Chapter 23
“So the village plans to relocate?” Rys asked.
“Yep,” Mina chirped from beside him, her tails swishing back and forth.
The pair of them walked along one of the exterior walkways around the central courtyard. Rys was technically late for a meeting with Vallis and Grigor.
Not that he could be late, given he was the king.
“Everyone who matters is on board,” Mina continued. “Auntie Nia was the deciding vote, really. I didn’t realize she had so much influence. She’s a few decades younger than Fara and only has four tails.”
“She’s a spy, right?”
“Yeah…” Mina trailed off, biting her lip.
“I take it she’s worked out what you’re up to.” Rys raised an eyebrow.
“Also yeah.” Sighing, Mina tugged his arm toward the courtyard itself.
He let her lead him on a detour. Vallis could wait a few minutes while he assuaged Mina.
“I don’t think it’s a problem yet, but something happened between her and Fara,” the spymaster said as they walked between the hedges toward the central fountain. “Nia just chided me about being more careful. I thought my cover story was plausible, but I treated her more like family than an opponent.”
“How would you handle her in the future?” Rys asked.
“I wouldn’t,” Mina said flatly, avoiding his gaze. “I’d tell Fara to go butter up her little sister.”
Rys chuckled. “Smart. Everyone has weaknesses and blind spots. It’s wiser to avoid tackling them head on.”
“You don’t think I’m weak because I don’t want to face her?”
“Maybe you’ll need to do that one day, but that sort of decision comes with a cost. Part of that cost might be personal—she is your aunt. Part of it will be losing connections, as it sounds like Nia has connections within your clan,” he explained.
Mina remained silent as they approached the fountain. She stepped up to its edge and stared up at the water spraying into the air. Her tails lightly brushed against Rys.
“You know, I wondered if you would change after you had me in your grasp,” she said.
Other than raising an eyebrow, he didn’t respond.
Continuing, Mina said, “I need what you’re offering me, more than you need me. Auntie Nia reminded me that I’ve stepped away from everything I know. So I expected you to start tightening your grip. That I’d find out some dark truth. Instead, you’re just…”
She trailed off with a huff.
“You’re not going to say that I’m kind, are you?” Rys asked.
“No.” Mina giggled. “In a way, you are, but not intentionally. I understand why Fara calls you an asshole all the time. You’re deeply pragmatic and manipulative. But you’re also trying to develop me and help me. It’s hard to deal with.”
“Is this where you talk about good and evil, like Fara?”
“I think I got different lessons to her,” Mina mused. Her tails curled up close to her body. “Maybe enforcers get taught about evil as black and white because they’re expected to just kill the clan’s enemies.”
“But you weren’t?” he asked.
“I had quite a few lessons in identifying evil,” she said. “It’s hard to explain them, as they took place over decades. But I was taught principles with which to assess evil, as well as three primary categories. Pharos and the Alliance have a history of conquerors and dangerous powers that need quelling.”
“Not to be annoying, but that sounds nonspecific. I could say that about Gauron, except its recent history involves several wars that threatened to end the continent,” Rys said.
Mina smirked and finally looked at him. “Recent? You mean the last millennium?”
“I know what I said.”
“Heh. Well, I was told one story. The previous alliance chief and the Pride Clan’s chief enforcer apparently sealed away some great evil that threatened all of Pharos over two centuries ago. He was what they call a ‘prideful evil’—one whose delusions of grandeur would bring ruin,” she explained.
Rys didn’t miss that this “great evil” had a gender and was presumably an individual. Curious.
“What are the others?” he asked.
“Destructive evils are the monsters that plague Pharos. Corrupting evils are those that would turn those against their nature. There is some sort of ‘all-consuming’ evil that I think only older foxes are taught.” Mina frowned. “I got the feeling that one was subtle, and perhaps why I was being taught this.”
“It’s a curious thing to be taught,” he said, crossing his arms. “Especially as they’re all considered forms of evil. Am I a corrupting evil, then?”
“Maybe. Despite all the lessons, I don’t really know what makes something evil. A lot of it was about disruptions to the natural order. But what’s natural? The shadow empress didn’t count as evil, despite the fact she seized near total control of Pharos recently.” Mina smiled bitterly.
“Does it matter?” Rys asked.
“If I’m committing myself to you, I want to understand what I’m doing,” she said, her eyes searching his. “I feel like I didn’t think about why I wanted to serve my clan. Now, I’m going to be questioned about why I’m serving you. It feels like a double standard, but…”
For the first time since they got here, Mina quietened. She looked away from him.
