3. Fallen Empire

For the longest time, Enra could peer through Chonib’s open door unseen, until she finally caught him. The weapon training had exhausted him, and he accidentally kicked a vase. That made a mess and noise.

Chonib laughed at him as she helped clean up the broken shards.

“Oh, no, no, I’ll do it myself,” Enra mumbled. “The queen really doesn’t have to—”

“Queen?” Chonib laughed even harder. Enra looked around, his cheeks growing hot, as he feared her laughter would wake up half the palace. As usual, her light was the only light. “I am nothing.”

“Nothing!?” Enra dropped some shards back to the floor. “Otto treats you like a god!”

“Only because I can Moonread very well.”

Enra entered her room properly to dispose of the broken shards in a garbage crate. He saw the painting now: a perfect representation of the moon as she was this evening. The entire enchanting picture as seen from Chonib’s balcony.

“So, erm, well, how silly of me,” Enra stammered. “The one time I walk this hallway and I kick a vase!”

Chonib raised an eyebrow. “What were you doing all the other nights you visited my door? Levitating?”

His entire face turned red. His grip shifted around on the wooden fighting stick he carried from training. He wanted to step back and leave the room at once—he also wanted to stay very badly.

Had it always been this hot inside this room? He almost seemed to glow.

Chonib stepped closer.

“Well, if that’s what it takes to get you in my room,” she said. “I will place a new vase in an impractical location every evening!”

He frowned. “Why—oh, you dislike vases?”

Chonib returned to her sitting pillow to finish the painting.

“The Moon whispers that I’ll meet a wonderful person tonight. Someone who will achieve greatness. Am I wrong? Have I misread the Moon?”

She was … weird. Pretty, sweet, and weird. He waved his paws before his face, he even waved a stack of papers, but his glowing body did not cool.

“With all respect, your not-highness, I don’t think the Moon can’t speak. And if it whispers, you can’t hear it from this far anyway. It’s illogical.”

Chonib shook her entire body. She’d placed one wrong brush stroke.

“Oh. Ah. You’re more of a Sun person, am I right?”

“Not really,” he said. “I feel hot enough as it is.”

Her painting was done. She threw her brushes away and placed the canvas against the wall to dry.

“Otto will have to accept this one is ruined because I was … distracted,” she mumbled to herself. “Pff, as if the rich traders care that the moon has one wrong paint stroke.”

Enra felt he had to leave. This was improper. The boys would notice his delayed return and he still wasn’t sure if he could trust those other boys.

But he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to keep talking to this weird bear who’d received an important position in Ottojon based on … complete nonsense, right?

“Tell me, Enra, did your parents ever tell you that you’re special?”

“Every day. But all parents say that to their children.”

Chonib looked sad. “You won the lottery with your parents. They could do magic, no?”

“Sometimes. If they wanted.” Enra froze and instinctively raised his weapon. “How do you know my name?”

Chonib yawned and crawled to her bed. A palace filled with colors and soft silks, especially compared to Enra’s wooden plank of a bed.

“I am tired. We’ll talk tomorrow?”

Enra’s glowing head nodded before he could stop it. Then he turned around and ran away.

Their nightly meetings became a habit. Enra simply followed the one light at the end of the tunnel and could enjoy an hour with a weird bear and a pretty painting. It reminded him of how much he missed home. It also made his life here almost … bearable.

Until he walked into Chonib’s room without looking, failing to notice she had company. The highest possible company.

“I find it hard to read the Moon tonight,” Otto hissed softly. “Tell me if we should attack Kristinapel or not.”

“Of course I do as you ask,” said Chonib. “But is it necessary? Ottojon has already conquered all of Compana. Is that not enough?”

Enra flattened himself against the wall and kept listening. Otto had, funnily enough, trained him for situations like these. He even made sure his shadow didn’t give him away.

“Compana is just one of three continents.”

“And that is your goal? Collect them all? Is it so hard to say: this is enough, I am satisfied?”

