2412, Crescin 19, Velpa

The Sovereign pursed her lips, staring at the parchment lying before her on her desk. It was a curious thing, just a yellowed out surface with nothing but a meager collection of koset characters signifying the start of a letter.

She had been like this for over an hour now and couldn't find the right drive to start the correspondence she had to send to the Helinfirth Division. It took too long convincing the noble families to lend a part of their land to help her take out the Penleth fortress before those heathens could complete it and her own people took it as a sign to start giving up.

Well, the Sovereign would not stop just because a few noble airheads who knew nothing about war refused. She would not give up especially if Helinfirth would spell Synketros's advantage in this coming war against Penleth and Cardovia.

The Sovereign exhaled through her mouth and rested her forehead against twined fingers. Her elbows dug against the brittle wood of her desk. Outside the window of her tower, the night sky shone in its varying patterns of stars and moons. It wasn't that long ago when she looked through that window and saw the fulfillment of a prophecy thousands of years old.

Now, that prophecy would be close to fulfilling its last lines.

A small smile spread across the Sovereign's painted lips. Ah, Xanthiene was bound to make a mistake that would spell doom to her and her allies. What could that be? Should the Sovereign push the Virtakios into making one? It's always interesting, trying to see where the Sovereign could play fate and toy with people's perceptions of their future until they yield to what she wanted.

She narrowed her eyes at her pending letter. That's another plan for another day.

The Sovereign clicked her teeth together, her mind already buzzing with potential opening lines that didn't sound too antagonistic but would spell out her demands and the consequence of not yielding clearly. To do that...

"It's funny how I always find you here," a voice the Sovereign knew all too well speared through her ears. She whirled from her seat to find a woman with bland brown hair and sparkling blue eyes stepping out of a portal bent out of shadows and into her tower. "It's even more amusing that you still haven't changed its location even though you know I have access to it."

The Sovereign leaned back against her chair and put her fingers together. She didn't bother turning around while the Heiress' boots tapped against the tower's scrubbed stone floor. "What good would changing be?" the Sovereign said as her one and only rival came in front of the desk with a smile on her face. "You will always find me."

The Heiress' eyes twinkled but they stayed blue. "I'm glad you haven't lost your touch."

"Why are you here?" the Sovereign leveled her gaze on the Heiress. "You know I could have killed you as you entered, right?"

"You know I could have done the same to you, right?" the Heiress chuckled, running a finger against the desk's splintering wood. The sheafs of paper stacked atop the desk swayed not with a stray breeze but from the weight of her unleashed magic oozing from her skin.

The Sovereign didn't reply. The letter had to be composed as soon as possible and this...meandering fool went on her way. SIlence coated them in every ways possible until the Heiress sucked a breath in.

"I came here with a proposition," the Heiress propped herself up the Sovereign's desk to which the Sovereign raised an eyebrow to. If the Heiress noticed it, she didn't show it. "I have been monitoring progress both of Penleth and Synketros and with the rate things are going, we all would either run out of resources or have the Virtakios die on us with her foolish quest to retrieve the thrones."

The Sovereign rested her twined hands atop her stomach. "Aren't you riding out her side quest as a way to gather the thrones in one place?"

"Potentially, yes," the Heiress ran her tongue over her teeth. "But if we want to get to our goal faster, why not work together?"

"Work..." the Sovereign's tongue curled at the mere notion of those two words together. "Together."

The Heiress pushed off the desk, her boots thudding against the floor. She didn't turn to face the Sovereign. "Would be nice to do it again, wouldn't it?"

The Sovereign scoffed. "In your dreams," she rolled her eyes. Even without looking, the Heiress could sense the gesture anyway. "What do you have that I don't?"

The same sparkle flashed in the Heiress' eyes the moment she inclined her head at the Sovereign's general direction. "Guts," she walked towards the shelves of tomes lining the wall by the Sovereign's right. "Wit," she plucked a single tome, her mouth curling downwards in distaste at what she read from the title. She slotted the tome back to its place as she strode back to the Sovereign's desk. "And you have the forbearance of a dagrine."

"If you're going to insult me, do it in a dignified way," the Sovereign snapped. Her magic boiled at the surface of her skin. The temperature in the tower dropped notches colder.

The Heiress mocked a gasp as she laid a hand over her chest. "Are you insulted?"

"Get out," the Sovereign rose from her seat to match the Heiress.

"Won't you at least reconsider?" The Heiress spread her arm and began summoning a portal.

The Sovereign watched the jets of inky darkness appear out of thin air before whirling inward into some kind of a vertical pool. "We both know you're going to be using me for your own gain and I refuse to stand by it," she said.

The Heiress lowered her arm and the shadows dispersed back to where they came from with a hiss. "Oh, is that what you're worried about?" she clasped her hands in front of her and strode towards the Sovereign. "We could split the fee, if that's what it takes to convince you."

"There is no fee to split," the Sovereign stepped backward. What...was she afraid of this trickster? "You will betray me, one way or the other."

