The minister’s second assistant was Miroslav—a mage who looked about twenty-five but was actually around four hundred. He had light hair, a perpetually tired gaze, and a habit of drumming his fingers on the desk when he was thinking.

  At first he looked at Lelya with the same condescension as everyone else. A human girl who had ended up here for no clear reason. But in the fifth month, when they were working together on a response to a Citadel claim, something changed.

  “No,” said Lelya, crossing out a line in the draft. “We can’t do it that way. If we cite this precedent, they’ll pull out the case from the year seven hundred thirty-two, where we ourselves violated this principle.”

  “How do you know about seven thirty-two?” Miroslav frowned.

  “I read it.”

  “That’s a restricted archive.”

  Lelya shrugged.

  “Radimir gave me access.”

  Miroslav leaned back in his chair and looked at her in silence for several seconds. Then—for the first time in five months—he smiled. Not condescendingly, not mockingly. Simply smiled.

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s listen to your version.”

  From that day they worked together for real. Miroslav knew history better than Lelya could ever learn—four hundred years of life gave him an advantage. But Lelya saw connections he missed. She sensed where an argument would work and where it would crumble under pressure.

  “It’s like chess,” she explained once. “You know every move ever made. I see what move the opponent will make next.”

  “You need to speak for yourself,” said Miroslav in the seventh month.

  They were sitting in Radimir’s office—the minister had left for negotiations—sorting through another draft. Outside the window it was growing dark, and Lelya felt the familiar strain in her eyes from endless reading.

  “I’m a junior assistant,” she reminded him. “I’m not allowed at the Council.”

  “I’m not talking about the Council. I’m talking about internal meetings. You write speeches that Radimir then delivers at half strength, and I’m not even mentioning the debates. It’s like… a great composer writes a symphony, and it’s performed by an orchestra that can’t play.”

  “Radimir doesn’t speak that badly.”

  “Radimir is a brilliant strategist and a terrible orator. Everyone knows that. He knows it himself.” Miroslav shrugged. “The question is what to do about it.”

  Lelya stayed silent.

  She knew the answer to that question. Had known it for several months. But to say it aloud meant admitting she wanted more than a junior assistant position. And wanting more was frightening.

  Outside the window, streetlights came on, and their light fell on a stack of papers she still had to sort through before morning.

  Three days before the regular World Council, Radimir summoned Lelya and Miroslav to his office.

  “We have a problem,” he said without preamble. “Two weeks ago, the Citadel sent troops into Arhtang.”

  Lelya knew. Everyone knew. A small principality on the border between two powers, formally independent but under Monolith’s tacit protection for three hundred years. Mostly descendants of the House of All Winds lived there—quiet, stubborn people who wanted to be part of neither Citadel nor Monolith. Now Citadel garrisons stood on that land.

  “We’re demanding condemnation and sanctions,” Radimir continued. “But…”

  “But no one wants to quarrel with the Citadel,” Lelya finished.

  “Exactly. They have a strong army. Half the Council trades with them and fears losing contracts. The other half is simply afraid. Our allies nod sympathetically and shrug.”

  Miroslav frowned:

  “What does the Citadel say?”

  “That they were ‘invited.’ That there was a coup threat in Arhtang, and the local government asked for help. They even have a letter with signatures.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Is it genuine?”

  Radimir shrugged:

  “Probably not. But we can’t prove it’s a forgery. And even if we could—who cares? The Council doesn’t want conflict. They’ll vote for ‘concern,’ express ‘hope for a peaceful resolution,’ and go home.”

  Silence hung in the office. Lelya looked out the window at the evening city and thought about the peasants of Arhtang, now learning to live under new masters.

  “What arguments do we have?” she asked finally.

  “Formally—none that are strong. Arhtang wasn’t part of our defense alliance. They were just… under protection. By tradition. And tradition isn’t a legal document.”

  “And informally?”

  Radimir wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose:

  “Informally—the Citadel itself appealed three times in the last two hundred years to ‘historical ties’ and ‘traditional patronage’ when it suited them. If we could present that properly…”

  “We can,” said Lelya.

  For the next three nights they didn’t sleep.

