Chapter 9: Chapter 9: The Tithe

The transition from the cool, recycled air of the Vigilance to the open furnace of Drazti was a physical assault. The heat was a solid wall, a suffocating blanket woven from dust and scorched stone. As Rivena descended the gangplank, the roar of the outpost hit her: the rhythmic clang of hammers from the forges, the braying of pack animals, the shouts of legionaries in harsh, clipped accents, all underscored by a low murmur of a populace that knew its place.

The harbor was a chaotic testament to Girtian industry, its waters choked with military transports and heavy-bellied merchant barges. The air smelled of hot metal, animal dung, and the sharp, unfamiliar scent of southern spices. Laborers, their backs bent and their skin baked to the color of brick, averted their eyes as her retinue passed, their deference a mixture of fear and ingrained subservience. Soldiers, recognizing the sigils on the guards' armor, snapped to rigid attention. Stamped onto every building, every crate, every uniform was the golden Eye-and-Wave of Raychir, a constant, glaring reminder of the Goddess—and the state—watching over this sun-scorched patch of hell.

It was her first time this far south, and while her mind was filled with logistical data and strategic reports on the region, no document could truly capture the oppressive reality of the place. She saw everything through a dual lens: the immediate sensory input and the academic knowledge stored in her memory. The brutalist, unadorned stone buildings were consistent with the emergency fortifications erected after the last major Sankareth incursion, designed for defensibility, not comfort. The deep, covered trenches that crisscrossed the outpost were a direct implementation of the “defense-in-depth” doctrine her own father had authorized.

An officer with the weary eyes of a long-serving veteran met them at the edge of the docks. “Lady Rivena, Master Xyne. Welcome to Drazti. We have prepared your command billets.”

He led them away from the harbor, through the dusty, teeming streets of the garrison town. Here, the stares were more open. Off-duty soldiers and hard-faced locals watched them pass, their gazes lingering on the fine cut of Rivena’s uniform and the impossibly rich sea-green silks of Master Xyne. They were a different breed of animal, and everyone knew it.

“My, my,” Master Xyne commented, fanning himself with a silk handkerchief. “Special accommodations. The Grand Strategos spares no expense when it comes to his daughter’s comfort.”

He was referring to the low, solid-looking command bunker built into the side of a rocky mesa, set apart from the shimmering heat haze rising from the rows of officers' tents.

“The Grand Strategos spares no expense when it comes to operational security,” Rivena countered without breaking her stride. “I will be handling sensitive dispatches from the capital. A tent would be… unwise.”

The bunker was a haven of cool, still air. The interior was stripped-down and utilitarian, furnished with only a campaign desk, a cot, and a dedicated Scry-Slate terminal for secure communications. It was a privileged sort of prison cell.

“Well, this is… rustic,” Master Xyne said, looking around the stark room with distaste. “I have some mercantile matters to attend to in the lower town. I shall see you at the summit, my lady.”

As he turned to leave, Rivena’s voice, cool and precise, stopped him. “The lower town can be unruly, Master Xyne. I can spare a contingent of my personal guard for your protection.” And I could command them to leave your body in a dusty alley for the jackals to find, she thought, the cold fury a serpent coiling in her gut.

Xyne paused at the doorway, turning back with a smile of pure condescension. He used her intimate nickname, a name reserved for family and her mentor, twisting it into an insult. “My dear Rei, you misunderstand. Some of us move through the world with influence, not armor. I do not require an escort.”

He bowed slightly and was gone, leaving Rivena standing in the silence, the insult hanging in the air like dust motes. After dismissing the aide, she finally found a moment of solitude.

Her first act, as always, was to impose order on her new environment. She activated her personal Scry-Slate, its sapphire light a cool balm in the dim room, and began to absorb the data from the Vigilance’s voyage. It was a familiar, comforting ritual. Runic energy expenditure, water consumption, disciplinary reports—she scanned them all, her mind a well-honed instrument, searching for patterns and inefficiencies.

Most of it was trivial. A few scuffles over gambling debts, a case of stolen rations. Standard military friction. Then she came to an incident flagged by a ship’s analyst. It detailed a cascading systems failure in a nutrition dispenser unit. But it was the addendum that caught Rivena’s eye.

Analyst’s Note: The systems failure was not caused by the direct impact. Sensor logs indicate a precise, unauthorized activation of the unit’s sanitation cycle, code-tapped into the runic interface a fraction of a second before impact. The recruit responsible, Kazi (no house name), demonstrated a remarkable capacity for asymmetrical problem-solving...