Rys didn’t know what she was worrying about, but in this case, he didn’t need to know the specifics.
“You can’t do anything about the unfairness of the world,” he said. “Focusing on what you can accomplish is smarter. I feel that you’re doing that already.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. Then smiled up at him. “I did want to ask whether your pragmatism and stoicism was normal back in your time. A lot of the elder foxes I met were bitter asses.”
He laughed. “I worked for a devil who holds a millennia old grudge and still fights a strange proxy war over it. Nothing’s changed. That makes it fairly easy for me to settle in, to be honest.”
“Settle in and corrupt the youth, turning cute little foxes like me into your personal servants.” Mina placed her hands behind her back, flattened her tails and ears, and twisted back and forth.
Rys poked her in the forehead and she giggled at him.
“Am I wrong?” she whispered, eyes nearly glowing bright amber. She took a step closer to him and her hands settled on his hips.
“No. After all, I don’t like to deny cute little foxes what they want,” he said.
Her face turned red, but she held her ground. Her top was loose around her chest, as usual, and she seemed to be trying to attract his attention to the massive valley there.
“Try seducing me when I’m not running late for a meeting with my viceroy,” he said, rubbing her sides.
A gasp escaped her in response to his touch. She licked her lips and pouted half-heartedly. “Don’t pretend that Vallis doesn’t love it when you show up smelling of other women. I bet you’d fuck Fara if she did this.”
“Fara would wait until I wasn’t busy,” he said.
Mina’s tails seemed to bounce every time he moved. He pressed his fingers against her skin, and he felt them dig into her soft flesh. Her mouth hung open for a moment, tongue lolling between her lips.
“You seem to be enjoying this.” He smirked at her.
Then he pulled his arms away. She whined and physically grabbed them, dragging him back to his previous position.
“Tease,” she muttered. “I bet you’ll fuck Maria into the floor of your office the moment you’re done.”
Rys knew where he’d find Mina after his next item of business. Lurking in the ducts above his office, with her hands between her crotch.
“Why don’t you come with me to meet with her and Vallis?” he suggested, and pulled away again.
This time, Mina didn’t stop him. Although she did whine again.
“Also, I was thinking of Fara. She came back with you, right?” he said as he resumed his walk toward Vallis’s office.
“Mmm.” Mina shrugged, falling into step. “She seemed distracted. I expected her to spend more time in the village, but she found an excuse to run off.”
“Didn’t she help you up there?” he asked. “The reason she went was because you wanted to be certain of what the succubi were reporting.”
“Sure, but it was a little lonely.” Mina leaped in front of him and walked backward, as if desperate to keep his eyes on her. “I haven’t really spent much time around Mom or most of the village for years, given I came back to…”
Her lips thinned. After a moment, she sighed and stared up at the ceiling as they walked. “Anyway, I thought that it’d be like when I was little. I’d be with Mom and my aunts, but older. It didn’t really work out that way.”
“Do you think Fara was avoiding anyone?” He pushed Mina aside as she backed into a door, then stepped through it.
“Shouldn’t you know better than me?” Mina asked. “Maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic. Sarae wouldn’t have been there either. And Mom seems to have stopped sleeping around at some point.”
“Sarae’s your sister, right?” Rys asked.
Also, Mina’s impression of her mother sounded different from how Fara described her. The most he had heard about Ariko was that she had slept with somebody while working as a Messenger, at roughly the same time that Fara met Vallis’s grandfather.
Evidently, that sort of behavior hadn’t stopped after leaving Pharos.
“Yeah,” Mina said. “She’s training as a spy right now, but bounced between branches. Enforcer, assassin, and now a spy. She’s flighty.”
“Harsh words for your sister.”
“I can call her worse things if you’d like?” She giggled. “Anyway, things went well. The village is relocating, Fara confirmed that the League is supporting Avolar, and I have a lead to look into about the spymaster helping them.”
The two of them ascended to the second floor, where Vallis’s office was. Her door was wide open.
He saw Tyrisa sitting at her desk, her pen flying across paperwork. The piles of forms and records in front of her looked far too large for a single day of work. Rys eyed one with a wary eye.
“I’ll deliver these to your office once I’m finished,” the knowledge devil chirped, once she noticed him.
He swore that her eyes gleamed evilly.
