[Xiomera]

"She is a fake," Calhualyana hissed.

The Empress eyed her advisors around the Chamber of Whispers each in turn, slowly lingering on each before returning to her main targets. As her gaze fell upon Security Minister Tochuitli and Imperial Intelligence Director Telchiuhtli, her eyes narrowed. "She...is...a...fake," the Empress said again, voice dropping and said with a slow and heavy emphasis. The two men she was eyeing prudently lowered their gaze. "How did this happen?"

Director Telchiuhtli spoke first. "We vetted Ebegei's record and story thoroughly. She was able to show us she was born in the area north of Taragai, as she claimed. She produced photographs and artifacts that reinforced her story. It appears now that these may have been fabricated," he said in the quick pace someone uses to get an unpleasant truth out in the open and over with.

"You don't say," Calhualyana whispered with every syllable weighted with sublime sarcasm.

"This is a tremendous embarrassment for the Empire," Xiyāōtl growled. Calhualyana's husband and Chief of the Imperial General Staff clenched a tablet in his hand tightly. He tossed it angrily onto the table in front of the two men. "Read that paragraph," he ordered. The two of them read what appeared to be an editorial from an Eirian news site. "It is only fitting that a fake Empress such as Calhualyana, who manufactured her position and her monarchy, would embrace another fake royal such as 'Ebegei Qoriqacha'...." Tochuitli murmured as he read. Calhualyana's eyes narrowed even further, and he suddenly realized his reading was audible. His mouth snapped shut with a sharp click, as Xiyāōtl raised himself by his arms to loom over him across the table.

"That is what the foreign press is saying about my wife. Our Empress. Your leader. Because of your fucking incompetence. I should slit both your throats, and if our Empress gave the word, I would do it right here and now." Xiyāōtl shook his head. "But she has chosen to spare you. I must admit, I cannot understand why, but her benevolence is not to question."

"It is not benevolence, husband," Calhualyana said softly as she gestured for him to sit back down. Xiyāōtl did so, still eyeing the two men with fury. "It is a last chance. And there will not be another. To be blunt, you have both earned death after the attacks on our industry during the Milintican conflict and now this. Do not disappoint me again. It will be, as the computer programmers say, a fatal error." The Empress picked up her own tablet. "On this list is the intelligence team that was responsible for vetting this 'Ebegei' individual. I trust you will address their failure in job performance very firmly," Calhualyana said as she slid the tablet in front of Telchiuhtli and Tochuitli. The two men nodded briskly, desperate to appease their Empress.

"Now. The question is this. What do we do about Taragai? Do we claim the allegations against Ebegei are falsified by the Mizu and the Taragaians to undermine her, and that she is really a Qoriqacha after all? Do we admit she is false, and withdraw?" The Empress demanded to the advisors around her.

"We can't deny Ebegei is fake without making ourselves look even more ridiculous than this mess has already made us," Minister of State Toquauhtli said. "The evidence against her is undeniable. We could say the Mizu and the Taragaians faked the DNA results, but that is easily proven untrue and would frankly make us look stupid to even claim."

"But what choice do we have? We can't just withdraw from Taragai now after everything we've spent there. We would gain absolutely nothing and take a tremendous loss." Treasury Minister Mixochuatli shook his head in dismay at the thought of the wasted quetzals.

"There is also the simple fact that we would lose even more face if we have to leave Taragai. We had to withdraw from Auria. We had to withdraw from Huenya. If we withdraw from yet another country we have made a show of force in, with our tails between our legs, the damage to our credibility as a world power would be devastated. Our entire defense posture would be shot." Defense Minister Chuanacoyo shook his own head. "No other country would take us seriously as a power or a threat anymore. Who do we have victories against? Some peasants in Roucourt? The pathetic Milinticans and the insignificant Saladians? No, this will not do. The honor of our soldiers, sailors and airmen would be forever tarnished by this and our presence in the world diminished beyond repair. We may just have to prop up this lying cretin in Khongkhortai and cut our losses."

A gentle cough sounded from the end of the table. "Why do we need to choose any of these options?" Camanahuac, the Director of the New Empire Program, smiled broadly. "My Empress, do you remember when I advised us to not be greedy during the Milintican conflict, and that we had other riches out there for us? Not to trade gold for bronze?" At Calhualyana's nod, Camanahuac continued. "We don't need to prop up Ebegei. We don't even need her, frankly. Despite what the Taragaians or anyone else says, we are already in Taragai. And are we not an Empire? I cannot believe I need to say this, but empires do not ask for permission."

As the room fell silent, Camanahuac wove his spell. "We are an Empire. We are Xiomerans. We do not beg or plead for what we deserve, nor should we. We have the blood and lineage of conquerors in our veins. We have the strength and skill that built an empire that lasted for six centuries. That empire died after the Huenyans, curse them forever, became ungrateful and rebelled against their betters who brought them civilization. But we are still an empire, and we still know how to conquer. We just need to find our spirit again. So. We are in Taragai now, and growing stronger there every day. Why don't we just.....stay?"

"But what would we tell the world?" Toquauhtli asked with a diplomat's mind.

