Herald of Steel

Though Azira and Azura hid it well, they were concerned by the weak state their god supposedly was at.

Alexander's claims were backed up by evidence and facts and in the less than two months that the twins knew Alexander, they had not forgotten how the boy younger than them had managed to make himself appear as a supremely skilled general, orator, and administrator.

The gods seemed to favor him as their favorite child, gifting him multiple divine gifts, any one of which would have made others green with envy.

In Azira and Azura's eyes, it was the gods that gifted Alexander supreme tactical knowledge that enable him to triumph not once but twice over his father's outnumbering forces.

They had given him a supremely skilled tongue that enabled a mere slave like him to go toe-to-toe and even beat the best politicians of Adhania in verbal contests and even beat them.

And his administrator skills did not even need mentioning.

Though the twins would never admit it, they doubted even their grandfather, whom they most looked up to, could have done what Alexander had done in Zanzan.

Stopping the plague, preventing a rebellion, and getting everyone jobs- any of these tasks would have been a monumental achievement.

And it would have taken anyone else months to accomplish that.

But Alexander had done so in days.

And the twins believed that it was only due to Alexander's blistering speed at which he solved these problems that he could stay in Zanzan as their lord.

Or else, he most likely would have had to tuck his tail between his legs and return to Adhan as the city would have become a ghost town.

With such boisterous accolades under the young boy's belt and having met him personally and experienced his charm firsthand, the twins were having ambivalent feelings about the Pasha's claims.

"Are you saying that Lord Ramuh has comprised with your goddess after he suffered some minor setbacks?" Azira asked spookily in a low voice, dressing up the events nicely.

"Yes," Alexander did not burst the bubble of politeness and instead quickly added, "Your Highnesses don't have to preach about the goddess. You can continue to exclusively preach the words of Ramuh."

"What we only ask is that you do not actively object to the goddess's presence," Alexander pleaded.

"....." The twins furrowed their brows in contemplation, while the adults around them, namely Mikaya and Seelima only silently watched, respecting the twins' right to make their own choice.

"Your Highness, please remember that the two attacks on the temples are the only ones that we know of," This was said by Cambyses, who spoke up to support her husband, advising, "It would be the best for all the devotees of Ramuh if an additional god was there to protect them."
These honeyed words sent the twins into a second round of rumination, after a long while of which, Azira, understanding the reality of the situation in a whispering tone spoke up, "We will allow the goddess's statue into our temple."

"But we will personally not acknowledge its existence," Azura quickly spoke up.

"Hahaha, that's okay, that's okay," Alexander laughed heartily at the conditions, saying, "As long as Your Highness does not actively stop others from acknowledging the goddess Gaia, all's okay."


"Umm…then we have a deal," Azira nodded curtly.

"Mmm, and don't forget to tell the king about us. We won't let you swindle us by sneakily re-instating us and then denying it when you get caught," Azura very cleverly said, feeling very pleased with herself for foiling one of Alexander's potential pitfalls.

Though according to all the real clever people in the room, they felt that Azura was concentrating on being clever at the wrong thing.

"Hahaha, the twin Highnesses' intellects are sharper than the best swords. I would never dare employ such underhanded tactics," Alexander slyly chuckled, finding the twins' naivety very endearing.

"Mmm, you better remember that," The twins were very happy that they had managed to at least eke out a tiny victory against Alexander.

As their aunt, Mikaya had only silently watched this show with a placid façade, though internally she wanted to slap her forehead repeatedly at the naivety of her twin nieces who were being played like a fiddle by Alexander.

But ultimately, because of what Alexander had promised her, she kept her mouth shut and obediently eat her food.

Instead, she had restricted herself to only rolling her eyes, saying to herself, 'You idiots deserve to get swindled.'

But the twins did not have the time to notice the subtle change and instead were distracted by other things, mainly their rumbling bellies.

Both the sisters could not find the will to eat anything since the morning but now that this cloud of depression had been cast out over the happy news of them re-entering the church, hunger returned to collect its debt.

And so, out of happiness, they began to tear large pieces of the bread and started quickly swallowing it down accompanied by a varied assortment of meat, fish, and wine.

Alexander then continued to make various small talk during the rest of the meal and like that, eventually. the dinner reached its happy conclusion.

After the dished were cleared off the table, Alexander decided to head off to his study, skipping the card night the girls were going to shortly have after.

This was because he still had a lot of work to do, mostly the interrogation.

As Alexander made his way through the central hall, he was not alone though, flanked by the police chief herself, Cambyses on his left, and the sacred priestess Ophenia on the right.

The former was there because Alexander was eager to know how big of a haul she managed to catch.

And the latter was there because Alexander wanted to form a new spy agency under her.

As the trio entered the study, they found it occupied by a guest, not an unfamiliar figure by any stretch but certainly an unconventional one.

"So, how are you liking your new title, shordar (Baron) Camius?" Alexander asked the man he had instructed to wait here with a little smirk.

"Doc, that little play was not funny," Camius sent Alexander a wry smile while shaking his head at the mischievous play.

"Haha, but your face was funny" Alexander chuckled as he sat down opposite his spymaster, with the two girls beside him.

"With this others will guess that I'm your spymaster…won't that be a problem?" Camius felt that this outcome was antithetical to the whole plan.

"Let them. They already know that you spy for me, so there's no point hiding that from them," Alexander simply brushed Camius's worries off, and then gave the real reason for the play, "The point of that play was to deceive the enemy who are not yet aware of you. As long as you don't exist publicly, most will not think too much. And that's what really matters."

In this era where it was hard for information to propagate, naturally, any outside force will focus on Alexander and his council members.

Who would have the time to dig the list of all the people who had on the surface lost Alexander's favor and then thoroughly investigate them on the off chance that one of them was secretly being heavily favored by him?

"Whatever you say doc," Camius shrugged his shoulder at Alexander's reason while taking a sip of the wine.

Alexander then turned to Cambyses. "So, how did your catch go? Any problems?"

"No. It went well, no problem," Cambyses shook her head as she answered.

And then added in a slightly regretful voice, "We caught about eight hundred, though two hundred managed to escape. But we will catch them in two-three days."

"Those that ran were all only small fries." Camius quickly chipped in, informing, "All the big targets were caught. I checked,"

The reason why Camius knew this was because Alexander had sent him to identify all the gang leaders after their capture as the others did not know these people by their faces.

"So, where are all the prisoners being detained?" Alexander asked.

"We converted a small part of the barrack to a makeshift holding cell. Well, Bartholomew did," Cambyses gave the answer.

"And the interrogation?" Alexander was most interested in this.

"Like you asked, we have taken the leaders, stripped them, separated them, and put them out in the freezing outside, while regularly dousing them in cold water. They should be talking soon," Camius reiterated Alexander's technique.

Compared to the conventional beating, breaking, and nail pulling, this method seemed tame to Camius, and so he was curious about its efficacy.

"Umm, good. I will go with you to personally question them. Hopefully, my technique will not be too much of a disaster," Alexander himself was not sure how much his method would work.

He had only copied this technique from a movie he had seen, the only difference being there was that the cold Zanzan night was substituted by a cold freezer, with the thought that a slow-burning suffering was more intolerable than physical beatings and torture.

And only today would he find the empirical proof of that.