Codwin's sort of the opposite. He's sensible. She doubts he would feel anything negative for her but maybe pity - legitimate, granted - and vice versa except for frustration if his vows got in the way. But Andoran comes off much worse, and he makes a valiant effort defending it but Freedom's coming at it from an unfamiliar angle (as she usually is) and he does not really succeed.

Jilia cares less about orphan urchins than she might. She finds a lot of good staff from them, really, and she'd fund an orphanage selfishly if she thought her superiors would believe her that it was selfish. Thieves train urchins as pickpockets over years and she'd do the same if she could. It's still something interesting to think about, a way that, if she got a miraculous victory, she'd want to make her own culture and not just let the same revolution she and a lack of local archmage have kept stalled for fifteen years run its course in the west as it did in the east.

She doesn't. Think about it, that is.

When she hears about the man in Kenabres and Freedom's reactions she... pines, is almost the right word. To help this girl who's never had to live with a world as muddy and brutal as reality, who clearly (well, clearly to an expert) desperately wants it to be an aberration and is not at all sure it will be.

It doesn't remind her of herself when she was younger, because she knew better by the time she took up the family sword. That brutality was an eternal constant at the level of nations and great families, and almost never escaped at ground level either.

Jilia wonders extensively about whether the man is right, that Iomedae doesn't care. Iomedae is ruthless; this is one of the few things you can learn, in Cheliax, about Iomedae. She wants the destruction of Hell and all Evil. Would she sacrifice all pretense of fair trials? Cayden wouldn't. She's reasonably certain he's displeased every time she allows unfair trials, or his proxy is, with the very rare exceptions where she can afford to rig something in the defendant's favor. That doesn't seem like a Chaos thing. Maybe a mortal thing about Good, maybe Good in general, but she'd expect Law to care about it. She's only occasionally interacted with Abadarans but they, she thinks, would care.
Probably Iomedae cares. But she allows it to continue. That's life, apparently, even as a god.

She has Lady Sofia look up Kenabres. Mendev, a city directly along the wardstone line. Ah. Yes, that's somewhere you might have to buy good with a really astonishingly large amount of ruthlessness.

When an episode comes two weeks later with a magistrate of Lastwall explaining how they conduct investigations and trials, and how Kenabres is falling short, Jilia may be one of the few as relieved as Freedom herself.  Ruthless, yes, but She cares about it where she can get it. If Iomedae ruled Kintargo, Jilia's ghost wouldn't revolt.

It's interesting, the reaction the city has to that one. There aren't riots; she's been keeping a firm hand on riots, this year, appeasing people with minor problems solved to get them to discourage anyone from gathering any steam for any. But the looks people have at executions, and when criers declare someone a fugitive from the law, changed. Maybe not for a long time, but for a few weeks. And especially so the closer you get to the Harbor District, so the cause isn't her imagination.

"Sofia, some time soon, likely this year and maybe this month, I may hand you a letter and tell you to leave for Vyre."

"Jilia?"

"Be ready to do that, and to bring resources to pay for a long stay. And if I do: Go quickly. A day at most before you take ship. Do not read the letter until you are in private at the Eighth Mockingbird. And do not return while I live."

"The sword?"

"It would pass to you by right. And by rite."

"...Yes, milady."

"I'm proud of you, cousin."

This is Freedom Radio, with some exciting news. The liberation of the last five archduchies of Cheliax has begun! We're going to be switching for a weekly schedule to a daily schedule from now until the end of the war, to bring you the news about the fight for Chelish liberation.

The afternoon Jilia hears this, listening in private, she nearly has a panic attack.

This ought to be good news. The Reclamation wouldn't be intervening if they didn't think it would work. The time is coming. Kintargo is going to have its chance. Cheliax will have its chance, too. And it's close enough that she can safely think about it, when she knows she'll have time before she gets checked by a Church wizard.

Only she doesn't like those thoughts once she's thinking them.

She knew she'd die for Kintargo. She hadn't quite realized she wouldn't die for Cheliax.

And so now she notices she's going to have to pick, isn't she? Between Good and what she cares about.

This will be the most important decision of her life, when she chooses to give the signal, and Nirvana help her she doesn't want to do the right thing.

The sword is cool in her hand. That hurts. But if she reluctantly focuses on giving the order immediately, that makes it colder. With what she knows, then, it really wouldn't be wise. She can wait. Put it off a little longer.

It takes her an hour to collect her thoughts. Put that all in the back of her mind and collect herself for the business of a running a city that's going to be more rebellious than ever. Make short-term tradeoffs that keep things calm that will make it worse in a year or two.

But she can manage. For weeks, even.