“I’m not sure I need to look over two feet of paperwork, Tyrisa,” he said.
“Really? But you said you were interested in the military, logistics, and major project approvals?” she replied, tilting her head as she feigned innocence.
He glared at her, while Mina pranced away with a smirk.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a single document on those for weeks.” He paused. “And what major projects?”
“Shouldn’t Vallis explain those to you? I just do the paperwork.”
“I’ll drop half the pile on your head if you’re wasting my time,” he warned. “I’ll talk to Vallis about this.”
He did remember her bringing up a couple of infrastructure projects recently, but also that she still had difficulty finding money for them. While his advice to her last time had sped things up, Rys still needed to help with a lot of matters.
Vallis desired guidance. The least he could do was provide it.
But he refused to indulge in Tyrisa’s paperwork fetish. If he let her roam freely, she’d turn his new kingdom into the New Infernal Empire.
The thought caused Rys to shudder.
Tyrisa pouted at him. “You’re good at paperwork. When Alsia needed help with all the records I wanted for her new farming project and the land transfers from Maria’s duchy, you were done before your maids even delivered lunch.”
“The reason I’m a good paper pusher is precisely why I hate the job,” he said. “I spent decades under Lacrissa, helping her with the endless tide of paperwork that poured into her office due to the dozen courts she was in.”
“Dozen!?” Tyrisa physically leaped into the air. “How? I’ve heard that some succubi get off on paperwork, but I’ve known knowledge devils who have literally died from overwork in the Devil Queen’s inner courts.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Royal devils—and Lacrissa is the equivalent, even if she doesn’t serve Ariel—serve in multiple courts. Lacrissa served in Malusian’s court, ran her own court, was a special advisor in the courts of her top succubi, and was part of Ruathym’s superior court. Not to mention all the committees she sat on, and the company boards she was involved with.”
The stare that Tyrisa gave him suggested she was somewhere between amazed, shocked, and utterly confused.
“Superior court?” she asked. “Boards?”
“Everything had a court, or an equivalent, in the Empire. Even I had a court once I became a general, and Lacrissa showed up occasionally.” Rys scowled at the memories of the bitch attempting to show him up in his own seat of power. “The cities were ruled by multiple courts. I don’t think I need to explain what a company board is?”
“No, but why would a royal devil waste her time on one?” Tyrisa sneered. “They’re playthings for weaker devils in Hell. Nobody takes them seriously.”
“Would you say the same about the larger companies on Harrium?” he asked. “Compagnon was a company. And isn’t there a company that dominates all trade between Pharos and Gauron?”
“The Eastern Winds Trading Company,” she muttered, face reddening. “Okay, so I guess they mean more here. They invited powerful devils to run them?”
“They were owned by devils. Usually, elves ran them and some owned shares in them. Rarely, dragons and dwarves were involved.”
“Never humans?” Tyrisa asked.
Rys laughed. “I know why you’re asking, but damn. I feel old. If somebody asked that back then, they’d sound like a simpleton.”
“You were powerful,” she pointed out.
“Nobody considered me a human. After the Cataclysm, I just became another infernal to everyone. Humans don’t survive encounters with archangels, or lay siege to angelic cities,” he said. “By then, I didn’t need to do my own paperwork.”
Rys glared at the little knowledge devil, who looked to one side.
“You’re still good at it,” she muttered.
“I guarantee that once you have your own staff of knowledge devils, you’ll feel the same way as I do,” he said.
Probably. Maybe.
He suspected she might still enjoy it a lot. An image popped into his head of Tyrisa sneaking into an office at night to correct her subordinate’s mistakes.
Yeah, that seemed realistic.
“You’re thinking something mean.” She pouted at him in reality.
“One day you’ll grow up and I won’t feel the desire to bully you,” he said.
She glared at him. “I am grown up. Do you feel that way about the Darus Twins?”
He had.
Now they acted clingy and became glassy-eyed if he brought up other women.
“I don’t think bullying is how I’d describe my future actions toward them,” he said diplomatically.
Tyrisa reddened. “I… When you eventually summon them, I can watch, right?” Her hands fidgeted below her desk.
What did she think he was going to do to Darus when he summoned them? Maybe he should pick Tyrisa’s brains for ideas in the future.
“Sure,” he said. “Remember, only give me paperwork that I need to do.”
He walked away while maintaining eye contact with Tyrisa. That lasted far longer than necessary, given how obscenely large Vallis’s office was.
