From what I can tell the imperials aren’t inherently different from the other awakened. My guess is their realm sculpting techniques are advanced in some way, like yours and mine. I say this because to advance your realm, while the state of mind matters, so does the foundation and the strength or robustness of the realm itself.

  — Excerpt from Notes For Newstar

  Day 1184, 9:00 AM

  “Your Imperial Highness,” I bowed, keeping the stance. The princess had made her opinion of me clear by how long she left me to wait for an audience.

  “You may stand.” She took a seat, but didn’t offer me one.

  Legs crossed, she glared at me. The only sound in the world that reached my ears was my heartbeat. It was slow and steady, accompanied by the susurration of blood as it flowed through my eardrum.

  Man, it sure is quiet in here. The thought struck me as I waited for her shaming session to end. I had nothing to be ashamed of. The time I had spent away from Glory, I devoted to people more important to me than her. Especially considering she would potentially become Newstar’s nemesis one day.

  “Where have you been?” she finally asked, the entitled words suggesting everything I needed to know both about her personality and upbringing.

  “Reporting to Your Imperial Highness, a friend of mine got displaced during the cults’ attack, and I needed to head out and find him. Afterwards, I got caught up in the onslaught and an attack by the cultists, which only delayed me further.”

  She wasn’t impressed. The next half an hour passed in her passive-aggressively interrogating me about what I had been doing in the moons I was outside her reach. We didn’t discuss her state of mind, nor the outer gods invading her dreams, keeping the focus on me and my betrayal.

  She didn’t attribute such heavy accusations to my actions, but her emotions were plain to see. Fortunately, my torment extended to her attitude, and with me thoroughly chastised, the next punishment was that I wouldn’t know how long the princess would take to summon me the next time.

  All in all, the visit was a victory that heralded several very good weeks. Ruby and I met up once every five days or so to share a meal and discuss her progress with alchemy. As expected, she was performing admirably and had joined the guild as a journeyman.

  My days passed in such a monotonous pace of sculpting my realm, talking with higher realm awakened about their fears and demons, and occasional meetings with Ruby. The sameness was such that my sense of time nearly blurred.

  “Master Dandelion, I have a letter for you.” A person I didn’t know approached me at the scribes’ guild nearly a year after my return to Glory.

  He was tall, blonde, with pale skin, his aura non-existent, meaning he was at least at the sixth realm. He handed me an envelope sealed with blue wax depicting a colossal sea creature breaking the waves.

  Tidebreaker official business. I recognized the seal immediately from back when I first read the introduction to the empire and its kingdoms.

  I gave the man another look-over. He was dressed in plain clothes, and while handsome, all he needed was a hat, and he wouldn’t stand out too much in a crowd on a street in Glory City.

  “Thank you, Sir,” I said to the man. “I believe the contents of this letter are private?”

  The man nodded.

  “In that case, I’ll read it in the meditation chamber, if you don’t mind, Sir.”

  “I will wait for you here.” The man showed not a hint of emotion, just moving to stand in the corner so as not to get in the way of those entering the guild.

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  In the privacy of the meditation chamber, I cracked the seal and scanned the letter.

  Well, now, that’s unexpected.

  The letter was penned by the Tidebreaker exalt himself, seeking to hire me to help cure his granddaughter. It was a good opportunity to leave Glory and the troublesome imperial princess behind, as well as earn a hefty reward, assuming I managed to help the exalt’s granddaughter.

  The letter lacked any specifics, save for promising me a fourth realm manarium crystal every day as long as I worked on Maelstrom Tidebreaker’s recovery, including traveling towards her to see the patient.

  With no reason to refuse and quite a few to accept, I left the meditation chamber and found the Tidebreaker family’s retainer.

  “I accept the offer, but I will need several hours to pen letters for my patients, offer them refunds, since I won’t handle their cases until resolution, and get my things in order. Is that acceptable?”

  The letter stated I should depart as soon as possible, but mentioned no deadlines. Leaving Glory City after squaring all my debts and making sure no resentment lingered made for not just the basic decency, but also left a door open rather than closed.

  Unfortunately, I had underestimated the amount of work I had to do. Leaving the manarium in the adventurers’ guild for two dozen people I saw on a monthly basis, wiring the letters and checking how much each of them had paid me took the better part of the day, and by the time I was done, the night had fallen.

  “Pardon the delay, Sir,” I told my escort, who had been patiently waiting for me at the adventurers’ guild’s common room. “My matters are in order, we may depart whenever you are ready.”

  Again, he nodded without a word and led the way out, where he hailed a coach.

  “Air port,” he told the driver, and an hour later, we were aboard a Tidebreaker kingdom’s airship.

  At no point did the man initiate a conversation, and since I was at the lower realm, trying to spark a conversation counted as a breach of etiquette, so, after he closed his eyes to meditate, I joined him, working on my realm.

  One might point out many faults with the awakened, but they always had a busy wait. The going was much slower and more difficult without the meditation chamber, but the trip was long, and fifty days after leaving Glory, I had made quite a push with my realm. What I lost with the lack of meditation chamber, I had gained with not having any obligations other than handling basic necessities.

  I was busy sculpting a figure of ice to float as an additional layer on the already existing water seal when a clear chime rang out through my realm.

  I opened my eyes to find my guide still in meditation. Nobody else was around, and with no better idea what to do, I got up and went to look outside the window.

  Much like the guides described it, the Tidebreaker kingdom was locked in permafrost, dressed in white, with tall jagged mountains in the distance.

  “We are approaching the Winter Palace,” my guide informed me. “The bell means we’ll be landing in half an hour.”

  “Thank you for informing me, Sir. Is there anything I should know before the audience?” I asked, since he had spoken for the first time in weeks.

  “Be humble, but truthful. Don’t overestimate yourself. I don’t believe His Royal Majesty will speak with you personally, but the topic is sensitive, and it might happen.”

  I waited for the man to say more, but apparently that was all he had in store for me.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  The rest of the flight passed in silence, with the mountain steadily approaching. The Winter Palace was humongous, just like the mountain it was situated on. It sprawled, nearly as big as Thunderbluff, with residential complexes, training yards, and various congregations of buildings, their purpose unknowable from afar, but the layout seemed too intentional for them not to serve a purpose.

  The ship headed straight for the central plaza, a place where I would put a hedge maze and a giant flower garden, but the Tidebreakers instead had decorated it with ice statues.

  I wonder whether those need pruning too after snowstorms or following ice rains?

  A man stood at the center of the statue garden, flanked by four armed guards. He held his back straight, but there was something about his bearing that told me definitely wasn’t the exalt.

  “Chamberlain?” I asked.

  “Chief of Staff, but you were close,” the guide said as the airship touched down.

  Our welcoming committee approached as we stepped out. My guide stopped and saluted.

  “I bring one Dandelion Blackfist at His Royal Majesty’s behest.”

  “Well done, your mission was completed successfully. I thank you for your service.”

  The exchange seemed official, possibly ceremonial, and with the words spoken, my guide left without glancing back at me. With the ceremony out of the way, the official approached me and gave a slight bow, which I returned with a deep gesture due to someone probably at the ninth realm.

  “I am Redhorn, the Tidebreaker king’s chief of staff. Thank you for accepting His Royal Majesty’s invitation. I have personally selected you from several hundred high profile candidates in part due to your stunning success rate, in part because an imperial princess confides in you, and in part because of how quickly you helped your patients, with nobody ever catching any details of their problems or conditions. While not paramount, discretion is certainly a very important part both of your profession and of your personal success.”

  “Thank you for your trust. I will do my best to live up to it.”