Strangely enough, once it was confirmed to Frederick that his last remaining rival was Lia, all of his nervousness was gone: That weasel, Justinian, had some kind of plan, and it seemed to be working. There was nothing left for Frederick to do but to crush that plan and go forward with his vision. Lia was an obstacle, nothing more, which he would break through before taking the Throne and ridiculing his weakling of an elder brother. Through a balcony, he looked at the dreary scenery of the Imperial Capital. His father, along with many nobles liked to pretend that those gray, ugly but completely practical buildings showed some kind of toughness, a willingness to throw away everything to survive. To them, it symbolized the Empire's might. To Frederick, they were disgusting. To him, they were nothing but a facade, along with the idea that the Empire believed that the mightiest and best stood above others. To him, a city of artists like Ardenne, which unapologetically called for color and beauty in the world, in spite of that not having much support within the Empire's establishment, was much stronger and more admirable.

When he was a child, he sincerely believed in that lie: He was the Emperor's son, so it only made sense that he was excellent at swordplay, it was only obvious that he shouldn't accept being below others. He first started questioning that line of thought when he realized that some of his siblings were not as assertive, insistent or good at things. Why not? Were they not sons and daughters of the same excellent Emperor? A small difference here and there was acceptable, but soon enough, it was clear to Frederick that there was a gulf, an abyssal difference of capabilities between him and his siblings. Worse, most of his closer siblings seemed to have accepted that themselves. Nobody seemed to actually bother trying to defeat Frederick in anything, even things they were better than him at. It was almost as if they feared challenging him on that arena, which end with him becoming better than them at it, because he always put in the effort to make it so. Even as a teenager, before leaving the Golden Cage, Frederick already had his doubts about the supposed superiority of the Empire's nobility over everyone else. Even his own superiority came with a conditional in his mind: What if he had been born a poor abandoned boy? What if he had been born in a city that would later be destroyed by the Infected? He did not believe he would be able to reach the same heights without the proper opportunity. However, to him it never meant that he could rest on his laurels. He would always give his best in everything that he put his mind to.

What finally completely and irreversibly shattered his confidence in the Empire's so called elite, was learning about the story of the Great Race. It was always touted as needed in order to choose the strongest, mightiest and deserving of the Emperor's children. But that was absurd. To Frederick, that became clear when he learned about the details of how his father won the Great Race: Louis, Frederick's uncle and first prince, had been infatuated with a daughter of a lower noble family for a long time. However, she was one of many lovers of Bernard, Frederick's father, who was a huge philanderer. Eventually, they were the last two surviving candidates for the Throne, with Louis controlling the Capital. For a short while, it seemed as if Luis' victory was a foregone conclusion, with better rested, better trained and more experienced troops. But nobody counted on one thing: Under Bernard's urging, that noblewoman with whom Louis had been in love with since forever wormed her way into his bed and assassinated him, finishing the Great Race. Many muttered under their breaths about what an appalling event it was, but who would dare to directly challenge the new Emperor?

How did such a thing prove his father's might? Was it really a weakness for his uncle to love that woman? What if his father had faced such treachery? What if instead of being one of his father's whores, she merely stood at his uncle's side? How did all of it prove anything in terms of who would be the best to govern the Empire? It did not. His father was a weakling who did nothing but lose lives and territory to the Infected, and the only reason the same didn't happen with mutants was because Destroia itself had a treaty with a Mutant warlord. Corruption was rife in such a way that even though officially, anyone competent enough could apply for the Knight academy, pretty much only nobles managed to do it. To say nothing of most government positions of any importance. His father and the Empire merely paid lip-service to the notion that the mighty and the best should rule, they were cowards and weaklings who made use of the circumstances of their birth to get what they wanted. He, Frederick, would change that.

Turning back to his room, he looked at Marine, who was sleeping on his bed. To any third party they were lovers, Frederick however, did not see it quite that way. Love was not a word that had any concrete meaning to him. Something about the word and the meaning that was generally ascribed to it felt uncomfortable to him. No, to him, she was a valuable companion that understood his ideology, a beautiful woman who was able to satisfy his sexual desires, but more important than that, she was a competent and mighty warrior. She was someone who, by pure chance and circumstance of birth was almost robbed of her rightful place among the rulers of the Empire. Her mother was the daughter of a failed businessman, abandoned by her con-man of a husband. Marine only had a modicum of prosperity in her life after climbing ranks within the Capital's red-light district, but she was not content with simply satisfying the desires of noblemen. She had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of chemistry and pharmacy. After she became one of the most sought-after prostitutes in the capital she spent most of her money and free-time studying these, but after a while, this also felt not good enough. One day, needing to defend herself from a particularly violent client, she discovered that she could use her profession and passion in tandem for a new ability: Assassination. That gave her life a new and exhilarating feeling. Being able to snuff out a person's life with nobody being able to know it was her was just so satisfying. At first she would do it sparsely and mostly at random, but as she became more and more accustomed to it, she began using it on irritating customers who wouldn't have no for an answer or who thought she was their property. This proved to be foolish and eventually led to her capture by people linked with Prince Phillip.

