Given how our realms differ from the norm, a mountain and a volcano, I believe it’s entirely possible to sculpt it into anything you want. There’s no reason to keep it a plain like all the books instruct for some reason. Just think about it and keep an open mind for when your kids awaken.

  — Excerpt from Notes For Newstar

  Day 1620, 10:30 AM

  Two weeks had passed after Maelstrom and I started talking when her grandfather summoned me to her study.

  “Your Royal Majesty,” I bowed formally.

  “My granddaughter was trying to have a drunken brawl last night in a castle full of her retainers. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  I was naturally present for Maelstrom’s attempt at inebriated sparring and found the whole affair amusing. The king apparently didn’t.

  “I believe she is getting out of her room, getting exercise, and even working on her realm.”

  “This is the second time she’s gotten drunk in two weeks! What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Again, the same accusation, but I answered calmly.

  “She’s at an age when young people have their first contact with alcohol and other adult pastimes, such as sex.”

  The exalt’s face glowed red for a blink before returning to his regular pale complexion.

  “I don’t believe anyone present would dare do something,” I continued. “They should be aware of the consequences. I certainly am, and while your granddaughter is attractive and beautiful, I foster not a shred of interest. Political or otherwise.”

  That seemed to placate him. He also forgot about the attempt at drunk and disorderly at the merest mention of his fully grown, twenty-two-year-old granddaughter having sex. Something I had to remind him of, no matter how loath I was of continuing the topic.

  “As for your granddaughter’s fondness of wine, it really isn’t all that unusual, and it’s easy to treat.”

  The exalt cocked his brow. “Really? And how do I cure her?”

  “Have her drink only the best whenever she’s around you. Make sure to give her controlled amounts, a glass or two, and make sure nobody she will interact with has comparable vintages. Soon enough, all other wines would taste like swill to her, and problem solved.”

  “That just might work.” The exalt agreed, deep in thought.

  “The other approach is to let her get so wasted and miserable, she would develop an aversion towards wine, but that one is messy and impractical for several reasons, the least of which is the amount of wine she would have to drink to reach that point.”

  “I’ll consider the matter later. Now, while you have saddled us with a new problem, you also most certainly have solved the one we had before. How should I reward you?” The old king spoke plainly, and, fortunately, I had the answer before I had even reached the winter kingdoms.

  “What I am interested in, Your Royal Majesty, is knowledge. While I naturally don’t covet your family’s secrets, a library with restricted texts or exotic knowledge would interest me greatly, as would working with your most skilled alchemist, blacksmith, or spell scribe.”

  “You desire knowledge?” He eyed me carefully. “Not wealth?”

  “That is correct, Your Royal Majesty. Wealth I cannot take to the grave, but knowledge I can and will.”

  His gaze grew flat. “This isn’t some trick to get me to reward you even more handsomely, is it? Because it won’t work.”

  “No, Your Royal Majesty. If you are familiar with my life so far, as I am certain you are, you should see a clear pattern of me pursuing knowledge in all fields. Or as many as I can possibly cram into my head.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I cracked a smile, but the exalt remained unimpressed.

  “Very well. I shall speak with my librarian. I don’t have a royal alchemist or a royal blacksmith. Only imperials can afford to have sufficiently advanced craftsmen tied to their family, because you can count the people capable of creating exalt-grade items on the fingers of a single hand, and the imperials have snatched them all. As for those inferior to them, we simply don’t need them on staff permanently when we can commission them from the guilds.”

  He cleared his throat. “That said. I’ll give you letters of introduction you can take to the guildmasters at the royal capital. I’m sure they will give me face and show you a thing or two.”

  “Thank you, Your Royal Majesty.” I bowed.

  “You may leave. I’ll see to your rewards.”

  What followed were two weeks of reading and rediscovering the truths of the world. Some of the public knowledge was clearly labeled wrong in more than one source. For starters, the odds of awakening weren’t one in a thousand or even one in a hundred. They were closer to one in ten or one in twenty.

