Laryn activated the [Temporal Thinking Space]. It popped in around him, freezing the fire and people around him.

  Too many people had died here, since the founding of this kingdom. Vand’s death would only serve to drive another wedge between the people. He couldn’t allow it to happen.

  Laryn pulled up the time rewind option in his interface and began scrubbing through the available time to rewind.

  "This is bad," Adi said, peering over his shoulder.

  "Your observational powers take my breath away," Laryn grunted.

  Laryn checked his total available time to reverse. With 395 claimed tiles, he could go back about six and a half minutes—If he was willing to give up the whole kingdom. This was going to eat into his stat buffs, but he could recover those. It was worth it.

  He searched for the point in the past where he could stop the fighting with the least damage to his kingdom. He scrubbed through, looking for the optimal place to intervene before things really got going.

  Once the fighting started, things were too up in the air for Laryn to be certain he could stop them with a single act. He decided that the best spot was about three minutes prior—just after Korv shouted out his dirty lyrics to the song.

  Laryn selected the space: 192 tiles to be removed. Then he remembered something important.

  "Wind and stones, this is a major disadvantage to having a high level of influence. Adi, how much essence will I lose when I sacrifice these tiles?"

  Adi said, "Well, your average influence is around 2.8, so you lose that much core essence for each tile that you sacrifice. That would total about little over 535."

  "Wind and stones," Laryn spat. That was nearly half of the core essence. They’d worked so hard over the last several days to bank up. This would be a big set back in his hope to have enough essence in reserve to quickly push to Tier 4.

  Then again, a minor civil war in his kingdom was a bigger problem.

  "Well, it has to be done," Laryn said. He wiped sweat from his brow and took a deep breath as he felt anger surge through him. He was furious with these people. How could they be so simple-minded and selfish and foolish?

  He activated the time reset and felt his body flowing backwards through the movements of the last three minutes, his anger rising.

  He reached the end of the time reset and clenched his fists. He immediately stormed across the sand.

  The last notes of Gall's lute faded in the night sky, and the singing people trailed off as Korv shouted his alternate version of the song at the top of his drunken lungs, unable to carry the tune.

  > You Jardensvalers can wipe my—

  “Enough” Gall shouted, muting his instrument.

  But Laryn was already on the move. He grabbed Korv by the front of his shirt, spilling mead to the ground as he pulled the man to his feet. Korv started, hiccuped, and shook his head, stumbling as Laryn dragged him. He threw him to the center of the ring near the bonfire and threw him to the ground.

  People muttered and coughed uncomfortably. "A bit of an overreaction," someone said from the Orfswell side of the ring.

  “That’s a horrible version,” Hela muttered, looking disgusted.

  “You Orfswellers need to learn to be more respectful,” Thallon added.

  “All you do is boss us around,” Korv grumbled from the sand. “We didn’t come to the wildlands to be bullied. We came to be free!”

  "Adi," Laryn said, cutting off the murmuring, "can you tell everyone what happened here, what I just did?"

  Adi appeared standing behind him and folded her hands uncomfortably behind her back. She coughed.

  "Laryn has just used the ability of the Core to rewind time by about three minutes. He sacrificed 192 tiles and 535 core essence to do so."

  Laryn watched the faces of the startled people surrounding him. As Adi spoke, eyes widened and eyebrows raised. Laryn knew that most of them didn't really understand the power of the Core, but he was certain that now they were about to understand better.

  "Korv’s—intemperate—lyrics triggered a fight, which quickly escalated and left Vand lying dead on the ground," Laryn said, folding his arms and looking over the crowd.

  Someone gasped.

  "Who killed him?" Thallon bellowed. "Who killed Vand?"

  "I'm not dead. Not yet," Vand said, earning a nervous chuckle from a few of his neighbors, which alleviated the tension somewhat.

  "Korv did," Laryn said. "Korv stabbed him with this knife." He yanked the knife from Korv's belt and gestured for Hober and Ollen to come restrain the man.

  The two men went and bound Korv's hands and feet.

  Thallon spoke up again. "So he's a murderer. He killed a man. We should punish him as such. In Jardensvale, murder is punishable by death."

  "This isn't Jardensvale," Laryn said. "And I'd appreciate it if you would all remember that. You're all Vallorians now."

  He gave orders to Korv’s guards.

  "Hober, Ollen, keep watch over Korv tonight. I will administering justice tomorrow. What happened here tonight is unacceptable, and each of you, through your fighting, has caused significant damage to this kingdom."

  Thallon scoffed. "What fighting? We never fought. You prevented it from happening. You stopped it."

  Laryn stormed over to Thallon and stuck a finger in his chest. "You were just arguing that Korv should be treated as a murderer, because he would have killed Vand. You would have been just as involved in the fighting.”

  Thallon recoiled.

  “You don't like that same reasoning applied to yourself? You are part of the problem here. You egged Korv on.”

  Laryn turned to face his subjects.

  “Everyone leave. In the morning, I will tell you what we're going to do about this. I better not hear another sound from anyone tonight."

  Laryn retired to his shelter. There he sat in the slightly wobbly chair, working at the slightly wobbly table that Thatch had crafted for him. He spent the night turning over his options in his mind.

  In Eltar, a legal code existed which had guided the kings of Eltar for hundreds of years. It was based on justice, punishment proportional to the crime. Laryn had always respected most his leaders and teachers who tried to adhere to its old standards.

  In recent decades, Laryn's father had largely done away with the code, opting instead for a system based on loyalty and obedience, with brutal and harsh punishments. Yarin the Elder rarely considered justice in meting out punishments. He only looked to what would secure his grip on power.

  This meant that minor crimes were sometimes met with terrible torture, while major crimes would be swept under the rug, to the benefit of a favored advisor.