What should have resulted in the end of her life, an execution that was to snuff out any potential within her set Marine out on the path to greatness. Instead of killing her, Phillip thought to make use of her as an assassin to get rid of the one rival he thought of as the most threatening obstacle: Frederick. At the time, Fredrick refused to nominate anyone as his Sword and had Gregory as his Shadow in mostly a ceremonial position: In practice, it was a way to show his contempt of his father as well as his admiration for his uncle, for whom Gregory had been a Sword for. It was also a sort of challenge: Frederick told the world that he needed only himself to protect his own life. As much as he valued Gregory's counsel, Frederick could have it without giving him the title of Shadow. Who could fill the role of his Sword though? There was none who could destroy Frederick's enemies better than himself. It was a title that Frederick would only ever consider giving to absolutely impressive people. It carried enormous weigh, considering Frederick's own fighting capabilities, which made it a huge badge of honor. Over the years that he ruled over Alleeria, he saw very few people that showed any promise in deserving that title, but none of them ever showed any real sort of ambition in actually becoming better than Frederick, that, more than any actual possibility of ever becoming better than him, was what disqualified them in his eyes. Whether it was being intimidated by his position as prince, very real abilities with a sword or a combination of both, nobody was able to tell Frederick to his face for very long that they would one day be better than him.

So the two met. To say that the two were immediately smitten with each other wouldn't be quite right, though they did see a sparkle in each other that they couldn't quite find anywhere else. Cognizant of his uncle's downfall, Frederick was suspicious of Marine's motive's from the beginning, but he still allowed her to approach him and freely talked about many things with her. To Marine, the situation felt strange from the start. Even if she had killed many men before, she had only done so of her own volition and in most cases out of dislike. Even if she had not introduced herself as a prostitute to Frederick, it still felt strange and refreshing to her to be treated differently than before: Her company was not something to be bought or owned. Calling herself a successful businessman's daughter who ran away from home, she used her charms to gain many private meetings with the prince, apparently out of admiration. Adding to that the fact that she knew many assassins had failed before, with most of them having been executed, the fact that she was being very careful was quite understandable.

They talked a lot. Frederick was sure that most of what she told him about herself were lies while enjoying the challenge of trying to figure out exactly who she was and what she intended. Marine, on the other hand, tried to learn as much about him as she could, searching for weakness, an opening. After a while, the possibility of a pardon of her crimes by Phillip as well as the chance of a new life stopped registering with her. Two strange conflicting feelings grew inside of her, ever so large: Frederick was a kind of puzzle to her, a huge safe which code she felt she needed to break, and the biggest proof of having done that would be successfully assassinating him, but on other hand, she increasingly felt like she couldn't be without him anymore. After more than a year, Marine came up with the perfect plan.

Quite confident in her evaluation of him, Marine had realized that he would never give her a chance to add anything to his drinks or food, nor did he ever drink or eat anything of hers without first thoroughly probing her indirectly. Oh, he was never crude enough to ask if she had poisoned anything, but cooking was a subject that came fairly often in their conversations, and he would always ask for details, seeing if she showed any signs of nervousness. She needed something much more direct: Some kind of contest. One day, she poured four goblets of wine. She then came clean with him, admitting that she was sent to assassinate him. She then proposed a small challenge to him: All but one of the goblets were poisoned, if he could guess the clean one, she would do anything he wished of her for the rest of her life. He could ask any kind of question and she would answer it truthfully, except for any questions directly related to whether a goblet had been poisoned or not, but he had four hours to choose. Of course, he could also simply order her to be taken away and executed, but what would be the fun in that? Frederick took the bait. Funnily enough, he spent hours asking questions about her real life, not the fictitious one she had told him about until then. She dared not lie to him, she knew that if she broke the rules of the challenge her life would be forfeit. Expecting pity or revulsion, she was instead surprised by Frederick's genuine admiration.

