Free The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham

Mein, Dariel had led forces to hunt down the surviving Mein—the ones still in any sort of rebellion, at least. And he had squashed the flare-ups of rebellion all over the empire, each people trying to find some way to grab more of the Known World’s map before things settled again. It had amazed him that the peace seemed just as violent as the war. It was always this way after wars, advisers told him, but still it troubled him. This hadn’t been just any war. It was Aliver’s war! The war to set the world to rights so that there need be no future wars. Everyone said they believed this; few, it seemed to him, also acted as if they did.
    When the peace was finally established, he found himself just as ill at ease. He did not want the throne, though he could have claimed it as the male heir. That sort of power did not appeal to him. He had no desire to loaf about the palace courting noblewomen, as Corinn seemed to wish him to do. Nor could he return to the Outer Isles and again sail those gray slopes of water. The isles had been handed over entirely to the league in a deal Corinn had struck with it on her own authority. The league owned them now, their own separate state within the empire. It was recompense, Corinn made it clear, for Dariel’s stunt on the League Platforms. He did not understand until later, but she was actually quite angry with him when she fully understood his role in the attack. It had crippled the league’s capacity to trade across the Gray Slopes. It had cost them thousands of quota lives and hundreds of their own kind. It was such a monstrous success that Corinn had to acquiesce to giving them more than she would have liked. And, she hinted, she had needed to give away even more to get them to promise that Dariel would not end up dead in some mysterious way: poison or accident or mysterious disappearance. The fact that she clearly considered them capable of all these things had set his skin crawling.
    Also, as soon as the quiet settled upon him, he began to have dreams—nightmares, really—about the day Aliver was killed. At firstDariel thought it was some belated way of mourning his brother, but as the dreams grew more intense he realized it was not just that. He dreamed more and more of the aftermath of the duel, more and more about his murder of Maeander Mein. He had ordered it, even though Aliver had granted Maeander protection and agreed to the particulars of the duel. Dariel could not be sure that his blade had even touched the man, but he had whispered for his death and made all his people accomplices to the murder. It was a foul way to stain the sacred moments after his brother’s passing. The shame of it grew within him as time passed. More and more fervently, he wanted to find a way to live without regret, to do enough with the life he still had before him so that he would feel he had been a force for good in the world.
    It was Wren who suggested he again find work to occupy him. Not murderous work, though, not military. “Why not build?” she had asked. “Likely, you’d be as good at that as you were at piracy and sabotage.” She actually had to suggest it several times before the seed split within him and took root. Wonderful, quiet Wren, sharp as a razor in more ways than one.
    When he took the proposal of rebuilding to Corinn, he found her amiable enough. With her blessing, he set out on the work that had occupied him body and soul. As Wren had suggested, he built. He arrived in Killintich with a small army of surveyors, engineers, architects, historians, and laborers. Once proud, the capital of Aushenia had suffered neglect and abuse since the Numrek invasion. Dariel set about rebuilding that damaged city brick by brick. He worked right beside laborers, digging ditches, slopping through canals, hefting loads on his back. It was toil unlike any he had known before, and he loved it. The work may have been nothing more than an attempt to busy himself, but he hoped it was more and