I had spent the entire morning reviewing reports and requests from the nobles.
I had also taken the liberty of sending Sansir and Veronica to intercept Makilah before the situation worsened.
It seemed that during my short slumber, the worst possible events had unfolded.
Mirabel was busy in the nursery changing the children while I finished reading.
The sound of their small voices carried faintly through the hall, grounding me in the present even as I read of wars and betrayals.
After examining the final report, I decided to send a letter to Camelot. I could not be certain they had abandoned us.
Arthur was clever, calculating, and not one to risk losing a valuable ally, even now.
More likely, they were biding their time, waiting to reveal their hand at the most advantageous moment.
I formed the letter quickly, my pen gliding across the parchment.
When I finished, I shaped an ink-bird with a thought and sent it flying through space and time. I didn't expect an immediate reply.
Truthfully, I only wanted to test the reach of my power again, now that my illness had begun to ease.
Surprisingly, just as I rose from my desk, a response came, one from Merlin herself.
I wondered at first why her answer had come so late, but then realized the obvious truth.
She had likely needed time to deliberate, to write, and to confirm her message with Arthur.
All tasks that once would have consumed my strength, yet now I could accomplish them instantly without expending even a sliver of mana.
Surpassing space and time had become as natural to me as breathing.
I read her letter carefully as I made my way to the meeting room. Count Delfer was already waiting there.
He had been instrumental in maintaining the kingdom's stability during my absence, supplying the capital with knights and provisions.
It was time to reward him.
There were others I wished to reward as well, my sister among them, but she had locked herself away in secluded training the moment she felt my awakening.
I would not accuse her of dereliction this time. Instead, I would let her grow.
When she emerged, we would fight, and I would take away her burden.
Merlin's letter emphasized that Camelot still stood with us.
She and Arthur were merely preparing for a greater threat. The dragon nation, she wrote, was rising again.
Even now, I did not match my late father and mother in strength.
Their power had been truly vast, on the level of lesser angels.
True to their nature, when they died they did not pass into Heaven, Hell, or even the Astral Sea.
Instead, they entered my father's inner world, choosing to live out eternity in peace.
When he slaughtered the dragon race, humanity had believed the dominating force was gone forever.
Yet it seemed the Dragon Queen, Pertunah, a monstrous force unlike any other, still endured.
And Drandafal, her chosen weapon, would need to be stopped by any means necessary.
I finally reached the meeting room and sat across from the man waiting for me.
Count Delfer, or Gabe Delfer, radiated quiet strength.
From a glance alone, one could tell he possessed the power of a weaker interpretation of a Saint.
His beard was rough and brown, his crimson eyes alert beneath short curls of chestnut hair.
He wore a nobleman's garb, elegant but practical, and at his side hung a rapier with a veiled guard, its style refined without losing lethality.
"I greet the King," he said, rising to bow.
It was funny, most nobles didn't do this.
It was why I remembered his name so clearly despite my habit of forgetting the names and faces of those who bored or annoyed me.
I waved my hand dismissively and smiled. "Don't. I'm not one to be swayed by praise."
He looked embarrassed at my words and quickly sat down again.
For an older man, perhaps in his thirties, he had an almost innocent air about him.
I imagined his wife and children might be equally interesting people.
"Forgive me, but why have you called me here?" he asked timidly.
I crossed my legs, resting my elbows on the chair's arms. "Simple. To ask you what you want for your reward."
His eyes widened. Though he hesitated, he answered swiftly. "In this next war, please allow me to participate."
Ah yes. Despite the coming conflict being such a grand event, most nobles, either could not or would not join in person.
The central continent still needed protection, but now, with war once again on the horizon for Anstalionahi, his request made sense.
I thought for a long moment, then decided there was no reason to deny him.
"I'll allow it," I said at last. "But when the time comes, you must return to the capital."
He nodded eagerly. "Do not worry. If you call, I'll be there faster than a second."
He bowed once more and, before leaving, snatched a pastry from the tray that had been laid out before my arrival.
There was something almost endearing about his enthusiasm, as if the concept of struggling until death or victory enthralled him more than the reward itself.
Ignoring his eccentricity and loyalty for the moment, I turned my attention inward.
My True Name and True Self were both grand, impossibly so, but there was yet another attribute I had only begun to grasp.
One I had not fully understood until now: True Will.
True Names are the distilled essence of existence, the ultimate definition of what something is.
True Self is the eternal identity that persists beyond body or soul, the pure being that remains when all else is stripped away.
True Will is something different. It is the imposition of meaning upon existence itself.
The unyielding declaration of why a being exists, and the power to bend reality to align with that declaration.
The Trinity of Self this is called.
My own True Will, my existence itself, was The End.
To speak my True Name was to speak the End. To reach my True Self was to embrace it fully.
My True Will was the ultimate definition of why I existed.
It is why I chose to kill Griffin and send him directly to my True Self, rather than consign him to the Astral Sea.
True death is a sentence to an end beyond death, beyond erasure.
It is precisely this that my True Self embodies: the complete, defining nature of existence.
True Will cannot be described in conventional terms. It is a fundamental law, a force that transcends logic, law, and possibility itself.
To invoke it would be to enact a Cardial Law, a principle as absolute as the True Cardinal Sins and Virtues.
Beyond that, the knowledge I had gained only scratched the surface.
Becoming one with my Regalia had laid bare my naivety in ways I could not ignore.
Time in this world is Set Time, at least, the time we perceive. In lesser, false worlds, inhabitants experience true normal time.
It must be terrible.
Their lifespans are fragile, so fleeting that one year for us would be an eternity for them.
Yet even this world is bound to normal time in part.
In these false worlds, lower forms of time coexist alongside the true, though the relationship is difficult to describe.
So for us normal time is the base, Set Time is the second layer, while they only experience normal time.
And this normal time, or just time, would be fake to us, a truly confusing and contradicting idea.
However, I would not argue with the facts of it; the ultimate truths are far beyond simple comprehension.
As of now, the only thing I could truly argue with was the fall of my glorious kingdom.