The General scanned the assembled council. His gaze flickered over the crowd, then landed on Gai, and there it stayed. Gai’s mouth goes dry. His father’s face is thinner than he remembers, jaw stubbled, hair thinned and shaved close on the sides, a scar running from temple to brow that Gai’s never seen before. The eyes are unchanged: heavy, dark, and sharper than obsidian. Gai wants to look away but can’t. His father gives nothing, not a twitch, not a crease, just the unreadable set of his mouth and the way he stands half a head above everyone else at the dais. The General’s eyes narrow slightly, then move on, never once betraying recognition. If this is a test, Gai isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. Even Elle, in her hard blue dress and new-washed hair, looks to the General, then back to Gai, a question flying between them that neither dares ask now.

  Maric sees it first. Something in the way the General’s gaze lands—too direct, too long, the muscle in his jaw jumping once, like he’s biting back a stupid impulse. Maric’s eyes cut to Gai, then back to Lionel, and you can see the math working itself out behind the captain’s stony face. He knows. Or at least, he suspects. The realization staggers Maric for a breath, and Gai wonders if he’ll say something, even just a muttered curse, but the captain only squares his stance and folds his hands tighter behind his back.

  Lionel doesn’t acknowledge any of it. He waits for the King’s nod, then steps up to the main map. His voice is rougher than Gai remembers—like he’s spent the whole year drinking smoke and stones—but it’s clear and it silences the whole chamber. “This is no border raid,” Lionel says, one thick finger circling the southern delta. “Nobyvinmaa brings every Huscarl they can muster. The ships are not for show. They intend to land, breach, and take the city before the council can even agree how to respond.”

  A hand slams the table, rings flashing. “General Lionel,” rasps the old baroness, voice thick with phlegm and contempt. “We thank you for crawling out of retirement in our time of need, but your experience is the east. What comfort do you offer against northern steel and Pelugian treachery?” Her jowls shake as she leans forward, half her body trembling with the effort of outrage.

  Lionel doesn’t flinch. “My experience is survival, Baroness Grelka.” He drags his finger west along the painted river, through the tangled tokens of allied and enemy forces. “I’ve had Rangers in the west for years. Even retired, I kept them employed—discreet, untraceable. Longer than most here have held their positions. If there are northern threats the council cannot see, it’s because you’ve chosen not to listen.” He waits, letting the insult land. No apology, not even a softening of tone. “If you want to know what the enemy will do, they bribe, they seduce, they threaten, and sometimes, they simply vanish the person who stands in their way.”

  The chamber erupts. Nobles bark protest, half the council on their feet. Gai hears the old baroness jab her cane so hard into the tabletop he wonders if the wood will break. A merchant lord with a sapphire throat-broach spits, “What, then, do you accuse us of, General? Treason? Or only idiocy?” The question ripples, gathering strength as others pick up the thread. Gai sees Elle’s lips twitch, a muscle working furiously at the hinge of her jaw. This is what she meant by council meetings: everybody talking at once, nobody saying a thing.

  Lionel waits for the noise to crest, then punches a hand onto the map—right into the heart of the city, just below the gold-leaf palace. “I accuse this council of comfort,” he says, voice rising above the fray. “You sit in your noble houses, trading insults while the world sharpens knives at the gates. You eat, you drink, you fatten yourselves on old treaties and trade empires, and you do not see the enemy because you have paid others to look away for you.” His words crack through the uproar, quieting even the king’s next breath.

  Someone shouts, “Name the traitors!” Another: “If you have evidence, show it, or hold your tongue and kneel before your betters!” Gai feels the heat of their spittle from three rows back.

  Lionel doesn't blink. He lifts his chin, eyes finding Zephyrian with a measured glance—quick, but not quite casual. Gai catches the look, the way Lionel's gaze lingers just a heartbeat too long, as if searching for something in the Elementalist's expression. A tell, perhaps. A crack in the mask

  “I know of at least one as we speak,” Lionel says, letting the words hang long enough to frost the air. “Not from this council, but sent here to seed the ground. A wolf sent to sniff out cracks in our walls. An Animatrix from the north, trained by the Academy at Sholedzar, operating in this city for months. Her specialty is weapons made from nightmares and memory, and she walks through your palace and your city at night while you sleep. I have already put agents on her; it will not be a week before I have her name, her master, and her poison.”

  For a split second, Gai thinks the accusation will explode, that the council will tear itself apart. Instead, a hush so heavy it hums takes the room. Even Zephyrian, used to moving the room by force of will, pauses with his fingers poised like blades.

