The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The total amount of action, the concision of its description, is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, and even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the country identities and sexes of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The total amount of action, the concision of its description, is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, and even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the country identities and sexes of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The total amount of action, the concision of its description, is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. They should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The total amount of action, the concision of its description, is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The total amount of action, the concision of its description, is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid censor earlier in the history of this book tried to remove.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The total amount of action, the concision of its description, is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid earlier censor had removed.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The dense action and concise description is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid earlier censor had removed.
Of the first novel she reads, out of Jiskworld:
A thriller/romance novel set during a cold war between two fictional early-modern states which had a brief but very messy total war when the monarchy controlling the region collapsed, about a generation before the novel is set. Their confederation-alliances have imposed strict demilitarization of the entirety of their border regions ever since, but they still engage in a cold war. The Meritocracy of Pernik is nominally minarchist, in practice oligarchic-plutocratic and controlled primarily by families who were lesser nobility or major guilds in the predecessor state. The Vratsa Citizenry is an idealistic direct/liquid democracy* with socialist tendencies which broke sharply from the predecessor's power structures. Also depicted is Ohridski Independent, a university-microstate which stayed out of the war and is neutral ground; the protagonists first met while both students attending the university. The two viewpoint characters trade off perspective, and each switch is made when they meet face to face, whether in the DMZ, in the university's grounds, or another neutral country. The Perniki is the daughter of an aristocratic family who transitioned into the capitalist class smoothly, but are old-fashioned and sideline her due to lingering sexism; she manages an internal affairs bureau and a private security firm for her family. She is not particularly loyal to her country but is attached to the privileges of wealth and status. The Vratsan is also from an old family, but is a committed partisan for the democratic ideals of his country. He is a known field agent, though his service record is classified; comments from his counterpart imply that she has seen the sealed record anyway, and that he is the most highly decorated agent they have.
The action chapters cover espionage, sabotage, and assassinations; the Vratsan side shows him committing them personally, while the Perniki chapters show her making arrangements for others to act or actively directing response when part of her agency is targeted. The meetings involve a lot of trading barbed comments and hinting at knowledge of each other's actions, frequently joking about offers to defect, but also reminiscing about their history at school and romantically-charged comments about each other's competence and accomplishments. There is also a varying degree of implication that they're having sex off-screen, ranging from "meeting for coffee in the afternoon, next chapter picks up leaving town in the morning" to "leaves their hotel room keys under the dinner check when they leave the table"; nothing is shown on-screen. The last few chapters break from the pattern by having a female-lead portion end when she is in the direct line of fire from an unexpected operation she thinks is the male lead - the remainder of the book interleaves the two viewpoints as she acts personally against a follow-up attack, and both protagonists realize they're possibly going to kill their counterpart by morning. She realizes the intended target is a corrupt wing of her family's private police, and when his actions start to blare a meeting of grossly corrupt silencing of whistle-blowers, she hesitates for long enough to lose control, and while she coordinates 'damage control', she's internally conflicted about whether she regrets failing or not. The final meeting has the male lead arrive at her personal residence; she congratulates him on successfully inciting a run on the bank that is the keystone of her family's holdings, removing most of their wealth and power. He accepts it half-heartedly and states he knows she was almost in a position to prevent it, and says that he's unsure whether he wants to apologize for putting her on the spot. She's non-committal, but with some heat declares that she's not going to keep the house much longer, with the power shifting as much as it is. He kisses her hand**, hands her a manila folder, and leaves. She opens it and finds a passport and set of documents tailored for her, along with tickets and itinerary for travel to a neutral country and a destination she recognizes as the barony of a cousin branch of the male lead's family, who've maintained their title and holdings. A three-sentence epilogue describes a view from a window of the barony's seat, the warmth of a fire in the room, and a bedside table next to the window, where the passport rests on top of a rumpled blouse and skirt.
*The translator notes that this is a very flattering and somewhat anachronistic depiction of democracy for the time period; the sophistication of its mechanisms are unrealistic, as liquid democracy wasn't tried at this scale for another half-century, and most democracy in the time period was substantially more corrupt and dysfunctional, exclusionary, or both, than is seen here. The author is an openly-opinionated ideologue for liquid democracy and other direct-democracy-family forms of government. However, it was well-researched; though the succession crisis and particulars of the secession are fiction, Ohridski Independent is directly based on a real historical university in the region, and like several other universities, student government at the time is one of the known examples of small-scale attempts at liquid democracy.
