Nala knew she should be concerned about the riots and murders in Miras right now, but she was too busy with her own falling-apart country to care. She'd been so caught up with Julian and Valkyrie Ascension to remember that their loans were about to come due. To Miras, to Asriel and to Lysandria, all at once.
Nala hadn't meant to get her country so badly indebted to the others. Apart from anything, it soured their relations—and their friendship. But, four years ago in April, things had gotten bad. She'd held off the crushing weight of their poverty for eight whole months after they'd formally severed Calore from Kallias and formed the two human countries from Media's old Empire. But things were just getting too much. Calore's people, living far from Medea's capital in the most wretched parts of Kallias, were desperately poor and Nala refused to ignore them like the Crimsons had. She'd sent as many as she could to the Isthmus cities, where free land and plentiful jobs were offered, which was why the majority of those living there were Caloreian by birth. Then she'd tried to aid those remaining as best she could, all the while building industries and searching for an income source in their boiling, broken land. She had outright refused to indebt herself to other countries. It would ruin relations with the Alliance and make them beholden to Miras, Asriel and Lysandria. She'd held off well; she might even have managed to last another few months if...
If the earthquake hadn't happened. It nearly destroyed Lithiya, their second-most
populated city, sent the nearby towns and villages to their knees and birthed a tsunami that swallowed what little farmland they had on the coast. Suddenly, their income and industry—which she'd worked so hard on for the past nine months—were all decimated, swallowed by natural disasters when they needed it most. Tens of thousands more were homeless or struck with poverty, and Calore had been sent into chaos.
She'd had no choice. She'd gone to Kestra, Layla and Lysandra and begged at their feet for that money. No bank would touch Calore with a five-foot pole. Yet her friends had loaned them the money they needed, dragged them out of that mess and given them the lowest interest rates they could.
Only now had the impact of the earthquake begun to lessen. Their debts
remained, worse than the day they'd taken them out. Now, on the wonderful anniversary of waking up to that summer four years ago, she was about to try to pay off the loans. They'd managed to hold them back when the other Alliance rulers first asked for a chunk of interest two years into the loan, but now it had come due again...Nala shuddered. There'd be no paying them off, unless she wanted to take another loan to pay off the debt they already had. Not with the money from the Kalcin Mirael mines being gained only from the army's purchases, which didn't provide half the income they'd hoped for.
Just what I need right now, Nala thought to herself. On top of Valkyrie Ascension, Julian's reappearance and the Council's souring relations...just what I need.
And when she checked the Treasury, she knew she was about to cross yet another line she'd sworn she never would.
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Jasper
Jasper knew that when his aunt sought him out with that look on her face, his afternoon was about to go to summer.
"Hi, Nala," he smiled as she entered his rooms in the Triad Council Building. Technically Myra's rooms, but he lived in the spacious apartment with her and occupied it most of the time given how often she went away.
"Hi, Jasp. Can we talk?" She smiled. Oh dear. If she was calling him Jasp, things were definitely not going to turn out well. She didn't use that nickname often—the last time, in fact, was when he'd returned from the risky assassination of General Hadlow.
"Sure," he said anyway, inviting her to sit. Once he might have hugged her. Once they wouldn't have hidden behind pleasantries and gotten down to why she was really here.
"Jasper, I hate to ask this." Nala said. "I really, really hate it and I wouldn't say anything if I didn't think this was absolutely necessary." She paused to take a breath. "Jasper, the loans are coming due. Calore's loans to Miras, Asriel and Lysandria. And I can't pay them, not unless I take everything Calore has been spending on trying to help our people."
"What do you want me to do?" Jasper asked. "I don't have any control over
Miras or any of your other creditors, Nala."
"You have control over Myra."
"One, no and two, she's not even in charge of the loans. That's Kestra's domain. Myra only controls the army."
"You have influence over Kestra too," Nala said, speaking quickly."Directly, yes, but also through Myra. Kestra relies on her mother. She goes to her for advice, listens to her suggestions—you know that if she wanted to, Myra could control both factions of Miras through her daughter. Come on, you could change this decision, burn it!"
