They had given him a magnificent carriage, chests of glittering gifts, a special guest to accompany, and a mission that weighed as heavy as iron.

The road unfolding ahead of them was entirely stony and mostly flat, its laid blocks interlocking with a seamless precision that poignantly reminded him of the ancient, legendary highways of the Eternal City itself. In truth, as the carriage rolled deeper into the territory, there were a great many things that began to forcefully remind him of Romelia’s heart.

The thought bought him very little comfort.

For one, there was absolutely no suffocating odor of shit lingering in your nose the very instant you passed through the outer gate,something that defied almost every settlement in the south. And if one bothered to raise your eyes toward the gray mists of the east, he would see the colossal stone archway of the aqueduct gracefully cutting through the plains and the rolling hills, bringing fresh water directly to the city’s throat.

A smaller, cleaner version of the imperial capital, Doria thought to himself. Appointed as the special envoy of His Imperial Majesty, the diplomat allowed himself a brief moment of comfort as the exceptionally soft cushions of his seat molded lazily around his buttocks.

It had been six long years since he was last dispatched to the courts of Yarzat, though his very first venture into these lands had been nearly fourteen winters ago. Things had been vastly different then, a reality he still recalled, though admittedly through a rather foggy lens of time. For one thing, the city back then had fucking reeked of rotting carcasses and unwashed bodies, and there was merely a clever, grasping prince ruling the stone, not a king. There was still no aqueduct, of course; those expensive, grand designs came much later, along with a great many other marvels he had heard whispered about in the high salons of Romelia, some of which had never even been attempted in the Eternal City itself.

Though, of course, the singular reason the Empire had never attempted them was due to a chronic, crippling lack of funds.

Does this new king truly shit pure silver in his privy? Doria wondered for a passing moment, seriously, authentically contemplating if the words about the King of Yarzat were true.

Where else in all the five hells could a ruler dig up the necessary wealth for all that he achieved? Iron tools distributed to the smallfolk, livestock handed out almost entirely free of charge to the surrounding agrarian villages, a massive, permanent standing army that would utterly dry out any other sovereign’s coffers in a single campaign, and somehow, the man was still hoarding enough surplus funds to casually kickstart whatever grand engineering project Yarzat dreamed up next.

First a common peasant, then a mercenary prince, and now an anointed king.

The imperial envoy let out a heavy, world-weary sigh, bitterly comparing the spectacular rise of this young kingdom to the decaying, stagnant state of his own Empire. In the last fifteen years, things back in Romelia were barely being kept afloat by threadbare taxes and fragile promises. He might have tried, during those first bloody years of chaos, to falsely convince himself that the civil wars would soon draw to a definitive end. But then winters started to relentlessly come in and out, the seasons changing while the bodies only piled up. Things never truly went better; they only went from catastrophic to worse, and then occasionally back to barely tolerable all thanks to one man.

And now, to add to the humiliation of the crown, the South was officially, legally out of Romelia’s imperial hand.And they were bringing gifts along with the sweet morsel.

"The city has changed quite a bit from the last time I beheld its walls," a serene, rhythmic voice rolled out from the opposite end of the carriage, completely deprived of all the worries that mingled in his companion’s face.

Doria shifted his gaze to his traveling companion. The man, clad in a long, spotless white tunic that seemed to defy the mud of the road, was leaning lightly against the wooden frame of the window, his calm eyes gazing intently outside. He was narrow of shoulders and remarkably flat of stomach; his chest, too, was entirely flat and plain with no hint of muscle nor fat, completely devoid of the vanity of medals or silks. He was the complete opposite of their god’s speaker, as it stood.

Just above his sternum, dangling from a heavy silver chain, hung the holy Star of the Five, glinting in the dim light like some knight’s lethal morningstar.

That was the only gold that was on the man.

The skin on his face had long since started to sag with age, marred by a scattering of dark, blistering liver spots that pockmarked his flesh like the surface of an old cooking pot. Still, he was not nearly as ancient or withered as the other venerable archons of the high temple, though he was certainly no youth either. He had reached his fifty-nine winters, yet from the sharp, unblinking looks of him, he would probably continue to live and breathe for quite some time.

The Pontifex-appointed archon, responsible for officially welcoming a newly crowned king into the holy fold of monarchs, gazed out of the passing carriage window with a deep, interest in his pale blue eyes. He watched the bustling streets, his gaze lingering on the well-dressed smallfolk and the rapid pace of the construction crews.

It was a cold, fiercely windy, and thoroughly gray day, a miserable spectacle to watch by any standard. Though Doria knew the holy man was not gazing at the dreary weather, but was instead gazing at the people.

Doria might not have set foot in this city in six years, but Archon Vesperian had not come to Yarzat in eleven.

