“Bath him, feed him, and arrange a quarter for him in the south-facing towers.” Mila said, resting her face in her hand as she waved off Beardy from the main hall of her palace as the guards accompanied him out, “Zmey had already paid for his transgressions, and you have made the right choice in the end.”

“What are you planning to do now?” Ilia said, standing tall behind her as they watched the Dune’s Eye’s central districts slowly come to light.

It has now been months since Mila had taken the throne, and two weeks since Tonya had been exiled from the Dune’s Eye after the encounter with Mila. Although she had planned to hunt down Tonya and prevent her from ever being a threat to her crown, Wu's pesky little plan of delay, disruption, and destruction did work.

After Wu’s sabotaging of the underground river, nearly half of all of the underground river tunnels and entry points were rendered useless with the water turning dark and unresponsive to any of the existing Casts. That vastly slowed down the movement and deployment of Mila’s forces all across the country, and she had to take the time to consolidate her power the old-fashioned way.

That being camelbacks and walking paths.

It all started with re-establishing the businesses and politics between the nearby cities, the outer districts of the Dune’s Eye, and the inner regions. The lockdown was soon lifted after an official story of the transition of power was announced, and she was set to officially take the throne through a coronation ceremony in another week’s time.

With the money from the royal reserves and some additional sponsors injected into the markets for the preparation of such a ceremony, Mila was able to artificially manufacture a temporary boom in the local business as the streets of the Dune’s Eye were quickly filled with people and decorated nicely all in a manner of days.

As the money trickled down through levels, more of it seemed to have been kept by some of the officials remaining from the previous regime, though right after the moment that they laid their hands on the money, PORA’s agents implanted in their office immediately made themselves known, replacing them swiftly once evidence is obtained before making a public showing of wealth-redistribution.

The sheer number of corruption surprised Mila initially, but eventually, even she grew numb to the daily reports, trusting instead the trivial matters to her new cabinet of ministers while she ventured out onto her own adventures. So long as the people view her highly, she did not care how things are done.

And the masses are certainly easy to manipulate, especially when the riches of the corrupt officials were reorganized, marked, and provided for free base on the needs of the people.

“Come walk with me.” Mila said, taking Ilia into her room as she changed into her everyday citizen disguise while Ilia turned and looked away despite his mind wandering to the forbidden places. As he stood still and became nervous about how loud his own breathing sounded, he felt her presence approaching him from behind before she threw a grey hood over his head, “I will show you what happens next.”

They moved out, riding the fastest camel in the palace and weaving their way through the streets of the inner districts. There were red ribbons hanging between buildings with golden flower patterns sewn into them, and street vendors were provided better stalls and moved out of the way to allow for better movement of people while the store holders and house owners were paid a small fee for use of their space.

The normal-looking buildings all got new paint jobs, and the sides of the run-down yellow brick houses were transformed into a string of continuous paintings, telling the stories of the Necrovian people as penned by the capital’s best artists. The artist at work ignored Mila and Ilia as they stopped briefly to examine the painting, and they rode on, leaving them in peace.

“Are you looking forward to it?” Ilia asked, “The ceremony? That’s been your dream, isn’t it?”

“No...not my dream. It's just the beginning” Mila shook her head as her dark brown hair danced behind her, “I wanted to be the queen of Necrovia, because my dream had been to return the Wave to our people.”

“I do not doubt your character, Mila…but I didn’t think the struggles of the common people was something that you could…relate to.” Ilia said when Mila simply turned and stared at him, “I…apologize for whatever that was, please forgive me.”

“You don’t have to change how you speak to me just because I live in a fancy house now.” Mila chuckled and shook her head, “But you are right. How could I, a princess born into royalty, understand the everyday struggles of the citizens? All of us in the palace grew up wearing the pendants of protection, shielding our body against the leakage of the Wave due to natural causes…What makes me different from any other entitled rich girl?”

Ilia didn’t say anything. Instead, he watches her with his soft gaze and waited for her answer.

“A desire for change.” Mila said, “An eye for opportunities. I am sure you felt it to back at the Academy. The world’s so much bigger, and it's constantly changing. If Necrovia is to compete for its rightful place in the future of this world, we need our people to be stronger. Not just you and I, but everybody.”

Ilia felt his jaw tense up, and the sounds from the hoofs of the camels officially changed from soft rhythmic thumps to louder knocks as they walked over the wooden bridge and entered into the outer region of the Dune’s Eye.

“Why do you think that, out of all of the Kingdoms on this earth, Yarka is the strongest?” Mila asked.

“Because they are the largest and richest?” Ilia asked when Mila shook her head and suddenly made a sharp turn to the left, taking their camels towards the western regions of the Dune’s Eye.