"Go to Lysandra," he deflected. "She's your friend, isn't she?"
"Yes, but... Jasper, she won't budge. She was reluctant the first time, but she refuses to loan any money now. And it isn't because she's greedy, before you start ranting about her jewellery and dresses and palaces. She doesn't want to ruin our friendship, Jasper. That's why she refused."
"Oh, so our relatiosnhip's expendable?" He demanded.
"Jasper, that's not what I meant—"
"Really? Because it's already grating." Nala's face flashed with hurt. Great. He'd added to his long list of things he regretted saying to his aunt already.
"What is it that you want me to do?" Jasper said. "I'm not agreeing, just...what."
"Today we're meant to pay back a large percentage of our loan along with some interest." Nala said, hope growing as she seized on the opportunity. "But we can't. Not to Asriel, Miras and Lysandria. I need Miras to forgive our debt—for the time being. That way we can pay off the other two for a little while. I also need them to loan us some more money." She began to rattle off the figures.
"Miras can't afford that," Jasper said. "Not with everything that's going on."
"I can offer them military aid if they need it. My spies, my assassins—all my resources are at their disposal." Nala replied.
"Nala, that's already part of your oath to the Alliance." Jasper reminded her. "But either way, I am not doing this. I have enough sense to see that this is a terrible deal. Myra won't even listen to me."
"She will," Nala said. "Tell her what your people are enduring. Tell her that you cannot bear it. She will do it for you, Jasper. I know because she did it for you when you went after Hadlow. I know because I would have done anything, anything at all for Peter. I would have given my life—" Jasper went very, very still at the implication.
"I think you need to leave, Nala." He said sharply.
"Jasper, I'm sorry, I didn't think about what I was saying. I honestly didn't mean for it to come across that way—"
"Don't you dare," he spat. "Don't you dare lie to me. Just leave, Nala. You're good at that, aren't you?" She flinched back from those words.
"I didn't have a choice when I left the rebellion, Jasper." She said quietly.
"You sure as summer have a choice right now." He returned. "Get out. I'm done with your games. Quit trying to get me involved. I don't want anything to do with Calore's politics."
"Oh, burn that, Jasper." Nala replied, a little harsher than she'd intended.
"You're my nephew! There's no getting out of politics."
"Well maybe I wish I'd had a different aunt." Jasper snapped. "An aunt who didn't leave. An aunt who didn't hate me for something that happened when I was seventeen years old and thrust into a situation that was actually her burning fault. You could have protected us. You could have tried to keep Medea's soldiers from looking too closely at us. You could have saved us—"
"Jasper, I have every right to be angry for what you did."
"No. No, you don't actually, Nala. Do you miss the old Jasper? Crying and begging for forgiveness? Well, tough luck. I made a mistake. I was a fool. I was seventeen years old with an arrow pointed at my heart. I feel wretched about it, and I always will, and it will always haunt my dreams at night. But I was seventeen. Do you know what Myra—the very Myra you want me to betray—has done for me? She has pulled me out of that guilt and she has given me some burning self-respect. So no. No, Nala. Do not play that card on me again. I will not be drawn into your politcs and games. I am done."
"It wasn't me that you roped you into politics." Nala snapped me. "It wasn't me that got you a death threat, Jasper. You choose this life the moment you married Myra. She's a decent person, so I know she told you what loving her would cost."
"That's something I chose." Jasper replied. "You are not. And I honestly can't say I would choose you if I could. Get out, Nala. Please just get out."
"Jasper," she begged. "Don't do it for me. You're right—you don't owe me anything. Do it for your people. Your starving, suffering people. People you've abandoned."
He started to protest, but she cut across him.
"Oh don't look at me that way. You know you have. You fought for survival and a home in the First Crimson War, not for them. You fought for Myra in the second one. And ever since, you've been her little pet, enjoying luxury—" she gestured to the apartment around them, which he knew was a palace compared to what most Caloreians endured—"whilst your people suffer. You never once tried to do anything for them. You never once looked twice at the people who raised you, at the place you were born in. I have given everything to my people, Jasper. Everything to those who were crushed under Medea's rule."
