February 3rd, 1948
Letters flooded President Winchester's office: parchment, telegrams, unsigned manifestos, all soaked with fury. The air smelled of rain and ink. Couriers came and went in silence, their boots echoing over marble floors that had once seen the birth of the nation.
The First Amendment to the Federal Charter had failed.
By three votes, the Assembly had refused to abolish slavery and establish the Freedmen's Bureau. What should have been the Republic's greatest triumph had instead torn it in half.
Now, the southern provinces were in open revolt.
Ken Drick stood by the tall window, his reflection pale against the storm-darkened glass.
"Read it again," he said softly.
Cody unfolded a telegram, his voice steady but his hands trembling slightly.
"To the President and the Assembly,
The Southern Confederation of Provinces hereby declares the Federal Compact null and void.
We no longer recognize the authority of the central government in Revilla.
-Governor Arman Vickery, Confederation of New Bastion, with full support of the Provinces of Cales, Orland, and Saint-Roan."
"That's the fourth declaration today," Cody said.
Ken Drick rubbed the bridge of his nose. "And how many before nightfall?"
"Half the southern bloc. The failed vote gave them the excuse they wanted."
Ken Drick turned away from the glass. "We fought a revolution to free men from tyranny, and now they wish to chain others in the name of tradition."
"Tradition," Cody muttered. "That word's done more harm than any sword."
Ken Drick's gaze fell to the document on his desk, the Freedmen's Bureau Act. His signature gleamed wetly under the lamplight. "I thought our nation had learned. I was wrong."
Thunder growled across Revilla. The city below roared with protest. Through the storm, the cries of citizens echoed up the marble avenues, some calling for unity, others for blood.
Cody looked toward the window. "Some say you should step down."
Ken Drick's grim smile barely formed. "If I step down, this nation dies by morning."
He studied the map spread across his desk. Each province was drawn in neat black lines, and in that moment, they looked like cracks in porcelain.
"We can't afford another secession," he whispered. "Not after the Western Territories."
Cody hesitated. "The army's still loyal, for now."
"For now," Ken Drick repeated. "But loyalty's a fragile thing when brothers start choosing sides."
He looked up, eyes burning, not with fury, but conviction. "Then we'll save it anyway."
He straightened, the air around him flickering faintly with the same golden motes that once shimmered during the Revolution. The runes carved into the window frame pulsed in answer to his resolve, then dimmed again, as if uncertain.
"Summon the Cabinet," Ken Drick ordered. "And tell Senator Venator to convene the Assembly. If the South wants to secede, they'll do it before the eyes of the nation."
"And if they refuse?" Cody asked.
Ken Drick's hand clenched. "Then the Republic will remember what it stands for."
______________
The National Convention was chaos incarnate.
Senators shouted across the chamber, their words striking like sabers at dawn. Papers scattered like snow. Mana crackled from trembling hands. The air stank of sweat, candle smoke, and fear.
"Traitors!" someone screamed from the Imperialist benches.
"Fascist dogs!" came the reply from the Republicans.
A revolver slammed onto a desk. A chair splintered. Venator's gavel flared with blue fire as he struck it down again and again.
"Order! The chamber will come to order!"
But the shouting didn't stop, not until the great doors of the Assembly opened. Presidential Guardsmen, first entered, followed by Ken Drick.
His face calm and grim as the hall froze. Senators and Congressmen stopped their arguments and fixed themselves as he passed.
Every sound died as his boots met marble. He walked slowly, the weight of the nation carried on his shoulders. Behind him, Cody and the other members of his cabinet, beside them, a ghost in memory, Kyra, whose name still lingered in every oath they'd sworn.
They took a seat next to the Presider of the assembly. With the aura of the Founders' Seal shimmering faintly around Ken Drick and Cody, a light that seemed both sacred and exhausted, like a candle burning down to its last inch of wax.
Venator's voice broke the silence, softer now.
"Mr. President."
Ken Drick nodded once and took the dais. The oak rail beneath his hands came alive with runes, the very same sigils he, Cody, and Kyra had carved there when the Republic was born. They glowed faintly, as if recognizing their maker.
The telegraphs clicked. The radios came to life. Across the nation, people gathered in taverns, in churches, in the small corners of a fractured nation, and in one classroom in the Academy, where a young girl sat, clutching a friend's hand.
____________
Mr. Lovington turned the dial on the radio.
Static hissed, then steadied.
"...the President of the Republic of St. Lawrence, Ken Drick Winchester, addressing the National Convention."
Everyone fell silent. Outside, the winter wind rattled the windows. Meika sat near the front, hands tight around Mey's fingers, as the voice of her uncle, the man she'd only known through letters and fading photographs, filled the room.
She remembered him from photos and brief mentions; he rarely visits them.
___________
"Fifteen years ago, we built this Republic through blood, sweat, and tears..." Ken Drick began, his voice deep, weathered by years of war and compromise.
"We swore in our Constitution that magic and man would stand as equals! That no one, no Emperor, no King, no Tyrant, would ever hold dominion over another."
A murmur rippled through the chamber. Even his enemies, those who called for his impeachment, listened.
"That we vowed! We vowed that this Republic is built of the People! And for the People!" Ken Drick continued his voice, gaining more momentum, as he turned to the Imperialist and Fascist benches.
"In those first nights after victory," he continued, "I stood beside Rivera and Pillar beneath a broken flag. We had nothing! No treasury, no army, and no certainty. Only a promise: that we would build a nation worthy of the blood that bought it."
___________
She stared at the radio, eyes wide, seeing in her mind the man behind that voice. His hand gripping the rail of the podium, his reflection caught in the silver inlay, his heart breaking as the world he'd built came undone.
She brought out her sketchpad, drawing the scene she pictured in her mind. Mey looked at her curiously.