  Radimir’s office turned into a war room: folders of archives piled on the desk, on chairs, on the floor. At some point they moved to the carpet in front of the fireplace—it was easier to spread out documents there.

  Lelya sat cross-legged, surrounded by yellowed protocols. Miroslav lay on his back, holding a tablet with Council archive recordings above him. Radimir paced back and forth, occasionally stopping to look over their shoulders.

  “Here,” said Lelya on the second night, around three in the morning. “Found it. The year seventeen ninety-three. The Citadel demanded the Council condemn the House of All Winds for ‘aggression’ against Berchello. You know what their main argument was?”

  She raised the document and read aloud:

  “‘Berchello has for centuries been under the traditional patronage of the Citadel. An attack on Berchello is an attack on the very principle of historical continuity and the stability of world order.’”

  Miroslav sat up, rubbing his eyes:

  “So what? That was over two hundred years ago. What does it have to do with Arhtang?”

  “The Citadel had no treaty with Berchello. No legal document. Only ‘tradition’ and ‘historical ties.’ And the Council ruled in their favor.”

  Radimir stopped in the middle of the room:

  “You want to use their own precedent?”

  “I want to use their own words.” Lelya stood, stretching her stiff legs. “We don’t say ‘The Citadel is the aggressor.’ That sounds like an accusation, and they’ll start defending themselves, and the Council will look for compromise. We say something different. We say: ‘Two hundred years ago, the Citadel itself established the principle that traditional patronage has the force of law. We supported that principle then. We believed it would work equally for everyone.’”

  She paused, choosing her words:

  “And now we see that for the Citadel, this principle works in only one direction. Their patronage is sacred; ours means nothing. And that’s no longer about Arhtang. It’s about trust. About whether their word can be trusted at all.”

  Radimir slowly sank into his chair.

  “You’re proposing we don’t demand sanctions…”

  “I’m proposing we don’t demand anything. We simply ask a question. Publicly. Before the entire Council. ‘If principles work only for the strong—why do we need a Council at all?’ Let them answer. Let them justify themselves. Let them explain why what was fair two hundred years ago is unfair today.”

  Miroslav whistled:

  “That’s no longer about Arhtang. That’s an attack on their reputation.”

  “It’s the truth,” Lelya shrugged. “Just… angled the right way.”

  By morning of the third day, the speech was ready.

  Lelya read it one last time, checking every word. Radimir stood at the window, watching dawn over the city. Miroslav slept, curled up on the couch—he had switched off around five in the morning, and no one had the heart to wake him.

  “It’s a good speech,” said Lelya.

  “It’s an excellent speech,” Radimir corrected, not turning around. “The question is whether I can deliver it.”

  “You can. We’ll rehearse.”

  They rehearsed all day. Lelya played the Citadel representative, asked tricky questions, tried to throw Radimir off. By evening he spoke almost confidently—almost.

  “Remember,” she said before he left, “the main thing isn’t the words. It’s the pause before the answer. You have the right to think. You don’t have to respond instantly.”

  Radimir nodded and left.

  Lelya remained in the empty office, among scattered papers and cold coffee. She wouldn’t be allowed at the Council—ministers only. All that was left was to wait.

  She waited eight hours.

  When the door finally opened, Lelya jumped up so suddenly she knocked over her cup. Radimir entered—and she immediately knew something was wrong. He didn’t look upset. He looked… puzzled.

  “We won,” he said slowly. “The Council condemned the Citadel and even passed minor sanctions. For show, of course.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Lelya asked cautiously.

  “It is,” Radimir agreed. “But after the session, Varvara the Northern came up to me.”

  Lelya froze. The Chief Mage of Monolith. She knew of her only from stories—a woman who had ruled the country for three hundred years, and whom even her own ministers feared.

  “What did she say?”

  Radimir looked at Lelya, and there was something strange in his gaze—either respect or alarm.

  “She said: ‘Wonderful speech, Radimir. But it wasn’t yours. And you shouldn’t have been the one delivering it. You lost half its momentum.’ Then she asked who wrote it.”

  The silence in the office became almost palpable.

  “And what did you answer?” Lelya whispered.

  “The truth,” Radimir shrugged. “I said my junior assistant wrote it. A mage who is two years old.”

  He paused.

  “Varvara wants to meet you.”