  The king leans forward, voice gone low and dangerous. “Why not bring this to me in private, General? If there is a northern spy in my walls, she will now know we are hunting.”

  Lionel’s mouth twitches—the smallest flicker of a man who’s spent a lifetime spitting out the expected answer. “Because, Your Majesty, there are more ears in your private chambers than in this whole council. Let them run. The best way to catch a wolf is to smoke it from the den.”

  Gai watches the faces around the map. Most are locked up in fear or rage, but he sees the glances—the way Zephyrian stares unmoving at the tokens, and the way Yami, barely more than a shadow herself, flicks her eyes to every corner of the chamber. Zephyrian goes still. Not stilled, not poised—he just ceases to animate, like everything inside him has been thrown in reverse. If the man breathed at all, Gai couldn’t clock it. Maybe nobody in the room could. For the first time since entering the library, Gai finds himself wondering where Myrkenna has gone—she was here, wasn’t she? At Zephyrian’s elbow, a cold flicker trailing his steps. Now, nothing. No shadow, no hint of apprentice in the periphery. Gai scans the edge of the council, tracking for her face, but she’s vanished, like the Animatrix Lionel described.

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  He catches Yami’s attention from across the chamber. She’s moved, just a hair, and the set of her jaw says she’s clocked the same thing. Gai watches the pulse in her neck, the way her posture cinches inward, ready.

  Lionel hurls the next words like a challenge. “The Nobyvinmaan advance is not coming for us first. The main fleet launches straight for Gloomber. They want to hit the Iuvaquinian capital before we know it’s a war. Pelugia has an army massing on their border, just north of Fallowfall. Once those two cities fall, the enemy holds the entire delta. After that, they have a corridor up to Pelugia controlled Oldbay where they dock freely. Once they have the delta, they will not stop until they have starved us of trade and bottled every ship we possess within the river. They will raid the coast until there is nothing left to raid.” Lionel’s hand lifts, sweeping the map’s western edge. “If you are waiting for them to ‘declare’—you will wait as your people die, your harbours are burned, and your daughters are chained for ransom.”

  He lets the silence stack, brick on brick. The council stares, even the loudest critics stunned into mute disgust. Zephyrian is first to recover. “All this is based on the testimony of Rangers and traders.” His voice carries an oily amusement. “Perhaps you have more than maps and conjecture, General?”

  Lionel’s laugh is a sound Gai doesn’t know, dry and already bored. “You want proof, Zephyrian? Look to your own sources. I’ve been a day ahead of every move you’ve made since you took the post. You think you control the city’s information, but you forget—every word you receive passes through at least three tongues before it reaches your desk. You are the last to know.” He flicks a look at the king, who seems to shrink, ever so slightly, into the folds of his mantle. A young lord with a face like uncooked dough tries to muster protest, but the effort dies in his throat. The king gestures for Lionel to continue.

  Lionel waits until the last ripple of breath leaves the chamber. “I have a plan,” he says, each word ground out like he’s chewing it first. “But I’ll need more than the consent of this council. I need unrestricted authority to take whatever measures are necessary—military, diplomatic, or otherwise. No noble oversight, no bureaucratic delays.” He lets his eyes rove the benches. “If you want to live through this, you let me work.”

  Gai watches the reaction. The old baroness recoils, her lips drawn so tight they nearly vanish in her folds of flesh. Others shift, glancing at one another, trying to decide if this is a bluff or just the first step in a coup. Zephyrian’s jaw moves—maybe a half smile, maybe a tic—but he says nothing.

  The King’s fingers drum the table, the sound small but absolute. “And if I grant this, General? What’s your first move?”

  “First move is simple. Reinforce Gloomber. We have a battalion at our eastern border, ready to cross into the city inside the week.”

  The room is silent. Gai hears the scrape of a pen behind him, someone scribbling furiously to keep pace. The King signals Elle: a slight, downward jerk of the chin.

  “Lady Elle,” he says. “If General Lionel is correct, the Iuvaquinian capital is not defensible unless we send support. Can your mother be prevailed upon to send troops—quickly?”

  Elle’s voice, when it comes, is careful, each word weighed sharp. “If you wish to secure a trade treaty or a consignment of salt pork, we have the channels. For armies, I have only letters.” She glances at Lionel, then Zephyrian, then back to the King. “My mother’s council does not move at the pace of war. Even if I send word tonight, the best-case scenario is two months before boots cross our border. And only if you guarantee payment, up front.”

