Aster arrived late to the meeting. She was trying to avoid the inane debate about the name of the fictional kingdom they could perhaps be.
She wasn't dramatically late, just enough that the discussion was already underway, but the worst ideas were sadly yet to reveal themselves.
The Council chamber hummed with low voices when she entered. Masks inclined in acknowledgment. No one paused the discussion.
"…—cannot call it a trade coalition," the bronze mask was saying. "That sounds weak."
"It is weak," the gold mask replied irritably. "That is the point."
"We need something that implies sovereignty," silver said. "Without declaring it. I think if we make it so they come to believe we are a kingdom all on their own"
Aster took her place at the chamber's edge and folded her arms
" well there's a brilliant idea, pretend we are a kingdom and hope all the world will join in the delusion" she thought bitingly
Ah. It would definitely be that kind of meeting.
"The problem," obsidian added, "is that we are not a kingdom."
A pause.
"And yet," gold said, "we are treated like one whenever someone needs something they don't want traced back to them."
Bronze scoffed. "That's a coincidence at best, we are simply too insignificant for them to do anything about us. Or conspiracy at worst" he muttered suspiciously the last part hopefully joking
Aster cleared her throat.
Every mask turned.
"No," she said calmly. "It's our infrastructure and way of being that gets them to unconsciously to consider us a kingdom"
Silence followed — the good kind. The kind where an idea lands instead of bouncing off like pebbles on the helmet of a very pissed off knight in a tourney.
Silver tilted their head. "Explain."
Aster stepped forward, unhurried.
"We do not rule territory per se " she said. "We haul merchandise, because our very life has always been about it. Since we have very little natural resources of our own. Well we could probably mine and perhaps try some farming but it wouldn't help much in a short term,it would take years to make it profitable and to help sustain us hence we picked the logical choice."
She gestured vaguely — to a map, to point out,how they were utterly surrounded by other species and kingdoms and every sensible road to anywhere seemed to go through them.
"Messages pass through Mirage. Merchants pause here. Envoys stop here when they don't want to be seen stopping anywhere else. We are not powerful enough to threaten anyone — which makes us safe to use."
Bronze frowned. "You're saying weakness is strategy."
"No," Aster corrected. "I'm saying plausible irrelevance is. Our merchants have always been in good repute, we let everyone enter,without caring about their race or wares they sell, unless it's clearly harmful to all intelligent beings. Unlike some kingdoms or empires I could mention who don't let anyone but their race in and them only when proper bringing is happening"
That earned a low murmur of reluctant agreement.
Gold exhaled. "Which brings us back to the problem of naming."
Aster sighed.
She had been hoping to avoid this part.
Silver spoke carefully. "If we ever formalize — and I stress if — we will need a name that communicates what we are without promising what we are not."
Bronze leaned forward. "Suggestions?"
Gold hesitated, then said it anyway.
"…The Veiled Crown."
The silence that followed was not respectful.
It was stunned.
Aster stared at them.
"You cannot be serious." She said with disbelief in her voice
Bronze bristled. "It implies authority without visibility."
"It implies pretension," Aster snapped. "We don't wear crowns. We don't rule people. And we certainly don't need poetry."
Gold raised a hand defensively. "It's symbolic, also perhaps it gives some poor assassin some headaches when they desperately try to look for a hidden king to kill" he chortles to himself
"It's childish," Aster replied flatly. "It sounds like something a third-rate playwright would name a shadow cult."
Obsidian's mask tilted. "…And yet."
Aster closed her eyes behind the mask knowing defeat was on the horizon.
"Of course" she thought annoyed
Silver spoke slowly. "A crown that is veiled is one that exists but is not displayed."
Aster did not look convinced.
Bronze added, "It suggests sovereignty without spectacle."
Gold nodded. "Power without declaration."
Aster pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You are all aware," she said, "that if we ever do announce this, every neighboring nation will laugh."
Silver replied calmly, "They already underestimate us."
"That is different," Aster said. "This would give them something to mock."
Obsidian spoke quietly. "Mockery is preferable to scrutiny. Besides can't we make them believe we have always been a Monarchy?"
Everyone stared at him frozen so he continued "Just start talking about it and spreading it around like it common knowledge like something everyone should already know, and soon everyone is pretending it has always been so as to no come off as foolish or ignorant"
That gave her pause. Others a pause.
"By the magician pants.." Gold gasped wheezing out a laugh
" that.. that's so monumentally stupid it might actually work" Aster muttered amazed .
"…Fine," Aster said with a sigh. "Call it the Veiled Crown. But do not pretend it is clever, make it solemn like we have always been this pretentious"
Gold almost definitely smiled behind his mask.
Silver inclined their head "Noted."
Bronze exhaled. "Then it's settled."
Aster raised a finger. "No. If you insist on that name, then we need to structure everything under it properly."
