Much had changed in the half-year he’d been gone, and most of it he didn’t like. The Singer’s vices were well known, his distractions too. Many of the protocols governing behaviour in the source had been allowed to slip, endangering the Singer’s harmony and so, in turn, the song. The Singer’s wellbeing, his happiness, was of the highest importance: negative emotions bled into the song and darkened it, and all who lived within its magic would be affected. It was why the council meetings were little more than rituals conducted to obtain the holy lord’s approval or rejection of a scheme, while the real debates were held out of his earshot beforehand. It was why he was surrounded only with beauty in all its forms.

Pilos had spent an afternoon with Chorus Leader Nara as the man told him about the usual courtesans’ fights and the over-indulgences of the Singer’s favourites. What they did in private was up to them; what they did in the Singer’s presence could have far-reaching effects.

There wasn’t a Pecha alive who didn’t know the histories of those Singers who had lost control of themselves or the song and the consequences for those who lived within its sacred bounds. What he’d seen and learnt had been enough to convince him that discipline was lax among the members of the council, among the courtesans, and definitely among the Singer’s favourites, those nobles who held no official position in the governing of the Empire but instead danced and diced and drank and fucked in the Singer’s company. Pilos had spent the last week finding those favourites and pointing out their errors in soft, respectful, and compelling tones. The Singer’s health and wellbeing were paramount.

Pilos thought over the plan again. It was born out of duty and loyalty, without room for any to insist it was a path to glory for himself. There should be no sidelong glances of the sort the other councillors exchanged when a member brought up some new scheme. His proposal benefited the Empire, and it benefited the Singing City. All he had to do was pray the holy lord in his wisdom agreed.

It’s the right plan. More than that, it’s the only plan. The only option if we’re to bring the last tribes under the song with swiftness and mercy.

The Xentib slave warriors were still too unreliable to risk in open battle so close to their homeland, and the Melody had been depleted by the intensity of that people’s resistance. They needed more warriors.