“I always thought you probably were an excellent and admirable woman. I was right.”

In the end, he guessed right and instead of any kind of punishment or condemnation to a life of effective slavery, Frederick Asked Marine to be by his side as his Sword. He had the chance of making her forever subordinate to him as a mere concubine, an opportunity that she was sure all other men she had met before would gladly except, instead, he gave her a place next to him for the rest of their lives. She had no reason to refuse. In addition to the skills she already had, Frederick taught her hand-to-hand as well as sword combat. The same guessing game, without poison now, became a monthly ritual for them and despite never winning it, she never failed to put her all into it, knowing that if she ever gave up, her position would be lost forever, and she would be just someone else under him. She relished that position of proximity to him.

Such was Frederick's creed. He was not all that bothered by failure and could tolerate an innumerable amount of them if the people who failed showed themselves willing to pick themselves up and try again, truly striving for a different result. To him, losing did not make someone weak nor did winning make them strong. He wanted to create an Empire where everyone could prove themselves excellent at something, because only then could the weak people truly be weeded out. And weeded out they would be, he would definitely make sure of that. It wasn't that he objected to human misery or suffering, it was just that he felt that the wrong people were the ones suffering and the wrong people were the ones reaping the benefits. Also, only with truly strong leadership would the Empire ever be free of its smooth walls and dreary gray cities.

Everything looked calm and yet Gregory's mind refused to be calm. He looked at the Imperial Capital, that same boring and ugly scenery as last time, then looked at the railroad from Ardenne, the place from which Lia, the last obstacle, would come. Frederick looked and acted confident, even more than Louis did, but for some reason, instead of alleviating Gregory's worries, it made them worse. Was there something they weren't seeing? For his part, Gregory did not want to witness the failure of another man who he considered worthy of the Throne. To that end, he drilled a strong but flexible discipline in Frederick's men. They would unquestionably follow the orders of their competent superiors, but should they find themselves without guidance, they would know enough to find the way by themselves. In a way, they were the perfect force for the battle Frederick had prepared.

Urban warfare was not exactly well-liked or taught very much in the Empire. Once a wall was breached by the Infected, there was very little that could be done to stop the whole city from falling and in terms of conflict between humans, cities were precious, closed, productive spaces where people lived. There was precious little space completely controlled by humans. Destroying it was mostly viewed as heretical and barbaric. The battle at Ardenne, where Frederick did not hesitate to assault the city was a statement of humongous proportions: It showed Frederick's willingness to part with Imperial tradition if need be. His preparations for the last showdown in the capital reinforced it.

Huge sectors of the Capital were evacuated in preparation for the battle. Frederick's men would fight for every square inch, every home and building, against Lia's men. Looking from a strategic point of view, there was no problem with it. Frederick's men were more numerous as well as much more likely to be prepared for the chaotic nature of it. From a post-war point of view, Frederick often said he wasn't looking to win the people's hearts, at least not immediately, he also often talked about how a few destroyed building here and there would present a chance for him to show the entire Empire a new way to express their toughness. It wasn't so much that the plan seemed perfect, more like it didn't present any critical weaknesses.

“What if they make use of the chaos and seek a direct confrontation with a small force?”

It was a legitimate concern. However, even if Lia's Shadow was rumored to be extremely skilled, and indeed all probing assassination attempts ordered by Frederick ended up in failures, there was no way they had anyone who could match Frederick, much less a group of people who could take on Frederick and Marine after going through the effort of breaking through Frederick's line of defense. In fact, it seemed like that was exactly what Frederick wanted, a last fight between him and his sister, where he felt he would be able to prove himself as the best, one and for all. Once again, Gregory reassured himself that there was nothing obvious that could go wrong.

But what if he was overlooking something? A catastrophic failure in their plans that would put it all at risk. Gregory didn't want to go through it again, so he thought, and he thought, but he couldn't come up with anything. That was the problem. This threat, this unknown thing, if it even existed, that might make everything crumble was invisible to him, which was why it was so dangerous and treacherous. Last time, he couldn't conceive of his Prince getting poisoned by a woman, what couldn't he conceive of this time? He thought and he thought. The only answer that came to him was too paradoxical to him. Could someone outside of the Great Race actually aim for the Throne? No... they would not even be accepted, how could they? Many candidates let themselves be possessed by such doubts and failed because of it... But it was one of the inconceivable things that could bring Frederick down. But then, Gregory wasn't even sure of how to defend against such a possibility... For now, he decided to pay attention to his back, within the city as he looked at the outside.