Silver nodded. "Agreed."
Aster's eyes sharpened.
"You are not building a visible intelligence service," she said. "No banners. No uniforms. No singular command structure."
Obsidian murmured, "Cells, like we use with our shadow path operatives?"
"Yes," Aster said. "And handlers. And cutouts. And merchant fronts that don't look like fronts."
Gold frowned. "You're describing a network."
Aster paused.
Then sighed again — slower this time.
"…Yes," she said. "Unfortunately."
Bronze leaned back. "Name it."
Aster looked at them like they had just asked her to name a pet rat.
"What is it with these people and naming things?" She thought utterly fed up
"You already have," she said calmly "If you insist on the Veiled Crown, then its arteries are obvious."
Silver waited patiently. Gold drummed his fingers expectantly.
Aster gestured vaguely downward — to the city, the roads, the wagons, the merchants who passed through without noticing they were being counted.
"The Veiled Network," she said.
The words hung in the chamber.
Gold tasted them. "It fits."
Bronze nodded. "Quiet. Unassuming."
Obsidian added, "And impossible to map completely."
Aster crossed her arms.
"It is not an army," she said. "It does not conquer. It listens, remembers, and sells to all who has the proper knowledge of how to buy"
Silver spoke softly. "Information?"
"Yes," Aster replied. "Information is our only export that cannot be embargoed. Our unique trait to keep us independent and not fully dependent on the other races,kingdoms or few religions that would love to sink their teeth in our city"
A pause followed.
Then Silver said, "Then Mirage's future is settled."
Aster snorted. "Nothing is settled. We're just committing to the direction we were already sliding, like little children admitting they fell from a tree when their already halfway down"
Bronze straightened. "Do we announce it?"
"No," Aster said immediately." We do it like Obsidian suggested. His method is so ridiculously simple I believe everyone should just accept it if we do it slowly enough. Also we need to put our best operatives on to counterfeit some paperwork that mentions our Kingdom in some long past time."
"Why?" Gold interrupted puzzled
Aster continued without missing a beat "They should be scattered all over the place so people of means and power shall stumble on them on their own. Lie, after all is most convincing when it's told by you to yourself"
Gold hesitated. " It will be a huge undertaking and take considerable effort to manage. Are you sure we are able to pull this off? Apparently he got the implication from the rest of her speech and seemed to be ignoring the awkwardness.
Aster considered " we have a promising new operative, one who we barely trained at all, he is very suitable for to begin this process, the network's creation as well as the forgery process, or at least informing our operatives in foreign countries and cities"
Silence. Heavy but contemplating not hostile unlike usually when Elias was mentioned.
"It would tie him to us, if not with devotion then at least with sense duty. The spirit of the secrecy and intrigue that surrounds this type of work will probably keep him happy too" Gold muttered
Silver inclined their head " Yes he might be just our solution to get this started, then until that day when we start hearing mentioned,that the Kingdom of Veiled crown is located right here, Mirage remains what it has always been."
Aster nodded.
"A city people pass through," she said. "And never quite remember leaving, or where exactly they put their purse"
The meeting adjourned without ceremony.
No documents signed.
No proclamations drafted.
No crown forged.
As Aster left the chamber, she allowed herself one final, private thought — irritating, reluctant, and impossible to deny.
"Elias will hate that name" she thought amused that he would agree with her how pretentious it sounded.
Which, somehow, made her mood slightly better.
Outside, the city went on with its business.
And somewhere in a quiet shed, a finished wagon waited — already part of a network no one had officially admitted existed and wouldn't do so in a while.
The Veiled Crown had been named, and they were going to con everyone in to believing it was always named so.
Few days later in another council meeting
Aster had a quite sizable stack of documents and blueprints with her, they floated behind her obediently as she marched in the chamber.
The blueprints were unassuming — rolled, slightly scuffed at the edges, annotated in three different hands. Rellin's practical notes crowded the margins. Elias' markings were subtler — balance points, stress tolerances, places where sound softened instead of echoed and lastly her own trying to make sense of the two before her.
She laid them out on the stone table without ceremony.
Silver leaned forward first. "What am I looking at?"
"A wagon," Aster said.
Bronze frowned. "We already have wagons."
"Yes," Aster replied calmly. "We have and their horrible mess compared to this."
She tapped the page with one finger.
"This design does not creak under load. It distributes weight in ways most roads do not punish. It absorbs vibration instead of translating it into noise."
Gold blinked. "You're proposing standardization? Making them all this exceptional, so it seems like the norm?"
"I'm proposing camouflage, yes. It's also a practical measure to take,so our newly created Veiled Network operators have a solid mote of transportation they can trust to hold on even in rough terrain " Aster said coolly
She straightened.
"If every merchant wagon leaving Mirage rides the same way," she continued, "then none of them stand out. No distinctive axle-song. No recognizable frame rhythm. No identifying sound at night."
