Aiden sat at the head of the long stone table in Valthar’s grand keep. The room slled of damp wool, oiled leather, and woodsmoke.
Two dozen people filled the seats: local lords in patched finery, guild masters with ink-stained fingers, sky-palace officers in crisp uniforms, and Elizabeth on his right, Nyra on his left. The first full Imperial Council after the takeover was not going smoothly.
"We cannot bleed the city dry," Lord Harvik said, slapping the table. "The old duke took forty percent on grain. People still rember the winter famines."
Elizabeth leaned forward. "Then we do better. The Iron Tithe. Every house and guild reports their wealth from the old regi. They contribute ten percent of that value in resources or manpower.
No more, no less. In return, loyal contributors get first access to healing fields, protected trade routes through the passes, and enhancent priority for their officers who serve in the imperial army."
A rchant guild master snorted. "And if we refuse?"
Aiden looked at him directly. "You lose everything and your family watches. Simple choice."
The room quieted. Nyra passed around ledgers her new shadow-mapping network had compiled. Thin lines of ink showed supply routes, hidden caches, and troop movents across the mountain passes.
The system used runners, signal mirrors, and sky-palace observation posts. It gave them eyes everywhere.
Public audiences followed in the main square that afternoon. Aiden stood on the raised platform while the Golden Womb’s passive aura spread from the keep behind him.
It did not shine like a beacon. It simply made people listen longer and shout less. A line of petitioners waited.
The most entertaining one ca halfway through. Grain rchant Tormak, known for short weights and long lies, stepped forward with a practiced smile.
"My lord emperor, the tithe you ask is impossible. My stores are nearly empty after the fighting."
Aiden raised a hand. Two of Nyra’s agents dragged forward sacks from behind the platform. They split open. Grain spilled across the stones.
"Empty?" Aiden asked. "These ca from your three hidden warehouses outside the east gate. We have the ledgers too."
Tormak’s face went white. The crowd murmured, then grew louder. Aiden gave him the choice right there.
"Full contribution. Public confession of every short weight and bribe you made under the old duke. Or we take it all and burn your na from the records."
Tormak dropped to his knees. He confessed everything in a shaking voice. By the end, he was promising to deliver extra wagons if the emperor would let him keep his life and trade rights.
The crowd laughed at first, then clapped when Aiden accepted. One corrupt rchant had just beco a loud advocate for the new order. Word would spread.
Over the next days, Nyra’s network caught three minor lords hoarding weapons. No mass arrests.
Instead, Aiden ordered public honor contests in the training yards. Each lord sent champions against imperial soldiers enhanced by the Golden Womb. The fights were short and ugly.
One imperial sergeant, previously a nobody, broke a lord’s knight in under a minute. The common people cheered louder each ti. Loyalty increased. Tithe wagons rolled in steadily.
The near-riot ca on the fifth day. Crusade sympathizers had spread rumors of "soul taxes" and forced conversions. The square filled with angry voices by mid-afternoon. Aiden walked the walls at dusk.
Torches lit the battlents. The Golden Womb’s light glowed softly from the keep, enough to be seen but not blinding.
He raised his voice, no magic amplification needed. The aura carried it.
"There are no soul taxes. Today we open the first public healing field outside the west gate. Any citizen with wounds or sickness can use it free until winter. Trade caravans flying our banner get priority through the passes. But disloyalty has a price."
He pointed below. Soldiers dragged forward a proven traitor caught selling maps to northern agents. The man had already confessed under truth serum. Aiden gave the order.
The execution was quick, clean, and visible. The body was left hanging from the gate until morning as a reminder.
The crowd shifted. Shouts of anger turned into uneasy muttering, then scattered cheers. Cautious hope. Aiden stepped back as the people dispersed. Elizabeth joined him on the wall.
"Tithe collections are at seventy percent and rising," she said. "We have enough iron, grain, and fresh recruits to hold for months."
Nyra appeared from the shadows. "Scouts confirm the main crusade army has begun marching south. Thirty thousand at least. Korran Vale’s southern coalition is probing our eastern borders too."
Aiden nodded. "Good. Let them co."
The passes north of Valthar turned white with early snow. The crusade army funneled into the narrow routes like blood into a cut.
Aiden refused open battle. He made the mountains his anvil and the sky-palace his hamr.
Engineers worked day and night. Golden Womb-boosted laborers moved stones that should have taken cranes.
Barricades rose across choke points, reinforced with golden threads that resisted fire and siege spells. Elizabeth commanded from the sky-palace above, directing artillery crews.
Precise shots of stabilized energy lanced down whenever crusader formations bunched up.
Nyra ran the ghost companies. Small squads of enhanced soldiers dropped from the sky-palace at night, hit supply trains, then vanished.
They left false trails, burned wagons, and dead sentries. The crusaders started seeing imperial forces everywhere. Morale dropped.
Aiden spent most nights moving between positions. He slept little. The Golden Womb kept him functional.
The critical mont ca on the third day of fighting. Crusaders seized a key ridge overlooking the main pass.
Their war-bishop, a tall man nad Gavren with a voice that carried across valleys, rallied them with sermons about holy fire.
Aiden gathered three hundred n and attacked during the next heavy snowstorm. Visibility was near zero.
His troops endured because the aura healed frostbite as fast as it ford. The northern levies broke under the conditions.
Aiden reached the barricade the crusaders had thrown up. It was collapsing under their own weight. He planted his shoulder against the logs and held it long enough for reinforcents to pour through.
Arrows whistled past. One grazed his arm. The wound closed before blood reached his wrist.
Gavren stepped forward in the open ground between lines. "Aiden! Single combat. Let the gods decide."
Aiden accepted. Both armies watched from the slopes.
They t in the snow. Gavren fought with a blessed mace and shield. He was strong and experienced. But every ti their weapons clashed, Aiden pushed the Golden Womb’s aura forward.
Not healing this ti. Erosion. The bishop’s holy zeal, that burning certainty, started to crack. His swings slowed. Doubt entered his eyes.
Gavren’s own warriors saw it. Their formation wavered. When Aiden finally knocked the mace aside and put a sword to the bishop’s throat, the crusader lines broke. n threw down banners and ran.
That was when the rear attack ca.
Korran Vale’s southern coalition, seeing the crusade falter, launched their own assault on the eastern flank.
They had tid it to catch Aiden between two forces. Instead, they ran straight into the elite reserves he had held back exactly for this.
Imperial troops hit the Korran forces hard. Elizabeth shifted sky-palace fire to support. Nyra’s ghosts appeared behind them. The pincer collapsed in on itself.
By nightfall, broken crusade banners littered the snow. Korran’s knights retreated in disorder, leaving wagons and wounded behind. The first wave of the Northern Crusade was shattered.
Aiden stood on the ridge as the last fighting died down. Elizabeth landed a small sky-palace skiff nearby. Nyra joined them, cloak dusted with snow.
"Losses?" Aiden asked.
"Acceptable," Elizabeth said. "We gained more recruits from the battle than we lost. The legend of Valthar will spread fast."
Nyra added, "Korran Vale lost face again. Their coalition is fracturing. We bought six months, maybe more."
Aiden looked north into the darkness. The passes were quiet now except for the wind. "Six months is enough to turn defense into invasion. The Iron Tithe works. The army is growing. Next ti we don’t wait for them to co to us."
He turned back toward the lights of Valthar in the distance. The keep glowed faintly with the Golden Womb’s light. The city was no longer conquered territory. It was the heart of sothing new.
Work would continue tomorrow. More tithes to collect, more fortifications to build, more enemies to break. But tonight the passes belonged to the empire, and the broken banners under the snow proved it.
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