The Hero System Glitched And Now It Pays Me to Love My Assassin Wives

"Your turn, Your Majesty."

Decimus Vanthel moved a bishop and looked at me across the board. He had all afternoon. He also had the empire.

Three days since the guild master’s signed declaration.

Three days with the paper in Zelina’s inner pocket, right by her heart, burning without catching fire.

"The chancellor plays his bishop early," I said. "He pressures before developing."

"An early bishop makes things uncomfortable. Discomfort reveals plans." He poured tea for both of us, himself, without any servants in the room. "Do you know what this game taught me, Your Majesty? That nobody loses because of a bad move. You lose because of a good move made three turns too early."

I advanced a pawn. Appraiser’s Eye swept the room without me asking and returned with the label of every month.

[True value of the chancellor: unaffordable.]

I could pull out the paper right now. I could read the declaration out loud to him, with the Tongue active, and see the look on his face.

Then I would watch how the tribunal dismissed it as a criminal’s testimony, how the archive lost the copy, how the guild master died of sudden old age in his exile.

Zelina had explained it to me without mercy that morning, with her gloves on and her coffee cold.

"A piece of paper against Decimus is ammunition without a cannon," she said. "The tribunals are his. The archive is his. The only thing you achieve by shooting today is showing him where you stand."

"Then what?"

"Then you wait. And you hate waiting. Welcome to my line of work."

So we played chess.

Two men who knew exactly what the other knew, moving ivory pieces on a board while the real ones moved outside.

"Let’s talk about loyalty," Decimus said.

"Let’s talk."

"You believe loyalty is earned. It is the faith of the young and of new emperors." He took my pawn halfheartedly, out of routine. "I have spent twenty years managing an empire of thirty noble houses, four borders and a Church. I can assure you loyalty is not earned. It is structured."

"Explain yourself."

"People betray out of fear, for money or out of resentment. Eliminate those three causes and you will have loyalty without earning a thing." He looked up. "A common enemy eliminates all three at once. It is the only building that stands on its own."

"And you built that enemy with my face."

"I managed what already existed." He moved his knight. "Your father was a weak and cruel man, Your Majesty, in that unfortunate order. His son promised the exact same with a better jawline. The empire was going to have a monster anyway. I simply made sure it served a purpose."

I looked at the board. My rook was two moves away from a problem I had not seen coming.

"Two hundred and thirteen knights."

"Yes."

"Without debate."

"What for? I counted them myself. I signed the transfer of the file." He drank his tea. "You want me to tell you it was necessary. I am not going to tell you that, because I do not believe it. It was cheap. That is different and it is worse."

There was the problem with Decimus Vanthel.

A textbook villain would have lied. This man handed you his worst act unwrapped, and he left the hassle of hating him entirely to you.

"And now?" I asked. "Your monster broke, chancellor. What does an administrator do with a lightning rod that decided not to attract lightning?"

"Good question. I return it to you improved." Decimus moved his queen, and the board changed color. "What does the empire do when the hatred holding it together dissolves into... sympathy? The thirty houses have stayed quiet for twenty years because they shared an enemy. You are taking him away. And you are not giving them anything to share in his place."

"I am giving them tribunals that work."

"Tribunals do not excite anyone, Your Majesty. That is the entire problem of civilization."

He moved again. I saw the trap a fraction too late, and I saw all of it: he had spent six turns preparing it, with moves that seemed clumsy.

My king had no squares left.

"Check."

"In four moves," I said, reading the board. "Or three, if I defend poorly."

"Three." Decimus clasped his hands together. "I grant you the elegance of not surrendering."

I left the king standing and did not knock it over. A small rudeness, the only one available.

"Chancellor, an amateur’s question. Have you ever lost?"

"Twice in forty years."

"Against who?"

Decimus took his time to answer, and not even Appraiser’s Eye returned a price for that pause.

"Against an eleven year old boy in a northern village," he said. "A long time ago. He beat me two games in a row and then asked me if I was hungry."

He put the pieces away one by one, each in its spot, without looking at the box.

"I am going to give you a free piece of information, Your Majesty, because free information creates more chaos than threats. The certification for the hero of the prophecy will be completed this month. The Towers already have a date."

"I thought he had awakened. The north has been celebrating for three days."

"The north celebrates rumors. The story only begins when someone signs." He stood up, impeccable, and stopped by the door. "When Roderic Alden enters this capital, the empire is going to want its complete story. A hero. A villain. An ending."

"And you hand out the roles."

"I cast the roles and you changed yours without warning. That does not offend, it makes things uncomfortable." He opened the door. "I recommend returning to your role before the third act, Your Majesty. In every play worth watching, the villain dies in the third act. The only thing a man can choose is how he looks while falling."

The door closed.

Lunara walked in before the echo faded, from the hallway where she had waited standing for two hours without complaining even once.

"You lost," she said, looking at the board.

"With style."

"You lost." She sat in the chancellor’s chair, still warm, with that campsite naturalness the court forgave her for because nobody knew how to forbid it. "I heard everything. The doors in this palace are decorative."

"And your verdict?"

"That the man who paid for your death a month ago just announced the date to you." She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "Give me the order and tonight the empire has a new chancellor. Nobody will ever know where the blade came from."

There it was. The cleanest offer I had received since I woke up in this body, without conditions and without deadlines.

And the worst part was how much I wanted it.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because the day I solve a political problem with a nighttime assassination, the tyrant wins." I held her gaze. "And because you would have to live with that, and I do not intend to buy my peace of mind with your honor. That price does not cover it."

Lunara went very still.

Then she reached out, took my wrist and turned my palm upward, checking my hands exactly like she checked hers after training, looking for tremors.

My fingers were steady. Hers were trembling, just a bit, and she noticed it before I did.

"You are playing against a man who already buried you," she said, her voice lower, without letting me go. "And I swore this sword to a man, not to a throne. If they kill you, my oath has nowhere to live."

"Lunara..."

"Teach me how to wait." She let go of my wrist slowly, finger by finger. "It is the only thing they never taught me. And I want to learn it before your chancellor signs his date."