“My lady, you have an urgent call from Queen Sofia,” Alondra told me.
There were many reasons why Sofia could be calling me, but what came to my mind when I heard about it was Ratu. It had been four months since Ratu had started training with Sofia, and from what I had heard, she was doing really well, but accidents happened.
“Sofia?” I asked as soon as I took the call.
“We have a problem. Your niece had a vision of her brother dying and lost control. I’m afraid she can do something crazy. She already asked for transport back to the Empire, and then went into the fog, alone.”
“Alone? And is she safe? How advanced is her training?”
“She shouldn’t be in trouble, in theory, but you have to understand that this is not a normal situation, she is really affected by the vision, you must understand how she feels.”
“We will need an anchor, can you help us?”
“Does that means that you will go talk to her?”
“Yes, if Pompeyo is in danger, we need to find a way to find the threat and see what we can do about it. None of us wants him dead. Besides, this is an excellent opportunity to show her the limits of her powers.”
“You know you can count on me, I will do whatever I can to help you.”
I had a lot of pending work to do, but a situation like that would always be a priority, after a few words and a couple of commands I was ready to go into the fog. I knew that it was dangerous for Ratu to be in the fog while she was worried about her brother, there was a lot of room for errors, and I needed to do what I could to help her.
It was easy to find her, with the information Sofia had given me, I knew where to start searching. Her energy was disperse and out of control, she was trapped in her own desire to find a solution, but luckily I found her.
“Ratu!” I called her. “You need to stop.”
“Pompeyo is in danger, I have to save him!”
“You need to take it easy and analyze the situation,” I replied. “I know that you had learned a lot from Sofia. Is this a vision you can change?”
“Yes, I have seen the alternatives, and I know one of them is the correct one. All I have to do is find that right path and make sure that Pompeyo will be fine long term if we follow it.”
I extended my hand, offering it to Ratu, silently asking for her cooperation. The fact that she took my hand without hesitation was testament of the trust that had grown between us in the last few months. Using my powers and knowledge of the place, I managed to get us both an aerial view of the different paths opening in front of us. Some of them cut shortly in the distance, others were so long I lost view of them.
“Can you see the paths that belong to Pompeyo?” learning to identify the different paths was one of the first lessons we learned, and I thought, for a moment, that Ratu would lash out angry or offended by the question, but because of her worried, instead of being angry, she was focused by it.
“Yes, I see some that get cut very fast, and others that go on, I have already walked a few of them, only to find they are not as long as I expected.”
“Which paths have you walked?” I asked, needing to know which one she had already been through. Ratu pointed to a few paths that I could see were also cut early. That let me know and understand better her reach. I had been told on multiple occasions that I was one of the strongest seers, and that was what allowed me to see further than others, but it was then that I really understood the difference in our powers. “Give me a moment to see what we are working with and then I will help you find the path that you want to be walking.”
I started by going over two of the shortest paths, that allowed me to set the basis I was working with, then I started going over the forks and the options we had. It was always hard to witness someone important to you die, and I had already seen way too many deaths of people dear to me, I hadn’t been able to stop all of them, and that was a heavy weight. I knew that if there was a way to help Pompeyo, then I would do everything in my power to make it work.
“Did you find the right path?” Ratu asked, full of hope.
“I was in the same position as you not long ago. I saw my brother’s death and I spent a lot of time in here going over the different paths, looking for the one that would save him. There were many ways of changing what happened to my brother, your father, but the consequences of those choices were hard to ignore. Many of those options only extended his life a few days, or weeks, but it was almost impossible to find one that would help him survive longer.”
“A few weeks would have been good for us, no one wanted, or was prepared to see him die,” Ratu reproached, leaving the problems with her brother to the side and focusing on the loss of her father.
“But he knew his time was ending. I never really asked him, but I’m sure that if given the choice, he would have agreed with my decision.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because no parent wants to see the death of his children,” I said, waiting for her to understand, only when I saw in her face she did, I continued. “His reign was ending, some groups were not happy with him and that was something hard to dismiss, if the first group who attacked had failed, that would only have caused another group to take their place, only your brother and you would have been by his side by then, trying to keep him safe, and the odds of one of you, or both, getting hurt was really high.”
“I can’t deny that, if we had known about it, we would have been by his side.”
“And that’s the kind of situations you have to consider when making a decision. Your brother is in danger and I know your first instinct is to go save him, no matter the consequences, but sometimes those consequences can be a very high price to pay. Are you ready to face that? Could you really be cold enough to make a decision based on what’s best for everyone? Could you sacrifice your brother for the greater good?”
