By the grace of the Judge Above serving justice to the living rather than waiting for them to appear before him, Fealinn no longer existed as its own state. Kaiser Henrik had acted on the pretense of a popular referendum to reincorporate Fealinn as a protectorate under the Grossreich. Their regulars spread over too many fronts and exhausted from extended wars, the Fealinnese Home Militia was no obstacle for the Reich’s paratroopers and panzers, and especially not the hammer of the Imperial Army behind that vanguard. The country fell in less than a month, its imperial dreams never realized. Of course, the Reich did not tolerate any claims made on Fealinn’s territories by those who had been fighting up to this point, like Gilicia. They were warned to leave- and when the Reich was defied, the Gilicians were swiftly ejected by the now recognized to be peerlessly formidable Imperial Army. Felbach looked on warily- as did Emre. Neither wished to see the Reich regaining their former power, but the war had ended too quickly for them to even finish considering their actions.

As a show of neighborliness, the Kaiser, having discovered many long-overstaying prisoners of war, freed them all and delivered every missing Vitelian his men had found back home. Vitelia grumbled that this must have been preparing to demand an uneven trade, but nothing of the sort occurred. Perhaps the Kaiser simply did not find whatever the Fealinnese doing to be more useful to him than the positive press of breaking chains, even those of a former enemy. Certainly nobody was forgiving the Reich just for that act, however.

Fealinn and Trelan’s war had mostly ended anyways, but the slice of territory that Fealinn had still occupied fell under Imperial administration. The Reich did not care to try and keep it, but refused to hand it over to Trelan nevertheless. What was more, they did not want Trelan to be occupying Holherezhi territory in the first place. An ultimatum was given- within two years, the Trelani were to completely transfer any authority over the land to the local government (who were installed by Trelan anyways, but it would still sting certain economic gains) and withdraw their occupation troops, thus restoring the rule of the native peoples. Trelan bristled over Imperial will being imposed upon them, but it was hardly a ruinous demand. Nor was it one they could oppose anyways. They relented on the international stage. The Imperial Status Quo was steadily returning, when all had thought it soon to be gone for good.

There were ongoing wars- of course, there were always war, but there were two on this half of the continent, though neither was an earth-shaking event, even if they were significant to those fighting them.