I was unaware of the strong feelings I had towards Ariel, it killed me to have to see her suffer in this way and to think that this is all due to my father not being able to keep it in his pans. I might just overthrow him and be done with all of this; I do see him as a father especially since I had none in the past but for him to harm Ariel in this way is simply unforgivable. All I need is support, with enough support I will be able to force him to abdicate to me without a need to resort to force; yes that’s perfect.

            I spent the night watching over Ariel the same way she used to do when I was younger. nonetheless once dawn came, I exited her room to solve a problem. Whenever I was poisoned, I never cared, after all it was nothing more than a nuisance, I did remove the servants whom I knew to be complicit but never looked for the source as it was of no consequence but now that all changes. Ariel and my soon to be siblings do not have my monstrous powers of recovery as such I will have to instill in the servants a sense of fear that way, they will never dare to betray her trust again. To accomplish such a goal, I called both the head butler and head maid and asked them to assemble the staff. I might not know who poisoned her this time, but I do know of the spies hiding amongst the servant staff and I intend to deal with them, harshly.

            “Butler, are you done assembling the staff?”

            “Yes, my lady, they are all lined up in the garden as you ordered.”

            “Good, let’s go.”

            This time I will use my Aura to cow them for good. I am unable to fully control it, but I can at least direct it rather than spread it all around me. This is a part of the basics for aura detection and aura manipulation after all. And so I did, I held back just enough as to make sure that they wouldn’t lose consciousness then exited into the garden (Or really the training ground). In front of me are the many servants who work in this castle shivering due to the aura I am bombarding them with. Oh, one blacked out, well my control isn’t perfect; I guess I have done enough to intimidate them I better stop. This method of using aura is typically used when torturing others as such the few moments they spent under my overwhelming pressure is the equivalent to hours of pure torture.

            “Does anyone know why I summoned you all here.” Half of them started shaking their heads whilst the other half looked towards the head butler and head made, hoping that they would give me an answer that would appease me.

            “No? None of you?” I sighed, what was I thinking of course they wouldn’t speak, it’s all they can do to stay on their feet. “During my expedition Ariel was poisoned. I am sure that my father has dealt with the scapegoat, but I am here to clean the staff.” My father the duke is not well accustomed with schemes and plots, even after being the patriarch for over twenty years he has yet to get passed his naïve nature. “Now I will give you all this one chance, one chance to come forward and confess your sins, all of them. I do not care about how big or small of a transgression it might be but if you refuse to come forwards and speak your peace then I will be merciless in your punishments.” Panic broke out amongst the servants with some starting to tear up. This is a perfectly normal reaction as they have recently learned about my more ruthless side. When you combine that with the effects of the pressure I unleashed, it is a wonder that they have yet to soil themselves.

            At first there was some hesitation but one by one they started to confess their sins, whether they truly did what they claim to have done I do not know but the more ammunition they give me the better. I need them to fear me from the bottom of their hearts. This strategy was used during soviet times, bring terror to the accused and he will confess to just about anything you want; and with my aura I just expedited the process. I don’t need those who decided to take the bait, those I want are the ones who stayed quiet, hoping that I will punish these servants and that they will be able to get away with what they did. Then again, I could also see some of the ones I know to be spies confessing for completely different crimes to lesson both my suspicion and their punishment. They think they can trick me; I am actually starting to fume right now.

            I decided to have the head butler take notes of everyone’s confessions, most were related to theft others were miscellaneous forms of misconduct. Once all their sins were recorded, I started to enact my plan.

            “The rest of you there, do you claim not to have sinned?”

Really? Silence? can’t you at least give me a proper answer. “I see… you there, were you not a servant of Baron Munaux? From what a little bird told me you gave the Baron a map of this castle’s inside structure. Now why did you keep quiet when I generously gave you a chance to confess?”

            I could see the man’s eyes shaking whilst he tries to stay his nerves, too late buddy I am not my father, in other words I am not incompetent. I already know for a fact that the Baron along with other eastern lords had promised to rebel in a year’s time so that they could swear their allegiance to Aren. I was originally going to let it happen to show to the lords how my father is lacking in all things related to leading or ruling. Well, if I catch them now, I can still get the credit for pre-emptively stopping a rebellion and this would also help with my plans regarding the mineral deposits I found during the knight’s expedition.

