I. The Deficit of Wisdom
The sun beat down on the newly paved training yard of Obsidios Iubeo. Corvin Nyx watched the drills. The soldiers were strong. The walls were high. The coin was flowing.
But inside the city, there was a quiet crisis.
Warren Fulkom walked alongside Corvin as they toured the residential district. Children—thousands of them, refugees and freed slaves—were playing in the alleys. They were safe, fed, and clothed, but they were aimless.
"We have a problem, Lord," Warren said quietly. "We have built a fortress, but we are populating it with ghosts."
Corvin stopped. "Explain."
"The children," Warren gestured to a group throwing stones at a wall. "They know how to hide. They know how to run. But ask them to count to twenty, or read a supply manifest? They cannot. The Union kept them ignorant to keep them cheap."
Corvin watched the children. He saw the danger immediately. A stupid population was a malleable population. If he died, they would be enslaved again by the first merchant with a clever contract.
"We need the Schola," Corvin said. "Obel has the designs ready."
"We have the stones," Warren countered. "We don't have the teachers. Our sorcerers can teach magic. Our smiths can teach steel. But who teaches history? Who teaches logic? Who teaches letters?"
He looked at Corvin. "We have killed all the Union officers and drove off the merchants. We have a city of laborers and warriors. We have no scholars."
Corvin's eyes narrowed. "The Union treats scholars like cattle. If they fail to pay debts, they are sold."
"Yes," Warren said, a sharp smile appearing. "In the Debtors' Prison of Oakhaven, they rot. Failed scribes. Bankrupt philosophers. Poets who annoyed a Duke. They are considered 'Utility Stock.' Worth less than a mule."
"Go get them," Corvin commanded. "Take the Artos. Empty the prisons. Buy them, steal them, or break them out. I want every unwanted mind in the South brought here."
II. The Market of Flesh (Oakhaven POV)
Two hundred miles south, in the massive agricultural hub of Oakhaven, the slave markets were bustling.
Warren Fulkom moved through the crowd. He was not dressed as the Imperial Envoy; he wore the dusty, nondescript robes of a grain merchant. Behind him, three Artos agents moved like shadows, their hands hovering near concealed daggers.
The auctioneer was shouting prices.
"Strong back! Field hand! Fifty Gold Crowns!" The crowd bid eagerly.
"House maid! Young, healthy! Seventy Gold Crowns!" The bidding was fierce.
Then, a chain gang was dragged onto the block. These men and women were thin, grey-haired, or frail. They squinted in the sunlight. They were the intellectuals who had failed in the brutal economy of the Union.
"Utility lot!" the auctioneer shouted, sounding bored. "Scribes, counters, readers. Good for warehouse inventory or teaching your brats to read, if you care for that nonsense. Five Crowns for the lot!"
The crowd was silent. No one wanted mouths that couldn't work the fields.
Warren stepped forward. "Ten Crowns," he said loudly. "I need someone to count my grain."
The auctioneer blinked. "Ten? Sold to the merchant in grey!"
Warren moved to the pen. He looked at the "stock." There was an elderly man with ink-stained fingers, a woman who clutched a scroll like a lifeline, and a young man who looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks.
Warren unlocked the gate. "Which of you can read High Imperial?"
The elderly man looked up, fear in his eyes. "I can, sir. I was the Archivist for Duke Vane before... before the taxes."
"And you?" Warren pointed to the woman.
"Mathematics," she whispered. "I taught navigation."
Warren smiled. "Pack your things. You aren't counting grain."
He turned to his Artos agents. "We bought the legal ones. Tonight, we break into the Oakhaven Debtors' Keep for the rest. I want the history professors."
III. The Heist of the Mind
That night, the raid was silent and bloodless.
The Artos agents, trained by the Raven Lord's doctrine, slipped into the Debtors' Keep of Oakhaven. They didn't kill the guards; they drugged the ale supplies.
They moved through the damp cells. They didn't look for criminals; they looked for the political prisoners. The thinkers.
Elian, a former historian of the Union who had written a pamphlet exposing the corruption of the Ministry, sat in his cell waiting to die of fever. The lock clicked.
The door swung open. A figure in black stood there.
"Are you Elian the Truth-Teller?" the shadow asked.
"I am Elian the Corpse," the historian rasped.
"Not yet," the shadow said. "The Raven Lord has need of your pen."
By dawn, three wagons rolled out of Oakhaven. They were covered in hay, hiding their cargo. Inside were forty of the finest minds the Southern Union had discarded. They were terrified, confused, and free.
IV. The Arrival
The journey north took a week on the old roads, but once they hit the Via Obsidia, the wagons moved smoothly.
When they reached Obsidios Iubeo, the scholars peeked out from the canvas. They expected a bandit camp. They saw a city of black stone that gleamed in the twilight. They saw paved streets. They saw soldiers who didn't beat the beggars.
The wagons stopped in the square. Corvin Nyx waited for them.
The scholars stumbled out, blinking. They looked at the terrifying figure of the Warlord—the man the Union called a demon.
Corvin looked at them. He saw their rags, their malnutrition, their fear.
"You were thrown away," Corvin said, his voice projecting across the square. "Because you could not swing a hammer or pull a plow."
He stepped forward and offered a hand to the elderly archivist Warren had bought.
"In the Union, you are debris," Corvin said. "Here, you are the foundation. You will be fed. You will be clothed in silk, not rags. You will be paid in silver."
He pointed to the newly finished building next to the barracks—the Schola Minor.
"That is your forge," Corvin declared. "I have thousands of children who do not know who they are. Teach them. Teach them to read. Teach them to think. Teach them that they are citizens of an Empire, not slaves of a bank."
Elian, the historian, straightened his spine for the first time in years. "You... you value history, My Lord?"
"I value the future," Corvin replied. "And you cannot build a future if you do not know the past."
V. The First Bell
Three days later.
Sola sat at a desk made of smooth, warm obsidian wood. The room smelled of fresh parchment and ink.
Elian stood at the front of the room. He wore a clean grey robe with the Raven Emblem stitched in silver thread. He held a piece of chalk.
He looked at the fifty children. They were eager, wide-eyed, and hungry for something they couldn't name.
"My name is Master Elian," he said, his voice trembling with emotion. "And today, we begin with the letter A."
"A," the children chorused.
"For Authority," Elian wrote on the slate.
Outside the window, Corvin Nyx and Warren Fulkom watched.
"It has begun," Warren said softly. "We just gave them the most dangerous weapon of all."
"Yes," Corvin agreed. "Hope."