Black Heart Chapter Seven

Social connections were important for the nobility, and unlike commoners, they spread out vertically as well as horizontally.

A commoner's important social connections were almost always going to be other commoners, with few exceptions. Usually, that would also be limited to those in close physical proximity to them. Individuals who all lived in the same village or town, forming connections to the local butcher, the local farmers, the local baker, and so on. Sometimes, if a commoner worked in a field that took them long distances, they would form connections in several different towns.

All of these connections, however, would be horizontal. Meetings and arrangements between individuals on the same social level. The closest that the vast majority of commoners got to making a vertical connection was with the tax collectors, who were themselves commoners but in a position where they acted as go-betweens to gather the money owed in taxes and deliver it to the local lord's coffers. The tax collectors themselves would sometimes meet the lord to discuss the current rates and why they should go up or why the numbers didn't match expectations. There were also the staff of a noble household to account for, but discounting those...

For the most part, commoners forming a regular connection with nobility was a much rarer thing. Sometimes there was a chance meeting that developed into something more, the 'prince and peasant' dramatic love story found in garbage novels that played to the same underlying hope in mankind that kept people coming back to throw dice in gambling houses even when they knew that they wouldn't actually win the jackpot.

The second most common option for commoners that weren't a part of a household to engage with nobility, after becoming a tax collector, was becoming an Adventurer or Mercenary. All nobility were expected to at least attempt to get licensed, after all, and were generally considered disappointments if they managed to fail. Not all would continue on as an Adventurer after graduation, admittedly, but it was still a big chance for commoners to meet and form personal connections with the nobles.

But in almost all cases, commoner social connections were a horizontal web that would sometimes have threads leading upward.

For nobles it was different. There were different levels of nobility to consider. The horizontal connections to noble families at the borders of your own lands were important, naturally, whether they were positive or negative relationships. It was simply that a noble's relationships were by their nature also expected to stretch up and down with connections to their social superiors and underlings forming a more three-dimensional network and webway compared to the two-dimensional netting of commoner relationships. There were some measures taken at the Academy to 'flatten' things socially, restricting external access and making rules that reinforced the idea that 'all students are students' without focus being given to the more complicated network of society that they would walk out into upon graduation, but... there was only so much that could be done, there, and while it was a benefit for living at the Academy those who bought too deeply into the Equal Students rhetoric would find themselves disadvantaged and facing issues once they left into a world that simply did not work that way.

Edward was expected to memorize and be able to quickly mentally refer to those relationships in his head at any given moment, as he was in a position to inherit from the Ravensworths. For Malicia, the expectations were lower. Not only was she not going to inherit, after all, once the graduation came she was all but going to be swept out of the door to blow away on the wind like dust. Whether she was familiar with the noble social network, and how important knowing it would be for her future, that was something for her to determine on her own.

But there were some things that were fundamentally basic knowledge that nobody who went to the Academy could get away with not knowing.

This generation was considered an 'Empty Circlet'. A phrase that Malicia had never heard before, in relation to the Academy, but one whose meaning she quickly understood.

Of the Four Kings, each had children of about the same age, and as such one or two members from each household would be attending the Academy at about the same time. One each in Malicia's own year, conveniently enough, with a few more within a couple years both above and below that.

However, the circlet was empty. The gemstone that would prominently shine when set into it... well, that would clearly be a member of the Golden Palace. One of the Emperor's own children. The ages, however, didn't match.

The Emperor, Richard the Bold, was named as such... almost, but not quite, with open sarcasm.

The man had ascended to the Golden Throne around a decade before Malicia had been born, in the wake of the previous Emperor, Caius, succumbing to a suspicious affliction that had yet to be identified as either disease or poison for sure, but in either case had proven strongly resistant to any efforts to cure it. Over the course of almost a month, the strong and benevolent emperor had withered away into a husk of a man and thereafter perished.

This was followed by an immediate succession crisis, as the Emperor had supported multiple wives and concubines and if there had ever been a decision made on who the legitimate successor should be? They had at some point disappeared.

A succession war had raged through the Empire of Phantasma, with several of Emperor Caius' sons and daughters making their own bid for the throne, or backing their preferred candidate. It was a bloody period, with the central Imperial family culling itself until Richard, who had seemingly dug a hole and pulled the entrance in behind himself to hide within when the hostilities began, suddenly emerged and fought with the ferocity of a cornered animal as he overtook the last couple of claimants to the throne in a surprise dark horse victory.