Demibishop Serrat, as usual for her local high priests, is bad at Church politics and not incredibly bright. Romà specifically is kind of a brute. Normally that makes him easier to handle, but it's harder right now, he knows what he wants and it's terrible for the city. Fists of the Church brutalize some mobs. Only mostly ones which are rioting. There's not much she can do but crack down slightly sooner with less brutal city guard when she gets wind of it.

For the first time in a decade, Jilia is covering up riots in her official reports. Better not to let on how much they're stirred up by Freedom.

The head Crown wizard tries to press Chuko, a weapons merchant who's dealt in Alkenstar guns occasionally, into explaining how guns works. Jilia suspects he knows reasonably well, but not enough to know about the Reclamation guns. Maybe more importantly, he used to adventure with Shensen and has rebel sympathies. Fortunately she presents the situation to one of the merchant guildmasters in such a way that they ask her to intervene and negotiate with the wizard, and this delays him enough that he's called away to the front lines before he learns anything useful.

An inquisitor finds traces of the Irorite history monks. In an ordinary year she'd deflect him and give them time to hide and limit the damage, but she can't afford it. Cayden disapproves. She expected that.

Serrat tries to enlist the Order of the Torrent to keep order. (She egged him into it subtly.) They refuse categorically. He orders her to enlist them and put them at his command. She does. The Lictor reminds her that she doesn't have that authority either, which she asks him to repeat to the priest's face. He does. (Success on all counts.)

She attends the opera and shares a box with Lord Rexus. He carefully doesn't ask what she's heard of Freedom, and she carefully doesn't answer. He's a good man, and cheers her up as best as he can. If she leaves him alive to run the city it will be in good hands.

Shensen really is a wonderful singer. For an hour or two Jilia's almost content.

"This is Freedom Radio, and a lot of new developments here for you since yesterday's broadcast. The first and most important is that, three days ago at dawn, the Glorious Reclamation teleported their whole army to outside Kantaria, where they engaged and very easily defeated the army of the archduke of Menador. 

The sword is cold.

A letter comes from Rexus. The words are pointless. They ask no questions. She doesn't answer the question he really meant.

“Would even Abrogail Thrune dare to try to unleash the greatest horror in the history of Avistan just to distract one of her many, many enemies? Is it possible someone in Cheliax did it without her knowledge, and if so, what does that say about the state of her regime?"

“And who manipulated the lesser seal?”
“Only a god can say, and only a fool pretends not to know. The dwarves of Kraggadon have always done their sacred duty, guarded their seal day and night, deep below ground and far from the influence of Avistan’s troubles and terrors. The people of Lastwall have stood their watch nine hundred years, and observed the trouble through close observance of their own seal. And the third seal is kept in Westcrown, in Cheliax, ruled by Hell and presently at war."

What the Hell are they thinking?

No, seriously, what?

There are things you do to win a war, and there are things you do to spite an enemy, and there are things you don't do because you like living in a reasonably-intact world.

She arranges for a wizard to make a copy of this transcript and then burn the original, and then bring the copy to the Lictor. Anonymously, on both ends. If they ask him to defend Cheliax against the invaders he deserves to know what the Crown and Church are willing to do to throw those invaders out, and she thinks Lictor Sabinius is the kind of man who cares.

This isn't the right time. The right time either already passed, or it's not yet here. But... getting close, now.

...She writes Sofia a letter. She goes.

For once she doesn't get the news from the radio. Her business scouts are mostly domestic, but she does have ones in Azir, and Almas, and Augustana and Absalom. And most of them have a single precious scroll of sending for anything of really pressing importance.

Azir is burning, and Almas is full of monsters.

And a few hours later she has confirmation from a contact who has their own contacts in Egorian that war's been declared against both Andoran and Lastwall.

It's barely past noon.

She takes a blank sheet from that stack, and signs it, fairly large.

She folds it up to place in an envelope. She addresses it to Rexus in her own handwriting, seals it, and hands it off to be sent by a horse messenger.

That's it. It's done. No turning back.

But there's something to be done before it's obvious. She visited Chuko's shop a few weeks ago, so she has what she needs.

She calls the demibishop of Kintargo to request aid and cooperation, as the Crown to the Church, with unrest in the city.

"Demibishop Serrat, Hello. I won't waste your time; unrest has been stirring the last few nights, and I expect tonight to be much worse. There's some reason to think even the Alabaster Academy is going to be out of control. I don't believe my available guard forces are sufficient to the task."

"And why should I grant you further power when you have been evidently failing with what you have?"

"Because a night of serious unrest fought without assistance will cause depletion of Kintargo's forces, necessitate drawing down the remaining army in Ravounel to reinforce them, and embolden the rebellious elements to continue to oppose Asmodeus's will. If you require some of the forces put under your command until the crisis has passed, I am willing to negotiate how much."