Hard Work

The iron gates of the palace slowly opened as General Hiral—now in full ceremonial armor—rode at the head of a small but striking parade. 

Behind him trailed a fanfare of musicians, banners bearing the sigil of the eastern empire, and the most important spectacle of all: the war slaves.

The "captives", clad in tattered robes stained with ash and dirt, walked in chains with heads bowed. 

Their performances were flawless—eyes flicking with subtle fear, shoulders hunched in defeat. They had been trained well.

The gathered nobles and palace staff watched from the stairs and balconies. 

Murmurs and glances buzzed like wasps.

Then a minister—Lord Nen, always one to stir poison—stepped forward, face contorted in disdain. 

"General Hiral," he called, "these are no soldiers! They are not marked by scars or the bearing of warriors! This is mockery!"

Hiral kept calm, barely even glancing at him.

But the tallest of the "slaves" suddenly lunged forward with a feral snap and bit Lord Nen's finger so hard he screamed like a startled peacock, flailing back into two other ministers who caught him in shock.

The other nobles and guards stiffened, but Hiral lifted one gloved hand. "Stand down," he said coolly. "The defeated sometimes lash out. A testament to their former strength."

No more questions were asked.

His loyal aides, already prepped and positioned, swiftly ushered the "slaves" away—into a prearranged safehold, disguised as dungeon quarters beneath the palace. 

There, they'd be treated well and vanish after their purpose was fulfilled.

Hiral turned on his heel and strode through the grand hallway of the Imperial Palace, flanked by marble pillars and silken tapestries, until he arrived at the Throne Room.

The Empress reclined on her dragon-carved throne, draped in red and gold silks. 

Her sharp eyes shimmered like obsidian under candlelight. 

The ministers were already arrayed in a semi-circle around her dais.

"General Hiral," she drawled, her voice slow and silken, but laced with ire. "You return not in triumph, but in defeat."

Hiral bowed low. "Your Majesty."

"You were bested," she went on, rising to her feet. "And now the western king sings glory to their general for humiliating the might of the east. Do you call this conquest?"

She didn't pause. Her voice swelled like a rising storm.

"The glory of the empire mocked. The will of your Empress made trivial. You did nothing when you could have sabotaged the duel. And now you bring me trinkets—slaves to distract from your cowardice?"

Hiral said nothing. His hands stayed at his sides, but his fists curled, knuckles whitening within his gloves.

Then the Empress's voice turned cold.

"What punishment should I bestow on a general who orchestrates his own defeat?"

That was the bait. Hiral didn't speak.

And just as expected, the ministers leapt in like jackals.

"Strip him of his title!"

"Banishment!"

"Confine him to the Eastern Barracks in disgrace!"

"Seize his estate! Replace him with a loyal commander!"

Each voice louder than the last, desperate to pile on. 

The Empress said nothing, watching the show with a smile now curving at the edges of her lips—pleased, for once, to see Hiral be the subject of judgment.

Then Hiral raised his head and spoke with a voice like cold steel.

"Your Majesty. You are right to be displeased. I accept full responsibility. But if I may—allow me to reveal the truth of my strategy."

The room fell silent.

He stepped forward. "I let the West taste a petty victory… to lull them into believing the East is weakened. It is a feint, a trap of patience. The more emboldened they grow, the more careless they become. And when they do—we will take what we desire without struggle."

He turned slightly, addressing both Empress and ministers. "Arrogance is a more useful weapon than bloodshed. The Westerners now parade their general. But what they truly celebrate is their blindness. A blindness I have sown."

The Empress's brows slowly lifted.

Hiral's voice dropped lower. "And if I had whispered this plan before seeing it work, Your Majesty would have rightly called me reckless. But now I return not with a win of swords—but a long game, played with precision."

He met her eyes. "In a year, perhaps less, they will march where we want them to. And fall where we already own the ground."

There was silence.

Then, the Empress laughed—a delighted, melodic sound that echoed through the chamber like wine poured from a golden cup.

"Brilliant," she said. "My ministers should be ashamed. Did any of you think so far? Did any of you have such cunning?" Her voice lashed them like a whip. "Instead you snap and bark like petty curs."

They bowed their heads, grinding their teeth in silence.

"And," Hiral added gently, "even in loss, I brought Your Majesty what you requested."

"Ah, yes," she smiled. "The slaves."

She waved a hand. "You'll oversee them. Make them useful."

"As Your Majesty commands."

"Go. Rest." She waved her fingers. "You've earned it."

Hiral bowed and turned, eyes sweeping over the ministers who now whispered less confidently. 

