Road to the Crown

17th November 1574

Even after two days, the question that Elia asked me back in the Royal Palace in Krakow still bothered me.

What if my scheme to become the grey eminence of the entire country and the most important backer of the king were to fail?

While the question was fairly simple, the drawbacks of the conclusions that any of its answers would provide were more than worrying. From a lot of problems appearing in terms of further developing my lands and possible taxes that could thwart any attempts at growth, through forcing me to enter the games of political struggles and waste my precious time on anything other than my work or wife, all the way to either being completely ostracised due to my sudden growth or in even worse scenario, the entire country breaking apart in a civil war.

As much as I didn't want to allow myself to even think of a situation where the peaceful Polish hinterlands would turn into fields for bloody and completely pointless battles, just the perspective of my actions actually hastening the deconstruction of the organised Commonwealth state was enough to sap me out of all my energy.

"You are still sulking?"

Entering the room without even pretending to knock or announce her entry in any other way, Elia quickly reached the bed on which I was lying and sat beside me. Her hands quickly found the way to my own, turning our fingers into an entangled mess of delicate handholding

"Sulking? No. I'm just worried."

Looking at the beautiful landscape of the thriving Tarnow right outside of the window of my chamber, I silently congratulated myself for deciding to leave the Krakow right away after my fiery refusal to accept Muscovite proposition. Doing so would leave a huge statement of my outlook on the topic while leaving the senate free to do anything they wanted without any threat of my interference.

Even with that, over the past few days, I had to refuse a new diplomatic mission urging me to go back to the capital nearly perfectly according to the schedule of the train that connected the two cities. As unimportant as it was, while my insane logistic investment was already approaching the regularity of the trains that I used back in my original timeline, the time of the travel was still sadly nearly twice as long as what I expected from any rational train line back in the days.

"So you are still sulking…"

Ignoring my own response, Elia only pulled my head into her bosom and forced me to enjoy the softness of her supple breasts. Hearing the gentle beating of her heart through her skin, I indeed felt as if everything around me was slowing down and finally resuming to move at a normal pace, rather than the breakneck speed that was my constant companion in everything that was happening over the past few months.

"Listen."

A single word. It was just a single word, yet somehow Elia managed to harness all of my attention, even to the point where I didn't consciously enjoy her closeness.

"What happens now, is not in your domain of choice anymore. With the statement that you gave back in Krakow and how you refused to return over and over again, I wouldn't be surprised if they just ignored your presence and went through with the peace and election talks. But that's not what's important now."

Finally letting me go and take a breath of fresh air instead of the sweet smell of her skin, Elia brought her small hand up and pushed my chin up. Forced to look into her deep, mesmerising eyes, I couldn't help but wonder what else would she have to say.

"The last year was full of hardships and problems, I'm not going to deny it. Heck, just thinking about how far we came from our starting point makes me wonder whether everything around us is nothing more but a pleasant dream that will soon end, forcing me to go back into being lone fugitive escaping from my own family."

Even though Elia took a short break to take a proper breath, I didn't dare to interrupt her words. The seriousness on her face and return of the slight boldness that charmed me all the way back during our first meeting was enough to keep me silent.

"Right now, even if your great plan fails, it won't change the fact that we are already one of the richest people in the entire Commonwealth, if not in the entire world. And you can trust me on that, I spent more than enough time managing our lands to notice this fact. While the constant growth and spending connected to it makes it hard to notice, when I had some free time, I actually checked what the estimated value of our household would be. And it's nearly triple of what the Cheerio family has!"

Pushing this insane reality right into me, Elia made it impossible to refute her words. Mostly, because I myself knew that even her estimations were bound to be grossly underestimated. Generally, it was hard to guess how much all my projects were worth. Going by the standard term from the future where the project would be considered to be passable if it could return the costs of investment in ten years, then by downgrading everything that I had to that level would mean that my monthly income was less than a single percent of the net worth of all my businesses, lands and manufactories!

Knock, knock.

Suddenly, the sound of someone's fists smashing against the door broke the stupor that the two of us fell once we started to gauge the worth of our wealth. Given how we were in my private chambers at the Tarnowian Castle, something really huge had to happen for the servants of mine to actually dare to disturb our rest.

"Come in."

If someone had balls big enough to knock on those specific doors, then I didn't really mind allowing him to enter. After all, there was nothing wrong with a married couple to cuddle together! Additionally, with Elia bringing up a tough topic so suddenly, we didn't even make the first step towards undressing each other for the obvious sake!

