The next morning, Everly awoke to the sound of knuckles rapping on her bedroom door.

“Everly? All your prisoners have been gathered and now await your arrival,” said the voice of Carter, her goblin majordomo, and the leader of her household staff.

Oh, right, she thought as she wiped the sleep from her eyes. Now that the war for Winstead was concluded, it was time to decide what to do with the losers.

Everly considered herself a very accommodating Dark Lord. Just ask anyone. There weren’t a lot of things in this world or the next that could make her bear a lasting grudge. She wasn’t some kill-crazy maniac who wanted to dance in the blood of her defeated foes. She intended to be more practical than that.

To display her great character for all to see, she’d spare most of the people who’d opposed her conquest and reward those who supported her from the start.

In return, everyone would simply have to publicly swear their fealty.

Everly walked into the hallway immediately, so excited for the day’s events that she forgot to dress herself. Luckily, Carter knew her preferences very well. The spry goblin snapped his fingers and a set of ash-black armor with a blood red cloak draping from its shoulders covered her body.

She observed herself in the mirror he provided, and had to admit, it was a good look. But she set aside the demonic looking full helm. She was staying inside today, so it wasn’t like she had to impress anyone.

“How were they looking?” She asked Carter excitedly, as they entered her throne room.

Of all the areas in the memory palace, the throne room was the one that pleased Everly the most. She’d constructed it herself without any help from Eris; she’d made it a wide, brightly lit room with a central golden throne overlooking a magnificent marble dais that made it seem as though her guests were being loomed over by a distant, uncaring immortal. The ceiling was massive and cathedral-like, and the overall feel of the place said, you are small. Which was something a tyrant ought to make others feel, right?

The grandeur of it all felt very affirming for her. Standing here made it clear that she had never, ever, made a single mistake in her life and anyone who ever questioned her decisions was just plain wrong.

Grail wasn't there. Why wasn't Grail there? Was he still angry? Why would he still be angry?

Although Everly considered herself near-perfect, she still occasionally had difficulty remembering to match the passage of time in this dimension with that of the world outside. Once, she came home late after enjoying a night a night of singing with Nev and Bev. To her embarrassment, she discovered that while she was gone, everyone in the lower section of the palace, except for Grail and Carter, had grown feeble and elderly.

Grail didn’t say anything about it, but Everly could tell that he was annoyed with her.

You're immortal anyway, you big baby! Stop sulking! she thought to herself in annoyance.

The mistake had still been worth it. She'd totally killed it at Karaoke. One of the girls said her rendition of Journey’s Lights was soulful.

People cried.

As Everly approached her throne, black armored warriors on either side of her bowed to her in reverence then drew their swords in a high arc for her and Carter to pass beneath. After taking her seat, Carter said: “The captives appear quite receptive to your terms, great one. Of course, several hours in the rat room with Matty making demonstrations of those who refused your mercy did wonders for clearing away their reluctance.”

“Nice! You did good, gobbie! You did real good!” Everly said affectionately as she scratched him under one of his floppy, batlike ears.

“Ahhhh,” sighed Carter, as he stomped at the ground in pleasure with his right foot, before coming to his senses. “Great one, please! Not in front of the men.”

“Right, sorry, heh,” Everly grinned. “Now, show me what we’ve got.”

“At once, my Empress!” Carter gestured toward the entryway where many captive nobles were being marched through the doors, foremost of which was Seraphine, the last queen of Winstead, wearing an extravagant green dress, adorned in gleaming jewels and looking every bit the monarch that she formerly was.

It seemed a little over the top to Everly. But she had to admit the queen wore her garments well.

“Nice,” she said, whispering to one of the Black Knights who stood at the right of her throne. “She’s easy on the eyes as always. But look at all that ostentatious finery! I bet if they had cars in this world, her headlights would be those obnoxious blue xenon bulbs.”

“Oh, I hate those,” replied the knight. “They’re so distracting, I always felt like I’d have an accident if someone came driving past me with a set of those damn things.”

“Right?” Everly said in agreement. “They’re fucking awful.”

“They last longer than regular headlight bulbs, though,” said another Knight, this one standing to her left.

“Look up planned obsolescence, Curtis,” said the first Knight. “Hydrogen lights could last just as long, if not longer than Xenon bulbs, but the manufacturers deliberately designed them to fail so they could keep selling replacements. It’s a fucking racket.”

“Hey, do they do that with iPhones too?” Everly asked.

“They sure do, boss,” said the knight. “Apple is notorious for that bullshit. They don’t even care about the environmental impact of all the smartphones they force their customers to discard. The lithium from their corroded batteries eventually leaks into ground water and gets carried to the ocean. Bunch of dolphin-killing bastards is what they are.”

“Oh, shit, really? I love dolphins,” Everly said sadly.

“They love us too, ma’am. That’s why it’s such a betrayal,” the black knight said grimly. “Anyway, you want us to cut this chick’s head off?”

“What? No!” Everly frowned. “Not yet anyway. Maybe not ever. Depends on how good she is at begging for mercy. I always give mercy to those who beg well enough. Mostly.”

“Ah, gotcha, boss!” said the black knight, agreeably. “I get cranky when my blood sugar’s low.”