Mey whispered, "That's him?"
Meika nodded, too focused to speak.
As his voice rose, something deep inside her stirred. Memory, Pain, and fire, she can feel it, the phantom fires of Cheapsake trying to claim her whole. Phantom pains dominated her, the burn on her shoulder.
___________
"There are those who use our name! Our legacy to push their own agenda!" His eyes went back to the Imperial Benches.
"An agenda of cruelty and greed that rots the very soul of our government! Heroes who stood by me... by us in those pivotal moments died to ensure we aren't consumed by the darkness that dominates every nation around us!" Ken Drick continued while looking at the paintings that were placed in this very Convention. A painting of him, Cody, and Kyra, then a painting of Karl Brooker, Luke Onderon, and Julianne Torneda.
For a moment, he could almost hear their laughter in the first hall, when they believed that the Revolution would never end.
"And now!" Ken Drick said, "We find ourselves standing on the edge of that same abyss! The Southern Provinces calls it tradition. The radicals call it purity. But I call it what it is...fear!
Fear that freedom will make us equal, that justice will make us accountable."
"We allow fear to dominate our nation! That we failed to serve the men and women in which whom we swore ourselves to!"
He looked out over the hall, at faces he'd fought beside, faces he'd trusted, faces that now plotted secession.
"If we surrender to that fear," he said softly,
"then the Republic will not die by the sword of another nation but by fear. Our people shout for the freedom we once denied our brethren in the Revolution! We passed compromise after compromise, afraid to stir the fears of the South. Yet look where we stand now, fractured, and facing a Confederacy at our gates..."
___________
Lovington looked among his class while they all listened to Winchester's speech. He could see Meika sketching on her sketchpad while Mey watched her.
He could tell that they're both good for each other. With every moment they spent, they started to open up more and more, with Meika gaining some courage and Mey learning to tone down his temper.
Among the other students, he could tell they could understand the gravity of the situation. How important this speech is.
Oh, how he wishes he could be in the gallery of the Convention to hear Ken Drick's voice again.
___________
Ken Drick's voice grew louder now, the storm outside echoing his cadence.
"I say this to every province, every people, and every soul who still believes in liberty! Who still believes in our dream of equality! We do not kneel before the past and the pain that defined our people for more than five centuries! We rise with the morning that freedom promised!"
The chamber roared, some cheering, others shouting, but Ken Drick raised his voice above it all:
"Remember the words we swore the night the Revolution started!"
He looked up toward the painted dome, where their names shimmered under the light:
Ken Drick James Winchester. Cody Henry Luis Rivera. Kyra Mutogil Valenne Pillar.
He remembered the moments that led up to the revolution. The Martyrs of Revilla. The discovery of the Secret Society. The Cry of Jakusta.
Then, his final words rang out, thunder over the nation:
"Le matin viendra, la victoire est proche!"
The assembly broke out, cheers and jeers from both sides. Cabinet members reacted in their own way, with Cody just bowing and muttering the phrase that started everything. Venator didn't bring down his gavel, his expression tight with emotion, while he bowed. Ken Drick gave him a small smile before going back to his seat.
__________
The classroom erupted in applause and tears. Some of the students stood, hands over their hearts. Meika sat motionless, listening to the echo fade. Her sketch of the scene finished while Mey looked at it with awe.
Ken Drick Winchester standing before the Assembly with calm and firm perseverance at the eve of the Civil War.
He looked at her when she whispered the words to herself, almost as a prayer she didn't yet understand.
"Le matin viendra..."
Mey turned to her, voice quiet.
"What does it mean?"
Meika's eyes were wet, but she smiled faintly.
"It means... he still believes."
Jonestown, Orland
Governor Arman Vickery stood before the Confederate Legislature, the air thick with the smell of smoke and ambition. Banners of the newly-formed Confederacy hung from the marble pillars, patched together symbols of defiance against the Federal Compact they once swore to uphold.
Members from the provinces, many now open fascist and Imperialist sympathizers, sat in restless clusters, whispering, nodding, or glaring across the chamber. The failure of the First Amendment vote had shattered what little faith remained in the Federal Republic. The escape of Dwayne Newhiskey had been the spark. Now the provinces saw opportunity where others saw treason.
The gavel struck once. Murmurs faded.
At the center dais, Dwayne Newhiskey adjusted his suit, the faint light of the chandeliers catching the silver pin on his lapel, the emblem of the Confederate Phoenix. He gazed across the floor, taking in the faces of men who had burned their bridges with the Republic, men who now sought legitimacy through him.
He raised a hand.
"Honorable members of this Assembly," he began, his voice steady but sharp. "For too long, the Federal Compact has shackled our provinces under the false promise of unity. It demanded our obedience but denied us sovereignty."
A murmur of approval rippled through the chamber.
Newhiskey pressed on, the fire in his voice rising.
"While the Republic bickers in the Assembly halls of Revilla, we the workers, the soldiers, and the governors of the South have taken destiny into our own hands. Our factories no longer serve Federal contracts. Our ports no longer fly their flag. We are free men, and today, we give that freedom a name!"
The hall erupted into applause, tables pounded, and boots stomped against the marble floor.
Governor Vickery leaned forward, his jaw tight, eyes flicking toward the press gallery where Imperial envoys watched silently. Their presence was unspoken proof of foreign interest.
Newhiskey raised his hands for quiet.
"Let the Republic tremble. Let them call us traitors. But history will call us founders. For today, the Confederacy of St. Lawrence elects its first president!"
A crescendo of cheers followed. Ballots were raised, names called, and voices thundered through the hall. Outside, the streets of Jonestown roared with crowds waving crimson banners, the beginning of something that could not be undone.
And in the gallery, one young aide whispered to another, almost in dread.
"The war's already begun."
To be Continued