"Sir, a delegation from the capital is at the castle's doorstep! Matsu already allowed them inside, but they are insisting on personally meeting with you, sir, and the lady!"

This already sounded ominous. I could understand the Senate attempts to bring me back to Kraków with simple diplomatic missions carried by an average noble as those messengers didn't hold any prestigious position that would force me to respect them. But for the senate to send an entire delegation?

That had to mean that something actually huge has happened!

"Lead the way."

Not daring to waste any time, I could feel all the anxiety and worries that I cultivated over the past few months and took special care off for the last two days nearing its boiling point. Instead of allowing those bottled-up emotions to grow even more only to explode taking my sanity away, actually learning about the purpose of the delegation could at least allow me to realise what I was actually against!

After a few moments of fixing our attires, I grabbed Elia's hands and forced the servant to adapt his own energetic pace to the speed that Elia could safely move at. Even with that, due to how relatively small Tarnowian castle was, it took us only about two minutes to appear in front of an enormous delegation.

Looking at the faces of my guests, I could recognise several notable figures. Amongst them, the grinning smile of the Bone Governor flashed, only to be replaced by the serious face of Cheerio's patriarch that disappeared in the crowd the very next moment.

'Just what the heck is going on?'

Standing in front of this crowd, I could only watch how the primate himself emerged from the crowd with two random nobles holding a long and thick, ceremonial cape behind him.

"Sir Mike Tarnowski, of the Tarnowian household. Kneel."

Still stupefied by the situation, I could only follow the orders of the primate spoken with an uncommon authoritative tone of his. Only now did I understood how this otherwise calm man could serve as the Royal regent without anyone opposing him!

"You are hereby named as the new King of Commonwealth…"

With my head lowered as it was expected of me while kneeling, I could only feel a strangely dangerous weight appearing over my hair. Spreading the weight of the objects over its entire circular base, it would take an idiot to fail to recognise what was currently happening!

But this was all wrong! 

Becoming a King right now would foil all my plans, and force me to actually waste my efforts on the court games! This was the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen!

Raising my head… Or rather, I attempted to raise my head in order to stop the ongoing makeshift ceremony before it would be too late. Sadly, strange dizziness made me fall right back on my knees after just the single attempt at standing up. 

"May… reign… in glory… peace… land…"

The next sentences spoken by the primate were already turning incomprehensible. Out of the entire crowd, only Elia seemed to notice that something strange was happening. With my vision turning blurry, I could still notice her falling right on her knees beside me while ignoring the entire ceremony, instantly disturbing the awestruck peace in the castle.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Her shout was the last thing that I could fully understand. With all my senses quickly dulling up as if I was either disconnecting from this world or simply dying, I desperately reached out for her hand. 

The warmth of her fingers intervening with mine brought me peace only for a moment.

"We are almost ready!"

A new, strange voice shook my entire self. Form the speech mannerism and the accents alone I could tell that this voice… came from my original timeline!

"Elia…"

Unable to even form a single word in my normal voice, I could only whisper my wife's name, while I could still feel the warmth of her hand wrapped around my fingers. 

My vision completely ceased to work, shrouding me with pitch-black darkness. Only the heat of Elia's hand still accompanied me on this most likely last route of mine. 

"Hit it!"

Blast.

All at once, all my senses returned in a single wave that nearly eradicated my consciousness. With the feeling of something being brutally torn away from my self, all my senses exploded with information, instantly putting my brain into the state of permanent confusion.

"Stabilise him!"

Those strangely… familiar voices were the only thing that I could somehow understand. But the meaning that was most likely hidden beneath them, was far worse than anything that I could imagine.

And then, everything suddenly stopped.

Opening my eyes, I saw a perfectly white ceiling, one that one could experience only in high-end private clinics. For some reason, my body felt way better than before, no matter whether I would compare it to how it was during my original timeline or how I felt in the body of Mike of Tarnow. 

"Welcome back, Mike."

The state of my emotions was critical. As much as I longed to go back to the normal times just for the sake of doing so and only for a while, I never considered this to be something that I could achieve. All the things that I wanted to experience at least once in modern, civilised society, were nothing when compared to the things that I lost by leaving the earlier timeline!

"Elia…"

A soft whimper escaped my mouth, with my mind fully occupied with the attempts to fall back into sleep as if returning back to the world that I already considered to be my reality would be possible just like that.

"Mike, I won't infringe on you right now. Take proper rest, try to sort everything in your head, and then we will have a long, long talk."

Following those words, I felt a quick, sharp pain in my arm, before the world that I just returned to once again melted down and turned into endless darkness.