PeaceMaker

Hendrickson sat there silently for a moment as slight panic ran through him. He opened his lips to begin speaking. "I-I spent it on the work of course, your highness, I w-would never-"

"Go into the noble's civilization to spend all the money right?" Adia swooped in, "definitely wouldn't waste the money on expensive clothing for your family or gambling for bits of jewelry with the nobles, right?"

Hendrickson froze, his head turning to Adia with a scowl on his face "Your highness, she is accusing me of such filthy actions for me to be disgraced in you-"

"Do you think this is the first day in which Adia has been at my side? Or rather the first time she has been given work from me?" Boris asked, cutting into Hendrickson's words. He turned to look at the rest of the council members at the table and smiled. "I'm not sure you all remember as this has been such a tumultuous year, but I made a trip into the outer wall's central city and I visited someone."

The council sat in silence, allowing Boris to continue.

"From that moment on, I had been working with that person. And that person is," Boris turned to Adia, nodding his head in her direction, "one of the many people you had regarded with disdain in your eyes." He locked eyes with Hendrickson and tilted his head, "funny how things come back to you, don't it?"

A hand rose up from the table and Boris turned his head to the person. "Go on, Limar."

"Does that mean that she has been working with you from that very day? Like almost an agent?" Limar asked.

Boris pursed his lips together for a moment before nodding his head. "I guess you could call her that."

Adia caught the glance of some council members who immediately looked away after she came into eye contact with them.

"There are certain things that you are not aware of, as there are certain things I am not aware of. There's a reason why I waited this long to introduce you all to her, most of them I won't mention but one of them being that it allowed me to have another eye on all the things that happen in the kingdom," Boris smiled, leaning back and meeting gazes with Hendrickson again, "while some of you were slacking off, she was busy doing the work. Ensuring the safety of the people, feeding them, and assisting in construction in areas where your…. Inaccurate gazes couldn't reach."

He turned to Adia and nodded his head to which she pulled out a piece of paper and stood up from her seat and began to pass out the sheets of paper. 

"That said, she noticed a few things about the construction that I've taken under myself to fix," Boris commented. 

"The missing funding used by Earl Hendrickson went towards the nobles where he flaunted his money and wasted it away on materials that could have been used on the kingdom itself," Adia began placing the papers in front of Anateniz and then Noah "What was the cause of him having access spending?" 

She placed down the papers in front of Helen and taped the paper lightly. "It was due to having a vague amount of funding in place for Hendrickson to use for construction," she muttered, passing the paper to Frederick and then moving down to Falls, "the same thing happened with the funding for Earl Phillip, but due to the money that the nobles gained thanks to Hendrickson's splurging, he didn't need to use much of that funding and the money went to my own endeavors to fill the kingdom's markets." 

He paused to hand out all the papers to the 2nd advisors before sitting down at her seat and continuing. "As a result, some changes were made to the budget and the overall system in which Earl Hendrickson and all the council members will work."

"There has been a budget deduction," Boris announced, his voice snapping their eyes from Adia to Boris, "each and every council member's work has been reviewed by me, Anateniz, Noah, Kalmin, and Adia, and the budget has been narrowed down accordingly to every last coin to make sure that all the money will be used on the work that it was intended to be used for."

'Ah…' Anateniz thought to herself as she remembered the week before when she had been asked to review the council's work down to their money spending. She looked up at Boris, a slight smile showing on her face. 'Quite a clever decision…' 

"In addition to there being a budget reduction, it has been proven to me that we cannot have the council member's themselves working unsupervised during their own jobs so, therefore, I will be assigning every council member with a watcher who will look over your work and report to me every step and decision you make," Boris continued.

"And who will those watchers be?" Marquess Augustine asked, looking up at Boris. 

"Unknown," Boris replied. 

"What?" Conor asked, his voice rising up accidentally. He froze when all eyes turned to him but then continued after Boris gave him a nod of approval, "I'd hate to refuse your words, your highness, but having private watchers whom the council isn't aware of, goes away the whole reason we are the second most powerful people in the kingdom. I understand that we… some of us have done things undeserving of complete control, but in this way, it makes up completely powerless."

"Do I know the names of the people you have watching me?" Boris asked, his head cocking to the side.

"Pardon me?" Connor remarked in surprise.

"Do I know the identities of the eyes you have placed around the palace to watch my every move in this palace?" Boris asked to which the council members shifted uncomfortably. 

He chuckled. 

"I'm not blind, I'm well-informed of my environment. I know very well that as much power as I am given in the kingdom, I am watched 2 times as much," Boris smiled, "I've noticed the shifts in the shadows over time."

He paused to watch their perplexed faces. 'And I was warned ahead of time too,' he thought to himself as he remembered the words Dominic had said. 

"But still- Having eyes to look over the temporary overtaker of the crown is normal. Especially if that person is not a royal, or even a noble," Connor pressed. 

"And if you're allowed to place eyes over someone that is supposed to be looking over the kingdom, what's the difference if I have a few eyes to look over those I'm supposed to be leading?" Boris asked with a stoic expression, "afterall, to be in this position, I can't be blind. I have to see too."

Connor froze, unable to refute Boris' point. He was right afterall. 

"Any other objections?" Boris asked, his cold gaze scanning the table. 

No one responded. 

"Continuing on, the watchers will be unable to be identified as they blend into the environment and provide me with information. In order to have more security, each watcher will be switched out daily so they won't be the same faces watching you making it harder for you to coerce them, if considered, as they will be different people each day," Boris explained, "I'll sincerely ask for you to try your hardest now as for each time I notice a slip-up, the budget will get thinner and thinner giving less space for spending outside of the work."

"Is that all to be added in the things to be changed for the future?" Noah asked, "I'm a bit concerned about this certain change as the full council is just hearing about this now."

"But the head council has long been aware of these changes," Boris replied, "and just in case, I made a space to sign at the bottom of the paper to accept this new system. So technically, you are getting a briefing of a simple final draft before it takes action. It's just that this draft involves each and every one of your movements."

"And if we chose not to sign?" Sebastian asked. 

Boris locked eyes with him and shrugged. "It'll still take effect."

"How?" Arthur inquired. 

"Because the prince already signed it," Boris announced. He pulled out the sheet of paper beneath the pages that held the meeting's order of business. There on that paper was the same plan proposed by Boris, and at the bottom of the page, curved into elegant swoops and with a nice and sweet period sign at the end, was the prince's signature. 

"T-that- how-" Ethan muttered, his eyes squinting to look at the paper It really was there. Dominic's handwriting. He along with the council members looked up at Boris with perplexed gazes. Boris laid down the paper and ran his finger across the ink of Dominic's name on the paper. 

"Forgive me for accusing, your highness, but was that written by another's hand?" Wattson asked. 

"No," Boris replied as he pressed his finger on the period at the end of the signature. He sat up straight and his eyes rose from the paper, glancing at the council, his golden eyes gleaming. "It seems like the prince could predict the future.. Either that, or his trust was thin."