He also felt it was somehow apropos, that the Airenzian only showed this after death.

“The Nadirii lost twenty-two, eighty injured. Thirty-eight Airenzian fell, fifty-four injured. The Zees are still assessing amongst tribes. Fern’s women—”

“You do not have to report to me now,” Mars interrupted him, though he did it thinking something Cassius never would.

From what he had seen, that number of losses for his side in that conflict were actually very low.

“I’m abolishing our feudal system,” Cass decreed of a sudden.

Mars was so stunned at his words, he stopped them walking.

“Lords stripped of titles and lands,” Cassius went on. “Castles will be claimed by the Regency and given to the citizens of my kingdom. They will be made into schools, hospitals, orphanages or colleges at my behest. Peasants will be awarded ownership of the land they work. If you eat, you earn the food you put in your mouth. You don’t take it off another’s back. If you own a home or a plot, you pay for that too. You don’t languish in the spoils your forebears earned taking up arms for a king four hundred bloody years ago.”

Nero was right.

They would regret, for generations to come—indeed until what once was, was lost to history—they would regret causing anyone Cassius loved to feel pain.

“This is great change, Cass,” Mars murmured.

“This will be, Mars. They had to pay women a decent wage, keep their bloody hands off them, and let them go to school. None of this is asking much, except for them to be decent human beings. They will see that decision would have been the wise one to take. But they will see it too late.”

“You will have our swords,” Mars told him something he already knew.

And because it was, Cassius did not address that.

He asked, “How did you get here so quickly?”

“We had help from your unicorn, Sky. And True had help from his mare.”

“Star,” Cass said.

Mars beat back a smile, for this name was unsurprising, as named by Cass.

“Star,” he said.

“And they…what?” Cassius queried.

“They took us through an ether, Cass. I do not know. I was in bloody Wodell this morning, and now I am here.”

Cassius had no response to that, indeed, it seemed to take him far away, and Mars let him go there until he felt it necessary to bring him back.

“You did not use Frey’s dragons,” he noted.

“I did not wish to incinerate twelve thousand men I did not know, some who may be confused, or easily persuaded, or coerced, or caught up in the frenzy at the beginning of dissension, so they know not, truly, what they are fighting for.”