Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 158: Growth

"Your Majesty," Basil greeted me when I arrived at my office later in the day, "if I could have a few moments of your time?"

"Of course," I agreed motioning for him to take the chair across from my desk.

"As you instructed, we contacted and informed Duke A'Daoine and Squire Leian of the death of Thom and his involvement in the ritual murders."

"While both were thankful for the news, they each have made a request of you. Duke A'Daoine wonders if you would be willing to ennoble him as a Duke of the Tuatha de Danaan and allow him a province to oversee. He, his retainers, his vassals, and his people are not happy about the treatment they have received from Queen Mab.

"He is willing to swear Vassalage, his only concession is that he asks that you supply the Silinium needed to re-create the gate he would be leaving behind."

"How many of his people will be emigrating with him?" I asked.

"Although figures will fluctuate, when we spoke, he suggested that as much as ninety percent of his citizenship were willing to make the move," Basil answered.

"I will contact him. Unless there is some issue that he is hiding, I will agree to his request," I said salivating in glee at the thought of gaining so many new people, and a powerful Duke to my faction already," I planned on offering him one of the Twelve Houses. I knew what kind of person he was. The kind that would see a half-breed child and become incensed at how poorly that child was being treated.

If he would agree to Benefice, his House would be the fifth House I would establish. One Seelie, one Unseelie, and three lesser-fey. It would be a good start, and these first four Houses would allow me to lay the building blocks for the government I was envisioning.

"The other matter concerns Squire Leian," Basil began hesitantly. "She has been stripped of lands, name, and inheritance. She has been surviving on the largesse of Duke A'Daoine but reckons that that is only a stop-gap measure.

"She has made a formal request and hopes to join your staff as Squire-in-truth. She wishes to pledge her devotion and service to House Teigh."

"Why?" I asked bluntly.

"Although I am not privy to the Squires's thoughts, I believe her options are limited. She is a pariah in Seelie lands. Queen Mab has stripped her of everything, all but casting her out. No one would dare accept her as part of their House. Even Duke A'Daoine is skirting the edge of ruin by allowing her sanctuary," Basil explained.

"You are a known quantity, and although you were instrumental in the downfall of her House, you did this in response to other attacks and actions. Further, she must know that your vassals have been detained and tortured by the Seelie Court. I think it possible she can predict what you will do about this and wants to be at your side when you act."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality?" I mused aloud.

"I believe so, Your Majesty," Basil concurred.

"Alright, leave me her contact information, I will discuss the matter with her after I speak with Duke A'Daoine. Anything else?" I asked.

"Just one final matter, Your Majesty," he replied, "if you could speak with the Sithern? It is most reluctant to allow staff to perform their duties. The kitchen staff is having the most contentious arguments and disagreements with the Sithern about duty and role."

I hadn't been expecting that and laughed delightedly, finally something that wasn't life-threatening to deal with. "I'll see to it, Basil. Thank the staff for me and inform them that I will deal with the problem."

The next few hours were a series of conversations. M-AI holographic meetings that garnered me Duke A'Daoine's support and pledge of Benefice. Squire Leian's acceptance as a member of staff. I did refuse her offer of vassalage for the moment; I wanted to test the waters before drilling the well as they say. Once I was more confident in her allegiance and motivations, we could readdress the issue of vassalage.

I also made plans for Blayney to move his colony to Saor temporarily. There were a few sites that might work for him, lakes, and ponds near fertile land available to begin building again. He would send out teams to map those sites from those he had selected as possible from those that I had offered.

I would have liked to have let him set up in the sea adjacent to the city, but I had ceded that territory to Liotonis. And it was probably best that I do not keep him so close anyway, I was afraid that I might over-compensate and meddle in his affairs hoping to assuage my guilt.

It was also why I couldn't accept or promote him to the twelve-member ruling Court. We had shared blood and were tied by that connection, but he wasn't powerful enough or Ranked high enough to stand equally with a Slaugh Queen, Unseelie Princess, Seelie Duke, Volar-Fey Duke, or Knocker Duchess.

I could and would use him as a sounding board and an adviser, but the Court House Seat was reserved for a highly Ranked Kelpie. I did ask him to contact the ruling Herd to sound out their interest in migrating to Aingeal Geamhraidh and becoming one of the established twelve.

It was interesting that even before all the court had accepted and filled all twelve positions that 'the twelve' was fast becoming the vernacular between the Houses when referencing the Court Council. The five that had assumed their positions seemed to mesh well. Duchess Wynne borrowed a few people from Blayney as well as members of her House, my people, and a Volar-fey to control access to the Portal. Princess Liotonis took ever the docks. Queen Uie of the Slaugh established patrol and guard details that operated both inside and out of the Sithern.

There was little contention or jockeying for position and power, they simply rolled up their sleeves and got to work, filling in where and as needed. Their dedication allowed me to work on some of the finer details of Kingdom building.

