Chapter Thirty; Epilogue

"Milady, the captain of the rangers is here to see you."
Collin looked at her handmaid in surprise.  It had been years since she'd been with the rangers.  With the chaos going on in the colonies she was surprised that her old unit could have been assigned to the palace out of all the units in the army. 
But not quite as surprising as who was there to meet her. 

"Your highness, Captain Jor of the Rangers."
"Jor?"
"Greetings your majesty, could we speak in private?"
She gestured for Cyrsten, her handmaid, to close the doors.  "Anything that you can tell me you can tell her, it's in her job description to keep my secrets."
"These are not words for Guardsmen.  Total privacy Collin, no one else."
"No Jor,  she stays."
"Fine, your highness.  I suppose I can tell her what the Captain gave me direct orders to reveal to you alone."
"Crysten, could you?"
"Absolutely not, that death is an ongoing investi..."
Collin touched a finger to her bracelet.  The runes on it activated to paralyze Crysten, binding her nervous system and suspending her thoughts.  She stood in a standing faint, unaware she'd even been paralyzed.
It was a useful trinket, Hamren had given it to her after the engagement.  'Just in case' he said, he was always good with the prep work. 

"Magic?"
"Trinket, I can barely use alchemy.  What were you saying about the Captain?"
Jor drew a yellowed envelope from one of the deeper pockets on his trench coat.  He'd carried the fifth letter for nearly twenty years waiting until he found some trace of Collin, never setting it down for fear that he'd lose it or worse, that the Captain's secrets would be revealed and his name besmirched by its contents. 
"He gave me this the day he died.  One for his wife, one for me, one for Jor, and one for Jeanine all delivered."
"You've met Jeanine then?  After what she did to him, to her own father?"
"I was there Collin, I saw it happen."
"And you met with her anyways?"
"She was crying."
"She smiled!"
"No, I watched the fight.  The recording devices didn't come on until after she stabbed him, I watched the feed.  He told her a joke and she smiled for the camera, it was planned Collin.  He knew he was going to die and he walked into it on purpose, I think he may have even ordered her to do it."
"You think the captain committed suicide using his daughter?"
"I think he commuted Martyrdom using his daughter.  I've read the letters, I know the things he'd been worried about the last few months of his life.  He wanted to change the system from within.  Jeanine can remove players, but she can't pick their successors.  I think that's what this letter is for.  He wants you to put the right people in play."
"Like Polly?"
"Leave her out of this, we never asked for all those murders."
"So the Captain's plan was for Jeanine to open up critical positions in the nobility and for me to see to it that the right people would take their place.  Genius, but it doesn't work that way.  The system has changed now, the Emperor is making decisions about who has power."
"And His Majesty is doing a fine job of it.  Put you in charge here didn't he?"
"I did actually, turns out the legal expertise I picked up trying to blackmail my dad prepared me perfectly for dealing with Kevand the Just.  Because my land was lost in the crash I was able to convince him that the next available land was mine by right."
"Makes sense.  So what does this mean for the Captain's plan?"
"It means he meant well, but he had no idea what was about to happen."
"None of us did Collin, none of us did."

And the moons rose over Tara, first colony of the Daniellandish Empire.