The only time the archon had ever entered this domain before was to deal with the matter of the infamous, war-mongering priest. Doria could not, for the life of him, recall the dead heretic’s actual name, though he knew he would never forget the hings the man had done in the name of the gods. The treacherous priest’s bloody story had been followed with a suffocating, white-knuckled closeness by the Emperor’s late regent, Lord Marthio, may the Five bless his memory and keep his soul.

The frantic interest from the capital had been born of nothing less than raw, unadulterated fear. Priests, after all, held quite the authority within the minds of the villages and crowded cities. To have one of them give a historical, successful precedent of raising a holy peasant army against their own legitimate liege... it was remarkably easy to understand why the imperial court had viewed it as a mortal plague.

As such, it had come as a profound, weeping relief to almost everyone in Romelia when the Fox of Yarzat utterly crushed the priest’s fanatical legions, along with the rebel lords who had lent their iron to the treason, before formally petitioning the Pontifex to send a supreme judge to handle the false prophet.

As things stood in the grand history of the realm, the judge who had sentenced that priest was to the pyre, was the very man sitting across from him now. Vesperian.

"Is the city to your Excellency’s liking?" Doria mindlessly broached, adjusting the rich velvet of his cuffs. In truth, he wasn’t particularly interested in the old priest’s architectural critiques; he had a small mountain of his own diplomatic anxieties to climb before the day was out.

"The people certainly are," Vesperian murmured, his calm voice cutting through the steady clatter of the carriage wheels. "I recall the streets being far more desolate a decade ago. There is a distinct, aggressive hum to the crowds now."

"If the rumors in the high salons are to be believed, the population has nearly doubled since your last holy visit," Doria explained, offering a polite, practiced nod. "The census-scribes whisper that it is rapidly reaching the low fifty-thousand."

By comparison, the Eternal City of Romelia still boasted a sprawling mass of a hundred and twenty thousand souls, but Doria wasn’t blind. If Yarzat’s current trajectory was maintained for another decade, the capital would soon find itself bursting at the seams, desperately needing a second, grander ring of defensive walls to contain its own success.

"I have heard tales in the capital that they have constructed grand bathhouses here as well..." Vesperian mused, a flicker of appreciation warming his old eyes. "A sign of true Romelian refinement taking root in the rough south, perhaps?"

"Indeed they have built them, Your Excellency, though I fear they are not quite the sanctuaries of comfort you are imagining," Doria explained, a wry, knowing smile playing on his lips.

The Archon tilted his head, a white eyebrow arching. "Why is that?"

"They are not engineered like our imperial baths. There is no hypocaust system heating the stones, no steaming caldarium to soothe the joints, there is no warm water at all, only cold," Doria clarified. "It is more than fine during the blistering months of summer, of course, summer here are far worse that in Romelia, and the common folk crowd them to the gills then. But now? In the dead of winter? They are as empty and freezing as a mountain tomb."

"I see," the old man muttered, his tone dipping into a distinct, aristocratic disappointment. He caught himself quickly, smoothing the front of his pristine white tunic. "Well, I suppose one cannot expect absolute perfection from a newborn city. Romelia was not built in a season, as the scribes say."

Vesperian finally tore his blue eyes away from the window, turning his full attention directly upon Doria. "Though I must say, a proper, towering cathedral ought to be built for a city of fifty-thousand souls. Most especially for a royal capital of a new kingdom."

"I am entirely certain Her Majesty the Queen will be more than forthcoming with such a holy request," Doria replied smoothly, playing the diplomat to perfection. "After all, is it not the sacred, binding duty of every man and woman of the Five to tenderly care for their own souls, and the souls of those they have been given royal responsibility over?"

Provided they have spares coin left to fund it after paying the legions, Doria added silently to himself. Though from the looks of it, the King would simply need to eat a rather heavy supper to pass another few chests of silver under the table.

"Indeed," Vesperian said, his voice dropping into the rhythmic, lecturing cadence of a seasoned prelate. "Just as a dutiful mother must teach her son the proper path, so a king and a queen must guide their subjects. Yet... if I am to speak with absolute candor, Doria, I harbor some deep, unsettling fears regarding this court."

The diplomat stiffened slightly against his plush cushions, his political instincts instantly flaring. "Fears, Your Excellency? For what possible reason? The kingdom is stable, the streets are secure—"

"Well,mind you this is not my worry alone. " the old priest interrupted softly. He turned his eyes away from the Romelian envoy, his gaze drifting back out the window toward the gray, wind-swept streets where the common folk hustled beneath the shadow of the palace. "Her Majesty’s kingly consort... as a great man he may be, I fear he may be misguided in his intents, for he openly harbors notorious heretics in his innermost midst, does he not?"