“So we’re going to let fairies trample on us like that?” Baron Claude’s voice rang through the hall like a thrown gauntlet, sharp with outrage. “We have the Great Dividing Wall. Ten thousand men. Ballistas powerful enough to bring wyverns to the ground. The United Army might be vast, but they will not pass easily. And if we strike Cyrenia first, if we spill their blood, the people will rise behind us. Any other action… will be seen as weakness.”
He looked around the table with fire in his eyes, and one by one, the lords turned their gaze toward the captains lining the chamber walls. Just as Claude had said, their eyes blazed—not with fear, but with vengeance. In them was the fury of burned homes, butchered kin, and lost honour. In them was reverence—for Claude.
It was clear what they wanted. War.
“War isn’t the problem,” Sapphira said calmly, though a tremor of urgency ran beneath her voice. “It’s where we wage it. When. We are not facing a single enemy. We are surrounded. If we march on an empire with over a hundred thousand soldiers, we will be forced to send the Emberframed and the Nightmares. Our best.”
She paused, allowing the weight of her words to settle.
“With Commander Lambert’s ten thousand, we might gather sixty thousand men, at most. But if we put them all into an offensive against Cyrenia, we leave the Dukedom stripped bare. No shield. No sword. Just the husk of what we were.”
She turned to Count Alec, her gaze steady. “Do you truly believe the Wall will hold long enough for your army to return from Cyrenia? That the city guards can withstand the full might of the United Army? Months will pass before you even reach the capital. By then, not just Tiberias, but Goshen—every town and villages will be ashes. Nineveh might be the last city left standing. And even that is no certainty.”
Then she looked to Eritrea, her tone, softer now. “Half of our land will already be in their hands. You know the forests better than anyone, and yes, they’re your shield. But what happens when the wyverns come? When they set it all ablaze? You’ll burn with the trees, and Ashkelon will fall. And that’s if you’ll be here and not in Cyrenia.”
She turned to the center of the table, voice low, trembling not with fear but with grief and exasperation. “By the time they return from Cyrenia—if they return—we might have no Dukedom left. No homes. No people. No future. Only corpses. Our Duke lies helpless in bed, unable to speak or lift a sword. What do you think will become of him if this land is overrun?”
The room fell into tense silence. Then Claude slammed his fist against the table, rattling the goblets and startling even some of the captains.
“I knew it!” he roared. “I knew you’d oppose this. Of course you would—Cyrenia is your homeland! Your blood runs in their veins. You’re looking for a way to spare them. But tell me this—is that what the people want? They want vengeance!* Not diplomacy. Not delays. Vengeance!”
Sapphira rose to her feet. Her black hair framed her face like a shadowy halo, and her voice cracked with fury.
“You think I would choose the people who abducted me over the man whose child now grows inside me? The man who trusted me when no one else would? You insult both of us.”
“Then let us fight!” Lambert growled. “Let us take the battle to their doorstep and show the people we have not lost our edge!”
“You would spend every last coin, every loaf of bread, every wagon of supplies to feed and ferry an army across a vast distance, while tens of thousands sit in the ruins of their homes, starving and grieving?” Sapphira snapped, eyes flashing. “If we abandon them now, they will not wait for enemies to rise. They will rebel.”
She took a step back, breathing heavily. “Can’t you see it? Paradise is vital. It is the only city where humans and beastmen live together. It is the only symbol that unity is possible, that our past need not define our future. And you would let it fall to dust, just to chase your wrath?”
“The only peace they’ll know,” Claude said coldly, “is to watch the ones who wronged them suffer.”
“He’s right,” Finn Waters said, voice flat, but his hand was clenched on the hilt of his sword.
Eritrea remained silent, head lowered. But her silence was the answer. She stood with Claude.
Sapphira’s tone turned solemn. “We can march, yes. But not now. Not like this. Not while our people are still bleeding. Let us rebuild Paradise. Let us recover our strength. Then we will march, and strike true.”
“You don’t have the power to stop us,” Claude growled. “I will inform the Regent. Cyrenia will burn.”
In the far end of the hall, behind the array of knights, Galanar stood still, his jaw tight. All around him, the voices of humans rang with righteous fury, but he could hear the cruelty beneath it. He looked at Sapphira—the lone voice pleading for restraint, for mercy, for reason.
A heavy silence settled in his chest. A seed of hate, faint and bitter, took root.
He turned slightly—and found Omar, armored in crimson, helm hiding his face. But even through the visor, he could feel the man watching him.
‘So,’ Galanar thought bitterly, ‘you feel it too. The hate.’
Omar’s shoulders shook faintly, a low chuckle rising from his helm as if he’d heard the thought.
‘They’re lost without the Duke,’ He seemed to say.
And then, like a whisper from a distant memory, Asher’s voice came back to Galanar: “You are my brothers.”
He remembered the cliff. The snow. The horde of orcs. He remembered his lord wrapped in a thick fur cloak, weakened from creating them. And still—He called them brothers.
He closed his eyes. That memory was a flame against the growing cold in his heart.
Just then, Baroness Katarina’s voice sliced through the silence.
“The scribe shall relay our intentions to the Regent,” she said, her tone unreadable. “He will decide our next course of action.”
“Agreed,” Eritrea said softly.
“Agreed,” Finn Waters echoed.
“Agreed,” Claude muttered.
“Agreed.” Alec’s voice was the heaviest of them all. Tired. Resigned.
Sapphira stood still. Then, with quiet defiance, she asked, “If you attack Cyrenia…how will you protect yourselves?”
Claude raised a brow, a smirk at the corner of his lips. “The Scarlet Templars are said to be the finest heavy infantry in our lands. Them and the Gray Knights will hold the Wall.”
Sapphira’s fists clenched so tightly her knuckles went white.
And outside, the wind howled through the hall’s narrow windows like a warning.