"You sure have given everything," Jasper returned. "Everything to your cause, and nothing to your family. Peter died because you were too busy with your glorious new rebellion to keep an eye on him and me. Your family, your friends, everyone who ever loved you—discarded for that cause, Nala. Was it worth it?"
"Peter died because you were a coward," Nala spat. "Just as you are a coward now. Too afraid to pick a side. Are you a Caloreian, Jasper? Are you human? Or are you Myra Isidore's pampered pet? Your people need you, Jasper. Or are you too busy enjoying luxury while they suffer to so much as hear them cry out?"
"It isn't luxury, Nala." He snapped. "I'm sorry if you have an illusion of my life, but my wife is in constant danger. On the front lines, whether or not we're at war. She nearly died a few weeks ago, remember? I waited outside for hours, not knowing if she would live or die."
"You're not the first person to experience grief or have a loved one fighting in the war." Nala snapped. "And I bet a lot of my people would happily live your life.
Look, I don't care what you think of me. Do this for Calore. Please. I know what
Myra is to you, but—"
"You have no idea what Myra is to me," Jasper replied. "Because if you did, you would never ask this of me. She pulled me out of two years of self-hatred and stood by my side when you turned me away. She risked her life for me, countless times. And she is the only reason that I became the man I am today. A man who would not make the choices he did eleven years ago. A man who can look you in the eye and not be ashamed of what happened when he was just a child." He was trembling with emotion now.
"Myra stood by my side when nobody else would. When everyone else, including you, had left me. Myra forgave me before I was ready to forgive myself. Myra is the only one who can see the darkest, worst parts of me and not flinch away. The only person who fights for me, no matter what. Who never gives up on me and never lets me give up on myself. Myra is the person who risked her country for me once before. I will not ask her to do it again. I want to help my people," Jasper continued. "But I won't use her. I won't use what she feels for me. I just won't. That's my line, Nala."
"Then you've made your choice." She said cooly. "You've chosen Miras, and you've chosen her." Not your homeland, he could hear her say. Not me. She had no idea. No idea of the battle raging within him every day, the battle of two countries that held his heart.
"I don't choose anyone," Jasper said. Nala only laughed.
"You've made your choice, Jasper. Made it, and made it very clear. I hope you're happy with it."
"Nala, please don't do this." He begged. "Not when either of us might die tomorrow."
"We could always die tomorrow," she answered.
"Nala—"
"I'm sorry about what I said about Peter. You're right; I should have forgiven you by now. But I can't. And as for the rest of what I said—I'm not sorry about that at all."
————————————————
Nala
That hadn't gone how she'd meant it to. At all. She sure as summer was sorry about some of what she said. But his words still lingered in her mind Your family, your friends, everyone who ever loved you—discarded for that cause, Nala. Was it worth it?
He was right. She had discarded everyone and everything for her cause. Jasper, Peter, her friends, her old rebellion. Sometimes it was worth it. When she saw her freed country and the new world she and the High Council had made it was worth it. When she saw the bright faces of four-year-old children who'd never known Medea's reign it was worth it. On days like these, when the distance between her and Jasper increased tenfold, her country wanted her gone and her 'new world' was falling apart, it wasn't.
It had been so, so long since Nala had done something for herself or her loved
ones. So long since she'd stopped giving and giving and giving to her cause, her
people. And she was tired.
She'd been in her twenties when she'd joined the rebellion. Ever since, she
hadn't stopped fighting. Hadn't cared about herself, only her cause. And she was burning tired of it.
She'd go to the High Council tonight. She'd beg, trick or threaten money out of them. She'd even make it up with Jasper if it meant getting them that extension and loan.
Nala Merson had given everything to her people. She wasn't about to stop now.
Still, she was so, so tired. And as her burdens closed in on her she began to wonder if she could do this anymore.