The Heiress paused. A deadly glint flashed across her eyes. "Can't you see I'm going out of my way here to get to our freedom faster?" Anger colored her tone and it almost made the Sovereign laugh. Such children, both of them were. "You will betray me one way or the other as well but I'm here in goodwill because I know we can't do it any longer."

The Sovereign met Alani's eyes then. Something about the remorse in her rival's tone caught her attention. For once, in that brief moment of vulnerability, she glimpsed a time long gone and a person long dead. Alani Crozal, the fierce general of the Human Front. The fear now eating at her soul and the guilt clawing at her gut have reduced her to this...empty shell void of motivation and will.

Pathetic.

But who's to say it wasn't what the Sovereign had been battling over the last thousand years?

"Xyris," the mention of her name made the Sovereign's eyes stray back to the Heiress. "We have to succeed now."

It was too easy. Alani would pull off these kinds of emotional manipulations because she knew it was what worked best with the Sovereign. The problem with the war they're fighting now was they knew their enemies so well it's almost impossible to do something unpredictable.

But Alani's words carried a bit of truth in it. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and, as much as the Sovereign liked to deny it, their only chance they have left in getting what they wanted. The prophecy came true for the first few lines. It would come true for the latter. If it's not Xanthiene, then who knew how long they would have to wait before another fulfillment would take her place?

They didn't have much time. The magic they were using to sustain the skin over their bones and their trails around to their souls was dying out. There's no telling when the day everything dies on its own.

The Sovereign has to hurry.

Because of desperation and being left with no other choice, the Sovereign stared at the Heiress and clenched her jaw. "Fine," she said. "We will work together in bringing Penleth down and getting the Virtakios. Our alliance ends in Parkane."

A wide smile painted the Heiress' lips. "Excellent," she clapped her hands once. She got what she wanted but the Sovereign wasn't going to let her have what she needed. Parkane holds a greater promise and the Sovereign would use the Heiress in getting there, no matter the cost.

The Sovereign glanced at her unfinished, possibly even unstarted, letter. "What do you propose we do now?"

"We plant a seed," the Heiress raised her hand again and the darkness reappeared by her fingertips. The Sovereign watched the trails tearing in and out of the dimension, looking for any signs of the magic being against her or the tower's inner workings. So far, there was none.

A girl with goggles propped atop her brown hair and an apron that looked like it belonged to a mechanic stepped through the darkness and ducked her head at the Sovereign and the Heiress' direction.

The Heiress waved a hand in the girl's direction. "Meet Trix," she said. "I found her in the Underground Cities right after that Valkalin brat united them along with the Entobern families and the Peltran renegades. She has a wish she needs fulfilled."

"And that is?" The Sovereign raised an eyebrow at the girl. From the looks of it, a brownie and oh, she could vanish as well? Interesting.

"A prosperous life, Kriachoria," Trix's grin reminded the Sovereign a bit of a lazy graspel. "That and having to never deal with idiots ever again. I want to be listened to with my ideas and idiots don't have the capacity to do so."

The Sovereign nodded and hummed. Indeed, the Heiress had chosen well this time. "Very well," she strode back to her desk and settled on her seat. She cocked her head in the girl's direction. "Can you get Penleth to trust you at the shortest possible time?"

Trix snorted. "I know a way in," she said. "Three ways in, to be exact."

"Care to enumerate?"

The brownie held up three fingers. "Cyrdel, the Sonasson heir whose interest lies in inventing more than his own people," she brought a finger down. "Rikavien Torlin, Arcole's disgraced heir who would rather win this war with everything she thought she had rather than protect her allies," she held the last finger up. "And Elred Valkalin who thinks she is a good soldier to have united the Underground Clans. She would believe I really came to help if I tell her I'm from there and I'm not actually lying because I am from there."

The Sovereign turned to the Heiress who merely stood with her arms crossed and half a smile on her lips. "Where did you find this girl?"

"Are you finally admitting I'm better at scouting people than you?" The Heiress smirked.

"Shut up," the Sovereign rolled her eyes.

The Heiress jerked her chin at the brownie. "Go on, then," she said. "Prove your worth and give us a report next week. I want details up to the last fortwere."

Trix ducked her head again as another portal of darkness appeared before her. "You don't need to ask, Peredeira."

Then, seconds later, she was gone.

The Sovereign exhaled. "Will you leave me alone now that you got what you want?"

"For the gods' sakes, go and write your correspondence to the nobles in Gingow and Xixora," the Heiress flicked her gaze at the dormant letter at the Sovereign's desk. "We both know that would get you nowhere."

"Who knows? I might have more luck than you would ever have," the Sovereign narrowed her eyes.

The Heiress chuckled. "If it was so, then we wouldn't be stuck in this situation, would it?"

The Sovereign opened her mouth to argue but the Heiress peeled away from her and stepped into her own portal, leaving the Sovereign alone in the silence that followed after that last statement.

Fate and luck. It's something the Sovereign hasn't counted on to get in the way of her enjoying her life and meeting Pidmena without fear at the right time.

Fate and luck. It's all there was for the both of them.

Just fate and luck.