The invasion of Seitz would resume when both the airships were finished and the situations in the counties of Kuat and Purledo were stabilized. Judging by their current pace the airships would be finished sooner than I’d expected, but bringing Kuat in line seemed like it would take a considerable amount of time. Purledo, at least, was already on the road to recovery─that was one area where it didn’t feel like I had anything to worry about.
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Several months passed by, and the final month of the year arrived. That meant that it was the height of summer, and this year had proven to be one of the hottest on record. I, meanwhile, had spent the better part of those several months with my nose to the grindstone. There was so much petty, straightforward work to be done that it made me think of my career as an office drone in my past life, just a little.
We’d finished producing the five airships that had been set as our goal. That goal wasn’t a hard limit, though, and the more ships we were able to create the better, so we’d already started work on the sixth vessel as well.
On the foreign affairs side of matters, I’d received a letter informing me that the resistance in Kuat had been wiped out, and that peace seemed to be returning to the county. I’d expected it to take longer, frankly, but it seemed that Kuat would regain stability in fairly short order. I had to wonder what exactly Mireille had done to pull that off─the report didn’t go into any specifics about her methods, and I was too scared of what the answer might be to go out of my way to ask for details.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before the war started up again, and had settled in to wait for the inevitable summons from Couran when something outside of my expectations happened instead. News arrived in Canarre not of the war’s resumption, but rather, of a message that Ashude, the Duke of Seitz, had sent to Couran petitioning him for peace.
I knew as well as anyone that Couran wouldn’t blindly accept the first offer of armistice that came his way, but the particulars of the deal that Ashude had proposed were remarkable: he had offered a total submission to Missian’s demands. In essence, it felt less like a request for peace talks and more like an outright surrender.
It seemed that the duke had judged that he had no hope of winning the war, so he had taken the next logical step. Voluntary surrender was far better than a meaningless fight in which Seitz’s cities and populace would without question be devastated. It hadn’t been an easy choice to make, surely, and even knowing that surrender was the best option, I was confident that many of the lords in his service had opposed the decision. Talking them down had probably been a challenge in its own right, and the fact that he’d managed it told me he was quite the silver-tongued man.
I didn’t end up participating in the negotiations that were held between Missian and Seitz, but it wasn’t long before news of their results reached me: it had been decided that Seitz would secede from the Summerforth Empire and declare itself the Kingdom of Seitz, becoming a vassal state of the Kingdom of Missian. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Seitz would not be ruled by Ashude, the current duke. Rather, the former duke’s nephew, a man named Kyle Postanos, would become king. Missian would continue to hold the occupied territories of Purledo and Kuat, while Seitz’s remaining counties would exist under the new king’s rule.
A number of other stipulations were written into the treaty, including an agreement to have a daughter of the new king─in other words, a Princess of Seitz─marry one of Couran’s sons in an effort to cement the new, friendly ties between the two nations in place. Other daughters of prominent Seitzan lords were promised to Missian nobles as well, acting as what I could only describe as hostages. That said, some Missian ladies were sent to marry Seitzan nobility as well, so it wasn’t a one-way street. I assumed that their purpose was to keep an eye on the new kingdom.
As for the now former Duke of Seitz, Ashude, Couran reportedly thought long and hard over how to deal with him. There was always a chance that his surrender was part of some sort of long-term plot, and killing him would have been the safest measure by far, but the Seitzan nobility adored him, and treating him too poorly risked earning their ire and fostering resistance within the new kingdom. That prospect was unappealing enough that Couran ultimately chose to have Ashude step down from his position, but otherwise remain unpunished. Duke or not, Ashude would surely wield enormous influence in Seitz, and would have to be monitored moving forward.
The sudden development had come out of left field for me, but its results were clear: Seitz would become a vassal state to Missian, and in doing so, the war would end in Missian’s indisputable victory.
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Shortly after the war officially came to an end, I received a summons to Arcantez. Purledo and Kuat County had both remained under Missian control, as agreed, and while Couran had sent temporary rulers to govern over them, he had yet to formally declare anyone to be their new counts. That was the purpose of the meeting I’d been called to: to discuss and select the rulers of Missian’s newest territories.
Ultimately, the decision would be Couran’s and Couran’s alone to make, but apparently, he wanted to hear the opinions of the lords he ruled over before he made that choice. That meant that I would have to share my opinion as well, and I knew that what I said could have quite broad-reaching consequences. If, for instance, I proposed that a particular lord be given one of the counties, I could anger any number of lords who happened to be on poor terms with my chosen candidate.
Since both territories were being ruled by individuals in Couran’s service, Kuat and Purledo were effectively under his rule for now. Saying that I believed he should continue to hold onto them felt like the safest, most inoffensive move that I could make. I was convinced that nobody would actively resent me for proposing it, at least, and went into the meeting with that as my general plan of action.