“Alixader the Giant was never satisfied. And look how the entire world adores him.”

“Yes,” she replied sharply, calming herself afterwards. “If someone conquers you, of course you remember the name! Who invented paint? Brushes? Canvas? The formula that describes how the moon influences eb and flood? Nobody knows! Because the inventors didn’t kill your loved ones!”

“My moon, my moon,” Otto said calmly. “Surely you don’t say that the invention of paint brushes is just as important as an empire that controls a continent?”

“I am saying that. In a thousand years, animals will still be painting—but your empire will not be around anymore.”

Otto frowned. “You don’t know what you’re saying, my little moon. Surely you enjoy the riches here? Come, I will give you the ten most beautiful jewels in all of—”

“Who wears too much jewelry,” Chonib said, “is too heavy to save themselves if they fall in the ocean.”

She started reading the Moon again. Otto was next to her, coiled like only a snake can, and followed her gaze.

“I can build an entire palace just for you,” Otto said. “I can give you a large country and allow you to do whatever you want. No more worries about food, or freedom, or whatever.”

“Who turns an entire forest into his backyard,” she said, “will waste his time worrying about all possible intruders along their enormous border.”

The snake was aghast. He suddenly turned his gaze to the door and slithered to it.

Enra stopped breathing and pressed his muscular body even deeper into the stone.

Otto shut the door with a bang. The voices grew dull, harder to understand.

“Something is not right in your head. That’s why I forgive your … statements. Everyone grabs more if they can get more, you would too if you were … normal.”

Chonib sighed. “There is one thing you can do, while you’re still inventing the new laws and what you want the empire to be.”

“You make it sound easy,” the snake hissed. “All my advisors, my sons, everyone is telling me I am crazy and that we should keep doing things the way we always did. Saying it’s unfair to those who always lived following the old rules. They had low taxes, and now they’re high! Or the other way around.”

“It is,” she replied. “Does that make it bad?”

Otto returned to his coiled posture.

“Make art and culture important,” Chonib continued. “Pay your servants for building beautiful architecture, writing inspiring poems, crafting colorful paintings. Just like those traders pay you handsomely for my paintings. If the other empires see the worth of art and creativity …”

“That’s all?” Otto sounded like he’d discovered a fortune. “For your loyalty and advice, forever?”

She stayed silent. Then she spoke so softly that Enra had to crawl against the door to hear it.

“The Moon says to attack Kristinapel at once. It is weak and it will fall.”

Otto hissed loudly; Enra had learned this meant extreme joy.

“And does the Moon talk about the traitor too?” Otto asked. “The one who spread the lie that I was dead?”

“I am afraid not.”

Had they still not identified the traitor? It was clearly one of the sons, but who? Otto refused to torture his own children for information, but this meant the princes did whatever they pleased, which amounted to a lot of infighting and accusations.

The door suddenly opened.

Pain shot through Enra’s spine, but he gritted his teeth and managed to stay silent.

Otto slithered into the hallway, exuberant. “Soldiers! Wake up! We’re taking Kristinapel!”

Enra could not stay hidden. The wall let go of him and he fell onto the carpet, looking up at the snake with anxious eyes.

“That is fast … and loyal, dear boy, but you’re still too young for this,” Otto said. “Go to bed.”

As the palace woke up, Otto barked command after command.

“Also build a few beautiful mosques and hire me five royal poets.”

Chonib left her room a while later and smiled at Enra. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be with her and lean against her warm bear body, but Chonib found it unwise and whispered for him to leave now.

She was right. They were a danger to each other—and a distraction. All eyes on revenge against Otto.

A month passed by.

They received the message that Kristinapel had indeed fallen and was renamed to Isanmool. A made-up word based on the Dovetongue for “in honor of my moon”. With the loss of their capital, the Traferia Empire had fallen apart, broken like that vase of which Enra still kept a shard. The next empire gone, swallowed by Ottojon.

At that moment, imagining the destruction of his home, he decided enough was enough. He woke the other boys and told them his plan.