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”We’re secure.” Envy nodded to Karna after slipping into the room they were gathered at.

The original group of four allies had gathered in Karna's divine realm, which was still slowly starting to take form, for privacy. Despite that, they'd all done their best to contribute to the place's security and privacy. Envy had made sure no one had stealthily entered the realm and slipped inside their defenses. Hope had erected wards that would make eavesdropping impossible, and Karna had used her magic to isolate the area around them so that any scrying magic or even chronomancy would not be able to glance within. Valor in turn had used his divine powers to isolate the area from any divine interference.

Only the most trustworthy people were present. Arjuna and Tsumi might have been invited, except they wanted to be able to speak freely about reincarnators. Wisdom and Kensei had proven themselves many times, but the more people knew about a secret, the less likely it would stay that way, and it was not impossible for either of the two to have just played along this entire time, waiting for an opportunity to betray them. Unlikely, but possible, hence their exclusion.

“Right. The recent actions by Pride have proven that we’re running out of time. The time for building our power and connections is coming to an end, and it’s time to start being more active. Both against Pride, and in regards to the succession.” Karna opened the meeting up.

“I believe the matter with the succession is more urgent. With Hoeth gone, Vaul’s vote is now open for grabs. I believe it’s unlikely he would vote for Greed, considering it was Greed that caused Hoeth’s death, but we can’t eliminate the possibility either. There is a possibility that Khaine might be able to sway him, but we can’t rely on that for now. The most likely scenario is that he’ll either get eliminated or step out, and that will make the math easier for both you and Greed. It would leave the vote two against two with Hekarti undecided. We’re unlikely to sway Drakira, and your mother won’t vote for Greed. That means Greed only needs to sway Hekarti. And while Hekarti hasn’t shown any intention of voting either way, we all know there are ways to sway anyone. For all we know, she might already have been swayed, and Greed is only waiting on Vaul’s exit to spring it on us. There’s a decent chance that only Vaul’s presence is stopping Greed from winning right now.” Valor speculated.

“Greed does have the best funds to sway anyone.” Envy pursed her lips in distaste. Greed was by far the wealthiest reincarnator due to the simple fact that he could bring treasures from one life to the next. And he had plenty stocked up. “The Goddess of Dark Magic might not be swayed by money, as she seems more interested in power. However, power comes in many forms.”

“We should proceed under the assumption that Hekarti is already under his sway, even if that’s not true. Even if we manage to somehow bring Vaul to our side, that only ties the vote.” Karna nodded in agreement. “We need to move quickly. We aren’t any closer to forcing Greed into fighting me directly, and every day that passes makes that less and less likely, as he knows he can’t win anymore, even if he can survive. He won’t take a losing fight even if it might be humiliating to refuse.”

“That means we have to either go after the others, or we need to go for the Assembly victory. Do we have the votes though?” Hope asked. She had been a large part of getting many of the votes, as she had been politicking before the Growth had attacked, but even she wasn’t sure.

“I- we believe we do if we go ahead with a plan we came up with.” Karna looked towards Envy, who nodded. “This ties into what I had in mind with Pride. We’re under a time pressure, but so is he. He has the power advantage currently, and the Harpy has confirmed that he’s slowly but surely taking over the Guard. However, he knows that it is disadvantageous for him if I manage to rank up again. It would also make things more complicated if I do manage to take the throne, as the Guard are sworn to loyalty with oaths nigh impossible to break. Even if he himself can wiggle out, his support from the Guard would vanish or at least diminish greatly. So, there’s a bit of a delicate balance here.”

“He wants to wait as long as he can to gather power among the Guard, but he needs to act before you take the throne and preferably before you rank up again, which will likely happen earlier.” Valor summarized.

“That’s about it. The thing is, he is also smart enough to take advantage of any opportunities. So, if he knows that he can attack me in a moment of weakness, he will. He’s going to be especially on the lookout for such opportunities against me. He knows how dangerous it is to go against me at equal footing.” Karna explained. “So, we need to present him with a moment of weakness he knows he can exploit.”

“You sound like you have something in mind.” Valor could’ve made guesses, but he decided to just ask.