Obsidian tilted their head. "You're saying roads won't remember us."
"Yes."
Silver considered the schematics longer this time. "And if one wagon is followed."
"Then it sounds like every other wagon," Aster said. "And feels like every other wagon. And carries nothing that screams special."
Bronze exhaled slowly. "…That's insidious."
Aster allowed herself a thin smile. "Thank you, can't take the credit from the idea though. Elias Marlow and Rellin.. you know all this time and I never bothered to ask his last name. Never mind not important" she said a bit mystified by her own oversight
" it's their wagon and I propose we copy the design and make at least ten similar to it for starters" she said bit more hurriedly
She unrolled the second sheet.
This one showed internal layouts.
Hidden redundancies. Compartments that were not secret — merely forgettable, easily overlooked. Storage that did not suggest value, but allowed choices.
"This design supports long-distance travel with minimal animal strain," Aster said. "Which means fewer stops, when need arises.Which means ability to be more focused on other things than your aching backside and bandits."
Gold nodded slowly. "Information travels with merchants already."
"Yes," Aster agreed. "But merchants are seen as neutral. Boring. Necessary."
She let that word linger.
"Necessary things are trusted," she said. "And trust is access."
Silver spoke carefully. "You are suggesting we formalize the merchant class as… intermediaries."
"No," Aster said. "I'm suggesting we stop pretending they aren't already."
She gestured to the city beyond the walls.
"Our existing agents already rely on trade routes to pass messages," she continued. "They already use markets to gather rumors. They already buy and sell information quietly."
Bronze frowned. "Then what changes."
Aster rolled out the final page.
This one was not a blueprint.
It was a structure.
Two figures, sketched simply. No names. Just roles.
"A pair," Aster said. "Always."
She tapped the first.
"Merchant. Legitimate. Visible. Public-facing. Licensed. Taxed. Boring."
Then the second.
"Shadow-path operative. Embedded. Quiet. Observational. Responsible for verification, dead drops, and counter-surveillance. Trained with by merchant to be at least competent as merchant himself"
Gold leaned forward. "You're pairing them."
"Yes," Aster said. "Not handler and asset. Partners."
Silver's mask tilted. "Why not assign multiple operatives per merchant."
"Because that attracts attention," Aster replied. "And because redundancy breeds arrogance."
She looked around the table.
"One merchant, one shadow," she said. "They cover each other's blind spots. The merchant hears what people say when they don't think it matters. The shadow sees what people do when they think no one is watching."
Obsidian murmured, "And if one is compromised."
"The other disengages," Aster said. "And the road keeps moving."
Bronze crossed their arms. "This turns merchants into couriers."
"No," Aster said sharply. "It turns them into more complex merchants. They will still be selling, now they just sell less goods and more knowledge."
She softened her tone slightly.
"They do not spy. They sell goods. They buy rumors. They trade favors. They offer solutions."
Silver nodded slowly. "And the shadow-path operatives."
"They make sure the information is real," Aster said. "They make contact with our existing assets. They pass assignments. They collect packets. Do whatever is necessary"
Gold raised a brow. "Packets."
Aster shrugged. "Information wants containers. Paper, memory, coded speech. It doesn't matter. What matters is that it moves."
She gestured to the wagon schematics again.
"These wagons become the arteries," she said. "The merchants the face. The shadows the nervous system."
Bronze exhaled. "And Mirage."
Aster looked at the table, at the lines connecting roads that did not yet exist on any map.
"Mirage becomes where you go," she said, "when you don't want to admit you needed help."
Silence followed.
Not doubt.
Acceptance.
Silver spoke last. "Who builds the first."
Aster did not hesitate.
"Rellin already has," she said. "Whether he knows it or not."
"And the operative."
Aster's gaze drifted, briefly, toward a road that had not yet been taken.
"…We have candidates," she said. "Some are already walking."
Bronze frowned. "Including Elias Marlow."
Aster paused.
Then answered honestly.
"He is not a prototype," she said. "He is a boundary condition."
Silver considered that. "Then we do not model after him."
"No," Aster agreed. "We learn what not to attempt."
Gold leaned back. "So the Veiled Network begins not with spies…"
"…but with merchants," Aster finished. "Who happen to know where to listen."
No vote was called.
None was needed.
The blueprints were gathered, copied, and quietly distributed to the right hands — carpenters, wheelwrights, traders who already owed favors.
By the time anyone thought to ask why Mirage's wagons all rode a little smoother than expected, the sound had already become familiar.
And familiarity, as Aster knew better than most, was the best disguise of all.
Somewhere in the city, a wagon waited.
Unremarkable.
Standardized.
Ready to leave without being remembered.
And that was how the Veiled Network truly began — not with secrets, but with roads that no longer told stories.