Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1898: Final Item

Quinlan Elysiar, liege lord of Vraven for all of twenty minutes, had already found the best chair in the royal study and claimed it.

The study belonged to Alexios. The desk had passed to new management that afternoon.

Queen Felicity Valorian sat behind it, crown riding just above her eyebrows, and read every line of every decree before allowing it anywhere near her inkwell.

Her father stood at her shoulder with his sleeves rolled, demoted from king to royal advisor before dinner and wearing it well.

"This one still cites the toll schedule we tore up." Felicity tapped the offending page. "Why is it in my pile?"

"Because its author hoped Your Majesty would not read it," said Alexios.

"Hmph." She struck the clause and initialed the margin, hard.

The budding empire’s half of the paperwork was proceeding differently.

"Sign here," said Jasmine.

Quinlan signed.

"And here. Initials at the bottom. Neatly, please, my love."

Quinlan signed with excellent penmanship. Well, as excellent as he could muster.

The Tyrant of Commerce had entered the room with an abacus in one hand and the big ledger under her arm, taken one look at her man alone in a room with unattended state documents, and requisitioned the entire pile.

Every page reached Quinlan already folded open to the right line. By the third decree, she had started praising his signature.

"Lovely~ And this one."

Ayame had taken the window seat sideways, chin on her knee, watching her lover, the man taking over the entire Iskaris continent in real time, be directed like a boy guided by his mother.

The petite samurai was having the time of her life watching the scene.

"You didn’t read that one," she observed as Quinlan signed something.

"Of course not. Jasmine read it."

"That’s not how ruling works, Quin."

He merely shrugged and kept going, signing where Jasmine pointed.

A snort escaped the samurai.

Across the room, the fourteen-year-old was interrogating her third clause of the hour. But over here, the most feared man alive signed wherever a warm finger tapped.

Ayame filed the comparison away, deeply fond, and kept it to herself.

"Keep signing, my mighty conqueror~"

Mostly kept it to herself.

The boring stretch had gone quickly, all things considered.

Ravenshade’s lands would sit under crown administrators until the audit finished combing them.

The duchy’s armies were already marching under Stormlord’s marshals. The audit itself had taken one second to assign: it stayed with Iris, all of it, as deep as she cared to dig, for as long as she cared to keep digging.

The auditor in question had been confiscated by Seraphiel the moment the hall emptied, broken arm and all.

That was where they learned what else the new class had brought with it.

Seraphiel laid healing light on the arm. The break stayed exactly where it was, and Iris went grey to the lips, swayed once, and had to be caught before she hit the floor.

They tried twice more, gently. She came closer to going under each time.

The Demon of Vengeance could not be healed.

Seraphiel had gone very quiet at that, then steered her friend out by the good shoulder with the look she usually saved for a locked door.

"I have ideas about your class," she had said brightly.

Iris had gone. She had also told the entire corridor exactly where the elf could put her ideas.

Felicity had lasted admirably deep into the agenda before her first nod.

"Brain hurts..." she muttered weakly.

On the second, her chin hit her breastplate mid-sentence and the crown slid down to her nose. Feng Jiai appeared at the door on pure best-friend instinct, hauled her queen up onto her back, and carried her off to bed.

Alexios claimed the emptied desk without ceremony, rolled his sleeves a turn higher, and went to work on the wreckage of the day one document at a time. A stamp rose and fell under his hand.

Despite stepping down, he retained every right needed to govern the lands. But now, Felicity could dismiss him on a whim.

They kept going until both sides were done with their respective paperwork.

That left the last item.

"Item the final," read the young clerk who had drawn the short straw, and his voice thinned as he arrived at it. "Of the dissolved estate of House Ravenshade... there remains... one... issue."

He looked at the fireplace, went pale, and stopped reading.

Morgana Ravenshade had been standing beside that fireplace for the better part of an hour.

She had arrived under a crown writ delivered by a page who would not meet her eyes, and she had assumed, on entering, that her disposition would be the evening’s first order of business.

She had then watched grain schedules, toll ledgers, and a dispute over stable fees each receive the full and serious attention of the room.

Her left eye had developed a twitch somewhere around the stable fees.

"Ah," Quinlan said at last, brightening. "The greatest wife of all time. How could I possibly forget?"

Morgana’s mana came up hard enough to stir the ash in the grate.

The Primordial Villain spread both hands toward the woman by the fireplace.

"Old friend. The new era deserves a gift between our houses, and I’ve decided on it. Your wife. Returned to you, whole and intact."

Morgana’s whole seething stance came undone at once.

Freedom? Just like that?!

"Alexios-"

The stamp came down on the next document.

"The estate of Ravenshade is under audit seal," interjected Alexios. "Nothing leaves it until Iris Ravenclaw signs off on every last asset."

"Asset?!" The word came off the fireplace at a pitch that made the poker ring in its stand. "I am not estate property, you desiccated old vulture! All these years of marriage, and you cannot even look up from your papers!"

"You are a slave, an asset. Whether the legality of your enslavement holds is a matter to be settled in court, or by Her Majesty’s decree," grumbled Alexios, not looking up from his papers. "I no longer have the power to make such decisions."

"Hah?!"

"You wound me, old friend." Quinlan pressed a hand to his chest. "She’s a queen. The second strongest elemental mage on the continent. A national treasure."

"Slavery outranks a marriage," Alexios said, initialing a margin.

Quinlan grinned into it. He was more amused by this old bastard’s attitude than ever before.

"The marriage came first. Older claims win."

"You can’t even read a legal document, so why are you parroting claims that make no sense? Ask your wife to educate you on the matter before you speak up, please."

The stamp came down again.

Despite having just been verbally insulted, Quinlan only grew more amused. ’I see how it is, you damned old bastard...’ he chuckled inwardly.

Ayame had given up all pretense of minding the window. She leaned forward over her knee, following the volley with open delight.

"Stop this!" Morgana howled.

"In a moment," Quinlan told her pleasantly, and returned to the negotiation. "The northern keeps, Alexios. I’ll add both of them to the deal."

"You’re paying to get rid of your strongest slave?!" Morgana stomped her feet.

"I have keeps."

"The granary at Silver Hollow, then. Fully stocked, freshly audited."

"Half stocked," said Jasmine, without looking up from the ledger.

"Half stocked, freshly audited."

"You are offering me my own confiscations."

"With incredible generosity."

"Armies redraw their maps when I am rumored to be in the area!" Morgana’s voice climbed with every word, mana grinding in her veins. "Entire clans faint at my name! And you’re trying to pay a man to cart me away!"

"Yes..." Quinlan nodded along, delighted, as though she were making his pitch for him.

Then Quinlan added, "You’re strong, no doubt. But..." he shrugged. "Eh."

"Eh?! What do you mean eh?!"

"Where’s your devotion, old friend?" Quinlan tried next. "She gave you your heirs."

"A fact I intend to honor from a distance," said Alexios.

The fireplace tools had begun to rattle.

"You preening, self-satisfied pair of disgusting, creep-"

Both men turned to look at her with identical mild interest, waiting for the rest.

The rest did not come. Morgana’s mouth closed. Her left eye twitched, once.

"See that?" Quinlan opened a palm toward her, for Alexios. "She even learned how to behave while serving as my slave. She’s not the same terrible wife you remember."

"The gravity of the improvement stifles me."