Gift of the Fox

Chapter 24: Aiming to the Top

The army arrived in Tiancheng in several days. They mourned the prince's death in the whole city, wearing white-and-black clothes and processing through the streets.

Shao and his two advisors - servant Xin Tao and captive Nick Beanson - walked together in the palace. Shao had to prepare for the meeting of His Majesty and the princes to discuss the matter of the terrible murder. 

When Tao and Nick walked through Shao's rich room in order to access first Tao's chamber and then Nick's one, they saw Liz and Tiegan cleaning Nick's new room. Tao and the girls hugged one another tightly.

"Aww, Tamie, we've missed you so much!" Liz exclaimed. 

"Yeah, you were gone for such a long time!" Tiegan grinned, finally able to see her friend after a long month.

"Haha, I'm happy to see you too, girls! But please, call me Tao. Who knows, walls do have ears too..."

"Haha, alright, Xin Tao!" Liz grimaced like a manly man. 

The girls laughed. Tao presented Nick to them:

"This is Nick, my brother. Nick," he turned to his brother, "these are my besties and sisters - Liz Schettner from Frankheim and Tiegan Brown from Soutrail."

Hearing the clan name "Schettner", Nick widened his eyes as he understood he was having affairs with a former noblewoman. He smiled and spoke in Frankish:

"Enchanté (Pleasure to meet you)!" Then he turned to Tiegan and spoke in Nordilian: "Nice to meet you as well."

(NOTE: Frankish is a made-up language based on French).

Both Liz and Tiegan chuckled with joy - these siblings didn't cease to amaze them, they spoke so many languages!

"Enchantée (Pleased to meet you)!"

Liz made a reverence to him, while Tiegan just grinned and shook his hand:

"Nice to meet you too, bro."

"So, you are indeed Tamie's brother?" Liz smiled. "When Tiegan and I heard that Tamie and the prince had brought a Qartlandian general of the Sorovs to their side, we did think that it would be her brother. She has talked so much about you!"

"Haha!" Nick chuckled and embraced Tao. "She's my cute little sister. I would never abandon her in peril, and the royal palaces are always perilous."

Liz, Tiegan, and Tao guessed what he was referring to, so they furrowed their brows.

"Yeah, it truly is dangerous out here..." Liz said, "Just a single wrong step and you're doomed."

"Ugh, I still feel so sorry for His Highness Crown Prince Wang Rong!" Tiegan crossed her arms. "He was one of the best people among those filthy princes!"

"You said it..." Liz nodded.

"Now when there's no Crown Prince, who will become the next heir to the throne?" Tao got preoccupied. "I hope Shao will be alright..."

"Yeah, and the others too," Liz said. "I mean - what will happen to us in all this mess?"

"I wish I were able to get on the throne of Wanglong."

Everyone glanced at Tao with astonishment:

"Huh?"

"You know, if I were an emperor here, I'd change many things. I... I feel the fox has chosen me for something. I feel it is connected with royal affairs."

"But, being an emperor is hard, Tao!" Liz said, "You get so many responsibilities... so many enemies!"

"Liz, if we don't change this world, who will?"

The girls sighed. They could understand Tamie was right.

"Hmm... I already don't like how things are going on in this palace, but I will need to observe the situation a little more. Would you girls mind telling me the details of how things are conducted here?" Nick smiled. "Perhaps then, we can devise an optimal plan..."

"What kind of a plan?" the girls wondered, including Tamie.

"Well, as Tamie might have told you, I'm a philosopher. Wanglongians think that if one is born a man, they have many rights, and if one is born a woman, they have none. But we philosophers know otherwise: if you assume a man is the head of everything like they love to say, then we must also note that a woman is a neck holding that very head and turning it wherever she wants."

"So, what are you implying, Nick?" Tao asked in sincere surprise.

"For all these years, the Empire of Wanglong has been dominating the world. No one has ever been able to break it down, and no foreigner was ever able to come to power. Yet now, when we four are not outside the empire, but inside the very core of it - the Royal Palace of Tiancheng - we are the ones to seize the throne."

The girls gasped - and they had never thought about it for all this time?!

"So, how can we do it? We do not have any rights here." Tiegan crossed her arms.

"All you need to do as women, you two, is to gain the hearts of two princes. Any of them you like. Tamie, as Xin Tao, is already so close to the 4th prince that she is named his personal servant. Soon, she will have complete power over him. Since Tao is deemed a son of the legendary celestial dragon emperor and the nine-tailed fox spirit, he is rather a mythical demigod and will be accepted if he gets the throne."

"Now that you mention it, I've already caught the attention of one of the princes - Wang Wu. He asked me to become a spy of Tao and the prince." Liz turned to the surprised Tao: "I promised him I would cooperate, but I plan to be a double agent - you can tell me what type of information to send him, Tamie, while I will tell you everything he says."

"Wow, that's amazing!" Tao smiled.

"Yeah... I too have charmed Wang Hu, the 6th prince," Tiegan now spoke up, for she had recalled her own adventure. 

"Very nice," Nick said. "We must seize this opportunity of the Crown Prince's death. Each of us must try to promote the 4th prince to the throne so that Tamie can clutch it when the chance arrives. You two will have to draw your princes out of the way."

"So then, Tamie gets the throne and we all become rulers?" Tiegan grinned at such a profitable idea.

"Precisely. What's more - we gain freedom. But you must stay prudent at all times - you must maintain your princes as allies and not make them your enemies. Do not let them notice we are plotting something."

"Well, that'll be easy. They will never await such an ingenious plot from maidservants like us." Liz chuckled.

"Well then, the operation begins today!" Nick smiled.

The four friends made a vow to achieve their common new goal.