**More overtly/standardly romantic than anything they have done on-screen at any earlier point.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The dense action and concise description is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid earlier censor had removed.
Of the first novel she reads, out of Jiskworld:
A thriller/romance novel set during a cold war between two fictional early-modern states which had a brief but very messy total war when the monarchy controlling the region collapsed, about a generation before the novel is set. Their confederation-alliances have imposed strict demilitarization of the entirety of their border regions ever since, but they still engage in a cold war. The Meritocracy of Pernik is nominally minarchist, in practice oligarchic-plutocratic and controlled primarily by families who were lesser nobility or major guilds in the predecessor state. The Vratsa Citizenry is an idealistic direct/liquid democracy* with socialist tendencies which broke sharply from the predecessor's power structures. Also depicted is Ohridski Independent, a university-microstate which stayed out of the war and is neutral ground; the protagonists first met while both students attending the university. The two viewpoint characters trade off perspective, and each switch is made when they meet face to face, whether in the DMZ, in the university's grounds, or another neutral country. The Perniki is the daughter of an aristocratic family who transitioned into the capitalist class smoothly, but are old-fashioned and sideline her due to lingering sexism; she manages an internal affairs bureau and a private security firm for her family. She is not particularly loyal to her country but is attached to the privileges of wealth and status. The Vratsan is also from an old family, but is a committed partisan for the democratic ideals of his country. He is a known field agent, though his service record is classified; comments from his counterpart imply that she has seen the sealed record anyway, and that he is the most highly decorated agent they have.
The action chapters cover espionage, sabotage, and assassinations; the Vratsan side shows him committing them personally, while the Perniki chapters show her making arrangements for others to act or actively directing response when part of her agency is targeted. The meetings involve a lot of trading barbed comments and hinting at knowledge of each other's actions, frequently joking about offers to defect, but also reminiscing about their history at school and romantically-charged comments about each other's competence and accomplishments. There is also a varying degree of implication that they're having sex off-screen, ranging from "meeting for coffee in the afternoon, next chapter picks up leaving town in the morning" to "leaves their hotel room keys under the dinner check when they leave the table"; nothing is shown on-screen. The last few chapters break from the pattern by having a female-lead portion end when she is in the direct line of fire from an unexpected operation she thinks is the male lead - the remainder of the book interleaves the two viewpoints as she acts personally against a follow-up attack, and both protagonists realize they're possibly going to kill their counterpart by morning. She realizes the intended target is a corrupt wing of her family's private police, and when his actions start to blare a meeting of grossly corrupt silencing of whistle-blowers, she hesitates for long enough to lose control, and while she coordinates 'damage control', she's internally conflicted about whether she regrets failing or not. The final meeting has the male lead arrive at her personal residence; she congratulates him on successfully inciting a run on the bank that is the keystone of her family's holdings, removing most of their wealth and power. He accepts it half-heartedly and states he knows she was almost in a position to prevent it, and says that he's unsure whether he wants to apologize for putting her on the spot. She's non-committal, but with some heat declares that she's not going to keep the house much longer, with the power shifting as much as it is. He kisses her hand**, hands her a manila folder, and leaves. She opens it and finds a passport and set of documents tailored for her, along with tickets and itinerary for travel to a neutral country and a destination she recognizes as the barony of a cousin branch of the male lead's family, who've maintained their title and holdings. A three-sentence epilogue describes a view from a window of the barony's seat, the warmth of a fire in the room, and a bedside table next to the window, where the passport rests on top of a rumpled blouse and skirt.
*The translator notes that this is a very flattering and somewhat anachronistic depiction of democracy for the time period; the sophistication of its mechanisms are unrealistic, as liquid democracy wasn't tried at this scale for another half-century, and most democracy in the time period was substantially more corrupt and dysfunctional, exclusionary, or both, than is seen here. The author is an openly-opinionated ideologue for liquid democracy and other direct-democracy-family forms of government. However, it was well-researched; though the succession crisis and particulars of the secession are fiction, Ohridski Independent is directly based on a real historical university in the region, and like several other universities, student government at the time is one of the known examples of small-scale attempts at liquid democracy.
**More overtly/standardly romantic than anything they have done on-screen at any earlier point.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The dense action and concise description is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid earlier censor had removed.
