The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 689: Sisters Reunion

Elanor was with Josephine when Thorvald and Alexis finally made it up to the sitting room near the door of the Palace.

"I had heard that you were pregnant from the boys, but I wasn’t sure how far along you were, so I picked somewhere near the door," Josephine joked as her sister entered the room.

"It hasn’t been that long since you saw me, I’m not so pregnant as to be an invalid."

"I don’t know, you look pretty large to me."

"And that’s my cue to leave you fine ladies to your own devices. I will see you later, wifey." Thorvald announced, right before fleeing the room.

"Well, he didn’t last long. How are things going for you in West Keria?" Alexis asked.

"It’s not bad. Northinta has dryer weather than we do here in the Capital, but it is also warmer. That’s nice. They’ve also agreed to let me start building up a proper Paladin Order for the Duchy.

That’s going to be a long project, it takes years to train up a proper Paladin, even if you’re starting with trained soldiers.

But once it’s done, we will have plenty to be proud of.

I’m more interested in how things are going in Wistover. Half the news that we get makes no sense, and then we start seeing strange things that seem to confirm the rumours."

Alexis smiled at Josephine’s confusion.

Elanor had already tried to explain the situation in Wistover to her, but she hadn’t fully understood a lot of it, and her brothers didn’t let her wander the city much or talk to strangers without a chaperone.

So, she hadn’t been able to find out everything that she wanted to.

"it really is that good, I’m afraid. The land in Wistover is incredible, and we missed the worst of the storm. It’s still wet season there, but we didn’t get much flooding, the river stayed within its banks, and just ran high for a few weeks.

That left us with plenty of crops from the off season, and now that we’ve got the Natural Sons all settled into their territories, things are really starting to look up.

We brought a few of them along today, but mostly we were focused on bringing the others from Stansia Province.

The ones that nobody expected to make it.

The idea was that we could remind everyone that there are three major cities in Stansia Province, each with an Earl and multiple counts overseeing their region.

Add Wistover to that, and Stansia province is in a good position for growth.

I think that Dominic is using this chance to get to really know the other Noblemen, as he has barely met most of them. We weren’t formally introduced when he was named the Governor, but everyone here in the Capital should know them.

Forcing them all to be in one spot, with him as the de facto leader of their faction, will either help stabilize him as a Duke or be absolute chaos."

Josephine listened to her sister rant, then laughed and patted her on the shoulder.

"I’m sure that it will be fine. If there is one thing that Dominic Wavemates is good at, it’s smooth talking the Nobles. It’s a particular gift of his, and if that doesn’t work, there’s always a pistol duel to sort out the insults."

"Don’t give him ideas. He’s already the King of bad ideas. Just the other day, he managed to work a deal with a feral dragonkin and a bunch of trolls so smoothly that everyone assumed that they were part of some civilized bunch of freedom fighters.

But the more that I look into the Burlish Resistance Army, the more I realize that it’s barely more than a bandit group with a hatred for monsters."

"You know, at some point, we’re going to have a conversation about what actually constitutes a monster. Because apparently you’ve decided that Trolls no longer count, and convinced the trolls to go along with it."

Alexis laughed. "I think that is a Dominic side effect as well. For one, he speaks Troll, and they understand him far better than anyone else. But it seems the Wavemates Family had an agreement with the Trolls, and the Trolls are willing to uphold it in Wistover Duchy as long as his family is in charge.

I still haven’t gotten the full details, I asked Dave, but he only gives one detail at a time, as he remembers them."

"Who is Dave?"

Alexis smiled, and Elanor laughed. "Oh, you need to get Daves in your Manor, too! Dave is absolutely wonderful."

Josephine waited for Alexis to answer, since her little sister was not giving her the answer she needed.

"Dave is one of the two most popular names for male trolls, making up nearly half the population. We have fifty Mountain Trolls named Dave working as Manor security and personal bodyguards.

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a three-metre tall Mountain Troll in full magitech battle armour, with a shield the size of your bedroom door." Alexis joked.

Josephine sighed. "It sounds like you’ve really gone a whole other route with the Duchy. But you look happy. Who would have thought that you would still be in a good mood, even when you were off monster hunting duty for an entire year?"

Alexis shrugged. "There are advantages. But I still get to train my veiled maids and the Manor guards. So it’s more of an off season than a restriction."

"Oh, that’s not a bad idea. I’ve been working on the Paladin order, but I never thought about setting up a whole new domestic group.

Honestly, it would be a huge pain, as the house already has so many skilled staff who have worked there since childhood. Generational staff are not easy to get rid of, and they don’t really give you any reason to want to.

The only one in the whole house who give me headaches is Thorvald."

"And that’s the only one you can’t really kick out if he goes too far."