June 30th, 1810
News traveled fast. It always did, when the news was worth traveling.
Island to island. Nation to nation. Continent to continent — carried by newspaper ink and hushed voices across telegraph wires and parlour tables and merchant ships. Every corner of the world had heard the announcement within days: the Ivanovich family would be crowning a new king. A young one. A genius unlike any recorded in the modern era — younger than anyone who had ever stood at such a threshold, yet possessed of a power that had shaken those who witnessed it to their very cores.
Some celebrated. Some praised the heavens. Others sat quietly with their morning papers and felt a nameless unease settle into their chests, the kind that comes when the balance of something vast and long-established begins, unmistakably, to shift.
The ceremony was still days away, and already crowds were forming — travellers arriving from distant lands, crossing seas and mountain ranges for the chance to witness it in person, or to watch the ethereal broadcast projected into the sky by the great machines the Empire had erected for the occasion.
What unsettled people most was not merely the crowning itself. It was the accompanying revelation: that the Herrscher-born child of the Ivanovich family had shattered one of his final limiters. At nineteen years of age, he had broken through to an indigo ethereal core — a feat that had no precedent in living memory.
The Youngest Grand Monarch of Modern History.
Aleksander Ivanovich. — ✦ — Edo Castle — Imperial Empire of Japan
Word reached the Four Grand Families of Humanity not long after it went public.
Within the main military fortress of the Yamato family — the great Edo Castle, its stone walls immovable as the family legacy they housed — the Head Commander of the Royal Army sat at her bureau beneath a window that let in just enough wind to shift the papers on her desk if she wasn't careful.
General Erika Yamato. First Princess of the Yamato family. Heir to the throne. The future Empress.
Her short crimson-rose hair stirred in the draft from the window. Her expression, as it almost always was, gave nothing away — composed, precise, the kind of stillness that came not from absence of feeling but from long practice keeping feeling exactly where she wanted it.
A knock at the door.
"Come in," she said, without looking up from the documents spread before her.
The door burst open. A girl stumbled through it, visibly out of breath, one hand braced against the frame.
"Your Highness!"
"What is it, Shiraori?" Still not looking up.
"You have to see this!" Shiraori crossed the room in a rush, clutching a newspaper, and set it on the bureau with rather more force than was strictly necessary. "The Ivanovich family — they've announced a crowning ceremony! Days from now!"
That made Erika look up.
For a moment she said nothing. She took the newspaper — printed in Japanese, the ink still fresh-sharp — and read. Her eyes moved quickly. Her face remained still. But there was something underneath it now, some small disturbance in the composure, like a stone dropped into very deep water.
"There's no way," she murmured.
"I know!" Shiraori pressed both palms to her cheeks, swaying with barely contained energy. "They're actually doing it — they're crowning him Emperor and Tsar! And that means—" her face went scarlet, a thin red line appearing beneath her nose — "that means Aleksander Ivanovich's face is going to be on every newspaper on Earth for the rest of my natural life. What a blessing from the heavens!"
Erika was no longer listening to her.
Her gaze had returned to the page. Youngest Grand Monarch in Modern Human History. She read the line twice. Sat back slowly in her chair.
"I didn't think he'd break through before Ragnar or I did," she said, half to herself.
A silence followed — brief, internal. Then, against all precedent, the corner of her mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Something more private than that. The expression of someone acknowledging, without wanting to, that they are genuinely impressed.
"Just as extraordinary as you've always been," she said quietly. "Even when we were still children." A faint, almost reluctant sound — closer to a laugh than she would have admitted. "You really are a one-of-a-kind freak of nature, aren't you."
She closed the newspaper. Folded it once. Set it aside.
And said nothing more.
— ✦ — The Snowy Mountains — Imperial Empire of Norway
In the Great Empire of Norway — domain of the Flashstride family, one of the Four Grand Houses — the world was white and vast and very quiet.