            “And you there…” I walked straight forwards, aiming for a man in butler’s clothing, “who are those men you meet every Sunday in the “Swan’s Inn”? This is no more than a rhetorical question as I already know. The same way I know about all of your offences towards this duchy and my family. There isn’t a single thing you have ever done that I do not already know about.” I can see a good portion of those who stayed quiet start to tremble, the rest is mostly made up of my own spies and others who directly work for me.

            “How about I give you another chance before I send you all to the dungeons for a lovely stay free of charge with all services included.” This was the last push they needed, the dam broke, and hysteria took over them. Some got on their knees others completely prostrated themselves, the one thing they had in common is the united desire not to be sent to the dungeon. At this point most of the spies I know of have come forth, but some remain, I of course need them to continue their spying so that I can control the type of information leaving the castle but there is one person that I simply cannot allow to remain abstinent in admitting to their mistakes.

            “Lapira are you sure you have nothing to confess to?”

            “M…my lady I would never, I…I care greatly for lady Ariel and the duchy. My loyalty is absolute!” Lady Ariel? Even if she bears children who will be nobles, she will never become one herself, not unless she marries a noble and my father would never marry a freed slave. He too is traditional in the oddest of ways. She might be trying to buy some good will with me by elevating Ariel but that is all meaningless as Lapira is the one person I suspect most in Ariel’s poisoning case. She is the youngest daughter of a Southern Viscount who was sent to this castle to seduce my father. For this I care very little, but the interesting part is that her mother is related to both the Duchy of Aren and Gondar. This girl was said to be unofficially betrothed to my cousin, the second son of Duke Gondar, but once the other nobles caught word of it, they forced the Viscount to end all talks with the duke. As a show of loyalty, he sent his daughter to us as a sort of hostage but with the hidden agenda of seducing then influencing the duke. I did not act since she was unlikely to succeed, after all my father is completely uninterested in other women, Ariel is the one exception as she spent a long time in his company since she took care of me. It can be said that I am part of the reason why Ariel is now pregnant.

            I explained all of that in front of all the servants, publicly accusing her father, although I did exclude the explanation of my role in Ariel’s current situation. The way her eyes trembled resembled those of a person on the brink of losing their sanity. Just for more drama I made up a story for how her family procured the poison, this could have been a gamble but there aren’t many ways to procure the plants needed to make the specific poison used on Ariel, so it was easy to narrow down the sellers and choose the one geographically closest to the Viscount.

“What do you have to say for yourself?!”

The girl, currently in her mid-twenties could do nothing more than lower her head in defeat. She then proceeded to drop to the ground and start to grovel in hopes of saving her miserable little life.

‘As if I would let it slide.’

            “Butler call Sir Elmry and tell him this: The punishment for theft is ten whip lashes, if what they stole is of great value add another ten lashes. For those who committed miscellaneous acts of misconduct they are to have next month’s salary reduced; I will leave the details to you. Finally, for the spies, they are to be taken to the dungeon and all the information they have is to be extracted. The same is to be done to this girl but make sure that her torture lasts a long, long time. Once they break her, they are to execute her and send her head to her father; it will be my parting gift to him. Send a letter to every traitor in this list, commanding them to appear before me by the end of the month, include a warning saying that if they choose to refuse my summons, I will slay anyone with their blood no matter their age, gender, or family name.” The last part I included to draw out those who have familial ties with them as they might hold resentment towards me in the future and that will hinder my long-time plans. Instead, I am forcing them to openly rebel, I will tear down the web of alliances and strengthen my power all at the same time. Previously I avoided resorting to this as I will be forced to leave for a campaign of subjugation but at this point, I can see that I have no choice.

            Hopefully I can subjugate the traitors in the east before the rest rebel. Subjugating the east before they are ready then moving to the south will cut the nobles from possible reinforcements from Aren. That way I will be able to slowly clean up the rest of the duchy and in due time seize both their land and fortune. To accomplish this, I will need to move fast, thus a traditional army made up of levy will be completely useless, instead I will focus on fast cavalry. I wander how blitzkrieg will work in medieval times.

            Grimacing the butler answered me in the affirmative “By your will my lady.” I know I was harsh, cruel even, but that was the objective. At least until the babies are born, I need to make sure that the castle is as secure as possible and after this I doubt that any outside force would dare make a move. Technically I just dismantled a system they built over decades.

