Ayesha left to go visit Iris and Alyssia after catching up for a few more minutes, leaving a troubled Arthur behind. Dismissing Ayesha’s suspicions was easy, but he couldn’t help but doubt himself. Had Lady Makora truly been meddling in his life for so long? Arthur rubbed his temples, recalling Ezrial’s advice.

  As powerful as The Weaver might be, she wasn’t omnipotent. Makora still had to answer to The Council, and he’d met several people at least as strong as she was. Hell, he’d even fought one, or at least their defective avatar. It was just like Ezrial had said. Arthur just needed to become a bigger fish, so big the ripples of his existence could only be admired from afar, never navigated, else the waves would drown them.

  Power was like money, except that having enough of it really could solve all your problems. With nothing left to distract him and no expected visitors incoming, Arthur was finally forced to address the elephant in the room: his new status as the ruler of an intergalactic empire. He had 27 planets under his dominion now, and while the vast majority of them weren't as densely populated as Earth, Iris’ estimates suggested he had 72 billion people to take care of.

  It still felt unreal to him, but as much as he might try to deny it, the weight of responsibility was slowly but surely settling on his shoulders. Arthur could just walk away from it all, ignore it and pretend like those people didn’t exist. So far as the System was concerned, as long as Arthur took care of the 3 worlds in the Nexus point, they didn’t care what he did with the rest of his kingdom. If he didn’t outright start abusing his subjects, The Council would let him get away with a lot. Lady Melania's illegal experiments had been an open secret, after all.

  Unfortunately, Arthur Ward’s conscience couldn’t agree with that plan. Over the last day, he’d learned a lot about Lady Melania's empire. Besides the Nexus point, it had nothing of import. The mines and natural resources she’d possessed were slightly below average, with her most valuable export being the genetically engineered super soldiers she’d created. Turned out a lot of her experiments were above board, too. Sadly, that wasn’t an operation Arthur could continue running, even if he didn't find the practice abhorrent.

  Arthur sighed and let his head fall down to his desk. Lady Melania was the Golden Goose that had put her empire on the map. Without her at the helm, the prosperity she’d brought would dry up; most of the treaties and deals she’d made to benefit her people were now broken. No one with any sense would want to take her empire off his hands, and the few that did want to were the exact type who’d run it to the ground, burning away the only valuable resources it possessed: its people.

  Arthur slapped himself on the cheek and reprimanded himself. You knew something like this might happen when you challenged Melania. You just thought it would be someone else's problem. Unfortunately, consequences existed, and his had come knocking. Arthur sensed Iris approaching his room and tried to make himself presentable, straightening up and trying to plaster a smile on his face.

  She saw right through him, which, in retrospect, was totally expected. “I was wondering when reality would hit you,” Iris said, taking a seat. She was nursing two cups of coffee and passed one over to him. Arthur took a sip of the warm drink and let its magic wash over him—literal magic in this case, not the caffeine kind.

  “Do you think I shouldn’t have done it?” Arthur finally asked.

  “If by that, you mean killing Lady Melania… Well, the answer isn’t so black and white.”

  Arthur’s fake smile dropped instantly. “I messed up, didn’t I?”

  Iris reached over the desk and squeezed the stump of his right hand. It didn't quite have the effect she was trying to communicate. Mostly, it just felt strange. And a little ticklish.

  “I’m not disagreeing with what you did,” Iris clarified. “Lady Melania would have to die, one way or another. Her crimes demanded it. Her usefulness simply extended the lease on her life. Once that ended, The Council would have dealt with her themselves.”

  Iris shook her head sadly. “The end result of your actions is perfectly fine. Lady Melania’s death was justified. Your only mistake, Art, was how you went about it. The fastest, most efficient methods aren’t always the right ones to use.”

  “I should have planned better?”

  Iris nodded. “Exactly that. You should have planned better. Rushing into things headfirst is what got you into this mess. It's how The Weaver squeezed an extra month of service out of you. I know I wasn’t there to help, but you could have consulted with my father, at least in part. That way, you could’ve avoided most of the pitfalls of a sanctioned battle, and all it would have taken was a minute of conversation.”

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  This was the first time his girlfriend had reprimanded him, and every word of it was deserved. His impulsiveness and lack of forward-thinking had landed him in a lot of trouble during his teenage years. He thought he’d outgrown it, but it seemed that power had revealed his bad habits once more. Whining about things would get him nowhere, though.

