She has a domestic spy network. It's ostensibly a network for reporting on business matters in the other ports of Cheliax (AKA all the major cities which aren't Egorian) and actually also keeps close track of riots, along with whatever they can tell her about the causes. It's not like anyone except The Paraduchess actually hears accurate reports of which ones were about bread and which ones were about the lords doing something absurd and which ones were rebels moving way too soon to succeed.

That would make the lords mayor look bad, and she's the only one who would rather look bad because you need to have something you care about more than being kept in place and avoiding the ire of Her Infernal Majestrix. (And of The Paraduchess. Most of the lords mayor haven't heard of Paraduchess Lilia de Montero and do not especially worry about coming to the imperial spymaster's attention or especially consider who the spymaster might be. Jilia envies them this.)

There has not yet been an uptick in riots, though there was one in Corentyn that was ostensibly about banning radios. (Her factor thinks it was probably going to happen anyway that month, the guard's been busting heads in the more combative neighborhoods. It's being reported accurately up the chain for once.) But she's waiting for it.

She'd be setting her affairs in order, if there were affairs she could set in a way that would survive her execution. The end of her war is in sight.

Okay, that's not quite true. She has staff to fire.

On an insignificant Toilday, she calls two women and a man, only one married and with no living children, into her working office. (As opposed to her mayoral office, which is better for meeting people and being found and not much else.)

"I'm firing you three. Effective Fireday evening, wrap up everything and hand it off. I have all your back pay today and a month's severance will be ready Fireday. I have references ready if you want to use them. My decision's final."

"Milady?"

"You've done nothing wrong and have all, in fact, done excellent work. And I no longer want to employ you doing it. I suggest you put some of the money toward transit on a ship. Corentyn or Ostenso, if you can't get international passes. Or inland. If there's anyone else who decides to leave you might all go in on passage."

"...Is this about...?"

"Something it would be illegal for you to have been listening to, or reading my transcripts of?"

They look to each other and then don't reply.

"Thank you for everything you've done. I couldn't have run Kintargo as well without you, in the past. But your services are no longer required."

They were bright people. And the double meaning wasn't, actually, at all subtle.

"We'll tell everyone else," Young Mateu said, "Thank you for your unnecessary consideration, milady Jilia."

"Archdevils honor you," Ivette added. Mostly Geryon and Mephistopheles, in this case.

"Let no one say I don't reward my staff well for good service."

A week and a half later there's another three. And then two more a week after that, along with four who chose to leave themselves when they saw the way the wind was blowing.

If they stayed, they might save their souls at the cost of their lives. But those eight were the ones she knew, or close enough to knew, wouldn't take that trade. Not that many, on a staff, on a staff of over a hundred. She's proud of them. Even those twelve.

She's legally allowed to listen to the radio. She had the authority to grant herself a pass, as a lord mayor of a port city who needed it for both business purposes and to know what incitement to dissent exists, and Kintargo's ranking priest, Demibishop Romà Serrat, complained, but she granted him authority to judge all further requests on condition she have a full record of all requests and his decision.

She hears Freedom debate with Erastil. She likes this girl. Someone she would have protected with all her might, if she found her in Kintargo. Someone who could lead a rebellion into the teeth of Hell, without losing sight of what needed to be done and what didn't.

They'll never meet.

Jilia's life was not previously empty of reasons to be happy, but the more it looks like her amorphous deadline is approaching, the harder it is to appreciate them. It's dark humor and breaks to listen to the radio keeping her sane most weeks.

Her people are still living their lives, and graffiti referencing Freedom is popping up often enough that she knows they're listening. Some parts of Cheliax are too tired and beaten to rally to her words... most parts, probably - but Kintargo is still awake enough. She did her job.

Somehow, when the background fear of being caught has gotten supplemented with the looming decision that she'll have to pull the trigger, and choose the best time for Kintargo or for Cheliax, that doesn't help nearly as much as it used to.

Maybe the most surprising thing she's heard on the radio since it started is that she has an immediate strong personal dislike for Andira Marusek. She's not even sure why, but something about how the woman talks about her country puts Jilia off, even with the easy questions and friendly topic. They'd work toward most of the same things if they could, and she's not surprised that Marusek would dislike her, for collaborating, but she's surprised it goes the other way.