As he walked, he didn't look back.

The Empress had what she wanted—glory and submission. The ministers had been quieted, if only for now.

And he had his position intact, his plans unfolding, and a future yet to be written.

****

Inside a high-ceiling chamber draped in deep emerald banners embroidered with the sigil of the Eastern Empire, Hiral's office was a fortress of order amidst chaos. 

Scrolls, ledgers, coded parchments, and letters fanned across his desk in careful piles—each labeled, each one tracked with military precision.

His personal aide, Tirin, stood by the desk holding yet another stack of invitations.

"From the ministers," Tirin said with a grimace. "They've increased again this morning. Fifty-two in total. Twenty-six request a private audience by week's end. Some came with gifts."

Hiral didn't even glance up as he flipped through one of the reports—this one filled with notes from villages his forces had aided on their return journey.

"Sort the letters," Hiral said. "Use the list I gave you last night. Accept meetings from those under the 'coax' and 'leverage' categories. Schedule the easily manipulated ones first. Let the ones with influence stew a little."

"And the reformers?" Tirin asked carefully.

"I'll meet those personally," Hiral replied. "They deserve that much for not selling their souls."

Tirin bowed with a slight grin. "Understood."

After his aide left, Hiral allowed himself a rare pause, reclining slightly as he read through the feedback from the villages—notes penned by scribes, some written by children with uneven strokes, others dictated by grateful elders:

"They did not act like soldiers. They acted like neighbors."

"We would have starved again this season if not for the General's army. We pray for him at every meal."

"Even our boys want to join the army now—not to fight, but to rebuild."

A faint, tired but genuine smile tugged at Hiral's lips.

He then picked up a small coded letter, one he penned himself the night before. With a few deft strokes, he sealed it and marked it for Seran.

To Seran,

All went as planned. The Empress is appeased. You may proceed to assist the remaining three villages. Let half the veterans—those with families outside the capital—return home for a two-week leave. Same applies to the younger recruits showing signs of morale fatigue. They've earned it, and it will do us more good in the long run.

Unless the King of Ro rattles the Empress' vanity again—gods forbid—we have two months before the court spins another conquest.

Remain vigilant.

—H

He placed it in the secure dispatch box for his personal messenger corps.

Then, still seated, Hiral reached for one of the coded journals tucked under a false ledger.

It contained schematics and geological observations he noted from the diamond-veined cliff and jade canyon.

"Too much," he murmured, fingers tightening on the edge. "Too much, too soon."

He had calculated how long it would take to extract a viable amount of gem material without drawing attention—four years at minimum, if done in shifting cycles and using ghost labor records under false provincial names. 

He already had two mining experts summoned under fabricated identities, one arriving tomorrow.

Still not fast enough. The army needed food, roads, armory maintenance, pensions. The villagers needed restoration. And he needed political leverage to defend all of it.

The thought drifted to Alexis.

Could he be a potential ally—or too dangerous to deal with?

Hiral leaned back again, closing his eyes briefly.

The man was sharp—sharp enough to be both a threat and a temptation.

But if Alexis could be reasoned with, maybe there was room to at least open a dialogue. 

If not for diplomacy, then for preventing another war spurred by two rulers obsessed with glory.

Still, Hiral hesitated.

"One wrong move," he whispered to the quiet room, "and I won't just fall—I'll take everything I've built with me."

****

The sound of angry footsteps storming down the marbled corridor outside Hiral's office echoed like war drums—followed by the sharp voices of servants trying to calm the intruder.

"Minister, please—General Hiral is in the middle of—"

"I raised him! I won't be told what I can and cannot do in my own son's office!"

Before Hiral could so much as stand, the doors slammed open with the force of a thunderclap.

Minister Yan, the Empire's High Minister of Logistics and Hiral's father by blood alone, strode in with robes half-askew and fury blazing across his graying face. 

The servants flinched behind him, guilt-ridden and powerless.

Hiral looked up slowly, unhurried, eyes like still water.

He lifted his pen and pointed it toward the door.

"Leave us."

The servants fled like wind-blown leaves. Once the door shut behind them, Hiral leaned back in his chair, expression perfectly void of emotion.

"Well then," he said in a cold, clipped tone. "To what do I owe the honor of a visit from the esteemed Minister of Logistics, barging into my office as though his infamous sense of propriety had never existed?"

Yan's face turned a deeper red. His hand slammed against Hiral's desk, making a small ink pot tremble.