Rivena leaned back, a flicker of genuine interest piercing her strategic calm. She placed a slender finger on the slate, flagging the file. She tapped the recruit's name, pulling up his enlistment record. The data was sparse.

Name: Kazi. Family Name: None Declared. Origin: Zirella. Height: Standard. Weight: Below standard. Notable markers: Mixed ethnic features, Eastern and Western. Eyes, grey.

Uncouth, underfed, and clever. A dangerous combination. Or a useful one. He was no longer just a number on a manifest. He was an anomaly. And anomalies, in her experience, could often become assets.

She closed the file just as the Scry-Slate chimed with a secure, high-priority signal. The slate’s surface shimmered, resolving into a life-sized, three-dimensional projection of her father. Grand Strategos Vallan Nerris looked weary, the lines around his eyes deeper than she remembered, but his gaze was as sharp as ever.

“Rei,” he said, his voice warm with a paternal affection he showed to no one else. “You arrived safely, I see.”

“The journey was uneventful,” she replied, her own voice softening almost imperceptibly. “Drazti is… exactly as the reports described. A furnace with a flag.”

A rare, small smile touched his lips. “It serves its purpose. Has Master Xyne made himself comfortable?”

“He is assessing his mercantile interests,” she said, the slight emphasis conveying everything he needed to know.

Vallan’s smile vanished, and he sighed, a sound heavy with the weight of his office. “As I expected. The Council grows bold. Countess Vestre is demanding I sign an ordnance to bypass safety protocols on the deep-level excavators. It would increase her ore yield by a fraction, but the risk of a tunnel collapse would triple.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

He looked away from the projection for a moment, his gaze distant. “They see the miners as numbers on a ledger. A cost of doing business. They forget that Girtia isn’t built on the silver in their vaults. It is built on the backs of those people, on the sweat of the farmers in the Orino fields, on the calloused hands of the Zirellan fishermen they recruit. Their lives are the currency of this nation, Rei. Not their coin.”

“The Council does not understand sacrifice, Father,” Rivena said, her voice a quiet, firm promise. “They only understand profit.”

“And that is why you are there,” he said, his focus returning to her. “They will not make a significant move while a Solaera holds the southern command. Your presence is a shield for those people as much as it is for me. Be that shield, Rei.”

“I will be more than a shield, Father,” she said, her voice hardening with resolve. “I will be a sword.”

A flicker of pride, swiftly followed by caution, crossed his face. “Swords can be broken. Be brilliant, but be wise. Her Gaze Protects.”

“Her Tide Provides,” she finished the traditional sign-off. The projection dissolved, leaving her alone once more in the cool silence of the bunker. His words confirmed her suspicions. The game was afoot, and she was a piece, moved far from the center of the board. But a piece could still be powerful, especially one that others underestimated.

Her duty, for now, was clear. She turned back to the Scry-Slate, her brief emotional exchange with her father compartmentalized and locked away. With a few swift commands, she dismissed the Vigilance’s travel logs and pulled up the encrypted files for the Drazti summit. She would not walk into that meeting unprepared.

One by one, the dossiers of the attendees materialized in shimmering script. She committed each to memory, her mind a loom, weaving threads of allegiance, greed, and fear into a single, comprehensible tapestry.

First, Commander Erius, the Drazti garrison chief. A stout man with a thick neck and a face like a slab of sun-cured leather. His service record was exemplary, but with a critical flaw noted in the margins: a weakness for high-stakes card games, with debts quietly underwritten by a moneylender with known ties to House Tharne. A leash, held by the Council.

Next, Quartermaster Shale. A thin, perpetually harried-looking woman whose logistical reports showed consistent rounding errors, all in favor of a shipping contractor secretly owned by House Moren. A common thief, but a predictable tool.

Finally, she pulled up the file for Envoy Tegan Orino. The portrait resolved in the air—a young, handsome man with a charming, easy smile. She found herself zooming in on the holographic image, a completely unprofessional impulse. The slate rendered his features in perfect detail: the sharp line of his jaw, the dark curl of his hair, the glint of amusement in his eyes. He was handsome in the way a perfectly crafted lie is beautiful—all smooth surfaces and pleasing lines. She shook her head, forcing herself to focus. His official record was spotless. But she cross-referenced his travel logs with encrypted reports from her own network of informants. A different picture emerged. Tegan was a purveyor of pleasure, a man who dealt in secrets whispered in the town’s high-end brothels and opium dens. He wasn't here to negotiate grain prices. He was a social viper, the Council’s ear in the Drazti officer’s mess, collecting whispers of discontent and seeds of blackmail.