Karna didn’t need to be the one to say it though, as Hope realized it first. “Pregnancy and giving birth. Especially the latter. If he thinks you’ve retreated in order to give birth, he knows it’s a perfect moment to strike.” While immortals and gods didn't need to give birth the old-fashioned way, the process still weakened the mother for a brief time.

“Exactly.” Karna pointed at Hope. “I’ve also sown the seeds of the idea already because Pride is smart enough to suspect a trap. He'd be suspicious of a weakness that came out of nowhere. However, he also knows politics, and he realizes that there are parties pressuring me toward having children. Both inside the House and outside. He also knows it would be politically convenient for me. We need to make it realistic though. Make the rumors about my pregnancy seem organic. The Harpy would be very useful in that regard.”

“I can see how that would work, but surely he would expect you to surround yourself with other defenders while giving birth. If you retreat somewhere alone, then that would be very suspicious.” Valor pointed out.

"Ah, but that's where the best part comes in. He's not worried about any defenders. If he can pull in members of the Guard to occupy those defenders, then even better. No, he's only afraid of me, and to a lesser degree Envy. No offense, but we're the only two who can fight him even remotely equally. He's not Pride for no reason. He fought Selendil to a standstill because that's the level of power and skill he has. Had that fight been one fought to the bitter end, I can’t say for certain who would’ve won. While Selendil is a Nakshatra, a being especially geared to fight reincarnators, Pride simply has more experience of fights on that level.” Karna said with a bit of pride in her own power.

“Even I have to admit that at equal rank, I have only about 30% chance of beating him in a direct fight, and we’re not at equal rank.” Envy admitted. She was in many ways stronger than Pride, but a direct fight was not to her advantage.

“With that kind of power, are you confident you can win?” Valor looked towards Karna.

“If I reached rank 13, yes. Otherwise, it’s going to be close. I do have one trick I’ve been saving that no one has seen yet.”

“You just reached rank 12 though. It’s going to take years to reach rank 13.” Valor pointed out.

“So far, I’ve focused on ranking up my magic and Aura at the same time for maximum synergy. Ranking up magic takes time. However, if I focused just on just my Aura, I think I could manage it in the time I’m supposed to give birth anyway. That’s a rather big if though, and I might need to rely on a bit of external help.” Karna admitted. The Divine Planes had sped up her cultivation exponentially, and she’d focused on slow and steady cultivation. It was time to utilize that. There was a reason her Aura cultivation was the best type possible, and if she used that to her full advantage, she could break any records. Which she would need to do.

“You mentioned that this ties somehow into getting votes?” Hope suddenly changed topics.

“Yes, I was coming to that. The basic idea was already given by the House Draconis. We only need a few strategically chosen allies to swing the vote. I could garner those allies by political marriage. It’s not unexpected for the Emperor or Empress to have multiple spouses. If I also made it clear that I was not looking to just continue the royal line with the titans, that would, for the first time in a very long time, allow royal blood to spread to other houses and races. If I already happened to be pregnant at the time, the idea would be reinforced, and the whole thing would seem more believable to Pride as well, as the pregnancy is for political purposes. The allure of getting to be a part of the royal blood is a powerful draw to many houses that have been forced to stay out of the power struggle for as long as the system has existed.” She explained her plan. They would’ve preferred to gain those few remaining allies another way, but they were simply running out of time.

“I would think that someone had already made a play like this. It has to have failed for a reason.” Valor pointed out. “Is it not forbidden?”

“It both is, and it isn't. The mixing of bloodlines is frowned upon socially because it dilutes the bloodline, but everyone already knows I'm a special case in that regard. Would my children also be? That's an attractive thought. There’s also a precedent already. The act isn’t strictly speaking against any laws that people care about, which is why my mother was only under house arrest due to political reasons instead of being more heavily punished. Besides, that’s only for the bloodlines of magical beings. Humans only care about the royal blood as it would allow them to vie for the throne in the future. I’m not very likely to get punished by either the emperor or the power behind him, as they both know, unlike those I’d make the deal with, that I will likely not be around to fulfill my end of that deal if I take the throne behind the throne, so to speak.” her situation was special, and everyone that needed to know that already knew. The old rules didn’t strictly speaking apply to her.