...There's something about solving her people's problems quietly and reliably that Jilia can't see Andira doing. That she'd never earn loyalty or admiration the hard slow way. She might be wrong, but that's why she dislikes the woman, she thinks.

It still leaves her with as good an impression of Andoran as she expected. But she gets a little maudlin about being disappointed in the chief Eagle Knight. Ah, well, it helps to be able to say that she finds Marusek contemptible with relatively minimal deception underneath it, if she's asked about it.

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."

"A quarter of the standing guard, and you keep all the wall and gate guards. I'll take the Fists out to crush the idiot dissenters, and take noble house guards under writ of Church to Crown."

"You don't have the command capacity for all the noble houses. I request a writ of my own. And one for drafting wizard students, though you or your man can supervise which are chosen, of course."

"You can take the wizards, under that condition. If the nobles won't respect the Church's authority they are heretics and I will not put them at your disposal either."

"That's acceptable. I'll need a writ for the wizards."

"Yes, yes," he said, and took parchment and ink to write both.

Good enough. She fingered her rapier, sliding it up and down... Yes. Good enough.

"Here you are," he said with a scowl, and presented her the writ, "At least for once you're not soft on the tantrums and traitors of the city."

"This is no time for half measures," she said as she read it to confirm he hadn't introduced any extra terms. "Very good. Thank you, Demibishop, this will make my work much easier."

And then, in a moment he looked away, her rapier was out and through his throat.

He fell to the floor quickly, gurgling. He was fading - from one strike? From a weakling politician?

...Poison?

"I'm terribly thankful for the Church's choices of how to assign me priests," she remarked, "It made it much more convenient that the ones better at interpreting doublespeak got high posts in the capital instead of the restive backwater of Kintargo. Did you know, not a single thing I said to you today was a lie? Go to Hell, Romà Serrat, and may you enjoy its attentions as much as we did yours."

And then she stabbed him again, through the heart, to be sure it worked.

Open treason meant a great deal of things needed to work very quickly. The handful of Crown and Church plants among her mayoral and personal staff were assassinated by their loyal compatriots. A useful criminal gang with a grudge against Serrat's second in command were told that he was vulnerable and stood to get more power soon. All the House Bainilus guard retainers were summoned to the mayoral mansion with extra horses in tow.

And there was an hour of calm, before the whole Abyss broke loose.

For fifteen years Jilia's worn glamered mail showing her in proper Asmodean black and red, with only a little blue patch for her house heraldry. Frequently she sleeps in it, when she's nervous.

She stood at a mirror almost a quarter-hour waiting, before she tweaked the glamer in the way that changes how it looks.

Bainilus blue, trimmed with gold. Her family colors. She hasn't worn anything like this since she reached adulthood.

And now she's going to get on a horse and try to rally her city in it.

When she was younger she dreamed of that. Now's she's twice as old, twice as jaded, and, though she wasn't six months ago, four times as tired.

But she's led through worse. And at the end of the day... she will, still, do whatever she has to, for Kintargo.

And then she's on a high horse, in the streets, with a brave face and her personal guards and a half-dozen horses and whatever knot of citizens of Kintargo she's rallying at the moment.

And by nightfall, Kintargo is burning too.

And, the rapier having served the one purpose she expects it to before she dies, Jilia uses the weapon she actually knows. Her voice. A dozen times, thirty, fifty, she sees a man she remembers, a respected man, and she speaks to him and to everyone around him.

"Cesc Farre, do you think I've forgotten you? Have you forgotten what I did for your block when the sewers caved in and your fountain was fouled? I did terrible things, Cesc, and many people hated me for it, but I did those things so that the thrice-damned Thrunes and Chosen would let me help you. So I could use my title for you, and people like you. So you could live in peace, and think in freedom, and on good days dream of a better future. There's war, today, Cesc; war with Andoran and Lastwall and Rahadoum. There's an army of paladins traveling through the heart of Cheliax by magic not seen since before the Shining Crusade. The ships are stranded by archmages and Menador's best are already dead. The army has drawn off all its best to fight those wars, and they will lose. But we are free, Cesc. The better future is nearly here. I'm no legendary adventurer; I have only one sword and I'm no better than you at wielding it. But Kintargo has you. Today it needs you. Rally your neighbors. Find the leaders with the rose. Support them; follow them. We are free, tonight. Asmodeus is weak, and archmages will keep him weak. But Kintargo, Kintargo is strong! Seize the opportunity! Fight! For our future, and our city!"