  Next, the official books stated that as long as you had enough resources and faced all your heart demons, you could rise infinitely. Another lie. While just about anyone could reach the third realm, the fourth required several things, such as the quality of the previous realms.

  Foundation was king, and those who had just slopped their way through the initial realms soon found themselves stranded. It was a strange discovery, which confirmed my suspicion that the imperial libraries weren’t really there to help the masses, but to control them and limit their potential power.

  Both served as a confirmation and as a warning not to blindly trust the manuals I had read in the imperial library, but to approach them with a critical mind.

  Other than reading books, I had become Maelstrom’s drinking buddy. An extremely pleasant title and duty, especially since her grandfather had taken my advice and only allowed the finest wines within her presence. He even made a catch. He pretended he had a limited stock, and if Maelstrom wanted more, she had to get it herself with a limited budget.

  Technically, by drinking with her, I was doing the king’s will, and further reducing Maelstrom’s already limited supply of wine.

  “You’re a bottomomom? less barrel,” Maelstrom slurred. “I can’t believe you can drink it all.”

  “What? You want another bet?” I asked her. “You’re down to your last barrel of wine.”

  “And I’ll wager the entire thing!” she waved her glass around.

  “And what’s the wager?”

  “Well, that you can’t drink it tonight, of course. If I win, you buy me another barrel, and I get whatever you couldn’t drink.”

  “And if I win.” I smirked, already having an idea about what she would wager.

  “I’ll give you a kiss.”

  I choked on the wine I was sipping, my mirth dead in an instant.

  “I’ll consider the wine I drink my winnings, thank you very much.” I said what I expected she would wager. If she insisted, I would have to get myself scarce until she sobered up.

  “Do you think I’m not pretty enough?”

  “I think you’re drunk, Lady Maelstrom.”

  “So what if I am? It only makes me prettier.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I think we’ve had enough fun tonight.” I stood. “Good night.”

  She grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t go. You’re a cheating coward, running away when you can’t win a bet.”

  Damn right I’m running away. A drunk princess is hitting on me under her grandfather’s roof.

  A grandfather who could easily smite me into paste and buy the outer gods a chance at changing the future.

  “All right.” I shook her hand off. “If I win, I get the wine I had already drank. If you win, I’ll buy you another barrel. Deal?”

  She gave me a pouty frown, but nodded.

  I slowly drank, and she slowly sobered up. The bathroom breaks were frequent, and honestly, I grew sick of the taste of wine. Ten gallons of even the finest vintage in a single week would make a normal man sick of wine, let alone in a single evening.

  I think we just have to put Maelstrom through this with alcohol-free wine, and she’ll never think of giving it a lick ever again.

  The torturous evening somehow ended, for the first time in a long while tempting me to redo, just so it wouldn’t happen. Which told me several things. The most important being that time had once more blunted the edge of Redo’s backlash.

  Forgetting the bad and remembering the good is a typical human feature wired into our brains, but it also makes us prone to mistakes we really shouldn’t be prone too. Fortunately, I had a clear reminder in the form of people dying due to their inventions or other future achievements threatening the cults, and all because of me.

  That thought sobered me up immediately. A bit of convenience and forgetting an embarrassing evening weighed little compared to a single cult opponent dying, let alone how many leads they might get from my death.

  Fortunately, the weird night gave me the excuse to avoid Maelstrom for a while and focus on my studies and on sculpting my realm in the royal family’s private meditation chamber, which was of a higher quality than the one in the scribes’ guild back at Glory.

  Naturally, there was no dodging her entirely. Sooner or later, she would push for another meeting, and probably apologize for forcing me to drink an entire barrel of wine. She was tenacious, and I planned to spend at least a year at the Tidebreakers’ winter palace, reading through their library and abusing the other commodities.

  Like I had told the exalt, I planned to take everything I could to my grave.