"You insolent little bastard," he spat. "Every time I think you can't sink lower, you prove me wrong. You have no gratitude—no honor! Unlike your elder brother, who at least knows how to preserve the family's name, you—you flaunt your tainted blood in public like a banner!"

Hiral returned to his parchment, calmly reviewing a column of projected grain transport numbers.

"Ah, yes," he murmured, "the Skyfire woman. We've come back to that old refrain."

Yan's lips curled in disgust. "She was a mistake. A night of weakness. And you—you were the cursed reminder of that mistake. I gave you a name, a roof, an education—and this is how you repay me?"

"You forget to add neglect, abuse, and rules, Father," Hiral said softly, without looking up. "So many rules. Most of them contradictory."

Yan's hands curled into fists, and in a sudden burst of temper, he lunged for the papers on the desk.

In the blink of an eye, Hiral moved—his hand a blur, sweeping the documents away while rising in a single fluid motion. His other foot slammed against his father's chest, sending the older man staggering backward and collapsing into a velvet reading chair.

For a moment, there was only heavy breathing—Hiral standing over his father like a shadow cast by a taller flame.

"You are not welcome here," Hiral said, low and deadly. "Not as a father. Not as a minister. You lost the right to tell me how to live the moment you forcibly took me away from my mother and treated me like a scandal to be buried instead of a son to be raised."

His father glared at him, seeing Hiral as the embodiment of his flaws .

"Get. Out."

Face burning with humiliation and rage, Yan scrambled upright. His mouth opened as if to curse again, but one look at Hiral's expression—utterly indifferent, not even angry—snapped it shut.

He left in silence.

Hiral walked to the door, bolted it with a smooth click, and leaned his forehead against the wood.

"The same old tune," he whispered.

He returned to his desk, settled back in his seat, and resumed his calculations.

Outside, the faint sound of birds echoed in the courtyard. 

Inside, Hiral's pen scratched steadily across parchment, unbothered by blood or burdens.

The Empire could call him hero, heretic, or half-blood. None of it mattered.

What mattered was the work—and the people who believed in it.

****

The capital of the Empire—grand, labyrinthine, and gilded with the illusion of stability—breathed a little easier these past few weeks.

That was Hiral's doing.

But few could see the strings being pulled.

In halls soaked with incense and ambition, Hiral maneuvered like a ghost, cloaked not in shadows, but in authority, subtlety, and threat. 

Some ministers he visited by day, offering tea and praise for their "unwavering service to the Empire." Others, he summoned quietly in the night, where lanternlight turned soft threats into reasoned alliances.

Some never knew they were working for him.

Others knew too well—and swallowed their pride for fear, or gain, or the promise of reform.

Hiral played them like a shogi board.

In the old marble tower, where the reformist bloc held its informal meetings, he was met with cold eyes.

The tall woman in slate-blue robes—Minister Senya, known for her incorruptible stance and bitter tongue—narrowed her eyes.

"You come here with ink still fresh from coercing half the court," she said, arms folded. "And now you ask us to help you push your next reforms?"

"I don't need you to like me, but," Hiral said calmly. "I ask for reason. And for the lives of the villagers, rebuilding their homes without a copper from the capital's coffers."

Another minister—a gaunt man with a scholar's weariness and a firebrand's voice—nodded slowly.

"He's right," said Minister Li'er, ignoring the murmurs. "His hands are stained, yes. But he's not trying to cover them in gold. He's buying time. And buying us space."

Senya clicked her tongue but offered no retort. No one could deny the truth.

Even if they hated the man for his unfilial acts and unrestrained actions, they could not ignore the results.

****

Over the next ten days, Hiral forged something dangerous in the capital:

A delicate, pulsing balance of power, where reformist voices rang louder because he silenced others—and where bureaucratic bottlenecks unclogged thanks to careful reassignments, shamed secrets, and timed inspections.

Public food prices stabilized.

Local militias received updated training manuals.

Rations reached the outer villages again—not nearly enough, but enough to flicker hope.

In one alley, a child no longer begged for medicine.

In one hamlet, a school reopened.

Hiral received no thanks for any of it.

But that was never the goal.

In the depths of his private study, amidst a pile of scrolls, Hiral sat by candlelight—reviewing reports of grain surplus and smuggling routes exposed by tip-offs he himself had manipulated into surfacing.

It was a slow crawl, this salvation.

And it was not enough.

He sat back, eyes flickering to the sealed drawer that held sketches of the diamond and jade veins. A way out. A risk.

But one he had to take.

The Empire breathed easier—but the rot in its core still lingered.

And Hiral?

He would keep cutting away at it, piece by piece.