Dyeawan has spent her entire life starving in the streets alone. She had nothing to begin with and then had her legs taken from her. Until this moment, however, she’s never truly felt defeated.

“Why would you show me this?” she asks miserably. “Do you expect me to be grateful?”

“I’ve told you, Crache has no rulers of name, only a bureaucracy composed of endless councils and committees. That is, of course, wholly on purpose.”

In that moment, hearing those words, Dyeawan understands why.

“People usurp rulers,” she says with certainty. “But they cannot rebel against a ruler who does not exist.”

“Correct. A ruler is a target. A bureaucracy, on the other hand, is an endless forest in which the discontent lose both their way and their will to rebel, with nowhere and no one to focus their ire upon. We give them no direction, no bull’s-eye for any anger or frustration or malice they may harbor against the state. However, no nation can function without strong leadership. If our fate was left to a Crachian committee, the Capitol would topple within a week. There must be a ruler, even if their name is never spoken and no monuments are ever erected in their likeness.”

“I understand,” she bitterly affirms.

“Dyeawan… would it surprise you to learn I am that ruler? Would it surprise you to learn the final word on this nation’s fate falls to me? That I administer the Protectorate Ministry at my will?”

Dyeawan doesn’t answer right away. It should surprise her, of course. The fact that this afflicted little man of advancing years, living in a ruin on a tiny island, is the master and commander of a nation such as Crache should be shattering news. Yet somehow she’d silently accepted that Edger was in control of all this. Perhaps it is because he became her mentor, her teacher, her sole source of knowledge, direction, and approval. He has been the master of her ultimate fate.

It’s easy enough to believe those that control you must control everything.

Slowly, she shakes her head.

“Of course,” Edger says. “Of course it wouldn’t surprise you. Very little does. But do you appreciate the scope of that? Do you appreciate the responsibility, the singular weight I bear?”

Dyeawan turns over on the litter and pushes her torso up, carefully folding her legs beneath her and settling atop the tender in her usual position.

“You still haven’t explained why you would allow me to see such a thing as this.”

“It is exceedingly simple. I would choose you to succeed me. I would choose you, not only to lead the planners after I’m gone, but to truly rule all Crache.”

His words aren’t any more believable than the reality of what she just witnessed at the bottom of the bay, yet Dyeawan cannot deny the truth of both.

Her next question is obvious. “Why?”