“The enemy’s advance was several times faster than we calculated…” “The fortresses we expected to hold for three months crumbled in a mere three days.” “They are moving to encircle Mexico City as we speak.” “Soon… the Covenant forces will be at our gates. What are your orders, Your Excellency?”

As the reports continued in their somber, leaden tones, Garcia Sarmiento de Sotomayor, the Viceroy of Nueva España, remained pointedly silent, his eyes darting toward the man beside him. Gaspar de Guzmán, the Count-Duke of Olivares, could only muster a bitter, hollow smile at the gesture. He understood the meaning of that sideward glance perfectly. The Viceroy was looking for an exit—a way to deflect the crushing weight of responsibility for being the man who might preside over the fall of Nueva España.

Yet, as a Count-Duke of Spain, Olivares found he had no words of rebuke. He could not brand the man a coward when it was he himself who had orchestrated the beginning of this war. It was he who had directed its disastrous course, and he who had failed to secure a single meaningful victory despite the staggering host at his command. The man truly responsible for this catastrophe was none other than Gaspar de Guzmán.

“We cannot abandon this place. We cannot abandon Mexico City,” Olivares declared, finally stepping forward to shoulder the burden. “This city is the heart and soul of the Viceroyalty. To lose it is to discard Nueva España in its entirety. Whether we choose to fight to the last or to surrender, it must be done here.”

As he spoke, he watched the tension bleed out of the Viceroy’s face, replaced by a look of sheer relief. The sight filled Olivares with a sudden, sharp urge to strike the man. Spain is on the precipice of ruin, he thought, his stomach churning. Our homeland is crumbling, and all this man cares for is his own skin and reputation.

The Viceroy, sensing the lethal coldness in the Count-Duke’s gaze, let out a dry, forced cough and looked away. A heavy silence descended upon the room. No one dared to speak under the weight of Olivares’s presence. The Count-Duke wanted to call for a final, glorious stand, but the logic of war forbade it. They had no seasoned troops left, and the city lacked proper fortifications. Mexico City had never been designed to withstand a modern siege; until only a few decades ago, no power in the Americas had been capable of threatening it.

In those few short decades, the world had been turned upside down. Even though Spain had not been idle, their entire legacy had been dismantled by a force they hadn’t even known existed—a civilization so advanced it treated the Spanish military like a collection of wooden toys.

A power the Europeans never even dreamed of… a civilization from the shadows.

But regret was a useless currency now. Spain was finished.

“We must face them,” Olivares rasped. “Somehow—”

“But, Count-Duke!” the Viceroy started.

“Whatever you are about to say, silence yourself,” Olivares snapped, his eyes flashing with a terrifying intensity.

“What?”

“If you consider yourself a servant of the Spanish King, then hold your tongue!”

He would not give up. If there was nothing but a precipice at his back, he would throw himself at the enemy with the resolve of a dead man. He had not sought wealth or personal glory in this expedition; he had lived his entire life for the singular purpose of Spanish resurgence. If he was to die here…

“My Lord!” a soldier cried, bursting into the chamber.

“Have they begun the assault?” Olivares demanded, reaching for his sword. “Arm the citizens immediately! We shall—”

“No, sir! The Covenant… they have proposed a parley!”

“What?”

Olivares felt his mind go blank for a heartbeat. He struggled to process the news. Why? A wolf does not negotiate with the rabbit already in its maw. One snap of the jaw is all it takes to end the struggle and begin the feast. Nueva España was disarmed, a dagger held to its throat. Why would they offer terms now?

Is it a trap? No, that was absurd. Mexico City was theirs for the taking; there was no need for deception. Then why? If they occupied the capital and pacified the region, the Viceroyalty of Peru would be next. They had the chance to seize the entire continent. Why would they hesitate now?

“Should we not at least hear them out?” the Viceroy suggested, his voice oily with opportunistic hope. “After all, they clearly hold the advantage.”

Infuriating as the man was, his logic was sound. Whether to buy time for a counter-attack or simply to find a way to survive the night, accepting the proposal was their only choice.

***

A few days later, the sound of rhythmic, disciplined footsteps echoed through the grand hall of the palace. Olivares watched as a familiar face approached.

“Ernst von Mansfeld?”

The mercenary general strode forward, flanked by a young man of Anglo-Saxon descent. Behind them, aides carried the banners of the Continental Covenant and its member states, held high with a quiet, confident pride. Mansfeld offered a formal, practiced bow before introducing himself.

“I am Ernst von Mansfeld, the Secretary of Defense,” he stated, his voice ringing with a new authority.

“And I am Gideon Vickers, the Deputy Secretary of Defense,” the youth added.