And sometimes, she even believes it.

The Alabaster Academy is locked down, on her advice. The teachers either didn't prepare spells expecting riots, or lied to her and got away with it; the couple fourth-circle veterans not mobilized against the Reclamation, she thinks could probably get a lie past her if they tried. She stays away from the district anyway, after she stops by to use that writ (in black and red again) to recruit some of them to her authority, and then push them to switch sides.

And for that night, and the next day, it looks like they're winning. The Torrent are staying out of it. Priests of Milani are leading clusters of citizens and gangs. The city guard is losing and getting purged. The Academy has worked out that they were tricked, but for the time being they're fortifying and waiting for outside orders.

Someone's rigged a couple radios with big magic mouth effects that project over a whole city square, and the next night Freedom's broadcasting to the main plaza near the docks, and over the walls of the Academy.

She's waiting. Nervously. If Freedom's off the air again, or tells the story badly, that could be the ruin of the rebellion. But... she trusts Freedom's ability. And she has faith.

Maybe because she has to. But she does.

The speakers crackle with a signal changing, and she's back:

"This is Freedom Radio, and, wow, have we got some updates for you today. First off, as many of you undoubtedly noticed, we missed yesterday's broadcast. I cannot tell you exactly why that happened. I am going to tell you a lot of things that happened yesterday and that some of them may have been relevant to the missing broadcast.

First, Cheliax has declared war on both Andoran and Lastwall. They sent the declaration of war more or less simultaneous with an attack before dawn on Almas, Vigil, and probably also some other places. I'm sure news will keep trickling in over the next few days..."

Oh thank Heaven and Good, she's back.

Luckily, Almas has Felandriel Morgethai, and she doesn't take it very kindly when people mess with her city, and she's a much more impressive archmage than Razmir is. I'm told that she killed him twice in the space of around two minutes, and that after that he decided to go home.

And the Provost is alive. Good. There aren't enough Good powers in the world, and Morgethai is the one Jilia would most like to speak to and ally with.

Arazni cast a silence on Vigil, and everything for ten to twelve miles around, making it approximately impossible for most spellcasters to oppose her. She then stopped time and dismantled the walls she'd built; when time started again, they were falling to rubble. 

If Razmir's attacking you, you can place traps that Disjoin him, you can smite him and shoot at him.

What do you do against that? You pray.

And you hope. But... this would be a different story, if they lost.

And what I'm told Iomedae did when She came out of Heaven was talk to Arazni. Show her what really happened in the Crusade where they fought together, show her how she died, show her how her friends had grieved her, show her that they never stopped hoping they would someday have the strength to save her. And then the Goddess cut Arazni free of Geb.

The bravest person she'd ever seen executed was a maledicted priest of Shelyn. If you didn't count the screams - and there were a lot of them - his last words were 'Nirvana is for everyone.' Repeatedly. Even though after the first time they took away his ability to say it much above a whisper. The Vicar looked incensed that they couldn't impale him and still send his soul to Hell.

It took Jilia a while after that, to understand what he meant. It's just too un-Chelish. But it was this. That Good will help everyone, if they can. Even women who are forced by their monarchs to rule far more cruelly and evilly than they'd wish if they were free.

...For example.

"Iomedae is called the goddess of destroying Evil, but what She did, when She met Arazni, was see that She'd been lied to, and clear all the lies away with the sheer force of the truth, and then invite Arazni to be free, and when Arazni got to choose between being a slave for a lie or living free with the truth She chose to live free. The forces that march on you will destroy you, if we have to, but we would really much rather free you, and our greatest weapon is the fact that we can tell the truth and you can't stand to hear it."

She ducks behind a pillar in her balcony on the main square and punches the air. Yes. That's exactly what she wanted sent over the walls of the Academy tonight. If they haven't silenced the speaker there, that might have made the fight inside the Academy a real contest when it starts.