Eutropia is, formally, Co-Emperor. No, not Grand Princess, Co-Emperor. She was officially appointed while using a Greater Hat of Disguise to Alter Self into a man, so that she met the requirements that were never written down anywhere but that every Taldane nobleman knows by heart. Stavian is pretty sure the steelnecks will have her head in a week anyway, when he goes down, but the old man’d never forgive him for it if he let the Vratzes get it without even trying to keep it in the family.

“Reform is strictly a matter of necessity,” she says. “With the Galtan military reforms now reaching Cheliax -”

“Pour yourself a drink. Relax. No need for oratory, we’re not in the senate.”

"This isn’t the time for your humor, father.”

“You’d think that after these tutors I got you you’d learn the first thing about ruling.”

(His boots were resting on a silk cushion; he’d never caught the servants yet, changing them out, but somehow it was always clean.)

“The first thing about ruling is, you change up what you say for your audience. You tell the Senate you’re restoring its rightful privileges and bringing back the glory days of Taldor, you tell the generals you’re finally listening to all the letters they’ve been sending you about everything the army needs and their army’s back pay is coming in a month, and you tell the officials that reform is a matter of necessity. Your dear old Dad you want to try the please-father-can’t-I-have-a-treat on, usually works wonders. I remember when you used to tug on my cape, up-now down-now fly-now…”

“The new army of Galt is two hundred thousand men. Andoran has sworn to raise one to match it. The infernal general Gorthoklek was forged from three of your predecessors and the man who forged Myridia and named to overcome them both. Avistan is on the brink of the greatest war in centuries and the Empire is on the brink of destruction, father, the Empire you’ve given your life to serve, the Empire that has lasted four thousand years, the moment is now and the end has already begun and doesn’t this mean anything to you?”

“Eight.”

“This is the eighth time since I took power the Empire has been on the brink of destruction. First time I signed the Lex Ordinarius about it and then the third and, hmm, fifth times were about good old Lex Ord. Second thing to know about ruling is that unless the boiler boys have busted your Forbiddance and cracked the door open, the Empire’s not on the brink of destruction. You’ve got time. Use it.”

“We have time today. Will we have time when Galt’s armies storm south?”

“There’s these things, love, if you look at a map, called mountains -”

“He’s beaten mountains before.”

“Found old Straben’s path, described in the third edition of Geography of the Five Kings Mountains, rather a shame the passage was omitted in the fourth. Hell of a difference between checking Isarn’s library and making it through the Fog Peaks and the Verd when the dwarves are as ticked off as they are.”

“And if Andoran turns against us, or he turns on them and then to us?”

“Verduran Forest’s a fancy name for the world’s biggest swamp, darling. Ever tried to paddle through it?” He shudders theatrically. “Be glad I never put you through that.”

“The path down the coast has been followed by a hundred invading armies.”

“Yes, there’s reasons we let Flavio build a castle. Well, let him bribe us to build a castle. Lex 4606’s a really dreadful piece of legislation but it’s the only way we’ve paid the Guard.”

“You’re leaving the Empire to be pillaged by whatever invader sees - correctly sees - we’re weak, and leaving your own lords to manage their own mistakes.

“Aren’t you supposed to be Good? Flavio’s a blue, so he’s for the Chelish. Andoran invades, besieges his castles, we send a fleet pirate-hunting - Andoran’s got a dreadful fleet, all threes and no big ships worth the name - and it’s not like they can take a city we can resupply, they go home after they burn the countryside and now he’s got to tax his peasants raw just to bribe the tax-collectors off him and can’t spend anything on his pals in Hell, victory for Iomedae and all that.”

"And then Qadira invades, or the easterners, because the army can't fight back. We need one that can."

“Which army? The Vratzes’? The Tzimsko lot? The schools? More than one emperor has fallen by trusting the steelnecks -"

“Not the generals, not the lords.” She made a quick cutting motion. “They’re treacherous tyrants. Go past them. Did Taldaris rely on his noblemen? Only the ones he made. Has Cyprian, or Codwin? Cheliax did and you’ve seen what it did for them - ‘the finest army in Avistan,’ as we all knew, routed by townsmen with pikes, but townsmen with fire in their blood! Speak to the people of Taldor! Speak to those who love their nation -”

“My love, my dearest darling, who guards your door?”

“The Ulfen Guard.”