Olivares lingered on the titles. Secretary of Defense? Deputy Secretary? The terms were foreign, likely invented by the Covenant to bolster their diplomatic standing, but the weight they carried was unmistakable.

“So,” Olivares noted, his eyes narrowing, “you are the Commander-in-Chief of the Covenant forces?”

“I oversee the entirety of our military affairs,” Mansfeld replied with a thin smile.

A strange dissonance pricked at the Count-Duke’s senses. He felt a sense of overwhelming pressure in the small reception room, despite the absence of the Viceroy, who had conveniently avoided the meeting to escape any potential blame. Olivares looked between Mansfeld and the young Vickers, his breath coming in short, tight gasps.

Mansfeld maintained his polite, professional veneer until he finally uttered the word that froze the blood in Olivares’s veins.

“Peace.”

The word acted like an eraser, wiping the Count-Duke’s mind of every strategic contingency he had prepared. He set his glass down with a trembling hand, desperate to hide his agitation from the victors.

“And… what are your demands?” Olivares managed to ask. The time for diplomatic pleasantries was long dead. They were the crushed, and the men before him were the crushers.

“We shall postpone the discussions regarding territory and reparations,” Mansfeld said casually. “Such matters are beyond the scope of mere military commanders.”

“What did you say?”

“I am not here to redraw borders or haggle over gold, Count-Duke. I may be a commander, but I ultimately operate under the mandate of the Chairman.”

Olivares felt as if he were wandering deeper into a labyrinth. Then why are you here?

“I told you,” Mansfeld repeated. “We are here to end the war.”

The reality of it refused to take root in the Count-Duke’s mind. Why stop now? When the entire Americas are within their grasp? When they…

He fell into a stunned silence. The dissonance he had felt since the parley was proposed began to swell, bloating into a singular, agonizing realization.

They didn’t need a ‘chance’ to take the Americas.

The war had proven that much. They built ships of steel and wagons of iron. They dismantled Spain’s greatest host as if they were playing with toys. If they had truly wanted to, they could have turned Nueva España into a funeral pyre and erased Spain from the map years ago.

But they hadn’t.

Secretary of Defense. Reparations for later. To end the war.

The phrases clicked into place in his mind, forging a brutal, inescapable conclusion.

“We desire a permanent peace with Spain,” Mansfeld continued. “And we wish to initiate a prisoner exchange.”

Permanent peace.

Olivares realized then that the Covenant had never intended to be a threat to Spain. It was Spain that had insisted on being a threat to them. They could have seized the continent at any moment, but they chose not to.

“Because…” Olivares whispered, his voice cracking, “you were only ever interested in a swift end to the fighting. You only wanted peace.”

“Hmm? What was that?” Mansfeld asked.

“Nothing,” Olivares replied, his heart breaking. “It was nothing.”

He felt a sudden, crushing weight of guilt. He was the one who had raved about the Covenant threat. He was the one who had claimed their conquest was Spain’s only hope. And this was the result: a meaningless war of aggression, a humiliating defeat, and the collapse of his nation’s pride. It was entirely his fault. He felt as if he could happily walk to the gallows at that moment.

“We shall conclude the war,” Olivares stated, each word feeling like a lash across his soul. “We surrender. We are your prisoners, and this land is your occupied territory.”

He closed his eyes, thinking of his master, Philip IV, and the people who had followed him into this nightmare.

If they truly desire peace… and if they possess the power to crush us at will… then where does Spain’s hope lie? How do I drag my country out of this abyss? Or at least find a way to keep it from falling further?

Olivares opened his eyes. “Since we have surrendered… perhaps we should begin finalizing the specific terms of our arrangement?”

He had reached his own conclusion. He had to be the one to take responsibility.

Mansfeld looked intrigued for a moment, his eyes sharpening as the Count-Duke began to speak. And so, the war ended—not with the roar of a final battle, but with the quiet, desperate whispers of a treaty.

***

The Royal Alcázar of Madrid, the primary palace of the Spanish Kingdom, was a tomb of somber faces. The majestic halls, a tapestry of styles spanning from the Islamic era to the present, were filled with the elite of the realm, yet the atmosphere was heavy with a funereal gloom.

“It has a certain modest charm, this palace,” a voice boomed. “And the banquet was… acceptable.”

Oitotan was the only man in the room who carried himself with absolute poise. The Spanish courtiers, well aware of his ‘activities’ in the courts of England and France, watched him with a terrified, breathless intensity. He and his fellow envoys moved through the palace like conquerors, and even Philip IV found himself shrinking in their presence.

Sixty thousand. That was the number of elite soldiers—men who had broken armies across Europe—who had been dismantled with such ease. Even the King’s own brother was a prisoner. It was a humiliation Spain had not tasted in generations.