Snow fell through the mountain forests in soft, unhurried curtains. Birds picked their way between frost-covered branches. Snow rabbits moved in short, careful arcs through the underbrush. Everything had the particular stillness of a winter afternoon that doesn't expect to be interrupted.
And then time stopped.
Not figuratively. Not as a matter of impression or atmosphere. Time simply — stopped. Birds hung mid-wingbeat. Snowflakes held their positions in the air, suspended between sky and ground. Sound itself went flat and absent. The world became a painting of itself.
Through the frozen forest walked a figure.
Tall. A long coat of royal blue trimmed in gold that dragged through the snow without disturbing it. Dark navy hair like spilled ink against all that white, falling long and smooth past his shoulders. His face was one of those faces that aging had chosen to deal with gently — touched by time but not diminished by it, still sharp, still carrying the same dangerous quality it must always have had. A crown sat on his head with the ease of something that had always been there. And his eyes, as they moved through the frozen stillness he had made, were calm with the particular calm of a man who has never once had to hurry.
He was looking for someone.
He tilted his head back. Looked up through the lattice of frozen branches toward the mountain peak above — where faint sparks of light hung motionless in the stilled air, tiny and distant as caught stars.
There.
The Grand Monarch of Infinite Motion.
The Fastest Mortal Alive.
Emperor Thorfine Flashstride — Sovereign of the Imperial Nation of Norway.
One of the Four Pillars of Humanity.
Time resumed.
At the mountain's peak, a group of figures in heavy white winter-gear stood scattered across the ridge — goggles of carved wood, thick-furred cloaks, hunting bows slung across backs. They had been scouting and tracking for the better part of the morning. They did not hear the Emperor approach. They simply became suddenly and acutely aware that he was there, in the way one becomes aware of a change in pressure.
All of them startled — hands reaching for weapons, bodies going rigid.
All except one.
The young man at the front of the group didn't lower his telescope. "What brings you all the way out here, Grandpa?" he said, still looking at the horizon. "You came from Stormvind Borg? That's a long way for a social call."
"I'm old," Emperor Thorfine said, coming to stand beside him, "not immobile."
Prince Ragnar Flashstride — first in line to the Norwegian throne, the one all these men were accompanying through the mountains today — finally lowered the telescope. He looked at his grandfather with the easy grin of someone who finds most things faintly amusing, and has enough confidence to let it show.
"Fair enough." Then, more quietly: "This isn't really a social call, is it."
"No." Thorfine turned to look out over the white expanse. "Emperor Graviil has announced that he'll be stepping down and crowning his successor. In the coming days. The public is in an uproar — it was entirely without warning." A pause. "I didn't expect him to move before I did."
Ragnar was quiet for a moment. The wind moved through his hair.
"You don't have to say it, Grandfather," he said. "I've already been thinking about it."
He leaned back against the rock face behind him, crossing his arms. "The situation with Father is what it is — he chose to leave the line of succession, chose to marry outside the expectation of the main house, chose to step away from any political role. I'm not going to argue about whether he was right or wrong. The point is that the responsibility he walked away from has to go somewhere." He met his grandfather's eyes. "So it goes to me. That's always been clear to me. It's why I left home and came to live with you in the capital in the first place."
"The only reason I've held off," Ragnar continued, the lightness in his voice returning, "is Aleksander. We made each other a promise — that we'd both take the throne once we'd reached our indigo core stages. That we'd do it together, as equals." He pushed off from the rock and stood straight, and something in his posture shifted — not louder, exactly, but more certain. "But he's done it first. Which means I'm behind."
He smiled — not small, not polite, but the full, sun-bright grin of someone who has just been given a very good reason to push harder.
"So I'll train until I catch up. And when I do, I'll take my throne the same way he took his. That's all there is to it." He looked at his grandfather steadily. "You've carried the weight of the crown long enough. Our family has enough internal conflict as it is — main branch against sub-branch, everyone arguing about who has the right to lead. I'm going to be the answer to that argument." A beat. "So stop worrying."
Emperor Thorfine looked at his grandson for a long moment.