“Are you diabetic or something?” Everly asked him.

“Nah, I just like sugar,” he admitted.

“My Empress, shall we begin issuing the terms of surrender to your guests?” asked Carter.

Everly sighed, sorry to cut the conversation short. She loved having people around who'd originated on Earth like she had. It was nice talking to people who understood her references without having to have the information forcefully downloaded into their minds. Shared experiences made for common ground, after all.

Really, the fact that so many people came to this world so often raised a lot of distinct possibilities in Everly's mind. She'd transmigrated to this place after being killed, as had Kent and several other people that she'd met. But there were others who'd come here bodily, spirited away through some kind of mysterious gateway. Others had actually been summoned through ritual magic!

This place is connected to Earth in ways that I haven't yet discovered, she thought to herself. But if I can figure out how, does that mean I could return to Earth one day?

That was a very interesting idea. It appealed to her, it really did. Earth had been such a dull, conventional place in her previous life that she'd been eager to escape from it. But what if she could return at the head of an endless army? She could make the sorts of changes necessary to ensure that no one there would ever suffer from the doldrums again.

She could liberate Earth from boredom forever!

Wouldn't they love her for that?

"Ahem!"

Carter coughed loudly in an attempt to capture her attention and once more asked if he could begin dispensing terms to the defeated nobles.

“Bleh, this is the boring part,” Everly said unhappily. “Is there any way we could T-L-D-R this? We’re just going to do what we want anyway, why bother dragging this out?”

“Great one, please!” said Carter in a scandalized voice. “This is the customary duty of the conqueror. A tradition if you will. As the new ruler of these lands, your instructions must be imparted to your new subjects and they in turn must agree to your conditions.”

“Or else I’ll get to kill them?” she asked.

“Naturally,” Carter said.

“But I can just kill them anyway. Guys, did you catch that part?” she asked, directing her question to the dozens of captives assembled before her. “None of you has any right to refuse me. So, don’t make it weird, and just bend your knees, all right? There are very tangible rewards to licking my boot. I assure you; you’ll love being my pets.”

“Those portals your men dragged us through,” Seraphine suddenly said, her voice cutting through the throne room and silencing the whispering of her former subjects behind her.

“What about them?” Everly asked her, as she knowingly ran her eyes over the other woman’s body.

“They appeared from nowhere, and your soldiers just poured through,” Seraphine said with increasing anger. “They bypassed all of our defenses and snatched us away. We couldn’t do anything to resist them!”

“And your point is?” asked Everly as she twirled her finger, hoping to hurry her along.

“At any point during this conflict you could have ended the fighting in an instant!” Seraphine yelled. “Instead, you deliberately dragged it out, leading to thousands of unnecessary casualties! You allowed us to sleep at night, thinking we were safe behind our walls! But all along, you were just toying with us! Why? Why would you do something so…so sadistic?”

“Well, at the time, I was having a lot of fun. Is there something wrong with that?” Everly replied. “I’m sure you can understand. Sometimes you just want to make the night last forever.”

“It wasn’t a war…it was never a war,” Seraphine said numbly. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand anything, silly,” Everly said warmly. “All you need to know is that I greatly enjoyed myself. But now I’m moving on to bigger things.”

“You slaughtered my subjects!” Seraphine yelled.

“What of it? Such things can easily be undone. Death is a triviality in my new empire,” Everly said loftily. She stood from her throne and marched down the steps to stand before Seraphine. She then reached a hand towards the young queen’s face and gently took hold of her chin and tilted her eyes upwards to meet Everly’s gaze.

“Your way of looking at things is patterned after a moral code that simply doesn’t apply to the new reality that I offer you,” Everly said. “Death is mine to command. Swear yourself to me, give me your sincerest oath of obedience, vow to make me foremost in your heart, and you’ll never need to fear the future.”

“You killed my father,” Seraphine trembled. “How could I ever entrust you with the lives of my people?”

Everly’s lips curled back in a cruel sneer as she gradually tightened her grip. “I didn’t murder your father, you silly uninformed little thing. I offered him an honor greater than he deserved, but he unwisely allowed himself to be assassinated before making the commitment I required of him. Maybe I should have you take his place? You’re pretty enough for the role, even if you do talk too much.”

“What do you want from me?” the queen trembled.

“I already told you what I wanted,” Everly said as she leaned in closer to the other woman. “The real question is, why are you making me wait?”

“Everly, let her go,” said a young, but stern voice.

Everly’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hmm? What a strange thing. This is my hall, in my palace, where I’m conducting negotiations with my prisoner, but someone just told me what to do. I wonder how I should feel about that?”

“Dude, I’d be fucking piiiiiiissed,” said one of her black knights.

“Mikey, shut the fuck up,” whispered another of them fiercely.

“No, no, Mikey got it right,” Everly said to them before turning back to the prisoners. “So, who was it? Who was it that said that?”

A figure wearing shackles over his wrist stood up to calmly face her. She recognized him at once.

“Caleb, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked her brother.

“I’m standing up for the queen I swore to serve,” he replied.

Everly couldn’t tell what she found more difficult to process. The nobility he was displaying, or the suicidal lack of awareness that he seemed to be suffering from.

“Huh?” she finally said.