26th of Season of Water, Year 1 AL
Newt wasn’t much into the stage that followed. Airships kept arriving for a week. First to meet the Explorer’s Gate were the Swordpeaks with a fleet of twenty ships and nearly eight thousand people, followed by their ducal house, the Clearsongs.
Unlike the Swordpeaks, the Tidebreakers didn’t trust their dukes, and left the kingdom without them. Both houses brought a small retinue of minor nobility, cadet houses formed over the generations.
On Dandelion’s recommendation, the Tidebreakers initiated talks with the Helmsworth ducal house. They had never been on the front lines, nor marginalized by the imperial family, yet they joined the secession.
Of the chivalric orders other than the Explorer’s Gate, Everfrost, Runesong, and Burning Mountain had joined. Four out of one hundred was a terribly low percentage, but there was a limit to how many they could trust, and the diplomats working behind the scenes the leadership was willing to trust were few, and time too short.
All in all, Newt estimated their new civilization had around fifty thousand people, nearly all of them awakened or children.
Runesong was focused on scribing, but alchemists, artificers, and blacksmiths would be in short supply.
“You’re frowning.” Maelstrom approached Newt’s observation post.
“I’m thinking whether this whole thing will collapse on its own, without the imperials needing to lift a finger.”
“Well, aren’t you optimism taking human skin?” She started cheerily, then her face and voice turned steely. “Don’t say that aloud ever again. Those who followed us have that and much more to worry about. They think the imperials will come right after us and wipe us out, as if they know where we are, and as if they could mobilise the entire empire against us.”
For the first time, Newt considered the consequences of their actions from the imperial point of view.
“Their plan to attack the cults will fail. The number of people they could enlist against the cultists has dropped considerably. Your dukes will take over the Tidebreaker kingdom, but the kingdom of Swordpeak will be in turmoil, having lost both its royal and ducal houses.”
“You’re just scratching the surface, Pumpkin. Also, our political engagement has run its course. You’re a free man now, if you want it.”
“No,” Newt said before figuring out the words had left his mouth, but he quickly recovered. “I don’t. But if you want to break up the engagement, I won’t resent you for it. You have the right to your freedom.”
Maelstrom sized him up, then shrugged before smiling coyly. “I could do worse than you.”
She paused, her smile widening. “Not much worse than a pumpkin, though, but there’s no need to risk it.”
Newt frowned and stared at her.
“Is that a wrinkle?” he asked, dead serious.
Maelstrom held back a scream, mana flaring from her body as she examined and reexamined her face.
“You cheeky rotten—!”
Newt started laughing. The thing that ticked off his former master the most was when a new wrinkle appeared. Mana slowed aging, but didn’t stop it, and that only made her horror worse.
“Go find yourself a younger wife if you dare!”
She turned around and stormed off.
Newt sensed the disturbance in the mana, despite the other’s best effort to hide it. He turned around just as Maelstrom’s grandfather arrived.
“There were better ways to handle that.” He said, but a light smile danced about his lips.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Newt shrugged. “There were plenty worse ways too. Mel seems into tough love. She’s not even angry now, just putting up a front.”
The exalt nodded. “That’s true. Perhaps the time for fronts has passed. As you’ve said, we’re teetering on the edge. Whether we succeed or fail depends entirely on everyone pulling their own weight. The two of you included.”
“I’m not sure what Maelstrom has been doing, but I have been busy enough talking with saurians and making sure no misunderstandings happened.”
“I’m not talking about that,” the exalt said with strained patience. “We are lacking people.”
Newt nodded. “That’s what I’ve been thinking too. With greater numbers, survival would be easier.”
Finally, the exalt sighed and said it bluntly. “You should start making babies.”
That made Newt choke on his spit. “We’re too young.”
“The vast majority of mankind is a century dead when they hit your age.”
Despite thinking he wasn’t ready for children, Newt had to agree with the old man’s point.
“Why don’t you have more children, then?”
He thought the question would make the exalt back off, but the man just nodded.
“I’m planning to. Nine to ten moons from now, Maelstrom is going to have little aunts or uncles running around, and if you think that’s weird, my father and great-grandfather are both planning to contribute.”
Newt… didn’t need that kind of mental image.
What about Master?
For a moment, he tried to imagine what his position would be, but Maelstrom’s grandfather kept talking.
“Everfrost Order’s master and the Helmsworth family’s exalt are powerful, beautiful, and quite young, so I expect them both to see a number of suitors in the coming days.”
“Have you discussed this with Maelstrom? Is that why she came over to me?” Newt quickly changed the topic away from the kind of woman thousand-year-old men were attracted to, unsure whether the change was for the better.
“One of her aunts is going to have a talk with her eventually, but I think she would take it better if you approached her directly. You know, flowers, dinner, wine. Well, not the wine; don’t give her any wine,” the exalt said the last part hurriedly. “Knowing her, perhaps a bloody hunt, or a good spar might help more.”
By that point, Newt just wanted to get out of there, but the old man grabbed him and wouldn’t let him go, like a snake constricting him with embarrassing topics.
“You never had to deal with this, did you?”
“Nope. At low realms, my kind just lays a lot of eggs and we leave them to fend for themselves. At higher realms, when your brood can become a problem, you have smaller clutches. At that point, each egg costs mana, and you can choose the starting realms of your descendants. If you’re grooming a successor or a partner for some venture, you start with large batches of first realm hatchlings. Servants who can’t threaten you, you want at a higher realm. Generally, about a hundred of them three to four realms below yours is the norm.”
“You already had offspring at the seventh realm?”
“I had them much sooner, my dear Newt. But I didn’t start monitoring them until I was at the peak of the seventh realm. Little use for servants before that point.”
For some reason, Newt sensed a hint of resentment from Magmin. He chalked it up to his imagination, but the talk of babies and population made for a perfect excuse for the next thing he wanted to bring up.
“I agree that we need more people, Patriarch Tidebreaker. That’s why I’ve been thinking of going to my clan and bringing everyone willing to join us. That should be around two to three hundred people.”
The former Tidebreaker king held Newt’s gaze for a moment before nodding. “Fine, I’ll let you borrow two of my ships.”
Newt wasn’t really asking for ships, but for permission since he wanted to include a new group of people, and he thought at least one party other than the Explorer’s Gate needed to approve the new addition.
Still, that didn’t mean he would refuse two royal ships much more comfortable than what Explorer’s Gate had.
“Many thanks, Sir. I’ll go fetch them now.”
Newt escaped the conversation, and based on the way the old exalt was looking at him, the exalt had let him off temporarily.
He was tempted to rush over to the Tidebreaker part of the camp and just take the ships, but he first went to report to his master. Just like back at the order, the man was busy meditating when Newt found him.
“Master, I’ll go fetch my family and clansmen.”
The exalt nodded without saying a word. Newt stood there a moment, unable to decide whether he should speak, but in the end opened his mouth.
“Master, Maelstrom’s grandfather strongly implied I should start popping out babies with her, and that you will also find some woman for yourself.”
The exalt sighed and opened his eyes.
“We aren’t beasts, and we don’t plan on systematically breeding. While our numbers are small, the vast majority of those present are awakened, so we have time. As for paying tribute to the dragon exalt, we have stockpiles with at least a century’s worth of appropriate resources. We will have enough time to develop our alchemists and seal scribes enough to trade with saurians for favors and resources. So, don’t worry. Go fetch your parents. The odds of the imperials having figured out what’s happening are still low, and of them sending someone to your ancestral home are close to zero.”
Really, Master? Why say something like that? You sound more like Obi with each passing day.