“I don’t know,” Ratu said, and I could hear the pain in her voice. Because of my speech and my warnings, I knew she was preparing herself for the worst, for a scenario where she would have to let her brother die.
“You already walked through several paths, and you already know what is going to happen in those. I will give you three more. One of them is the most probable, and I want you to walk it and analyze it with care, but first, there are another two that could give you the result you are looking for. Once you have seen them, we will talk about them and think of a plan.”
Ratu accepted without protest, something I would have never imagined happening at the beginning of our relationship. I wasn’t sure how much she had seen of my life or our interactions in the future, but I knew that she had seen things in that place that had changed her way of looking at me.
After doing what I had asked of her, I trusted that Ratu had a better understanding of what we needed to do. It was important for her to learn how to do it, dealing with the future was a difficult game, many things could go wrong if you didn’t manage it with care. That didn’t mean I was going to leave her alone, I was also interested in Pompeyo’s survival, maybe she knew that, and that was why she was so open to my suggestions and my comments.
By the time we got out of the fog, everything was ready for our trip to the Empire. It wasn’t easy to get things ready in such a short notice, but my people were used to it, and in just a few hours we were flying to the Empire.
“Do you know what you are going to do?” I asked Ratu.
“I saw it clearly in the fog. If I want to avoid bad consequences, then I must approach the players beforehand and make sure they act the way I want them to act. I can’t leave things to chance, I need to talk to them and make sure the pieces are in the right place. Make sure everything is ready so when the time arrives, no one else can affect the results.”
“I see Sofia taught you well.”
“You help has also been important, I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for you. After this, I will talk to Pompeyo, I feel like I’m ready to go back, but if he thinks I can be more useful staying in the Dominion, then I think it won’t be so bad to stay. I could easily get used to that place.”
“It’s good to know. For now it’s better if we focus on Pompeyo. I’ll let you take care of it, but if you need help, then I will be there.”
Ratu didn’t lose time, as soon as we arrived at the Empire she got to work. We had a lot to do and not much time. My part was the easiest one, I just needed to stay to the side and make sure nothing affected the outcome. We found Pompeyo and his people camping on open terrain, at first, some people tried to stop us from getting in, but soon the rumor that the Emperor’s sister and I had arrived and we could move freely. The news of our arrival came as a surprise to Pompeyo, but even if he tried to play it cool, I could see how happy he was to see his sister. I knew that the issues between Ratu and Fedelm had caused him problems, but at least everything was more calm.
After leaving Ratu with the Imperialists, I went my own way. It didn’t take long to arrive to the other camp, one formed by several groups coming from the Rebel Clans, or how they liked to call themselves, the Free Clans. Just as with my arrival at the Imperial camp, people blocked my path at first, but after a short talk and having to prove who I was, I was taken to the main tent, where Molpadia and Spike were already waiting.
“Good afternoon, Kaiserin,” Molpadia formally greeted me, “it’s a pleasure to have you with us. To what do we owe this visit? Pompeyo didn’t tell us you were in the area.”
“I just arrived. Pompeyo didn’t know about my visit, it was a surprise.”
“Is something interesting going to happen? Or is a social visit?” Spike asked.
“You are right. Something will happen later, and after everything you have done to make sure everything works out, I don’t want to see it all go away because of a misunderstanding.”
“What you are saying is that there will be trouble and we need to be prepared,” Molpadia said. “Anything else we need to know about it?” her question made me smile. Both of them knew exactly what they were doing, without much information they had been able to guess exactly why I was there and what they needed to look out for.
“No, I trust you. After this warning I know you will do the right thing. When the moment arrives, you will know what to do. All you needed was to know that something was going to happen so you could act.”
“Your cryptic messages are something I don’t miss. You were usually more forthcoming with your warnings, but then you got all mysterious, and that’s no fun.”
“Some things can be told, others would just ruin the surprise, maybe even affect the future, and we can’t have that.”
To deal with the future is necessary to be very careful. Sometimes what can seem an insignificant intervention can do a great deal of damage in the future, sometimes even an offhand comment can change the flow of the future.
Once I had set the seeds they needed to make the right choices, I took advantage of the meeting to get up to speed on what was going on between them and the Empire. Knowing my daughter was involved in all of that gave me hope of the future. Every day a new piece of the puzzle was falling into place.
By the time Molpadia and Spike left for their meeting with Pompeyo and the other clan leaders, I felt more confident that everything was going to turn out well. Now it all depended on Ratu doing her part. I stayed outside, ready to do my part, make sure that no outside element could affect what was about to happen in that place.
Kaiserin Novel 