            I find it funny how the butler chose to obey me rather than report to his superior and the only one with the legal power to issue such commands. He is a smart man who has served us since the grandfather’s time. He understood that my decisions are correct and that if my father were to get involved before my plan start to take shape, he could stop me which would only serve to cement our decline.

            Finally, some real discipline in this castle, the longer I look at these wretched little things the more I feel my hatred for my father grow. How could he have left things degenerate to this point, almost every servant will have to be punished in one way or another. That is not to mention the more than forty spies I decided to unmask. I will have to bring some of my personal employees to come work in the castle. It might prove advantageous in the long run but as of now it is no more than a chore.

            As I was leaving one of the accused servants chose to grab onto my leg and started begging for mercy, he confessed to stealing some glass work along with a few coins he found in my father’s room, as such he is sure to suffer more than ten lashes and might even loose his job, but I can’t give him any mercy, and I don’t want to bother with this anymore as such…

            “Let me make this clear, you are not to say another word unless you wish for ME to be the one to take up the whip.” I am starting to understand why authoritarian leaders get drunk on their power, to immediately silence them with but a warning is truly the most intoxicating feeling. I am sure that my father will take issue with my actions, but he won’t be able to do anything, after all I am in the right and all I really did is remove the wrote that grew during our family’s decline. Or how I will put it to him if he comes to complain ‘This is all your fault and unless you want to join them, I recommend you march yourself out of my sight.’ Yup, I am pissed.

            Having dealt with the servants I readied myself to leave the castle to meet with Paul and the rest of my associates. Like I always do when secretly leaving the castle I climbed to the top of the central tower where I practice my magic and created a path of solid air upon which I am able to walk. Sadly, Iris will have to wait, since I have taken action, I need to make sure that I can indeed win.

            With a hood covering my head I landed near the market area then made my way to the merchant’s district where I will meet the team of people serving under me along with a few associates. This building is one I have bought five years ago in hopes of raising money without having a negative influence on the economy. I would say that I succeeded in this endeavour as we are now the largest trading company in the local merchant guild. We trade in all things, from cloth to food and minerals. We completely dominate the trade in the duchy, at the same time we started some unique exports of our own mostly pertaining to jewellery, spices and decorations meant for wealthy merchants and nobles to consume.

            We found a marvellous wood sculptor who agreed to us being his exclusive traders and in exchange we provided him with a studio and all the materials and tools he might need. The works he creates sell for considerable sums of money. Now that his shop is filled with apprentices to his specific carving method, we have started to increase the volume of sails pertaining to wood workings. The case of spices and jewellery is a bit more special as I am partially responsible for those specific trade goods, but they do not influence the market too deeply. Starting with the gems they are only used for decorations and in the creation of works of jewelry which is rarely the case in this world as the jewels mined from the earth have the ability to be used in magic unlike those I create. For whatever reason others are unable to use the gems I produce to fuel magic, it might be due to them being a product of magic but due to this flaw the gems I create can only be used in the creation of jewelry. This does reduce their value greatly, but the gem trade will always be profitable as such we had to adapt and find consumers for those products, which we immediately did. Nobles and merchants are now fighting to get a chance of buying our gems. This specific Business accounts for more than 30% of our total income; we shouldn’t forget that there is no expense as I am the one who creates them. Finally, spices are similar to gems as I am the one who create the raw spices that are then exported to domains that lack an Alchemist which mostly refers to about 99% of all domains on this continent. Alchemist can create spices that are used for cooking but similarly to the creation of metals they will lose their effect after enough time has passed, in this case it means that the taste will revert to being plain old grass. Unlike our unique gem trade, we aren’t the only ones to get involved in the sales of preservable spices as the Principality of Welkan and the kingdom of Realise have long dominated the spice trade. In terms of income the sales of spices results in almost 10% making me the largest contributor to this company. To be frank all my powers would be meaningless if it wasn’t for the people who deal with this trading business as I am unable to accomplish much of anything on my own. People are the most important resource and sadly I am dearly lacking in that area. I have even thought of creating people but… Well let’s just say that one should never overstep their limits.

Hello everyone this is the author,

What do you think of Elizabeth's authoritarian method of ruling, do you think she will succeed or will she make a mistake that she will latter regret? I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I will see you in the next one.