"By the way, Grand Duke. May I ask an impertinent question?"
"There's no such thing as impertinent from a guest. What is it?"
Daniela asked with careful hesitation. She had finished reading the second volume of Atlas at some point and had since turned her attention to other novels. The guest room was bitterly cold.
Daniela, who was still lingering here in this study, seemed to harbor no particular misgivings about it. If anything, I was the one tempted to ask whether she found it uncomfortable.
"How you managed to grow the North like this..."
"Hmm. I'm not sure I follow what you mean."
"I'd always heard that the North was a place of nothing but cold winds — where people ate each other alive. I never imagined it would have cities this large, or roads this fine..."
"There was effort behind it, naturally."
"But all of this — the Grand Duke himself..."
I gave a nod. In truth, it had only been possible with the help of many people. Daniela would know that well enough. But a man, when standing before a woman, cannot help but put on a little swagger.
"There's a long story to it, but the current situation isn't exactly ideal."
"Why is that?"
"It's complicated. In that case, attending the council meeting in a few days might also—"
Wait. Wait. That might be pushing it a bit.
No matter how welcome a guest she was, I couldn't lay bare all of the North's affairs.
I shook my head. Daniela's eyes, bright with expectation, made it painful — but it simply wasn't possible.
"It would be wonderful if you could see the recent history of the North."
Not being able to explain it directly was... a little frustrating. But one thing was certain: the North was not what it once was. It was different from a year ago, and different again from ten years before that.
There were reasons for that. Only now was not quite the right time.
"When I'm able to explain it properly, I'll tell you then — at leisure."
Daniela sat quietly, watching me. Was something the matter?
"This is the first time I've looked at you like this — face to face."
"Not quite the barbarian you expected?"
Daniela waved her hand in protest, insisting that wasn't what she meant. I was well aware that the North's reputation left much to be desired.
But I didn't want to be misunderstood. I wanted her to know that the North was a place where people could live — and live well.
Zamuchin and Dorgon returned several days after Daniela had first looked at me without flinching. Zamuchin had brought a few others back with him to the North, it was said.
He had also arrived carrying a letter — sealed with the signet of Roland von Barth, head of House Barth.
"This wasn't what I had in mind, Foreign Minister."
"It is my failing for not properly understanding Your Grace's intentions."
Zamuchin dipped his head slightly. The ministerial council convened in the Hall of Winter. Ministers and attending nobles stood arrayed around the Grand Duke's seat, encircling it on all sides.
The personal guard stood at their backs, faces set like stone.
When the letter reached my hands, I confirmed that no one had broken the seal. The envelope bore only the signet of Marquess Roland von Barth.
To His Grace, Grand Duke Theodor von Ardrno Ifela Wintergard.
Your Grace, the great Grand Duke of the North — Roland von Barth, Marquess of the South, offers his sincerest wishes for the North's boundless prosperity.
House Barth has long been situated in close proximity to the North, and yet we have, until now, failed to maintain any meaningful correspondence with Your Grace.
This is entirely my own failing, and a neglect of the duties I owe to my station.
Yet if, even upon receiving this letter, I might be granted the honor of speaking with Your Grace, the great Grand Duke of the North, I would consider it the highest privilege imaginable.
Should it please Your Grace, I humbly entreat the opportunity to meet at the upcoming banquet.
From the South, Roland von Barth.
"There's a banquet?"
"Yes. I understand one is being arranged to improve relations with the Imperial family."
"And they wish to invite me?"
"Your Grace. It is a customary gesture — you need not trouble yourself over it."
I handed the letter back to the guard. It passed into Zamuchin's hands. He received it, then returned to stand beside Dorgon.
"What is the Empire actually like? Is it truly a livable place?"
Zamuchin and Dorgon exchanged a glance. For just a moment, they appeared to be weighing whether they ought to soften the truth for the Grand Duke. Was the difference truly that stark?
"Your Grace. With all due respect — the interior of the Empire was like something out of a world of darkness."
"A world of darkness?"
"It was a crueler place than the North before Your Grace came to power — if you can believe it. Starving commoners and nobles drowning in empty ceremony. What I witnessed was nothing short of a world of darkness."
Dorgon's words sent a ripple of unease through the hall.
In truth, many who could not survive in the South had emigrated to the North — and from their accounts, the South had always sounded like a warm and comfortable place.
