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Chapter 780
Alexander stepped forward."Father. If the crown prince is allowed to choose my place from outside the table," he said, "then may I choose his place from outside the table too?"The Emperor looked at him, and something in the old face was very interested."As long as it's a county," he said. "Empty. Heritable. And poor. Then yes, you may."..."There's a place called Martydom," Alexander said.The room was quiet."The last counts there were two old brothers. They both died without an heir, and the land went back to the Crown, and as far as I know nobody's lived in the house since." He looked at the crown prince. "I heard it's empty. I think the crown prince could live there."The Emperor frowned."Martydom. I've never heard of it." He lifted a hand toward the gallery. "Prime Minister. Is that name on our records? Find it."...The Prime Minister came down from behind the rail with a tablet in his hand and his reading glasses on, and the whole room waited while he scrolled."Yes, Your
Chapter 779
"Father."The crown prince did not touch the cards. He stood over the table with both hands at his sides and looked at the Emperor instead."Is this really necessary?" His voice was careful now. "I have been the crown prince for twenty-two years. I've sat on your council. I've represented you in meetings you couldn't attend. Haven't I already proved I can do this?""Father." That was the Second Prince, narrow and pale at the far end of the table. "Why not simply choose? Name one of us, here, now. Say whose name you want on the throne." He spread his hands. "I promise you, none of us will hold it against you.""Yes, Father." The Third Prince was a heavy man in his early thirties with a banker's haircut and a signet ring he kept turning. "And forgive me, but think about what you're asking. If I hand over every company I have and then I lose — I've lost everything. Isn't that too much to risk?""My children."The Emperor said it gently, the way you speak to people who have said something
Chapter 778
They kept him in the palace for three days.Nobody called it that. He had a suite in the east wing with a sitting room and a view of the gardens, and a man outside the door in a grey uniform who was extremely polite about the fact that the door was not going to open.Alexander spent the three days at the window, watching the Empire being taken apart and put back together.It was the largest purge in a century, and on the outside it barely made a sound.The state broadcaster ran it as a reshuffle. Forty-one ministers had been found wanting in their duties.They had been thanked for their service and replaced.There were photographs of the new men being sworn in, with good suits and grave faces, and a short statement from the palace about renewal and efficiency.That was all the public got.Inside the palace, nobody was
Chapter 777
There is a story they tell in the villages of the south, about the most romantic couple anybody ever knew.They had been married fifty-five years.Everybody in the district knew them. They walked to anywhere arm in arm, they sat on the same bench outside the bakery every morning, and when the regional paper wanted a feature on lasting love, it was always their door the reporter knocked on.And every time, the wife said the same thing."We're a happy couple. My husband is so kind to me. Fifty-five years, and he has never once raised his voice. He helps me with everything. Always romantic." She would put her hand over his on the table."And if there's an afterlife, I'll marry him again. I want to be his wife there too."The husband never said anything.He only sat beside her, and smiled, and nodded.The reporter came back the next day, and the wife had gone into town for the market, and the old man was sitting on the bench by himself.The reporter sat down next to him with his notebook.
Chapter 776
The Hall of Council went so silent you could hear the rain on the gallery windows three storeys up.The Minister of the Interior was still on one knee in front of the throne.He stayed there for a moment longer than he meant to, and in that moment every man in the room watched him understand it.He had stood up and asked for Harland. Then he had chased a prince down the middle of the floor.Then he had asked the Emperor to put that prince on a scaffold.And now there was a ghost in the room that wanted his head, and the only thing standing between the Second Queen and her grave was whether the Emperor was willing to hand it over.He had dug the hole himself, one shovel at a time, in front of witnesses.There was no way out of it.They had wanted to take everything from him, and he had turned around and hit them exactl
Chapter 775
"Your Majesty."The voice came from the left side of the floor, and every head in the Hall of Council turned toward it, because everybody knew which side of the floor that was.There were three factions in that room, and there had been for twenty years.The First Queen's people sat on the right, under the green standards.The Second Queen's sat on the left, under the gold. And in the middle, in the plain seats nearest the throne, sat the ones who belonged to nobody — the career men, the old families, the ministers who served the Emperor and whoever came after him and had very carefully never been seen to prefer a prince.It was the left side that stood up first.The Minister of the Interior came down onto the black stone with his hands folded in front of him."Your Majesty, the Second Queen's household is prepared to be generous." He turned his palms up."We will agree to restore the Tenth Prince to the line of succession. Whatever this council struck from the record, let it be writte
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very very interesting .