It was fairly clear, in Malicia's opinion at least, that he hadn't actually had a choice in the matter. By that point too much blood had been shed for an amicable reintroduction, too much resentment against him for sitting out of the war when both of the other surviving claimants needed support in their bid for victory. And, importantly, Richard was still a member of the Imperial bloodline that had not stained his hands with the slaughter of his kin in a bid for the throne.

No matter who won, their first order of business as they got comfortable in their seat on the Golden Throne would be to drag Richard out of his hideaway and find a reason to execute him. Punishment for a lack of support, tying up loose ends... if he did nothing then no matter what happened, Richard would lose. He would die, as would his wife and all of his own associates, to make a clean sweep of it and make sure that there was nobody left to plot revenge for the extermination.

As such, he broke character and led a bold action of desperation, attacking both of the armies by surprise as they were exhausted from fighting a final pitched battle against each other. With some tricks to make his forces appear more numerous and well equipped than they had actually been at the time, Richard acted as though this had been his intention all along despite his comparative youth and trembling knees. With it seeming as though he had been planning this out for some time, plotting and building up his forces for this single-strike bid for victory from the beginning, the morale of the other claimants' forces broke and they scattered.

The truth of it hadn't come out until after the leadership of both had been put to the sword, and Richard's position as Emperor secured.

All the same, the succession war had left clear and deep wounds on the Emperor's spirit.

Unlike Caius, Richard had only one wife, the Empress Elizabeth  who he seemed to love dearly despite the lack of spare children prompting concerns from various parties about the stability of the dynasty if something were to happen.

Their daughter, Victoria, was over twenty years of age and had already been born during the time of the succession war. Her Class was the enviable Sword Saint and the rarity of being immediately born to an advanced Class such as that rather than having to build herself up through years of effort and developed advancements would likely have seen her quietly disposed of as an eyesore and potential future claimant even if Richard had immediately thrown his support behind one of the other two final members of the war, no matter how much effort had been put behind seating them on the Golden Throne in the end. It was an advantage that would be very hard to beat when compared to whatever children they might have, after all, and having fought in a war for the throne the possibility of another such war taking place in their children's generation would always be on their mind.

It wasn't like Victoria couldn't succeed the Golden Throne as a woman, but despite the lack of a legal basis a lot of agitators would point back towards an unbroken line of male Emperors inheriting as they argued that wouldn't it be better if there was a back-up heir? There was a reason, after all, that nobles were encouraged to have spare children. Having only the one daughter left many of the Empires of-course perfectly loyal servants with concerns about the future.

For a long time, it seemed like nothing was going to come of those complaints as Emperor Richard refused at every turn to accept more wives, concubines, or mistresses of any description into his household despite that the stress of the succession war seemed to have left the Empress' womb barren in the wake of it. It had seemed as though everything would hinge upon Victoria herself succeeding the Golden Throne and Malicia imagined that by this point a great many plots and political plans revolved around that having solidified into a simple fact.

However, against all expectations, the Empress had recently become pregnant.

This wouldn't really change anything on its own. Unless the child was born with a class that was highly suited to rulership, Sword Saint Victoria was still set to inherit. Everyone's plans would continue to move forward as before, with the added security of another child... 'just in case'.

However, every noble had at least a tenuous relationship with the Imperial family, distant though it might be. In important situations such as this, though celebratory gifts would be limited to the closer members of the higher orders of noble society, everyone was expected to send their congratulations for the unexpected event of an Empress that was considered barren conceiving a child.

Absolutely everyone. Malicia was no exception to this.

Which had led to Malicia staring down an absurdly expensive sheet of paper with floral scent mixed in during the creation process and traceries of real gold embossing the sides to frame it as she attempted to think of what she was supposed to say.

It was a rare chance for an adopted noblewoman to take a shot at brown-nosing and currying favor with an Imperial family that was as far beyond her as the stars in the sky and it just felt like such an utter waste of time to Malicia that she could scarcely believe it. At least when it came to the Empty Circlet of the Four Kings, some of their children would be in the Academy at the same time as herself. The odds of naturally encountering one of the Emperor's children were effectively zero. One was too old and would go off delving into restricted and dangerous dungeons to amuse herself that were far beyond the average fresh graduate's ability. The other had just been born, and by the time they attended the Academy Malicia would have graduated from it by over a decade.

It simply seemed pointless to try to find some way to flatter the Emperor's family and try to present herself as an up-and-coming person of importance when this thing was going to be read and then tossed in a box filled with hundreds of almost identical letters of congratulation.

In the end, she elected to keep it to a simple message that could boil down to 'Well Done, your Imperial Majesties', devoid of both substance and attempts to claw favor out of inventive flatteries and declarations of how this was surely a sign of divine favor and so on and so forth.

Malicia had more immediate concerns in her life, after all.