Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)

Chapter Twenty-One: Witches & Warfare

Lysandra's Point of View

Lysandra had received his message soon afterwards and replied within hours. She was not planning on meeting with Lucifer yet. Not when her mother had changed the game so drastically with her proclamation of war towards valkyries and elves both.

She had known that the war would happen eventually. Her mother would not be content with merely the South when the valkyries and elves ruled the rich territories to the north. But she had always assumed that the war would happen later, when the empire they already had was more developed and the rebellion was more vanquished. Even then, she had presumed her mother would challenge the valkyries first and let the elves bicker whilst she crushed Miras and then rebuilt her forces.

If she managed to crush Miras at all.

Of course, as a student of war, history and politics, Lysandra understood the advantages that would come with facing both at once. It would be all too easy to play on the ancient grudges and feuds of the two races, and to poke at the weaknesses in enemies unused to fighting alongside each other and not against each other. Lysandra had debated it as well but had come to the conclusion that facing both at once would still be impossible. One was worrying enough.

Yet her mother had challenged them both, both of the 'God-Born.'

Lysandra found this as terrifying as she found it fascinating.

However, her Plan would not go entirely to ruin. In the long years that she had been scheming, she had also drafted a vague idea of what she would do in various disasters and successes. She had already had to alter her plan twice, once for when Aaron had transmuted lead, and again when he had distilled the Immortality Elixir.

She had ideas of what to do when the nation was crumbled by earthquakes or decimated by volcano eruptions. What to do if the rebels waxed or waned in strength. What to do if Medea's own court rebelled against her. Lysandra even had a vague idea of what to do if her mother lost the throne. What to do without Dark Mirrors or even the entire rebellion.

So of course, she knew how to reshape her Plan to fit this war. It just involved stretching things out over time, and a few setting adjustments.

And by setting adjustments, she meant that she was going to Crimsith.

Crimsith was an interesting word. It hadn't existed in the Pre-Crimson, or Warlord, Era, but now it could refer to a range of things: a soldier or officer in service to her mother, a member of the court, a child of the Empress herself or the capital of Kallias.

The location of the capital was once home to several warlords with varying degrees of success. It was right by the coast, making it one of the coolest places in the desert country. With Cobalt, her domain, established as the centre of commerce and the prime home of the share-markets, Crimsith had become the city of politics.

Despite their duties across the Kallian Empire, the nobles would always end up living in Crimsith, close to the royal family. The other politicians came to the capital as well, along with the various agents and spies of the Empress herself. With the noble, wealthy people of Crimsith came the entertainers who the poorer areas had not a coin for, the bodyguards who were only required for politicians, and the most rigorous security in all of the Empire, and perhaps in most of the continent. Many of the coastal cities were like this, but the capital was by far the worst.

Of course, this did not mean that here, rebellion had winked out completely. They just played by a different set of rules than all the others.

Like the rest of the coastal cities, Crimsith was easy for Lysandra to read, to sift through and to manipulate. She knew the profit that was the religion of Cobalt, knew the politics that Crimsith revolved around, knew the academics and rich heirs of Kazimiar and could navigate the streets if Karone, rife with thieves and scams and whatever else the people there had managed to cook up in the six months since her last visit.