“And if someone tries to argue otherwise, we can just get them shut down. We do have the votes for that.” Hope realized.

“You mentioned that why has no one tried this in the past.” Karna continued. “They actually have. However, past emperors didn’t like the idea of other houses having royal blood and often hunted down anyone with the blood. That’s also one of the social reasons why it’s not done, as those who have studied the past know what it could lead to.

“When we first came here, they wanted to make you into a broodmare. They let go of the idea for the most part once you showed your power. The desire didn’t go away though. Now we’re using that desire against them.” Envy grinned. The idea had been hers in the first place.

"The downside is that you'll actually have to take multiple spouses." Valor pointed out.

"Well, strictly speaking, I'll only be promising to in the future. That should be enough to lure Pride and buy the missing votes. I may have to go through with one or two marriages, just to prove that I’m not just making empty promises, but we were planning on allying with House Draconis anyway. We can simply leverage that better than we originally planned. Besides, all these agreements don’t need to be public. In fact, it would be better for all parties if the deals were made behind closed doors. We simply need to be clear that we’re not making the deal only with them, so that if rumors spread…” She left the rest unsaid. “In the best-case scenario, just getting close to enough votes will be enough to force Greed’s hand, and we can just eliminate him.”

They all knew there would be no lack of parties interested in the deal, and they only needed a couple of strategically important allies for the rest to fall in place. And once Greed and Pride had been dealt with, they had the freedom to do what they wanted. That was the part of the plan that appealed to Envy. She knew any unions for the votes would only last long enough until this stupid battle for power lasted. Once it was over, they were free to ignore any deals they’d made.

"Of course, we'll need to be careful about the whole thing. Oaths of secrecy, detailed plans for ambushing Pride, careful spreading of rumors, clandestine meetings, the whole shebang. The details of the plans don't leave this room though. We'll need to be careful about what to tell and to whom. Is that clear?" Karna made sure to reinforce secrecy.

“Very clear.” Everyone agreed.

-------

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to run that by me again.” The Harpy looked somewhat surprised.

“I need you to spread some information. The information needs to get to the dangerous person among the Imperial Guard we talked about earlier. However, the whole thing needs to be very subtle. It needs to look like the information reached him by accident, and not because it was intentionally spread.” Karna explained. They were taking a bit of a risk trusting the Harpy, but they were intentionally keeping all the details from him.

“Yes, that part was clear. I do know how to do my job, and I provisionally agreed to help since the Guard seems to be becoming compromised.” The Harpy said while scoffing.

"The rumor that needs to be spread is that I'm pregnant," Karna repeated the words that had shocked the Harpy earlier.

“So, I did hear correctly. Right. This is the sort of social gossip that is easy to spread, though a bit harder to make believable. I did hear some information that you might be attempting to get pregnant. However, how does this help against that individual?”

“That I cannot tell you. Only that it will.” Karna refused to elaborate. After all, the Harpy could turn on them and reveal everything to Pride.

“Alright. I’ll take on faith that it will, but if you can’t explain that, I will need something else. I will not tarnish my reputation by spreading false rumors without knowing why. Are you pregnant?” He confirmed.

“At this moment, yes. It can be confirmed soon.” She replied honestly.

It had taken another visit to Hyperion and a bit of magic to ensure insemination, but they had all agreed that the plot would be more believable if it was true. At least for a time. Pride would attempt to confirm the fact after all. It was too dangerous to bait him with information that could be easily proven false if anyone with the ability to see souls or detect life could confirm that fact. The real question was, how long would she be pregnant? The moment of weakness while giving birth still existed, and they didn’t actually want to provide the opportunity to Pride. The exact details concerning the child they hadn’t yet settled on, though the prevalent idea was that they’d induce birth before the actual time.

“Alright. I’ll make sure to cooperate then.” The Harpy promised. This was the sort of gossip he dealt with daily anyway. He’d only need to be more involved this time to make sure it reached the right ears.

As she left the private meeting in the Grand Assembly, Karna was surprised to run into Vaul on the way out. “Princess Ynnead. We need to talk.” The God of Artisans said with a serious voice.