Valasi’s unexpected death turned a successful reign into a succession crisis: his heir was not yet old enough to be elected aiji, and Ilisidi’s bid to govern in her own right met resistance from a legislature divided by regional interests. The immediate outcome was regency, but the dispute also exposed how difficult it had become to hold the Aishidi’tat together while managing its unfinished political arrangements and mounting pressure from Mospheiran expansion and industry.

Political Inheritance

Valasi died after earning a reputation as a great aiji. He had patched a quarrel between the Atageini clan and the Kadagidi clan, prevented the Atageini lord from Filing Intent on Komaji, kept the southwest coast out of Marid hands, and returned control of the Aishidi’tat to western hands, away from the aiji-dowager. His unexpected death therefore removed a ruler credited with containing several competing political dangers at once.

The political system he left behind had been shaped by cooperation across older divisions. Eleven regional associations had agreed to build a railroad from Shejidan westward without going to war over it. During construction, the aiji were elected to manage the project and secure the promises made by clan lords; the emerging Assassins’ Guild protected them from attacks by rival assassins. The railroad’s success encouraged larger, overlapping associations, and the Guild backed the aiji when three powerful lords tried to break the agreement into separate administrative districts.

That cross-regional order had also reshaped the guilds. Guild membership and assignments were formally based on qualification rather than clan or regional origin, with guild masters controlling appointments. The Assassins’ Guild could hold no political office or lordship, but received statutory protections from political pressure. These arrangements formed part of the institutional inheritance within which any successor had to govern: authority depended not only on a ruler’s standing, but on keeping regions, clans, and powerful organizations in workable alignment.

The Succession Gap

Valasi’s heir remained short of the age of twenty-three required for election as aiji. The vacancy thus presented a problem of both succession and immediate government: the person expected to inherit could not yet take the office through the established electoral threshold.

Ilisidi returned to Shejidan with her grandson Tabini and applied to be elected aiji herself. She argued that the Aishidi’tat’s complex affairs demanded experienced leadership. Among her concerns was increasing traffic with Mospheirans, who were beginning to colonize neighboring Crescent Island and developing industry without restraint. Smoke and effluent were reaching the continent’s northwest coast, making environmental protection a question of governance as well as diplomacy.

Ilisidi also argued that parts of the Aishidi’tat remained unresolved stop-gap arrangements dating from the War of the Landing. She proposed reopening negotiations with Mospheira and pressing for stronger environmental protections. Her appeal joined immediate political need to a broader case for revisiting inherited settlements and addressing harms that crossed regional boundaries.

Legislative Refusal

The legislature balked on all points. Regional interests feared that reopening portions of the postwar treaty would expose their own arrangements to challenge. The Marid opposed Ilisidi’s proposed solution to the western-coast problems, while concern about the pollution found little support beyond Dur: much of the smoke was landing on Gan peoples, who had never joined the Aishidi’tat.

The refusal did not resolve the problems Ilisidi had raised. Instead, it showed how the same regional interests that had to be balanced within the political union could block a common response when treaty arrangements or local advantages seemed at risk. The succession crisis therefore unfolded alongside disputes over the reach of central authority, the terms of postwar unity, and the unequal distribution of environmental consequences.

Regency and Consequences

Ilisidi ruled as aiji-regent through the remainder of Tabini’s minority and through the last years of Wilson-paidhi’s service. She was aided by a Conservative coalition headed by Lord Tatiseigi of the Atageini clan. Regency supplied continuity while Tabini was underage, but it was not the resolution Ilisidi had sought: the legislature had rejected her proposals, and the political questions behind them remained contested.

The event’s lasting significance lies in the contrast between Valasi’s reputation for managing competing interests and the limits exposed by his sudden absence. The Aishidi’tat had built institutions capable of connecting clans and regions through shared projects, yet those structures did not erase regional resistance. With the heir temporarily ineligible and the legislature unwilling to reopen disputed arrangements, Ilisidi’s regency became the bridge between Valasi’s death and Tabini’s eventual assumption of power.