I think the Epilogue will be wrapped up in two parts. Well, maybe three, but the third will be really small. Allie gets the personal approval – and laying on hands – from anyone who matters on Earth, while at the same time trying to be older as to what her new role is.

I was pleased to learn Rome is back in Western hands. The loss of Italy some books ago bothered me. As an ethnic hodgepodge of the 1860s, I’d imagine the Imperial Danubian Federation creates a similar federal system of a recovered Italian peninsula, rather than a single nation-state.

We get to meet one of Empress Aurie’s grandchildren!

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

What is it to be a queen?

Once all but one had left the room and Reina’s image closed her eyes – obviously still listening – Alicia asked that of the Tsarina.

“Boring.  Not so much the paperwork, which is unending – but then your kind can skirt that – but the ceremony.  Because of our history, my people expect their Tsar or Tsarina to act in a certain way in public.  I used to take swims in the Neva, no! really!, as a kid.  Now I’m surrounded by retainers and guards.”  She took two steps and kissed both of Alicia’s cheeks.  “You will be on another world, with only remembered traditions from…what do you call us?”

“Old Home.”

“From Old Home.  Don’t let any of them hem you in.  Your great grandmother is a perfect example:  creating a monarchy on the remnants of a republic; making it up as she went.  It will help that you are a cute, young girl,” she stepped back, “and demi-human.  Use everything to your advantage.  Balance the three powers there and keep others, such as my Prime Minister…”

“Make your point, Anastasia,” Reina growled without opening her eyes.

“…at bay.  Me?  Personally?  I’d pack Symtex around that shrine thing and blow it to bits.”

“I…” the young queen tried.

“No.  You asked for advice.  I gave it.  You have at least five more to speak to.  Go.  Now.”

Not one to waste time, Alicia sent signal to the reactionless tube in the square.  We’re leaving for Constantinople in five minutes!

She had words with the Patriarch there.  “Pray unceasingly,” he had said. 

Her next stop was Rome.  After taking the Second City with the assistance of the Russians, the Habsburg Empire had seized the Italian peninsula back from the Islamists who had occupied it in total darkness for a hundred years.  She sat in a room full of torn paintings and broken marbles with another Emperor and the Pope.  And asked her question again.

“Pay attention to details,” young Karl said, only ten years her senior.  “A bureaucracy is needed for administration, but keep it as small as you can.”

“It will help being what kind I am,” she replied graciously.

“You shall be, as I, a vicar of Christ on a world,” the old and dying Pope said slowly.  “As a queen, a monarch, you stand, in a way, in loco Christi.”

He coughed until his aides could let him breathe some pure oxygen from a facemask.  He pushed it aside.

“You act for God.” He wagged his boney finger at her.  “Never forget that!”

Instead of Tokyo, she and Emperor Nintoku walked through the pines halfway up Mount Fuji.

“I appreciate you taking time for me, Sire,” she said before asking her question.

“I appreciate you asking that my subject, Nichole 5, bear you to your realm,” he replied.

“I learned from many, as a girl, honor is important.” She paused.  “But third.”

“Third?” he asked, pausing to admire a hundreds year old tree to his left.

“God.  Family.” The young queen managed.  “Honor, too, of course, but it vies with friends for third place.”

“Have you many friends, Queen Aricia?”

“No.  But your subject, Nicole, is one of them.”

“Please recall her and this forest once you have returned to your home,” he suggested.  “To reign is to be alone.  Some ideas, and friends, are timeless.   Treasure them.”

“Of course.”

“You look relaxed,” Alicia said with only a hint of irony to Empress Aurelia, sprawled out on a lawn chair in the southern sun of the continent of North America.  We are on a spit of land jutting out into the riverine backbone of this land, the Mississippi, near her fort of Vicksburg.  “And having your granddaughter, Fel, bring us drinks, seems rude.”

“It’s nothing, Queen Áris,” the girl in her late twenties said – a human girl – Alicia noted, “as we exist to serve.”

Allie sat straight up.

“That…!  That is not something anyone of the imperial family should ever say!” she shouted.

“And that,” Aurie said slowly, in their dialect, “is why you came to me last, the only demi-human, for advice, while your friend from Japan is rebuilt.”

She took a long drink from her lemonade.

You want to know how to be a monarch? The Empress burned at her mind.

Yes.  No matter how much it hurt.

“You and the land are one.” Aurie took another sip and relaxed back with a contented sigh.

Frozen for a moment, Alicia suddenly stood.

“What in the hell does that mean!” she demanded.  Of all she had spoken to, she had hoped one of her own kind…

“Like your distant cousin, the Midwife, you are now that world.” Her head shook enough to dislodge her sunglasses.  “What a trial!  But, little cousin now queen, I am not kidding.  As you prosper, so shall your world.  As you begin to fail, so shall it.  This is from God, not me.  I know what the Pope told you – don’t look at me like that! – and I’m here to emphasize it:  you and the world are one!”

She finished her lemonade and wave at her granddaughter.

“You’ve three plus one contentious empires under you now…”

She sat up.  “And wait until my aunt gets uppity!”

“…with something no one, not ever Aqua, understands.”

She set her drink down and stood.  Fel had a grin on her face.

“I’m the last though I was the first,” Aurelia said, putting her hands onto Alicia’s head.  “You are Queen of Mars.  We’ve all seen the future from my aunt, Fussy’s, mistake.  You will guide the entire planet there.  You.”

“I… I am still so scared!”

“As the murderous head of our family said, ‘doins better than thinkin’,” Aurelia chided her.

Empress Aurelia gently slapped Queen Áris.

“Go and do.  We love you more than you can imagine.”