  Laryn had often seethed under his father's harsh rule and did not wish to emulate that. He felt that whatever he did now set a serious precedent for whatever happened in the future. Not wishing to be an ineffective and inconsistent ruler, he needed to make the important decisions now about how he would handle problems in the future.

  So he called up his recollection of the old code. He had once memorized it, though that had faded. He worked through the words, revising it to suit his needs. As the sun rose the next morning, he had crafted a simple—but hopefully effective—code that could be used not only to regulate the behavior of the subjects of his kingdom but also to soothe relations between the groups that now conflicted with one another.

  Laryn addressed the subdued gathering of subjects as the sun rose behind him. Korv, still bound, sat in the dirt nearby. The man seemed to have gained a few bruises on his face in the night.

  "You have all participated in behavior that has damaged the growth and the welfare of this kingdom, which is essential for the survival of all. Anyone acting against the interests of the kingdom must be punished. I have prepared a code, and I will administer justice today according to it."

  Laryn read off his code, marking off the the points with his fingers as he read.

  “One: If a subject intentionally takes another subject’s life, his life shall be forfeit.

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  “Two: If a subject wounds another subject, he shall suffer the same wound. A broken bone shall be met with a broken bone. A missing eye with the loss of an eye.

  “Three: If a subject steals from his neighbor, he shall repay double.

  “Four: If a man lies under oath, and it brings harm, his punishment shall match the harm caused. If no harm is done, he shall be whipped and marked a liar.

  “Five: If two men quarrel, the first man to strike a blow will labor for three days in service of the other. If the first blow cannot be determined, each shall labor three days in the service of the other.

  “Six: Anyone disobeying the express order of the [Ruler] or his representative, or working against the success of the kingdom will be whipped not less than one dozen times, and required to labor until restitution is made.”

  “Good!” Thallon said, clapping his hands slowly. “I approve.”

  “This is tyranny,” Korv muttered.

  “It’s justice,” Laryn said. “Without it, our kingdom will fail.”

  "So we’re having an execution this morning?" Thallon asked.

  "I considered it," Laryn said. "If not for my intervention, Vand would be dead. But in the end, a life was not taken. Instead, a large portion of our kingdom was lost. A life cannot be replaced, and the only fair punishment is the taking of a life in exchange. However, the damage done to the kingdom can be repaired through the labor of the guilty. I think you’ll all find my justice to be good. I declare that Korv will be sentenced to one dozen lashes, and one dozen days of hard labor under the management of the [Mages], working to replenish the essence lost from the kingdom due to his actions."

  Korv scowled. "What is this rot-talk? All I did was sing a stupid song." The man looked anxiously around, searching for support.

  Laryn looked too. He’d worked hard to find a punishment that everyone could see as reasonable. He didn’t want to drive another wedge into the populace.

  "Was this not justice?" Laryn asked. He received nods from several people, both Jardensvalers and Orfswellers. A small sense of relief settled over him. He had feared that the people might reject this.

  "Korv, we do not have the manpower to guard you day and night, so you will be subjected to a geas which will require your labor. I cannot force you to make that agreement, but I can provide you with an option. You agree to it, or you are exiled from Vallor."

  Korv unclenched his hands, staring at the ground. What could he do if he was exiled? Perhaps he could flee, go to the new kingdom that had been discovered—that might take a day or two of journeying on foot. More than a day or two, if he could even find it. There was a slim chance of his survival alone in the wilderness without supplies if he chose to be exiled.

  "It's not really a choice," Korv muttered. "I still think it's rot-talk."

  "You will accept the geas then?"

  "Yes," Korv muttered.

  "Good."

  “Hey,” Mat said, staring nervously at the ground. “Didn’t you say that everyone was involved in the fight?”

  “Yes,” Laryn said. “I did.”

  “Then why is it fair to punish Korv?”

  “I’m not done yet,” Laryn said. “Every single one of you participated in the fighting which I had to stop. As such you all come under condemnation of the fifth rule, and must be made to labor for three days in the service of the other. Everyone here will take a three day punishment, working for the [Mages] and helping to grow the kingdom. Your geas will dictate your assigned rotation.”

  Mutters from the crowd rose.

  Then Thallon laughed out loud. “That’s as fair a take as I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Where do I sign?”

  A ripple of laughter rolled through the crowd at this, and the tension which had filled the kingdom melted back for a time.

  Laryn moved through the populace, and each person agreed to the punishment geas he offered them. Hela did mutter that she was annoyed about receiving the punishment for something that she hadn’t done, but she still agreed to receive the geas. The only person exempted from the punishment was Cara, because she was too young.

  When he finally came to Kenna, most of the people had dispersed. Gaten and Widan were already working at the core, pushing Korv hard.

  "Your geas,” Laryn said, offering it to Kenna.

  “Before I agree to this,” she said. “Tell me the truth. I find it implausible that everyone here participated in a brawl like what you described.”

  Laryn made sure nobody was listening in. “Nearly everyone did,” he said.

  “But not everyone,” Kenna said. “Yet you’re punishing them all, equally.”

  “You as well,” Laryn said.

  “You’re trying to administer justice, but you’re also trying to overcome the rift between the Jardensvalers and the Orfswellers, aren’t you?”

  Laryn nodded.

  “Be honest with me,” Kenna said. “I need to know whether I should be indignant about my punishment. Was I part of the fighting?”

  Laryn laughed. “You were among the worst,” he said. “Like a tornado of stones. Put Thallon to shame.”

  Kenna laughed.

  “Seriously,” Laryn said with a broad smile. “I tell the truth.”

  Kenna smiled back, then accepted the Geas.

  Laryn watched her walk away. A common enemy could bind a people together more quickly than anything else. He’d just offered himself up as a target, and it seemed to be working, for now.