Vallis sat behind her desk, with Grigor leaning over her. The two were considering a hand-drawn map of the region. Maria and Mina stood to the side, giggling about something inappropriate.
“Have fun bullying my secretary?” Vallis asked Rys with a grin.
“Your chief of staff, you mean,” he corrected.
“She calls herself that, but I don’t have any staff.”
“Technically, everyone in the castle counts.”
She blinked, then looked at Grigor. “Huh. Do you think so, Grigs?”
“I believe that Terry sees you as his superior. The same could be said about the imps,” Grigor rumbled.
A scowl crossed Vallis’s face. “I refuse to consider the imps my subordinates. Conniving little shits.”
After some more whining, they shifted to the topic of the meeting. Mina and Maria joined them.
“Before we get started, I wanted to ask if you had anything major planned?” Rys asked. “Tyrisa mentioned some projects.”
“Oh, right.” Vallis nodded, then leaned back. “I probed Tarmouth about investors for expanding Port Mayfield and our roads south to Fort Foret. Things got weird, fast.”
“Threats?” Maria asked, frowning. “Compagnon had agents in Tarmouth who pushed back if anyone asked for external funding. They were good at scaring away investors.”
“Nah. At first, I got nothing. Tarmouth’s council have already committed a fair bit of money to us, and that’s likely come from their biggest players. Everybody else is from another nation, right?” Vallis gestured as if this was obvious. “I had pretty low hopes, but thought that maybe some foreigner might fancy a gamble.”
“Did they?” Mina asked, furrowing her brow. “I don’t have agents in Tarmouth yet. The city is full of mages, so they’ll detect infernals immediately. No point angering an ally.”
Vallis shook her head. “A noble from Gorgria approached me. And not someone from the RGK, but from Torfunburg, the independent city that the League nearly razed years ago.”
“Sounds like they’d have reason to support us,” Rys said.
“Sure, but where did they get the money?” Vallis bit her lip. “I won’t bore you with Gorgrian politics, but the western half of the island is ruled by a bunch of minor nobles. Queen Faeris funded Torfunburg’s reconstruction. I don’t see where they’d get the cash to fund us.”
“Is it a consortium?” he asked.
“He claimed otherwise, but how can I know. I’m inclined to say that money doesn’t stink, but…”
“I think we should know who’s funding us, or we might get bitten,” Mina said. “Especially given we know somebody else using Gorgria as a cover.”
His foxy spymaster gave him a look.
“Mave,” Rys said. “He warned us about Avolar and uses Gorgria’s spy network as his own. It might be wise to assume this is connected. Anything else?”
“Uh, some of the funds are also coming from a questionable source. One of the foreign merchant shipowners gave us a huge pile of Pharosian credit notes,” Vallis said.
“Isn’t that what we desired?” Grigor uttered.
“Sure, but not from a merchant, and not in such a shady way. This feels like hot money. The merchants who own and sail the massive galleons between continents are filthy rich, but their assets are tied up. They don’t just show up and dump cash on us, with no real promise of return.” Vallis rolled her eyes.
“What are we paying them for this investment?” Rys asked.
“The port is an equity investment. They get a share of the taxes and fees. The money for the roads is basically free, as it’s tied to the port. If they wanted a piece of the port, they needed to give us extra cash for the road.”
“That’s a pretty shit deal,” Mina said.
“They gave me the money, didn’t they? I pushed hard once I smelled a rat.”
“Pharosian credit notes, though…” the fox bit her lip and looked out the window.
“Something wrong, Mina?” Rys asked.
“The Imperial Court funds basically all its external operations using those. Nobody uses them in Pharos. We have our own currency,” she explained. “With that said, the notes are also mired in corruption. There’s an entire unit of foxes in the capital dedicated to detecting fraudulent credit notes, given how many the foreign merchants push through.”
“Seems like it would be easy to detect given your continent is closed to foreigners,” Vallis mused.
“Sure, except the Eastern Winds Trading Company has an exemption from the Emperor, and is owned by imperial nobles,” Mina said. “Archon Imira sits on their board, which gives them a sliver of legitimacy, as she’s in charge of all foreign affairs in Pharos.
Rys rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So both of our investors are suspicious, and potentially connected to foreign rulers?”
“Basically,” Vallis chirped with a grin. “At least we don’t need to worry about repaying the loans. What are they going to do with a minority share of the port?”