“Because on average, the Wave affinity and capacity of the Yarka citizens were far higher than in other kingdoms.” Mila said, “The scholars had their theories, but the most obvious trend was the natural concentration of Wave in their lands. Because they were at the Northern edge of the Western continent, while the rest of the world were ravaged during the age of the Third, they were the least affected. Even when Winter disappeared, they still held kept what they had.”

Ilia looked down and pondered, “I have never been there.”

“Mus took me there after we graduated…” Mila smiled lightly, thinking back to the bygone days, “You haven’t truly lived until you saw the greatness of the Yarka Kingdom, and…if the average citizen was way stronger than people elsewhere, then the elites among them would just be even greater, as expected.”

“That’s why we are doing what we do.” Ilia finally understood, “We are…returning the Wave to our people.”

“The great equalizer under our feet.” Mila sighed as she looked at the kids running along the streets and chasing one another, “The greatest resource of Necrovia, containing the greatest resource of this world, yet it’s still so woefully out of reach from everybody. I intend to change it. Well, I intended to do so before those rebels desecrated our greatest resource.”

Ilia nodded, and he opened his mouth before closing it again. Sensing his hesitation, Mila leaned in and elbowed him in the stomach.

“Hey?!” Ilia protested.

“Since when is our big brother so hesitant?!” Mila asked, jumping onto Ilia’s camel and wrapping her arms around his neck, “You got a secret? Have a crush on me? Spill it out!”

“It’s not that!” Ilia hurried and grabbed onto Mila’s arms as she refused to let go, “It’s just…I can’t stop thinking about what Tonya said…”

“So you do have a crush on her!” Mila laughed when Ilia didn’t say anything, “Yet you still follow my plans…”

“Because I believe that’s the right thing to do!” Ilia struggled, “I never wanted to hurt her, nor you…I just want this to be done the right way. We are doing this for the people, and every step of the way, we must put them at the forefront…so nobody else will have to go through what I went through for the sake of the country.”

“I understand.” Mila said, leaping over Ilia as she pushed against his shoulders before landing right in front of him, the drop causing the camel to nearly collapse under their combined weight, “That’s why I am showing you the latest developments today. Thanks to you taking care of the chores, I was able to spend my time experimenting on the underground rivers.”

“But I thought…I thought all of the rivers were poisoned!”

“Not all of them, but enough to slow our progress…” Mila said, taking Ilia further and further into the desert until they came across a patch of land that had been completely flattened. The armor on Ilia’s body sensed a strange coolness in the air as he scrunched his eyebrows together and reached his fingers out to the side.

“I…I feel it here…” Ilia murmured, “The Wave…it’s like the world out there…”

“When Tonya and her rebel friends did what they did, they nearly rid us of all of the underground rivers near the Dune’s Eye, but one of the branches that had been cut off from the flow remained the same…” Mila gestured to the sands around them as Ilia looked around, “I…tested out my original casts.”

“And you got the Wave back here.” Ilia said excitedly, “It worked.”

“No...the initial herd of test participants was nowhere to be found after the dust settled.” Mila said when Ilia’s eyes widened, and he looked at her with shock, “It’s…regrettable, but I am not stupid enough to repeat the same mistakes in the capital…”

Ilia stopped, and he looked at Mila as she waved nonchalantly.

"You can't be naive enough to think I am willing to risk my entire kingdom without extensively testing the Cast on some prisoners?"

"That part was important." Ilia pressed into his chin, “So they were right to worry about it…”

“I thought I could just tune the intensity of Wave release within the Cast, but my PORA casters told me that it didn’t really change the outcome.” Mila said, continuing forward, “Therefore, instead of blowing up the underground river all in one go and hoping that the explosion itself send the Wave up through the layers of soil, the alternative is to let it go at a far smaller and controlled dose.

“Think of it as a rain…instead of an eruption. Theoretically sound, yet to be tested in practice.”

As Ilia continued to ride forward, the Wave in the environment around him returned swiftly to the Necrovian baseline as the place where houses once stood faded further behind them.

“And here are the fruits of our labor,” Mila said, taking Ilia to a camp set up by PORA as a tall fence surrounded a regular-looking townhouse, and small bursts of Wave were shot out into the air before they exploded in balloon-pops, releasing a powder rain of blue and lingering in the air.

Then, standing underneath the constantly exploding bubbles were a handful of children as they experimented with the more basic of Casts, and they were able to create Cast lines without much guidance. As the circles became complete with yet another pop of the balloon, the first cast of the children was complete, and the light Cast glowed with warmth.

“This is it, Ilia. Our future. Wave…for everyone.” Mila smiled, “And all that stands in our way is one thing.”

“Those traitors who poisoned our blood. Our lifeline…our great equalizer with the rest of this world.”