June of 1858 arrived not with the thunder of cannon, but with the rustle of papers and the murmurs of diplomats.
After weeks of blood and smoke, the battlefield fell quiet.
Across the valleys of Montenegro, the only sound was the clang of hammers repairing roofs, the shuffle of peasants returning to their ruined fields, and the soft bells of churches tolling for the dead.
The war had been short, brutal, and decisive.
Now the world turned its eyes to Cetinje—not to see a stubborn mountain tribe clinging to survival, but to witness the birth of a state.
Envoys came first from Austria, riding hard through the passes, their uniforms pressed despite the heat.
France followed, its diplomats dressed in finery that looked absurd in the rustic halls of the Montenegrin court.
The Russians, of course, were already there, smiling as though they had orchestrated the whole affair from the beginning.
Even the British, whose sympathies often leaned toward the Ottomans, dispatched a man to "observe."
And hovering above them all, though none of them could name him, was Elias's spies—whose whispers carried through Danilo's council chamber like a hidden wind.
The negotiations lasted for weeks.
The Ottomans, reeling from the destruction of their 13,000-strong host and the loss of Podgorica, Shkodër, Koplik, and Lezhë, demanded restoration of their lands.
They pointed to treaties, to tradition, to centuries of "rightful" sovereignty.
But paper burned faster than flesh, and the corpses still lay in heaps in the valleys of Grahovo and Vilusi.
The powers of Europe, pragmatic as ever, weighed the situation and declared what was already obvious: Montenegro had doubled in size, and no force could wrest it back without tearing the Balkans into open flame.
By the end of June, a treaty was signed.
Montenegro was recognized—at last—as fully independent, its sovereignty validated not just in Russian eyes but by every great capital from Vienna to London.
Borders shifted on the maps, shaded mountains giving way to plains and river valleys newly claimed.
Montenegro, once a narrow sliver of stone, had more than doubled in size.
For its people, the news was cause for wild celebration.
Bells rang in every church.
Bonfires blazed in village squares.
Men who only weeks ago had been bracing for annihilation now danced with children on their shoulders, dreaming of fertile fields and open markets.
Prince Danilo stood triumphant, hailed as the shepherd of a nation reborn.
Yet behind his throne, invisible but ever present, Elias's shadow stretched long.
The prince had grown used to voices at his shoulder—advice carried in by "trusted men," their suggestions always practical, always timely.
It was these whispers that urged him to reward the commanders of the southern campaign with baronies, binding their loyalty with land.
The men who had led the "local militia" in the storming of Koplik and Lezhë now found themselves lords of estates they had barely marched across.
No one questioned it too loudly; after all, had they not won those lands with their own blood?
But among those new barons were Elias's own.
Soldiers from the System, woven seamlessly into Montenegrin ranks, now revealed themselves as noblemen in waiting.
Their deeds had been too visible to ignore, their valor too useful to discard.
Danilo signed the patents of nobility with a steady hand, never realizing that he was placing pen to a web Elias had spun months before.
The fortresses Elias had carved into the mountains—first bases, second bases—were now legal holdings of recognized Montenegrin barons.
On maps, they were castles of the realm.
In truth, they remained citadels of the shadow nation.
For Elias, this was the true victory.
Not the broken Ottoman corpses on the field, nor the cheering crowds in Cetinje, but legitimacy.
His men no longer moved only in shadow.
They could march openly as nobles, attend councils, claim rents and taxes from peasants who saw them as rightful lords.
The mask of secrecy was becoming a crown.
And yet, even in triumph, Elias's mind turned toward the next move.
The Ottomans, humiliated, would lick their wounds and plot revenge.
That much was certain.
To deepen their shame, to ensure they remained the villains in the eyes of Europe, Elias dispatched plans for a raid.
Not a full campaign—just a "renegade" force, masked as uncontrolled Montenegrin partisans, striking north into Ottoman lands.
Their orders were brutal: burn supply depots, butcher garrisons, scatter terror among Muslim villages.
To the world it would look like Montenegrin zeal boiling over in victory, a people's vengeance unleashed.
The Ottomans would rage, crying to Europe of atrocities.
And Europe, as Elias predicted, would wag fingers not at Montenegro but at Constantinople itself for losing control.
The irony was sharp: every blade that struck in the raid would cut deeper into the Sultan's reputation, not Danilo's.
And while the Ottomans fumed, Elias's men would return to their mountain bases, unseen and unblamed, having bought time, time enough to force the ottomans to recover while he prepared for War across he ocean, while at home his new realms would be built up.
Back in Cetinje, the celebrations continued.
Wine flowed, choirs sang, and priests intoned prayers of thanks.
Yet beneath the joy was a new undercurrent—a sense that Montenegro was no longer merely surviving but rising.
Markets opened where before there had been only barter.
Roads began to be cut into the valleys seized from Ottoman hands.
For the first time, families spoke of future generations living not as rebels but as citizens of a state recognized among nations.
Elias watched it all with a quiet smile.
He had given them this—order, stability, the semblance of freedom.
But it was not charity.
Every village that cheered, every farm that prospered, tied itself unwittingly to his design.
They would see him not as conqueror but as protector, and in that illusion lay his greatest strength.
Still, he did not forget the blood.
Reports crossed his desk daily of the graves dug at Lezhë, of widows in Shkodër, of children orphaned in the storm of May.
The Ottomans had resisted fiercely, and their soldiers had died with a loyalty that almost earned his respect.
Almost.
But loyalty to a decaying empire was still loyalty to chains, and Elias had no sympathy for chains.
As June drew to a close, he stood once more on the ramparts of his hidden fortress.
The air smelled of pine and summer rain.
Far to the south, smoke still curled from villages where war had passed.
To the north, the mountains gleamed, dotted now with the banners of Montenegro and the estates of new barons.
It was a transformed land—larger, stronger, alive with hope.
But hope was a fragile thing.
Elias knew how quickly it could curdle into fear if left unguided.
He placed both hands on the stone wall, feeling the weight of what he had wrought.
Independence, yes.
Nobility, yes.
A doubled kingdom, yes.
But these were not ends.
They were tools.
And tools were meant to build something greater.
"Let them celebrate,"
he murmured to the wind.
"For now."
Then he turned, descending back into the shadows where his true work waited.