Then he smiled — the slow, genuine smile of a man who has lived long enough to know the difference between confidence and empty bravado, and who was looking, right now, at the former.
That boy. That Aleksander Ivanovich. He had struck a spark in Ragnar that nothing else had managed to reach — and now it was burning exactly the way it should.
— ✦ — Yeongwon-gung Palace — Imperial Nation of Korea
The garden of the Yeongwon-gung was the kind of place that made noise feel like a personal affront. Sculpted stone paths wound between arrangements of winter-pruned trees and pale flowering shrubs. A small fountain murmured somewhere out of sight. The air smelled of cold earth and brewed tea.
At a low garden table, two figures sat across from each other — both white-haired, though for entirely different reasons.
The elder of the two reached for her teacup with the particular precision of someone navigating the world without sight, guided by sound and habit and something that went beyond both. A length of sheer silk cloth was draped across her eyes — hiding them, but leaving the rest of her face open: composed, elegant, and, at this particular moment, quietly disapproving.
"That's quite a lot of sugar cubes," she said.
Across the table, her granddaughter froze mid-drop.
"Just because I'm blind," the Empress continued pleasantly, "doesn't mean I can't hear them hitting the bottom of the cup, Jasmine."
Empress Lee Seonhwa.
Grand Monarch of the Fated Tomorrows.
The Blind Oracle of Chronos.
She Who Rules the Unending Hour.
Ruler of the Imperial Nation of Korea. One of the Four Monarchs of Humanity. Of all the Grand Monarchs, she was perhaps the most beloved — not in the cold, admiring way of distant reverence, but warmly, personally, the way people love someone they feel they actually know. Her popularity crossed demographics and borders in a way that even the formidable Lady Mei's reputation had not quite managed.
Her granddaughter — Princess Jasmine Jin-ah Lee, heir to the Korean throne — set the sugar tongs down with great dignity.
"You know how I am with sugar, Grandma."
"I do," the Empress said. "That's why I'm mentioning it. It's not good for you."
Jasmine's cheeks puffed out slightly. "...I know."
The Empress's expression softened — still fond, faintly smug — and she lifted her own cup. "In any case. Have you heard the news coming out of Russia?"
"What news?"
"It seems the Ivanovich family will be crowning a new king. In the coming days."
Jasmine's teacup tilted dangerously. She caught it. "Wait — what? Since when? How did I not—"
"It was sudden," the Empress agreed, with the light amusement of someone who finds being surprised a refreshing novelty. "Even my clairvoyance didn't see this particular announcement coming. There are still things that find ways to catch me off-guard, it seems." She set her cup down gently. "But I think this is wonderful news, all things considered."
She folded her hands on the table, the picture of serene innocence.
"After all — your brother-in-law is getting crowned. Which means you'll finally have a reason to go and see your dear Xavier again, after all this time."
The reaction was immediate and total. Jasmine's face went the color of a lacquered box, both hands flying up to cover her cheeks as she sputtered, "Grandma! Why would you say that — you can't just say things like that without any warning—!"
"Oh, calm down," the Empress said, and she was already laughing, shoulders shaking in a most un-imperial fashion. "You're not hiding anything from anyone, Jasmine. Least of all from me."
"I am NOT—"
"You are."
"GRANDMA!"
The Empress dissolved into laughter — the genuinely helpless kind, the kind she would never permit herself in public but allowed freely here, in the garden, with just the two of them and the sound of the fountain. She could only imagine the expression on her granddaughter's face right now, and the imagining was doing her no favors in terms of composure.
"I'm serious," the Empress said, once she'd recovered enough to form sentences. "I would love to go myself — I've been meaning to meet my future son-in-law properly, before he and the others are sent to the elven world. But I doubt I'll be able to carve out the time to even attend the ceremony itself." She waved a hand. "So I'll send you in my place."
"GRANDMA!"
The laughter returned, fuller than before, filling the quiet garden and startling a bird somewhere in the branches overhead into sudden, indignant flight.