  "What do I do now? I fucked up, but how do I make this work?"

  Iris smiled. "You've already done the first step, which is to move on from things outside your control. No point in losing yourself in past mistakes. First things first, we need to do damage control."

  Iris summoned a sheaf of papers and passed them over to him. "That's a summary of The Vesalius Empire's latest accounting records and their most recent investigations and reports. For starters, you are now 277 trillion System credits in debt. Well, not you exactly, but the empire your now the head of. Turns out The Vesalius Empire borrowed from a lot of people. The most pressing issue, however, is the cut-off date for the empires latest trade deal. Melania was supposed to enhance 112,000 members of the Consortium army reserves. That was supposed to be completed today, and going by her records, Melania still has 37,000 soldiers to work on."

  "The contract states Vesalius was offered a 5-year supply of Rishen Water—I don't know what that is either—in return for Melania's services. The empire's used up 95% of that supply already, but still needs to deliver on 33% on their side of things, which now leaves you in a deficit of 28%.

  Iris pointed to the top of the pile of papers. "The failure clause is where things get tricky. That tower she was using so much during your fight. Turns out she made the most integral parts of it mobile. Tonight, Consortium will be taking it off your hands, and they won't be returning it for 188 Earth days."

  Every word Iris said was another nail in the coffin.

  "In eight hours' time, seventy-four percent of your capital world's population will lose access to the electricity they rely on in their day-to-day lives. Your emergency generators will last you around 2 months, maybe 3 if you ration things."

  "This just gets worse and worse. Why the hell would Lady Melania make agree to a deal she can't keep?"

  Iris shook her head wryly. "Not exactly, Art. Looking at previous reports and talking to her old partners suggests this is how she always operates. The woman was a hardcore procrastinator, but she always got the job done. Always."

  Arthur groaned. "So you're telling me if I killed the damn woman a few days later, I could have avoided all this trouble."

  "Who's to say?" Iris chuckled. "With how terrible your luck seems, she would have probably jumped straight into another crazy deal. Hell, it's the only way she kept the empire running. It became too reliant on the soldiers she could make. Without that source of income, the Vesalius empire is going to suffer. It's a bad case of putting all your eggs in one basket."

  "Have you got any solutions? There has to be something I can do."

  "You have a few options, but none of them are great. Purchasing the energy you need will cost you approximately 1.2 trillion System credits, the equivalent of 12,000 tier 3 Etherious nodes like the one you just filled."

  Arthur took his earlier thoughts back. Who gave a shit about power? Cash was king.

  "I don't have that kind of money, Iris."

  "I wouldn't expect you to. My personal savings amount to less than a fiftieth of that, and I'm basically fae royalty. That brings me to your second option, where you borrow from someone like your predecessor did. My father could lend you the money, but it would be coming out of the empire's budget. The interest rates are going to be very high."

  "How high are we talking?"

  "Fifteen to twenty percent per annum."

  "That's an extortionate rate," Arthur cursed.

  Iris shrugged. "It's better than what most banks would give you, and I doubt they'd loan you more than a billion credits. You don't make the required income to qualify for more."

  "Let me ask you this question again," Arthur said, rifling through the papers. "What do you think I should do? What's my best option?"

  Iris grinned. "Your best choice is to find an alternative power source. 99.9% of integrated planets don't rely on electricity. Vesalius is the outlier in that regard. Melania's path and power set meant using that energy source made sense for her. For most, it's a little underpowered. You just don't get enough bang for your buck. Even switching to plain old ether will bring your costs down to 435 billion credits, though installing all the infrastructure to use it will cost you another 200 billion or so."

  Arthur nodded. "We're getting somewhere now, but that's still too expensive."

  Iris smiled. "I was getting to it. The cheapest energy source you can get is a free one. A hidden realm is opening up in two days. One that only does so once every 8 years. It contains a race of monsters perfect for your purpose: Voidlings, creatures who are sought after for their incredibly rare parts. A Voidling's heart is surprisingly their least valuable asset, though it's exactly what we need for our energy problems. Slowly breaking one down will give us enough energy to last us a year or two, and I've managed to net us both a spot on a hunting squad. Better yet, it's in a very distant Sector of the universe, so far I doubt most people will even recognise us."

  "Before any of that, though," Iris said, looking down at her watch. "I think it's time for you to unlock your tier 3 System access."

  Links to the audiobooks.

  Etherious: Originator

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