“I’m more concerned that I’ve already attracted so much attention outside the island, and potentially the archipelago,” Rys growled.
He sincerely hoped that whoever was behind the Pharosian investment wasn’t connected to anybody powerful, but he had to suspect the worst. There was some strange politics taking place within the fox’s Six-Star Alliance, after all.
“Anyway, I need to head to Port Mayfield shortly to finalize expansion plans,” Vallis explained. “That’s why I wanted to deal with these military matters. Although I don’t know if there’s much to discuss.”
“Is there, Grigor?” Rys asked.
“I wish for your approval regarding my plans to levy the locals, and to know if you plan to summon any more infernals,” the demon prince said.
“No to the latter. Take me through the former.”
As the meeting descended into boring minutiae, Rys pondered the growing web of politics he found himself enveloped in.
While he might not be in the Empire anymore, this level of complexity felt familiar. Geopolitics was never easy. But for him, it was always fun.
Eventually, the meeting wound down. Maria followed him as he retreated to his atelier, as he wanted to avoid Tyrisa’s paperwork a little longer.
She remained silent during the walk, which likely meant whatever she wanted to talk about was reasonably important. Maria disliked talking about cabinet matters in the corridors for security reasons.
Rys stepped into his atelier and gestured for her to enter. He took a seat behind his desk and summoned a plush chair to his side for Maria to sit in.
“You’re not busy, are you?” she asked while taking a seat.
“I haven’t been busy for quite a while,” he noted drily.
She frowned. “The meeting bored you, didn’t it?”
“It was necessary. I am a king. But yes, a lot of the mundanities bore me,” he said. “What did you want?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can arrange the remaining military affairs with Grigor. He knows enough, and when it is best to ask you for more guidance. Perhaps I should rely on his judgment more.”
“Maria, you’re in my office more than either Vallis or Alsia. If you were a bother, I’d have already stopped you,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but…” She grinned at him, then bent down in front of him. Her long white dress spilled across the floor. “Most of the time I’m in your office, it’s as your pet duchess. Do you have time for your pet now, Rys?”
He reached out, grabbed her horns, and pressed Maria against his crotch. She gasped, then smiled as she felt his hardening cock.
“There’s never a time that I don’t,” he said.
“I’m glad,” she said.
Her hands deftly undid his pants. His cock didn’t even have a chance to breathe in the air before it vanished into Maria’s mouth. She pressed herself against his crotch, inhaling his scent and enjoying the feeling of his cock growing in her throat.
He reached beneath her head and held a hand against her neck. A bulge grew as he reached his full size, and Maria shuddered.
Then he pushed her off him. She stared at him in surprise. But no hurt entered her eyes. Instead, she patiently waited for his next action or command.
“Lay on the floor,” he said.
“Yes, Rys,” she said, eyes curving with pleasure. “On my back or chest?”
“Back.”
Maria giggled and pulled down her top before she followed his order. Her obscenely huge tits burst out, and she then undid her silver lingerie.
Once she lay on her back, her naked breasts available to him, Rys kneeled over her.
No doubt she imagined that he was going to stick his cock between her tits. This was what normally happened, after all.
Maria only had a few moments to stare at him in surprise when he kneeled over her face, instead of her chest. Then he placed his cock against her mouth and waited for her to open it.
She did, of course. He slammed himself down her throat, watching as it bulged from his sheer size. Her entire body bounced from the motion, and her tits jiggled like pale balloons.
Rys didn’t allow her to settle. He simply thrust over and over into Maria’s throat. Not that she needed much time to grow used to him. Maria loved this. Her fingers crept beneath her dress and he watched as she began to finger herself.
Within a few short minutes, Rys reached his limit. He pressed his cock deep inside Maria’s throat.
Fat ropes of white filled her stomach, and she gurgled around his length. Bubbles blew up where his crotch and her mouth met.
Rys pulled out, then showered her with more seed. Her face, mouth, and stomach were all painted white.
Maria, the duchess of Anceston, lay on the floor of the palace with a face covered in cum. She even sucked the rest of it out of his tip for good measure.
“Can we do that in your office next?” she asked. Then her eyes lit up. “Or maybe my office?”
He stroked her curly silver hair as he helped her stand. “Maybe. Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about earlier?”
“Well, it was just a minor military matter, but…”
If dealing with boring minutiae was the price of enjoying Maria like that, he’d accept it. It kept her happy after all.
Because not every day could be so happy or easygoing.