Cassandra
Cassandra had been through many feasts throughout her life. She had been young when she had come to Jom to become a ward, but she could still remember the feasting hall of her mother and grandfather. She could remember sneaking out to enjoy feasts on Jom itself, with Edmund and others, and unlike others they had been smart enough not to be caught, but she had never seen anything like the election of a new Imperial Lord General.
Every feasting hall throughout the world of Jom seemed to be packed, and everyone seemed to be drunk.
“To House Lynch!” Cassandra said as she raised her cup of mead, and looked at Edmund.
Edmund raised his cup along with the others at the table. Members of their retinue, friends from other retinues, and even from other legions. “To Dagfinn Lynch Aegis,” he said and clanked his cup to Cassandra’s.
“How are you two related again?” Thane Vault asked. He alone was the only member from the retinue or the table not from Furse Space, but from Drala, taken as a ward during his Edmund’s own father’s raids throughout the Commonwealth of Drala.
“He is my father’s first cousin. His mother was known as the Golden Helmet, and served her brother, my grandfather as Sector-lord of hearth for a time, until it was passed over to Clan Tyr,” Edmund told Jordon Vault.
“Rightfully,” Cassandra said with a smile before she took a drink of her mead. Clan Tyr had long been Highlords of Honor’s Reach within the Hearth System, and held little ambition to give up that title until King Roderick ‘Bluetooth’ had granted her grandfather the rank of Sector-lord of the whole Sector, and his daughter in marriage. Gavin Tyr had raised above his own lord, System-lord Stonefist of Hearth with the promotion, and been forced to grant the high-lordship of Honor’s Reach to her son, and Cassandra’s uncle.
Edmund smiled back at Cassandra, and raised his cup high. “Indeed. Clan Tyr, and House Lynch have long been bonded, and that bond has served both our families.”
“King Harwyn will be the next High King, restorer of the Empire,” Cassandra said with a nod.
“You think?” Leeann Boggs asked.
“Of course,” Cassandra blurted. “He might have struggled to gain the throne of Fist, but now he rules Fist, and Highpass. Dagfinn has always been more friendly to him than his brother was, and you know what they say. The Jom are king makers. Why wouldn’t he support him against the Kingdom of the Wanes?”
Edmund grunted, and shook his head.
“Oh come on Edmund. Dagfinn has been like a second father to you. You might not be your father’s under-lord yet, but everyone knows you will be once your term with the Jom ends, and that puts a Jom on the Throne of Fist and Highpass,” Cassandra pressed.
“Maybe,” Edmund said slowly. “But the Wanes aren’t the only ones who will resist my father in that task. Nor are the loyalty of Highpass or all the lords of Fist guaranteed.” He shook his head. “No, if it was that easy it would have been restored before. The three kingdoms have been united before, and even parts of Bothina, and still the Empire wasn’t united.”
“Your too grim,” Cassandra said with a fresh sip.
“No,” Edmund disagreed again but smiled. “I just want to live my life, and celebrate,” he said and raised his glass. “Maybe you are right, maybe my father will be the first to restore the Empire in over a thousand years. Wouldn’t that be a tale.”