The war had made one thing clear: the strange power from across the sea now held the hegemony of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Spain would be relegated to the shadows of their progress, a fading memory of a former age. It was the symbolic moment of one empire’s birth and another’s decline.

Philip winced as Oitotan delivered another barb—too ambiguous to counter, too insulting to ignore.

“Our demands are simple,” Oitotan announced, his voice echoing through the chamber.

As he spoke, the atmosphere in the room underwent a bizarre inversion. The Spanish nobles, who had been bracing for total annihilation, slowly began to look at one another in bewilderment. Philip IV’s expression shifted from despair to stunned disbelief. He looked around for Olivares, then remembered the Count-Duke’s absence and the draft of the treaty he had sent.

“This was the best I could do, Sire.”

The King finally understood the meaning behind his favorite’s final letter. Oitotan’s terms were concise:

“All territories north of the Isthmus of Darien are to be ceded to the Continental Covenant immediately.” The total annexation of North America.

“The Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and all associated islands are also to be ceded.” The annexation of the island chains.

And then…

“Both sides shall exchange prisoners, and there shall be no war reparations.”

That was it. South America would remain Spanish. The Viceroyalty of Peru was untouched. The prisoners held by the Covenant would be returned without condition, and no crushing debt would be imposed on the Spanish treasury. There was a clause allowing Covenant vessels to use Spanish ports for repair and resupply, but the Spanish found they had no complaints. Another clause demanded the recognition of the Covenant’s sovereign legitimacy, which the Spanish accepted with a near-shameful eagerness.

In truth, they wanted to celebrate. These terms meant that for the first time in decades, Spain and the Covenant would establish ‘normal’ diplomatic relations.

“Both nations shall strive to establish a mutual and permanent peace.”

That was the final clause. The Spanish nodded along, treating it as mere flowery rhetoric, but to the people of the Covenant, those were the most important words in the document.

The Covenant pursued “Permanent Peace” as their ultimate goal.

The Spanish stood paralyzed as Philip IV reached for the quill. He signed the document without a word of protest.

The war was over. For the sake of ‘Permanent Peace.’

***

“The treaty has been ratified,” Gershom reported. “The Spanish didn’t even attempt to negotiate the draft.”

“I imagine they didn’t,” I replied, looking out the window of the Chairman’s residence. “They were likely terrified that any resistance would provoke us into making the terms worse.”

Victory was ours. Preparations for a victory banquet and memorial services were already underway in the streets of Chesapeake. We were now the masters of the North American continent. Greenland was already falling into our sphere through ‘multi-level trade’ with the Inuit. We had dismantled every meaningful geopolitical threat.

The Atlantic and Pacific were now our gateways and our shields. The narrow, rugged terrain of the Darien would be our natural wall. No power on earth could threaten us now. We had expanded as far as we could reasonably govern. I had made the decision to abandon South America and the Viceroyalty of Peru; to conquer them would have required far more blood and created a logistical nightmare of governance we weren’t ready to handle. Besides, the Spanish would have fought to the death for their final foothold.

But those territorial gains were secondary. What we had truly secured was something invisible and intangible, yet infinitely more precious.

We had gained peace.

***

The Viceroyalty of Peru. The capital, Lima.

“Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares… you are hereby stripped of all public offices.”

The man in the garden read the King’s decree and offered a small, sad smile. He knew he would never return to the center of Spanish politics. He was the man who had led his country to defeat and presided over a generous, yet shocking, peace treaty. He would die here in Peru. He would be buried here, and his descendants would call this land home.

“Why? I could have protected you,” the King had written in a private addendum.

Olivares closed his eyes, imagining Philip’s sorrowful face. He whispered his response to the empty air. “How could I add more weight to your shoulders, my King? It must end here for me.”

He folded the letter and looked at the royal envoy. “I intend to defend the Viceroyalty of Peru. I shall remain here. I am not going back.”

Here, and only here, did the hope of the kingdom remain. In an era where Europe was starved for gold and silver, the precious metals of Peru would be Spain’s lifeline. The vast lands of the continent were more than enough to enrich the crown once more. This land was larger than Europe itself. If anything was to be salvaged, it would be here.

Only he could do it. A man who had no lingering attachments to the court, no further ambitions for power—only a singular, desperate devotion to the crown. Unlike the Viceroys who only came to line their pockets before scurrying back to the mainland, he would stay.

If he returned, he would only be a lightning rod for political chaos. He would spend the remainder of his days in service to this soil. He would make this land prosperous. He would make it great.

And in doing so… he would atone for his sins against the homeland.

This was his responsibility.

A burden only he could bear.