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--donation bonus (day #29, post 3/5)--
It was rather depressing to contemplate, but enough people had already repeated Abolish’s lie and thereby transformed it into truth.

David tried to focus on what could be done. He had a whole room full of advisers in front of him, but he’d drifted from their conversation a while ago.

“Your Majesty, are you listening?” someone was saying.

David opened his eyes but did not look up.

“Perhaps we should reconvene later,” said someone else, “after you are rested.”

“No,” said David, and not in the light tone that they had perhaps come to expect of him. He’d never spent very much time at all with most of these people, and here they were, giving him contradictory counsel, likely just trying to cover all their bases. He wasn’t yet sure how many of them he wanted to dismiss, but the number was growing. “Continue. I will listen and ignore as I please, but you will not stop talking. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We have to consider how Rendon might react to this news,” said someone else, a middle-aged woman and duchess of the House Vollier. “They could well see this as a moment of vulnerability and mount an assault. We should strike first.”

David tried not to roll his eyes. She almost had a point. Rendon was as unpredictable as Abolish right now. It was why he had not gone to them for help, not tried to inform them of a rebel faction that might attack them today. He didn’t need to give Rendon a reason to move in and occupy Atreyan land in order to eliminate said rebel faction. Not only would that escalate matters, but it would also give Rendon an immense advantage in the event of full-scale war. So David could understand the woman’s concern there, but he was most certainly not going to attack a foreign nation purely out of fear.

“Don’t be absurd!” said someone else, an elderly fellow and baron of the House Belgrant. “We should be working with Rendon to prevent war from even occurring! They will be looking to see where our soon-to-be king stands on the matter, which is why His Majesty should waste no time in assuring them that he will sue for peace!”