"Hang the world! Burn the world, if they don't like it!" Camanahuac's eyes lit up with fervor. "We don't need to ask or tell them anything to justify our actions. I tell you, we are an empire. And if you want a New Empire, my Empress....we need to start acting like it!" As Calhualyana's eyes fell upon him, Camanahuac continued to weave his vision. "Stay in Taragai. Drag this Ebegei character to Tlālacuetztla in chains, to show the world what happens to those who try to trick or insult Xiomera. Send settlers and soldiers, claim it as our own, and let anyone in Taragai and the world alike who disagrees feel Xiomeran steel. Find some local puppet to govern for us, if we must. But otherwise....empires take what they want and need. We must start doing the same."

Calhualyana's eyes narrowed again in thought. After a very long pause, Loyalty Minister Quihichua spoke next. "Director Camanahuac's position may have merit," she said. "As you know, it is the honor of my ministry, and Imperial Security, to ensure loyalty to you and to the Empire. We do this in cooperation with the Ministry of Information," Quihichua said with a nod to Information Minister Coaneca. "Together, we are able to do much to ensure that our people remain mindful both of the glories gained from supporting you and the XCP, and the consequences for not doing so. But we have noted that there is a small but growing undercurrent of discontent within both the XCP and the general populace. After the loss of Huenya, our people hunger for a conquest of consequence, and victories of consequence. We do our best to tout our successes in places like Milintica. But the people...want to see us achieve victory and conquest that equals what we lost in Huenya and restores the Empire as a power of great consequence in the world. Our victories up to now...have not assuaged that hunger," Quihichua said carefully. "A great new territory opened up in Hesperida for Imperial settlement and development would put thoughts of Huenya out of our peoples' minds. It would do much to retain and even grow the faith the people have in your leadership and the direction the Empire is taking." Coaneca nodded again soberly, his expression not entirely hiding the thought that his job of selling the Imperial regime to its people would be much easier if it started acting Imperial.

Calhualyana remained silent, and as the silence lengthened, people in the room began to either look down at the table, up at the ceiling, or anywhere other than her cold eyes. Everyone there wanted to know what she was thinking. No one there dared ask.

The Empress was by no means paralyzed by possibilities. Instead, she was processing, her brain working like a computer. Tabulating risks versus rewards, ambitions versus realities, the cost and resources needed to achieve all particular options. Reaching a conclusion, she finally spoke. "What I am hearing is that it is time for me to finally fulfill the promise I made to our people of a new Empire. Let it be so."

And with that simple statement, Xiomeran foreign and colonial policy would be totally transformed. There would be no more subterfuge or veils around Imperial intentions. No more pretty euphemisms, no hiding behind mercenaries, no play-acted innocence before the international community. Xiomera wanted to be in western Taragai, so there they would stay. And make it theirs.

Moving forward, Imperial press releases and briefings would stop mentioning Ebegei, or her followers, like they had never existed. In fact, the Xiomerans would stop mentioning the "Khanate of Taragai" at all. A new phrase would enter the Imperial lexicon: the Imperial Colony of Taragai. And as Camanahuac had suggested, someone local would be found to help run it.

---

General Mācālo and Osbeg Zayaat found themselves once again seated at either side of a desk. The circumstances, however, were vastly different. Before today, Mācālo had always been forced to interact with Zayaat as an "advisor" engaging in "consultations" with the intermediary of a local ruler. But that local ruler, Ebegei, was currently fuming in a former police station in Khongkhortai the Xiomerans had repurposed as a prison. The Imperial general who had put her there, Mācālo, was now dealing with the leader of a much smaller entity, a Taragaian clan. And that leader, Zayaat, had to decide how the relationship was going to go.

"We were as fooled as you," Zayaat said calmly as Mācālo eyed him from across the desk. "We had no idea that Ebegei was not who she said she was."

"I see," Mācālo replied in the same flat tone. The general was not sure that Zayaat had not, in fact, been in on Ebegei's con. But his orders from Tlālacuetztla were clear. "In that case, we need not be at cross purposes. We can still work together."

"Ah, but the terms of that remain unclear," Zayaat replied as he steepled his fingers. "How, exactly, do you see this work happening?"

"The territory we currently control is now an Imperial colony. That is not reversible, negotiable or contestable," Mācālo replied. "What is negotiable is your role in it. Without Ebegei and the false hope of the long dead Qoriqacha to reunite your people, they will disintegrate into squabbling clans again. Someone has to take control of the situation and be elevated to a position of leadership, on behalf of my Empress and the Empire. Someone who is local, whose clan heritage is clearly provable, and who can rule this land with our support."

"And I presume you mean me," Zayaat replied with a slight smile. "But what do I get out of this? The chance to be merely a Xiomeran puppet?"

"You get to live. You get the chance to rule here, rather than being sent to Xiomera with Ebegei to be punished for misleading the Empire. Also, you gain access to power and riches far greater than Taragai alone could ever offer you, as a Governor of an Imperial colony. If you lead well, as the Colony of Taragai prospers and grows, so will your own stature. And your own coffers." Mācālo tilted his head slightly. "I know which of those options I would pick."

"I could choose to fight you instead," Zayaat intoned.

Mācālo gave a slight smile of his own. "You would lose."

Zayaat sighed. "You're probably right about that. Many people would say that it would be better to lose in such a fight, to go down fighting rather than collaborate. Many people would then be dead, regardless. And, as I often point out, many people are drooling idiots." Zayaat leaned back in his chair. "So, how much does a gig as Imperial Governor pay, exactly?"