Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 16: Birsha’s Pride
By the end of her first week as Archduchess Birsha, Alliyanna had learned three important things about power.
The first was that almost everyone wanted something from her.
The second was that most of those things required her signature.
The third was that none of them were particularly interesting.
She sat behind the desk in what everyone insisted on calling the morning office and stared at a request concerning repairs to an irrigation control system on an agricultural estate she had never heard of.
The request had already been approved by the estate manager.
The regional administrator had approved it.
The Birsha financial office had approved it.
The maintenance contractor had approved it.
A page at the bottom waited for her.
Alliyanna looked across the desk.
“Why am I signing this?”
Her chief secretary, a woman named Mara Venn, answered without looking up from her tablet.
“Because expenditures above the regional discretionary limit require approval from the titleholder.”
“How much?”
Mara gave the amount.
Alliyanna stared at her.
“That’s less than the carpet in the west dining room.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Then why does it require my approval?”
“Because the irrigation system is classified as agricultural infrastructure.”
“That didn’t answer the question.”
“No, Your Grace.”
Alliyanna looked back at the document.
“Was this Birsha’s rule?”
“His Grace approved the threshold approximately nine years ago.”
“Why?”
“I was not present for that discussion.”
Alliyanna signed.
“Raise it.”
Mara finally looked at her.
“To what amount?”
Alliyanna stopped.
That was the problem.
She had no idea.
“I don’t know.”
Mara waited.
Alliyanna sighed.
“Ask finance what a reasonable number would be. I don’t need to approve repairs to a pump on another planet.”
“It is a water distribution control system.”
“See? I didn’t even know what I was approving.”
Mara entered a note.
“Review agricultural infrastructure discretionary limits.”
“Thank you.”
She moved the next document forward.
Alliyanna looked at the stack.
“How many are left?”
“Twenty-three.”
She lowered her forehead to the desk.
Mara waited.
“Your Grace?”
“I’m reconsidering hereditary government.”
“I believe that may require more than one signature.”
Alliyanna lifted her head.
There might have been the faintest trace of humor in Mara’s expression.
Alliyanna pointed at her.
“That was almost a joke.”
“No, Your Grace.”
“It was.”
“I assure you it was not.”
Alliyanna smiled.
Then signed the next document.
The House Birsha residence was not a townhouse.
Alliyanna had understood that before moving into it.
She had not understood how much it was not a townhouse until she tried to walk from her bedroom to breakfast on the first morning and took the wrong staircase.
The Kar’Jan Capitol residence had been large enough to house a family, several servants and a respectable amount of House business.
The Birsha residence had wings.
There were formal reception rooms, private dining rooms, guest suites, offices, staff corridors, gardens, a ballroom, a library larger than the public archive back home, and enough unused rooms that Alliyanna stopped asking what they were for.
Some had not been opened in months.
Others were maintained daily.
One entire section existed for visiting dignitaries.
Another had apparently been intended for members of the Imperial family.
The first night, Alliyanna had asked whether the Emperor actually stayed there.
Mara had answered, “Not in recent years.”
Alliyanna had decided not to ask why.
She moved in because the residence belonged to the title and because remaining in the Kar’Jan townhouse while holding Birsha’s office made less and less practical sense.
She did not sell the townhouse.
She did not close it.
She was still Baroness Kar’Jan.
That mattered to her.
But the Senate had made the hierarchy unmistakable.
House Birsha was now the senior title.
Her place in the chamber made that obvious every time she climbed the stairs.
The Kar’Jan chair remained empty.
That decision had caused nearly as much correspondence as the inheritance itself.
Three different Senate offices had asked whether she intended to appoint a House representative.
Two nobles had quietly suggested distant Kar’Jan relatives who might be suitable.
One had suggested himself.
Alliyanna declined all of them.
For now, the seat remained vacant.
She could not occupy two chairs.
She would not pretend that inheriting two titles entitled her to two votes.
When Sol had told her there might be legal mechanisms for appointing a representative to the lower title, she had answered:
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“When I understand what I’m doing with the first one.”
Sol had accepted that.
Mostly.
The Senate itself was proving just as difficult.
The dramatic parts were over.
No accusations.
No trials.
No gavel pounding because she had broken some carefully prepared procedure.
Instead there were committee reports.
Agricultural quotas.
Trade agreements.
Port fees.
Infrastructure appropriations.
Military procurement.
Colonial disputes.
Shipping regulations.
Tax amendments.
One afternoon the Senate spent nearly two hours arguing over whether an outer-system freight subsidy should apply to processed grain or only unprocessed agricultural products.
Alliyanna had sat in Birsha’s enormous chair trying to keep her feet on the floor and wondering how anyone managed to overthrow governments when governing was this boring.
Senator Corven had leaned sideways from several seats below.
“You’re going to vote against the amendment.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
The same man had argued against confirming her as Archduchess.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever drafted it cannot count.”
She looked at the proposal again.
“I read it.”
