[b]Bella and Ember![/b]

The celebration will be pathetic. The Imperium of old crunched stars into pulsars to mark the ascension of a new Emperor. The Endless Azure Skies has staged entire apocalyptic battles of millions of servitors across an entire planet for the spectacle of it, the flash-flares of plasma detonations visible from orbit. The fireworks from the ascension of the Shah are still detonating fifty years later. Your party will have whatever water-soaked garbage can be dragged up from the hold, and whatever conjurations Quajl and the Azura magi are able to scrape together on short notice.

Which is to say, for those with unjaded eyes it will be the greatest show in the galaxy.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

"No, we're not going to do that," said Brightberry, snapping her wings closed.

It's fucking [i]weird [/i]to hear that from an artificial lifeform. Normally a servitor will walk to the moon rather than deny a direct request but - well, the Crystal Dragons are different. These are creatures of Zeus, a biosilicate circumvention of the the Flux Curse. Zeus decreed that civilization was no longer entitled to mastery of electrical life, and so by necessity the Azura are not the masters of the Crystal Dragons. They have to treat them as equals, or sometimes even superiors - something which a great many Azura are flatly incapable of, no matter how useful the technology.

Even for you, it stings a little. Not your fault, just where you're from.

"We've got one professional Publica Legion, a half Legion of Ceronians, and six thousand random civilians," said Brightberry. "Liquid Bronze's personal bodyguard is [i]twenty [/i]Legions, and Mars knows how many more he'd bring if he felt serious. He could put a million soldiers and drones under arms on short notice if he felt like it, and maybe fifty million if he took his time. A campaign against him would be measured in decades and the casualties would be measured in planets. We survive this by being not worth his time, not by trying to make off with his magnum opus."

There's an inflexibility to her voice here. She doesn't need to say it directly for you to know there's a red line here: she's not going to stick around for this fight if you choose to pick it.

[b]Dolce![/b]

A quick review of scale: The Royal Architect's departure would not mean the fall of the Endless Azure Skies. It would scarcely be an embarrassment. The Architect is a useful curiosity, a relic of a previous age, and a personal asset and ally of the Shah. His death or departure would cause turmoil on Capitas and potentially a coup. It would be locally apocalyptic, with economies collapsing and alliances falling apart and an entire sector might become unstable. But the Fall of the Skies? That would be like suggesting Rome would fall if an earthquake tumbled the Hagia Sophia. 

But for all that, to the people crushed by the rubble, it might indeed seem like the Skies are falling.

But Sanalessa will not hear of the plan any further. There are evasions of her duty she can countenance, and evasions that will drive her back into her familiar murderous rage - and you have become familiar enough with her warning signs to know when you approach dangerous ground. This is not to say that you are wrong or the plan won't work, simply that she cannot be party to it. She must start from the position that one person [i]must [/i]be killed.

So it is you left alone with pen and ink, once again. You have two letters to write: to the Architect, and to Vasilia. And it is a kindness that, for all its evil, the Endless Azure Skies has an enormous and well funded postal service.