JACKAL AMONG SNAKES

Epilogue 2.2: Phoenix

When asked of his parent’s reaction to his brother Enrico’s death, Prince Garm had only this to say.

I thought I had seen my mother and father truly angry before that point. I was wrong. Terribly wrong. They were angry most of all at themselves. They hated what they saw as complacency, and they would never forget what yielding for love of their son had earned them. They became far stricter. The pain of losing a child made them hesitant to have any more.

By some reports, the emperor and the empress arrived in the heartland of the Great Chu the very next day, where any and all related to the attacks were weeded out to meet excruciatingly painful ends. Whatever the exact date, they did appear extraordinarily fast. As Dras’ named successor, Anneliese received the immediate loyalty of the Veidimen, who sought both protection and vengeance against their enemies in equal measure.

Speaking from personal experience, I can say only that fury was mirrored in all of the people of the Blackgard Union. Mothers and fathers cried as though their own child had been the one to perish. Brothers and sisters raged for vengeance as if to claim it for their own kin. The death of Prince Enrico became characterized as an attack against the Blackgard Union and all that it stood for, and those that had benefitted so immensely reacted as though it was at jeopardy.

General Galamon mobilized the army shortly after emperor and empress arrived, employing the whole of the Blackgard Union’s fleet to transport four of the twelve armies overseas. This fighting force was four times in size that which had invaded the Great Chu before the last calamity, and unlike before, met no concerted opposition at the shores.

Some consider the weeks following the result of grieving parents forced to make decisions that couldn’t possibly be divorced from emotions. Others suggest that things were already too far gone by the time the empress and emperor had arrived. Regardless, the situation escalated very quickly.

Great Chu natives attacked Veidimen enclaves. Blackgard soldiers responded to these attacks more zealously than they should have. These excesses led to yet more attacks, and more attacks demanded more drastic enforcement methods. It was a vicious and self-perpetuating cycle which continued to devolve, even despite interference from Emperor Ji Meng.

This escalation led to the rise of a woman who would come to be known as the Phoenix.

Su Mei, the Phoenix

An S-rank spellcaster, Su Mei came from a family of a former governor treated particularly harshly by Veidimen rule. By her own testimony, all seven of her sisters were essentially sold off as brides. There is enough corroboration for this that it cannot be disputed. She, herself, suffered at the hands of an abuser until a respected Veidimen elder named Rowe the Righteous discovered the situation, taking her as his pupil as compensation. Her region was a noted hotbed of corruption, sandwiched between barbarian tribes and a large concentration of Veidimen who proved cruel administrators.

She was twenty-seven at the time she claimed the title of Phoenix. She earned her title by virtue of her A-rank ascension. Her body became fire given form. The specifics of her ascension are unclear, but both death and capture proved impossibilities for conventional spellcasters. She expended great effort to avoid both the emperor and empress, who themselves were stretched thin between both Berendar and her homeland.

Most prominently, what could be considered a tremendous concession was made—the people of the Great Chu themselves were given the right to choose who would lead them. The majority of public offices were made elected. This came alongside extending equal protections to all citizens. To the natives of the Great Chu, who now vastly outnumbered Veidimen or other foreigners, this seemed both a natural conclusion to what they had been fighting for, and a more-than-fair compromise.

By 35AC, fighting persisted in only small pockets on the fringe of the Great Chu. The imperial army’s presence began to dwindle as more and more returned to Berendar, their services unnecessary. Some Veidimen families even began to return with the guarantees of law, but a larger majority remained in the Blackgard Union, where they thrived in the northern regions and as traders.

In 36AC, Anneliese, in her capacity as Dras’ heir and Grand Commandant, pardoned Su Mei for ‘extraordinary contrition and efforts to repent.’ Prince Garm claims his parents considered proposing a marriage with his brother Prince Castro, but eventually decided against that to avoid setting a precedent that would be difficult to break.

The conclusion of the Age of Fury in 37AC came with the declaration that the Blackgard Union would be minimizing its presence in the Great Chu. Some coastal fortresses would remain manned and were officially ceded to the Blackgard Union, but they were largely barren territories with no value beyond strategic and garnered no significant controversy.

Additionally, the title of Grand Commandant held its first election in 37AC when Anneliese ceded the title. In this first election, by contrast to future ones, the governors alone voted to elect the Grand Commandant. Su Mei was a contender in the election, and though she achieved widespread support, it was feared she had become a so-called ‘tamed phoenix.’

Another peacemaker with sympathies to the Blackgard Union won out over her, a man by the name of Mo Hui. His election generated some controversy, as it was purportedly manipulated by the Blackgard Union. To respond to these concerns, Grand Commandant became a position elected by the wider populace, not the governors alone.

Su Mei worked closely alongside Grand Commandant Mo Hui, helping to officially sign the Treaty of the New Dawn at the end of 37AC. This treaty officially demoted the emperorship of the Great Chu, putting into law what had been practice for many years. Emperor Ji Meng made no significant comments one way or the other. It additionally made very generous concessions to the Blackgard Union, essentially conjoining their economies and making their military highly dependent on the empire itself.

The Phoenix, Su Mei, stood as a major catalyst in the Age of Fury—both toward its escalation and de-escalation. In the decades to come, she remained active politically, endeavoring to foster ties between the Blackgard Union and the Great Chu. She became Grand Commandant in 47AC after Mo Hui’s ten-year term, and remains a hero of her people idolized even more than the emperor once was.

The Blackgard Union wasn’t devastated by the events of the Great Chu, but it was a time of noted unrest. Citizens were disappointed by the years of war without result, and thought that the imperial court was being unduly soft by refraining from annexing the land as they had the rest of Berendar. Veidimen refugees—many of whom were culturally alien polygamists, in defiance of Blackgard law—also proved a point of distress.

The Age of Fury from the perspective of the homeland can best be typified by the princes and princesses of the era, who I’ll focus on for the next section. This was a transitory phase, marking the beginning of a dramatic shift in the Blackgard Union as emperor and empress saw the child they’ve reared near adulthood. Indeed, I would not be the first to call it the teenage years of the nation.