Interlude: The StudentThey wanted him to attend the military school in Tyché. That would be his cover. Princess Euphemia's Imperial Guard and the Tyché Colonial Guard were working closely with one military school in particular, and that would be the best place for him. The things he did for Britannian.At least this time he wasn't going to be sent to a boys' school, however. If he was going to be forced to attend, it wasn't going to be an all-boys school. Zane had had enough of sausage parties in my past life.It was an officer's school and with his records and abilities, he was sure the Tyché Colonial Guard or the Imperial Guard would come calling.A few days before his departure, he was summoned by Intelligence to one of the local bureaus. From the outside, it looked like an office building. That was part of the trap. No one would think to look here for an intelligence office or the black site that was underground. They even had real office workers who knew nothing about the buildi

Euphemia ArcAfter that bombshell, I was glad when my mother left. Though I guess it shouldn't be too much of a bombshell, I knew since I was a little girl that my mother wanted to marry me off, to find me a match she would approve of, but I did not expect it to come so soon. I should have. My mother threw a fit when the emperor assigned me this position. I had been taken out of her control, removed from her influence, and sent to live halfway across the world.Yet she couldn't let that go. Despite what I thought before and what she said, I was sure she spoke to Victoria about the same thing, but unlike me, who was too much of a coward to tell her no, Victoria would have denied it out of hand. She had her eyes set on the throne, she knew what she wanted. Plus, she was already married, and none of her husbands were of my mother's choosing.I should have refused out of hand. I should have put my foot down and told her no, that I wouldn't marry Damon Frey or anyone else that she wanted m

Interlude: The Corai BaseOne moment he was sitting in his hospital bed, waiting for the end to come while listening to a crazy old man. There was nothing else for a soldier to die who's been mortally wounded. There was nothing any surgeon or even a healer could do for him now. The Roslachnian solider had got him. The soldier could only hope that Prince Calixte and Princess Victoria finished the conquest of New Siberia soon.In the next, he had been plunged into ice-cold water.Only it wasn't water; when his eyes flashed open, he was floating in green liquid. It was so green he couldn't see through it. He could barely see his hands in floating in front of his face. He tried to swim upwards, but his body wouldn't move.It was the coldest thing he had ever been in. Alan imagined it was what arctic water must have felt like. Had the crazy old man laced his tea with something to knock him out and then thrown him overboard at the North Pole? He said his cure could world, but Alan didn't be

Euphemia ArcI could never admit it, not publicly at least, but I loved Samurai movies. Oyashima might one day be our ally, but as it stood, it was a rival power and the emperor would never allow it to be known that his children enjoy foreign media. Especially the media of a rival power. It might be different if I was watching movies produced by some state that was so many they couldn't be a threat and they weren't actively engaged in hostilities with the empire. That ruled out Corai and most other countries, though there were a few that remained.So when I got the call that I would have to stop my movie night and go to the eyesore of Bayard, I wasn't happy. "Why do you watch those films?" Godfrey asked as I got in the back of the car.I shrugged. I had no answer for him or the emperor. My father would prefer that I watch Aquitese films though and read books by our authors. Yet that might be changing soon. As I looked at the newspaper in front of me, it showed my older brother Henri d

Calixte ArcThankfully we didn't have to stay long after that. No Roslachnian warplanes appeared, and it wasn't long before our warplanes dominated the vastness of the skies. Once it was clear that we controlled the sky, it wasn't long before the army moved in, occupying even more of the Roslachnian land. Former land. Once the conquest was complete, Tanya's family would be given New Siberia to rule.Mireille and Agent Caron stayed with the buildings, to wait for scholars that would know more than them. The Office of Secret Intelligence recruited a small retinue of knights and special forces soldiers to guard the building and my wife. Which was something I was thankful for.Troop transports arrived to drop off the knights and special forces team, which left enough room for us. The Air Corps would retrieve our borrowed warplanes, so we were free to leave. The transports took us back to the Acadian border, where I was whisked away by base staff.The rest of his team was going to be debri