Perhaps they had simply seen the wrong parts of it. I asked again, but Zamuchin's answer was unequivocal.
"It was no different from a world of darkness."
Zamuchin would not be lying in this chamber. I surveyed the room. The ministers stirred among themselves, and there was a palpable undercurrent of fear.
Not fear for the Southern Empire. Fear for the North. The answer to what Daniela had asked — how the North had grown so much — was the very thing I had been unable to give her.
"Hexon, Berdo — and the rest of you ministers. What is the current state of the North?"
I rested my chin in my hand and called the ministers forward. They bowed at the foot of the dais, then began unfolding enormous sheaves of documents.
The cover bore the inscription: 'Research on the Scale and Development of the North's Economy.' Always updated, always precise — I took the document and opened it.
"The last time I was briefed, I had the impression we were maintaining a rather precarious balance. Is that still the case?"
"It is, Your Grace."
"Is there any remaining space within the North to absorb further expenditure?"
"None whatsoever."
A sigh.
The Grand Duke's exhale echoed through the Hall of Winter. The nobles who remembered the North when it had nothing understood at once what those words meant. The trap of wealth. The ceiling of growth.
The Wintergard Rebellion — my father had fought his uncles for supremacy. Power had disregarded bloodlines and ground people into dust.
After my father's final victory, he had been able to claim the seat of Grand Duke of the North — but the city had been stripped bare. Soldiers and mages swarmed everywhere, and winter had come.
The war had been so devastating that there was truly nothing left standing within the city.
Those who had survived were waiting to die, and the corpses lay frozen where they had fallen, unburied and abandoned.
To explain how the North had grown so much, one had to begin by emphasizing that at the very start, there had been nothing at all.
"Together with the workforce that remained after the war, the Central Furnace project was an unqualified success. Mastone extraction also increased substantially, allowing us to channel vast resources into the Central Furnace."
Hexon was right. After the war, the North had thrown itself into reconstruction.
Using designs I had drawn up and the abilities of the surplus mages, the Central Furnace had been installed at the heart of the city. Countless laborers had been poured into that effort.
"The North's population began generating surplus capital beyond their production output, and by collecting this as taxation, we were able to pursue road construction, water and sewage infrastructure, and various development projects."
Was it not a thing of joy? The accumulation of wealth. But wealth that continued to accumulate unchecked could become a problem. The inflation trap.
The exterior was stable, and internally, wealth kept piling up.
Having nowhere to spend it meant the cycle would eventually collapse. The North's infrastructure had itself been a policy designed to consume that wealth.
Viewed on a grand scale, wealth needed to be continually spent to some degree — otherwise the value of what one held would diminish.
Roads, water and sewage systems, schools — these could sustain the consumption of wealth over time.
My prediction had been that the internal market cycle would turn in the same fashion. It was the conviction I had pursued without deviation since taking power.
"If that equilibrium could be maintained indefinitely, all would be well — but there is now nowhere left within the North to absorb further expenditure."
"We cannot build grand monuments or new palaces either. Those would not consume wealth — they would obliterate it."
Berdo added his voice to the assessment. Explosive growth brings explosive consequences.
"What if we reviewed new facility construction — that sort of thing — once more from the ground up?"
"We might replace what exists with something new, but the people will not open their purses."
"This was a mistake. This was my mistake."
I had believed it was the optimal method for rebuilding the North. Increase production, let the Central Furnace and infrastructure devour the money while developing in tandem — I had dreamed of that ideal.
But at some point, the rate at which money was being spent and the rate at which the population was growing had far surpassed my projections. And yet I had kept directing attention inward — collect taxes, reinvest. I had believed that cycle was perfect.
"Your Grace, do you recall the equilibrium figures you projected some twenty years ago?"
"In broad terms."
"We are currently running at over two hundred and fifty percent above that equilibrium."
Economic suffocation was drawing near. Of course, we could simply wither away slowly as well.
Like the Empire.
Hexon bowed his head. No one in the room took issue with his words. He was not laying blame on the Grand Duke for a mistake. He was demanding what came next.
"Mastone consumption is also declining sharply, and there is nothing left within the North that can—"
"I've decided."
I rose from my seat. I descended the steps one at a time. Perhaps the problem had been my insistence on remaining confined within the North. In that case—
"There is no choice but to push outward."