Of the first novel she reads, out of Jiskworld:
A thriller/romance novel set during a cold war between two fictional early-modern states which had a brief but very messy total war when the monarchy controlling the region collapsed, about a generation before the novel is set. Their confederation-alliances have imposed strict demilitarization of the entirety of their border regions ever since, but they still engage in a cold war. The Meritocracy of Pernik is nominally minarchist, in practice oligarchic-plutocratic and controlled primarily by families who were lesser nobility or major guilds in the predecessor state. The Vratsa Citizenry is an idealistic direct/liquid democracy* with socialist tendencies which broke sharply from the predecessor's power structures. Also depicted is Ohridski Independent, a university-microstate which stayed out of the war and is neutral ground; the protagonists first met while both students attending the university. The two viewpoint characters trade off perspective, and each switch is made when they meet face to face, whether in the DMZ, in the university's grounds, or another neutral country. The Perniki is the daughter of an aristocratic family who transitioned into the capitalist class smoothly, but are old-fashioned and sideline her due to lingering sexism; she manages an internal affairs bureau and a private security firm for her family. She is not particularly loyal to her country but is attached to the privileges of wealth and status. The Vratsan is also from an old family, but is a committed partisan for the democratic ideals of his country. He is a known field agent, though his service record is classified; comments from his counterpart imply that she has seen the sealed record anyway, and that he is the most highly decorated agent they have.
The action chapters cover espionage, sabotage, and assassinations; the Vratsan side shows him committing them personally, while the Perniki chapters show her making arrangements for others to act or actively directing response when part of her agency is targeted. The meetings involve a lot of trading barbed comments and hinting at knowledge of each other's actions, frequently joking about offers to defect, but also reminiscing about their history at school and romantically-charged comments about each other's competence and accomplishments. There is also a varying degree of implication that they're having sex off-screen, ranging from "meeting for coffee in the afternoon, next chapter picks up leaving town in the morning" to "leaves their hotel room keys under the dinner check when they leave the table"; nothing is shown on-screen. The last few chapters break from the pattern by having a female-lead portion end when she is in the direct line of fire from an unexpected operation she thinks is the male lead - the remainder of the book interleaves the two viewpoints as she acts personally against a follow-up attack, and both protagonists realize they're possibly going to kill their counterpart by morning. She realizes the intended target is a corrupt wing of her family's private police, and when his actions start to blare a meeting of grossly corrupt silencing of whistle-blowers, she hesitates for long enough to lose control, and while she coordinates 'damage control', she's internally conflicted about whether she regrets failing or not. The final meeting has the male lead arrive at her personal residence; she congratulates him on successfully inciting a run on the bank that is the keystone of her family's holdings, removing most of their wealth and power. He accepts it half-heartedly and states he knows she was almost in a position to prevent it, and says that he's unsure whether he wants to apologize for putting her on the spot. She's non-committal, but with some heat declares that she's not going to keep the house much longer, with the power shifting as much as it is. He kisses her hand**, hands her a manila folder, and leaves. She opens it and finds a passport and set of documents tailored for her, along with tickets and itinerary for travel to a neutral country and a destination she recognizes as the barony of a cousin branch of the male lead's family, who've maintained their title and holdings. A three-sentence epilogue describes a view from a window of the barony's seat, the warmth of a fire in the room, and a bedside table next to the window, where the passport rests on top of a rumpled blouse and skirt.
*The translator notes that this is a very flattering and somewhat anachronistic depiction of democracy for the time period; the sophistication of its mechanisms are unrealistic, as liquid democracy wasn't tried at this scale for another half-century, and most democracy in the time period was substantially more corrupt and dysfunctional, exclusionary, or both, than is seen here. The author is an openly-opinionated ideologue for liquid democracy and other direct-democracy-family forms of government. However, it was well-researched; though the succession crisis and particulars of the secession are fiction, Ohridski Independent is directly based on a real historical university in the region, and like several other universities, student government at the time is one of the known examples of small-scale attempts at liquid democracy.
**More overtly/standardly romantic than anything they have done on-screen at any earlier point.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The dense action and concise description is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid earlier censor had removed.