  The king’s mouth twists. “You are a stateswoman, Lady Elle.”

  She inclines her head. “My mother would have me no other way.”

  The king's laugh is low, almost hidden under the weight of the room. He studies her for a moment, fingers drumming once against the armrest of his throne. The silence stretches, deliberate and measuring, before his gaze shifts back to the General.

  "Total control," the king repeats, as if tasting the words. His voice carries across the chamber, addressing Lionel but ensuring all can hear. "Are you not worried the nobility will think you hungry for a crown?"

  Lionel shakes his head. “I’ve had your leave to retire, Sire. I only ask for the means to beat the enemy, not rule the city after.” He glances sidelong at the old baroness, and the minute curl of his mouth is pure contempt. “If you wish to see me gone after, I’ll pack my bag and leave the day they’re gone.”

  A stir at the council benches—anger, but also something more useful: fear, and the beginnings of respect. Gai reads the air. They want to believe. They need someone to blame when this all goes wrong, and who better than a soldier with no home?

  The king leans back, hands steepled. “Very well. You have your carte blanche, General. But our coast is thinly held and our river fleet outnumbered. How do you propose we hold the delta long enough to matter?”

  Lionel’s eyes sweep the map, then fix on a blue-painted dot at the top of the river. “We don’t hold it,” he says. “Not directly. The enemy expects us to fight at the delta, so we let them pass—” his finger slides up the river, tapping the mark for Claymond, “—and we stage every ship and heavy company we have at the fortress city. If we call on our allies in Vegulum, they’ll open their docks and lend us their wall artillery. The Vegulese have never turned down a chance to bloody the north.” Again, that ghost of a smile.

  The king's gaze lingers on the blue dot, then flits up to Lionel’s face. "You mean to let the wolves into the pen, then strike at their back? That’s a risky gamble, General."

  Lionel’s shoulders flex, a shrug with the weight of spent years. “Less risk than meeting them at their strongest. If we defend the river at a dozen points, they’ll peel us apart. But if we lure them inland, bottle them at Claymond, we can cut off their supplies and pin their fleet between our cities. With Vegulum’s engines, we burn their ships before they can retreat. The rest we wipe on land.”

  A murmur runs through the council—this time not outrage, but a shiver of real fear. Gai watches the expressions flicker and settle. Even Zephyrian, skull-locked and motionless, allows a tap of his finger on the table: measured, almost thoughtful. Gai can’t read what he’s thinking, but it’s not dismissal. It’s assessment.

  The king signals the end with a flick of his hand. The tension drains from the air, replaced by wariness; the talk turns at once practical, as if the council cannot stomach sincerity for more than a heartbeat at a time.

  “The General will require liaison officers,” says a soft-voiced count in grey, refusing to look at Lionel directly. “For the sake of proper reporting.”

  “And for the sake of nobility’s honour, I imagine?” Lionel’s smile is all teeth; the count’s lips pale to a line. “Send your best. If they can keep up, they can report whatever they like. But anyone who gets in my way will be returned in a box. Understood?”

  Gai’s view of the room narrows, the edges of his vision tightening in time with the pulse in his throat. He sees the fear on the faces of men and women who have never known real hunger, never stood in mud to their knees and watched a city burn. They are afraid of the General, but more than that, they’re afraid because he is right.

  The king nods to Zephyrian. “You’ll see to it that intelligence reports flow unfiltered to the council—and to me. I will not have another surprise in my own city.”

  Zephyrian bows his head, the motion small and precise. “As you wish, Majesty.”

  The old baroness huffs, but falls silent. Elle, eyes glassy with calculation, leans back, arms crossed. Gai catches the slant of her gaze—she’s not looking at the General now, but at Gai, as if measuring the width of the world between them.

  The remainder of the council descends into a tangle of subcommittees and special envoys, but the fire has gone out of it. Gai counts the seconds until Lionel is allowed to leave, but the General stands rigid in his place, outlasting even the king’s interest. When at last the session is adjourned—no fanfare, just the king’s tired “Let’s get to work”—the chamber empties in a slow, stuttering tumble.

  Lionel is the last to budge. The moment the king is gone and the doors are unsealed, he moves at once to the map table, hands braced wide, staring down with the look of a man memorizing the whole layout in case someone tries to shift the lines overnight. Gai cannot tear his eyes away: the same hands that taught him to whittle, now rearranging the fate of cities.

  He is so fixed on his father that he almost misses Elle’s approach.