The coinage for the Kingdom would be minted and based on a Silinium standard. It would not replace copper, silver, and gold denominations, instead, it would enter circulation with a current valuation based on Universal credits. A gram of Silinium averaged fifteen hundred credits over the last year, so coins were minted containing that weight and value. Credit did not easily convert to the gold standard the Seelie and Unseelie factions were using, but there were methodologies that could be employed to calculate equivalencies between currencies.

Methodologies that I was ignoring.

I wanted to introduce the Inter-galactic credit system to Talahm, once I had established financial cooperation with extra-planetary banks, I intended to slowly convert the populace to this standard. The Silinium that had been seeded and was growing within the Sithern had to be closely monitored. The ease of production would disrupt market forces if Silinium began to flood the production pipeline.

One of the interesting moments over the past few days occurred when I established the Portal and set priorities and transit locations. The Portal had settings to allow off-world transport. I toggled that option off, for now, I would need better infrastructure and some type of Visa policy to monitor who was who before I inadvertently allowed an invasion force to slowly filter through the portal onto the planet.

Most of the decisions I was making were a stopgap at best. Lohne, Basil, and the others had helped me create an outline, a prospectus of what we envisioned for my Kingdom, but it was bare-bones at best. We thought we would have more time, decades at least, to flesh out the salient points of actually governing.

If it weren't for my concern for Irvin, Cedric, Lohne, and Uron, I may have proceeded more cautiously, instead of making decisions haphazardly as I was. It meant that those decisions would have to be revisited, probably soonest. The need to re-do and modify or implement restrictions in the future to balance choices made precipitately did not bode well for the health of my Kingdom or the people.

But I had no choice at the moment.

And the people were flocking to my banner. The modified System HUD that kept current the number of people in the Kingdom had been modified to include those people that had tossed the dice and joined the Tuatha de Danaan faction.

The display was time-stamped and allowed me to set the dates for comparison. I'd chosen the day and time I'd claimed my Kingdom as the starting point and the current date and time to compare. It allowed me to monitor in real-time the changes that were occurring.

The System quest to change Faction had seen a spike as people took advantage of the opportunity. But each time a System announcement was broadcast that reported improvements or changes I was making saw similar spikes. The changes to banking, the ability to withdraw and convert Seelie and Unseelie monies from networked financial institutions precipitated the largest spike of Faction enrollment.

Current population numbers were in flux, Sidhe births and deaths were the largest contributing factor, but there were those that decided now was the time to migrate. Entire areas like Duke A'Daoine and lesser courts like Blayney's Herd helping to inflate the number of people that were living or looking to build and claim territory and homes.

[Population (Start): 12,322,154,893 Population (Current): 13,987,642,715]

[Tuatha de Danaan (Start): 204 Tuatha de Danaan (Current): 1,753,378,940]

The starting faction numbers included all of House Teigh members, my Vassals and Benefice, and the Cernunnos. Liotonis, A'Daoine, and Hawthorne had swollen the faction numbers by over 1,650,000,000 when our Oaths of Benefice were shared. Most of those numbers had come from the Volar-fey.

Those seething clouds of Volar-fey that had left the Sithern to propagate their species throughout the world had been the final gift from Danu to Duke Hawthorne and Petal. While the Sithern was dormant, seed-stock that relied on my energy channels to support the embryo awaiting placement and revitalization was prolific. Hawthorne and Petal made use of the remnants of Divine energy the Sithern had absorbed, combined it with Danu's gift of life, and created the next generation of Volar-fey.

One breeding pair of Volar-fey touched by the divine, reproductive cycle eerily similar to insects, had generated a legion of eggs. Fertilized and incubating in the miasma of my blood, the energies from the Gods Beleros and Cyronax imbuing and strengthening the potential of each life.

The Sithern had manipulated time after I had placed and secured the spot that I would anchor it with. Legions and legions of newly birthed Volar-fey born, raised, ascended, and leveled. One generation, two, ten, a hundred, until the Sithern allowed them to swarm, an entire hierarchal structure of Volar-fey that had lived entire lives in the time accelerated pocket of Sithern magic.

Hundreds of millions of new Tuatha de Danaan members that had been born steeped in my lifeblood. And an entirely new race to meet the challenges of Talahm and beyond. Birthed of Hawthorne, Petal, and me. A people created by a triumvirate of power. My first children, legion in numbers, and created without my knowledge.

Duke Hawthorne would ascend to Prince at some point. He, Petal, and I would ascend to become Volar-fey Monarchs. It demonstrated to me fully the interesting methods that Sidhe children could be conceived, and was explained to me, that as King, I would probably enter into a number of these triumvirate alliances.

Our powers combined by fate to release the sparks of magic that resonated with the weft and weave of nature. A Monarchy born to rule the Volar-fey. Father, Grandfather, and Great-grandfather of legions.

House Teigh prospered and grew.