“Read the third allocation table.”
Alliyanna did.
Then again.
The percentages totaled one hundred and seven.
She looked down at him.
Corven raised one eyebrow.
Alliyanna voted against the amendment.
It failed.
Later she passed him in the corridor.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“The numbers.”
Corven shrugged.
“Your being wrong about Birsha does not require me to allow the Treasury to be wrong about arithmetic.”
Then he walked away.
Alliyanna watched him go.
She still did not like him.
That was becoming inconvenient.
She was beginning to discover that people did not remain neatly arranged into allies and enemies.
Lord Meren, who had defended her succession, disagreed with her on nearly every military funding question.
Duke Alvar, whose speech had helped secure her confirmation, supported a trade restriction Alliyanna considered ridiculous.
A senator who had voted against her inheritance spent twenty minutes explaining a procedural rule she had misunderstood and did so without insult or condescension.
The Senate was irritating.
Complicated.
Sometimes petty.
It was also beginning to make sense.
Not much.
But more than before.
She learned when members were actually debating and when they were simply performing for the record.
She learned which questions mattered.
She learned that a senator could speak for twenty minutes without saying anything useful.
She also learned that silence was sometimes more powerful than answering.
That lesson still surprised her.
A few months earlier, she would have answered every challenge.
Now she watched.
Listened.
Waited.
Sometimes the best moment to speak came ten minutes later.
Sometimes it never came at all.
She found that she liked that kind of control.
Talak and Kahlan visited almost every day.
Not because protocol required it.
Because they could.
That alone felt luxurious.
For weeks aboard the Resolute, every conversation had been monitored unless they kept it inside their heads. Now they could sit in the Birsha residence, argue over dinner, wander through the gardens, or disappear aboard Star Shadow without asking anyone for permission.
The telepathic connection remained.
It was weaker than aboard the carrier unless they were physically close, but it had not disappeared.
At dinner on the fifth evening, Alliyanna sat between them in a private dining room designed for twelve.
Talak looked around.
“This table is ridiculous.”
“It seats twelve.”
“There are three of us.”
“I noticed.”
Kahlan examined the empty place settings.
“Perhaps the other nine are invisible.”
Alliyanna cut into her dinner.
“Do you want me to tell the household staff to remove the chairs?”
“No,” Kahlan said. “I enjoy imagining we have invisible friends.”
Talak looked at him.
“You don’t need more friends.”
“Exactly.”
Alliyanna smiled.
For several minutes they ate quietly.
Then Talak asked, “How was the Senate?”
“Shipping tariffs.”
Kahlan looked sympathetic.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“How long?”
“Three hours.”
Talak frowned.
“Three hours about tariffs?”
“Not entirely.”
“What else?”
“Processed agricultural cargo classifications.”
Kahlan stopped eating.
“You win.”
Alliyanna leaned back.
“I thought being Archduchess would involve more important things.”
Talak looked around the room.
“This seems important.”
“You mean the marble?”
“The building.”
“It has seven dining rooms.”
Kahlan nodded.
“A civilization can be judged by the number of rooms in which it refuses to eat.”
Alliyanna ignored him.
Talak asked, “How many offices?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve lived here five days.”
“I got lost yesterday.”
Kahlan smiled.
“Again?”
“Different staircase.”
“That counts.”
Alliyanna pointed her fork at him.
“You got lost trying to find the library.”
“That was reconnaissance.”
“You asked a maid for directions.”
“Successful reconnaissance.”
Talak shook his head.
It felt normal.
Almost.
That was the strange part.
After Erimos, Imperial custody, the Senate and the trial, sitting at an oversized table making fun of the house felt more unfamiliar than danger.
Alliyanna liked it.
Viki was less impressed.
Alliyanna had returned to Star Shadow on the sixth morning intending to spend two quiet hours away from the residence.
She lasted four minutes.
“Alliyanna.”
“Yes, Viki?”
“You currently have forty-seven unread priority communications.”
Alliyanna stopped halfway toward the galley.
“I have been awake for twenty minutes.”
“Yes.”
“I left those at the house.”
“They followed you.”
“How?”
“You requested synchronized House communications access yesterday.”
Alliyanna stared toward the nearest ceiling speaker.
“That was a mistake.”
“I attempted to warn you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I considered warning you.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“I reached the conclusion that experience would be more educational.”
Alliyanna closed her eyes.
“I hate being important.”
“Your previous behavior suggested otherwise.”
She opened one eye.
“You are enjoying this.”
“I do not experience enjoyment in the manner you imply.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
Viki paused.
“Yes.”
Alliyanna dropped into the galley chair.
“Show me the communications.”
The wall display activated.
Forty-seven messages appeared.
She stared at them.
“Can you prioritize?”
“I already have.”
“This is prioritized?”
“You originally had one hundred sixteen.”
Alliyanna lowered her head into her hands.
“Thank you, Viki.”
“You’re welcome.”
She spent the next hour answering messages.
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