Of the first novel she reads, out of Jiskworld:
A thriller/romance novel set during a cold war between two fictional early-modern states which had a brief but very messy total war when the monarchy controlling the region collapsed, about a generation before the novel is set. Their confederation-alliances have imposed strict demilitarization of the entirety of their border regions ever since, but they still engage in a cold war. The Meritocracy of Pernik is nominally minarchist, in practice oligarchic-plutocratic and controlled primarily by families who were lesser nobility or major guilds in the predecessor state. The Vratsa Citizenry is an idealistic direct/liquid democracy* with socialist tendencies which broke sharply from the predecessor's power structures. Also depicted is Ohridski Independent, a university-microstate which stayed out of the war and is neutral ground; the protagonists first met while both students attending the university. The two viewpoint characters trade off perspective, and each switch is made when they meet face to face, whether in the DMZ, in the university's grounds, or another neutral country. The Perniki is the daughter of an aristocratic family who transitioned into the capitalist class smoothly, but are old-fashioned and sideline her due to lingering sexism; she manages an internal affairs bureau and a private security firm for her family. She is not particularly loyal to her country but is attached to the privileges of wealth and status. The Vratsan is also from an old family, but is a committed partisan for the democratic ideals of his country. He is a known field agent, though his service record is classified; comments from his counterpart imply that she has seen the sealed record anyway, and that he is the most highly decorated agent they have.
The action chapters cover espionage, sabotage, and assassinations; the Vratsan side shows him committing them personally, while the Perniki chapters show her making arrangements for others to act or actively directing response when part of her agency is targeted. The meetings involve a lot of trading barbed comments and hinting at knowledge of each other's actions, frequently joking about offers to defect, but also reminiscing about their history at school and romantically-charged comments about each other's competence and accomplishments. There is also a varying degree of implication that they're having sex off-screen, ranging from "meeting for coffee in the afternoon, next chapter picks up leaving town in the morning" to "leaves their hotel room keys under the dinner check when they leave the table"; nothing is shown on-screen. The last few chapters break from the pattern by having a female-lead portion end when she is in the direct line of fire from an unexpected operation she thinks is the male lead - the remainder of the book interleaves the two viewpoints as she acts personally against a follow-up attack, and both protagonists realize they're possibly going to kill their counterpart by morning. She realizes the intended target is a corrupt wing of her family's private police, and when his actions start to blare a meeting of grossly corrupt silencing of whistle-blowers, she hesitates for long enough to lose control, and while she coordinates 'damage control', she's internally conflicted about whether she regrets failing or not. The final meeting has the male lead arrive at her personal residence; she congratulates him on successfully inciting a run on the bank that is the keystone of her family's holdings, removing most of their wealth and power. He accepts it half-heartedly and states he knows she was almost in a position to prevent it, and says that he's unsure whether he wants to apologize for putting her on the spot. She's non-committal, but with some heat declares that she's not going to keep the house much longer, with the power shifting as much as it is. He kisses her hand**, hands her a manila folder, and leaves. She opens it and finds a passport and set of documents tailored for her, along with tickets and itinerary for travel to a neutral country and a destination she recognizes as the barony of a cousin branch of the male lead's family, who've maintained their title and holdings. A three-sentence epilogue describes a view from a window of the barony's seat, the warmth of a fire in the room, and a bedside table next to the window, where the passport rests on top of a rumpled blouse and skirt.
*The translator notes that this is a very flattering and somewhat anachronistic depiction of democracy for the time period; the sophistication of its mechanisms are unrealistic, as liquid democracy wasn't tried at this scale for another half-century, and most democracy in the time period was substantially more corrupt and dysfunctional, exclusionary, or both, than is seen here. The author is an openly-opinionated ideologue for liquid democracy and other direct-democracy-family forms of government. However, it was well-researched; though the succession crisis and particulars of the secession are fiction, Ohridski Independent is directly based on a real historical university in the region, and like several other universities, student government at the time is one of the known examples of small-scale attempts at liquid democracy.
**More overtly/standardly romantic than anything they have done on-screen at any earlier point.
The complexity of this story is refreshing, at least if you're Abrogail Thrune. In some ways, albeit not other ways, this is very much the sort of romance novel that she wanted to read, as an intelligent young girl. As Infernal Majestrix, she reluctantly decided that she simply did not have enough +6 Intelligence headbands in her kingdom to crown the best of romance novel writers with one, which is what it would take to produce this. The dense action and concise description is pleasing to her; most romance novels in other kingdoms are far more long-winded than this, to describe far less. Even in Cheliax she has not managed by whip and fire alone to teach authors not to be such enormous windbags.
That the male protagonist from the Galt-analogue of Vratsa conquers a woman from the more Lawful Evil land of Pernik is wholly unacceptable, of course, but this seems easy to remedy. Abrogail scrawls down a note to have the Imperial censors switch about the national identities of the protagonists; the moral justifications that accompany the protagonists' actions can easily be shuffled about without changing the actions themselves. The censors should try changing about the sexes as well, if they can, but she will be understanding (if not forgiving) if they cannot make that flow properly. Oh, and put back in all the sex scenes that some insipid earlier censor had removed.
