objected, but because when he said to his guards, "Escort them out of the palace!"

They hesitated to obey.

'Now there's nothing left to do.' He thought while he listened to the fighting outside. He took up one last piece of paper, a letter from one of his last remaining supporters. This letter, he read.

'My Lord, as per your instruction, I have hidden away your concubines and their children. From my own stores, I provided them with sufficient funds to live in comfort for the rest of their lives in various towns in the far flung reaches of the Empire. When things have died down, I will move them west over the mountains, where they will be safe. Each of them is accompanied by a knight who will act as their guardian while pretending to be a husband. This is the best I was able to do for you. Thank you, for your trust, and for what you tried to do for the Empire. None could have anticipated the sorcerer's power… may it comfort you that history will vindicate you at least, and may the end be without pain.'

There was no signature on the letter, but Emperor Jircniv knew who it was.

He stood up from his seat, swaying a little as anxiety and hunger made his body unsteady. The chair fell over, but Jircniv neither bothered to right it nor really noticed the clatter of its fall. He took the letter to a nearby candle, its dim orange glow was the only thing to cast light over the room. The noise of the rampaging conflict in the coup was growing closer.

From a single cacophony of noise, a symphony of chaos, he was beginning to catch a few words. Jircniv closed his eyes and held the letter over the dancing little flame. The paper caught and the fire rose up over the page, consuming the precious words that those he once enjoyed were safe. The flames licked at his fingers, the heat began to caress his skin, the little tip of the fire drew closer.

His heartbeat was slow, a preternatural calm was settling over him as he saw the last scrap of ink be consumed by the flaring light. The heat kissed his skin, despite the fact that every hateful treasured word was gone… 'Until this paper is gone entirely, I will not be satisfied.' He told himself, and so he held on.

His hand shook a little as the fire ate its way upward, he held on as the pain sent waves of shivers up and down his body, his soft fingers seared, but his face never changed, not until the last scrap was released to be consumed and the brief brightening of his room faded again. The candle was alone in lighting the dark chamber of the Emperor, and his eyes fell on a chest left to him by his grandfather.

It was over a hundred years old and predated the Empire as it now was. It was painted with the golden griffin across the top, the symbol of the El-Nix household, and was of dark, polished wood. The finish was so bright that when Jircniv approached the chest, even in the dim light of the candle, the wood served as another mirror, reflecting his wrinkled face and almost completely bald head.

The chest was passed from father to son, and father to son, and had not, as far as he knew, ever been opened. There was only one admonition, 'Open this in your darkest hour.' The instructions came from his father the day he ascended to the purple, and as the din of fighting grew closer, Jircniv thought, 'There could be no darker hour than this one, except perhaps my last, and I doubt I'll be able to open it then.'

So, with a weary hand he reached for the chest and broke the seal, it opened with a quiet creaking noise, and Jircniv's sense of curiosity rose to the forefront despite his sense of despair. In the chest sat only a few items, none of them remarkable.

A straight razor, along with a hermit's clothing, ash stained, dark, and old. Complete with sandals of leather, a small coin pouch, and a knife. 'So this was his intent…' Jircniv thought, and with a bitter sour taste in his mouth he muttered, "Not that I have much hair left to cut off…" But nonetheless, with the advice of the long dead man laid bare under his eyes, a sense of Jircniv's former self came back.

'I don't want to die.' He realized, and reached for the items that offered some small hope of saving himself.

The Allfather let out a grunt of bliss as he felt his essence flow into his beloved Albedo. She clenched her thighs tight against his body, the overwhelming strength of the succubus would have shattered the body of almost anyone else in the world.

But for him they gave a loving squeeze paired with her orgasmic scream of ecstatic bliss. She fell forward, pressing her heated ample breasts against his chest, and she began to nuzzle her face against him. "My love…" Albedo whispered and kissed the side of his face, "Do you want to get out of bed… or just stay here?"

"Stay." He said, and Albedo tittered as she nuzzled against his cheek, her hands roaming over his body wherever they could, exploring him as if they had not been lovers for over a year, but instead had only just come together for the first time.

"But we can't." He said with no small regret when he put the palm of his hand to her cheek and brought her lips to his. The kiss was soft, tender, like the fall of a butterfly's wings against skin, a far cry from the ravenous passion of the previous hours. "We have work to do, the Kingdom can't run without its guiding hands."