She spent hours dissecting the web of connections, her mind mapping the flow of power, coin, and desperation that constituted the true political landscape of the garrison. This was her battlefield. The summit was not about Sankareth hedge-wizards. It was about reinforcing her father’s authority and reminding the jackals of the Council that even in the dust of this forgotten outpost, the Solaera were not to be trifled with. She would be ready.

Later, under the guise of inspecting the garrison’s outer perimeter, Rivena sought to confirm a theory. If Xyne was truly here on Council business, he would meet his contacts somewhere discreet. She donned a simple, hooded officer’s cloak, its color the same drab brown as the dust, and made her way toward the lower town. She lost his trail in the maze of teeming alleyways but stumbled upon a different scene of interest.

A group of new recruits from the Vigilance had been given their first off-ship assignment: collecting outstanding protection tithes from the local vendors. As Rivena watched from the shadows of a high walkway, she saw most of the recruits resort to the standard Girtian methods of intimidation. Then she spotted him. Kazi. He was approaching a textile merchant, a woman whose stall was nearly bare. He presented his collection slate, and the woman sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"I'm sorry, soldier," she said, her voice weary. "The dust-wasps ruined half my stock this week. I've paid what I can. I have nothing else for you."

Kazi looked at the paltry pile of coins she'd given him, then at the single bolt of rough, undyed wool left on her shelf. He didn't threaten or cajole. He simply nodded. "I'll take the wool, then. As payment in kind."

The woman looked surprised, then relieved. "Thank you, soldier."

At the next stall, a leatherworker gave him a handful of bronze coins and a pair of sturdy, plain-looking boots. He was failing his mission, yet he seemed untroubled. He ducked into a secluded alley, and Rivena watched as he took off his recruit tunic, turning it inside out to hide the Girtian sigil. He pulled up the rough hood of his undershirt, obscuring his face. No longer a soldier, he was now just another impoverished local boy.

He walked away from the lower town, heading toward the manicured plazas of the upper districts. Intrigued, Rivena descended from the walkway, pulling her own hood lower to blend into the street-level throng.

Kazi found a small, shaded spot near a fountain where off-duty officers and wealthy merchants gathered. He laid the bolt of wool on the ground and placed the simple boots on top. For a long time, no one paid him any mind. An officer’s wife glanced at his meager display and sneered. A portly merchant simply waved him away like a fly.

Rivena positioned herself nearby, feigning interest in a display of polished river stones. A vendor immediately accosted her, seeing the fine make of her boots beneath her drab cloak. "Polished stones, my lady? From the Serpent's Tooth River! A fine gift for a loved one."

"Just looking," Rivena said coolly, her eyes still on Kazi.

Finally, a man in the fine uniform of a naval quartermaster stopped. "What's this you're peddling, boy? You're not a registered vendor."

"Just trying to earn my way, sir," Kazi said. His accent, the soft, lilting cadence of the outer isles, was unmistakable.

The quartermaster’s eyes narrowed. "That accent… Zirellan, isn't it? My first posting was on the northern straits. Fought off pirates thicker than barnacles on a barge." He nudged the wool with his boot. "What is this, then? Some authentic islander junk?"

"It is, sir," Kazi said, seizing the opening. "A Zirellan storm-set. Wool woven by the fisher-folk to keep out the sea-spray, and boots cured in salt and wind. They say you can still hear—"

"Want to see the deep reds? They hold the light beautifully," the stone vendor interrupted, holding a polished rock in front of Rivena's face.

She waved him away with an irritated flick of her wrist, annoyed at having missed part of the exchange.

"...hah," the quartermaster was grunting, but he was smiling now, a nostalgic gleam in his eye. He picked up one of the boots. "Still, my wife is always complaining about the damp in the capital. What's the price for this… piece of home?"

"For a man who knows the northern straits? Three silvers for the set."

"Three silvers for this rubbish?" the stone vendor muttered under his breath, loud enough for Rivena to hear. She shot him a glare that sent him scurrying to the back of his stall.

"Done," the quartermaster said, handing over the coins without a second thought.

It was what Kazi did next that cemented his value. He returned to the lower town. Rivena followed, her focus absolute. He found the textile merchant and the leatherworker.

"The Goddess provided more than we needed," he said, pressing a silver coin into each of their stunned hands, along with their original bronze coins. "The debt is paid. The Goddess will figure out the rest."

He turned to leave, and for the first time, Rivena felt something other than strategic interest. It was a flicker of genuine admiration. The other recruits had used the blunt instrument of fear. Kazi had used narrative, empathy, and then capped it with an act of surprising integrity. He wasn't just a tool to be shaped. He was a weapon that sharpened itself.