Albedo gave him a tiny, teasing smile, "I will be ever at your side, My Lord." She said and slung her long slender legs off of his body to stand beside the bed, she brushed her hands through her inky dark hair, straightening it down her back and batted her wings twice, hard enough to blow the remaining covers off of the Allfather and knock them unceremoniously to the floor, leaving the naked body of the King there as a feast for her eyes.

He rolled his eyes at her playful act and stood up after her. Heat rose from the sheets in testimony of their prior passions, but after rising from the bed, they settled their minds to the business at hand. Albedo went to the silk rope on the wall and gave it a quick, sharp yank to summon a maid.

The Allfather, for his part, waved his hand and without a word, cast the cleansing spell he needed to remove any sweat, grime, or filth from his body. "Albedo?" He asked, holding out his hand to offer to do the same, but she gave a winsome smile back.

"No, My Lord. I would rather carry the scent…" She laughed when he rolled his eyes again, then approached. "As My Lord wills." She said with mock demureness before the common spell did its work.

Within the hour they were in the throne room. The Allfather Ainz Ooal Gown sat on the Throne of Kings, Albedo standing at his right hand, her sneering contempt only barely suppressed by the plastered-on smile that would have made a practiced whore proud. Her hands folded in front of her waist while at the base of the long steps a human petitioner made his plea.

The petitioner, from a noble house in the Baharuth Empire, was dressed in a dark, flowing garment with golden fringe and tassels dangling down the center of the chest. Flamboyant to the point of gaudy, Ainz again wondered, 'Is my sense of fashion the strange one?' Everyone else took such gaudiness in stride or even admired it. This one seemed to have that in common with everyone else.

Ainz blinked and forced himself to focus on what the kneeling representative had to say, rather than what he wore. "...So if it pleases the Allfather, we would be grateful if you would intervene in bringing peace to your neighbor… Since the Emperor died, we hoped for a true peace to return, but the one that led the overthrow has died as well. Now… Argland threatens us. The Theocracy makes demands of us. Bandits raid cities now, not just towns or villages, while alliances and Kingdoms beyond the east are marshalling soldiers… only the Kingdom of Nazarick has refused to kick our wounded body-"

"And you were hoping that our gracious Lord would see fit to salvage your corpse?" Albedo asked, her sharp tongue stung the nobleman enough to cause the man to flinch and lower his eyes down to the floor beneath his feet.

"Albedo." Ainz remonstrated her with nothing but a word.

"Forgive my outburst, My Lord. He asks much, and offers nothing. I couldn't restrain my temper in the face of such insolence toward your generous person." Albedo answered with her eyes given only to her beloved, before turning her eyes to the visiting minister.

"I trust that a bowing of my head is a sufficient apology?" She asked, and gave it without waiting for his answer.

The minister rushed to agree, stammering out his words in his haste to keep up with the byplay at the throne. "O-Of course yes, yes I understand, I was clearly wrong… but we do not offer nothing!" He half squeaked the last word, "The nobles are raising armies… we're on the verge of civil war, if you could lend us your strength…"

"Then you would offer us consideration?" Ainz guessed as the noble visitor trailed off under Ainz' steady stare. "It's true you aren't offering nothing, but what you want isn't my army. What you want is stability, and nobody in your declining Empire is going to be loyal to me, particularly given our history. Settle on the strongest as best you can, and when that one rules, some accounting can be made between everyone in the arena of nations."

The pale faced noble turned bright red, his mouth opened, his eyes were so wide that Ainz wondered if they might fall out of the man's very head.

"We… Yes, of course, the Allfather of Nazarick is truly as wise as we have heard… His plan is… brilliant, and to have come to it so quickly on hearing our troubles… I am in awe of your mighty mind…" The noble was rambling on his praise until Ainz cleared his throat.

The noble took the hint and rose to his feet, he bowed deeply, arms spread out like the wings of a bird, he bowed far forward, then rose and began to retreat without showing his back to the Allfather until he reached the towering double doors that reached the high ceiling of the dark stoned throne room.

Alone again for the moment Albedo said with a charming smile spreading slowly over her face, "That was truly a brilliant plan, My Lord. I am in awe of your foresight."

"Thank you, Albedo. Now I believe we have an emissary from Demalbion waiting next, don't we?" Ainz asked in haste, "Go ahead and summon him." He added before she could reply.

As Albedo reached for the rope to ring in the next entry, Ainz racked his brain wondering, 'Plan?! What plan?!'