Allan placed his wine cup slightly to the side as he made small talk with Uther.

  I moved from my position at the wall, grabbed the wine bottle on the tray and moved to his left side, emitting no sound nor making any gesture that drew attention. I topped his goblet, placed the bottle back onto the tray and returned to my place.

  It was a matter of pride for the castle servants to be as unobtrusive as possible, to the point it became an art form. It was not uncommon for the royals to forget that we were even here and discuss even sensitive issues with us in the room. I called that camouflage among the furniture.

  Of course, it went without saying that anyone suspected of telling what was discussed was bound to have a particularly gruesome fate.

  I arranged the meeting between Allan and Uther for a lunch in one of the smaller dining rooms. The meal was ending and up to that point they were just two brothers catching up, nothing worth mentioning had been discussed.

  Allan looked like an older and leaner version of Uther, with the same black hair and dark grey eyes. Physically they were similar, but personality-wise they could not be more different. Allan was calm, controlled, cold and distant. He stood silent most of the time, observing and listening, but when he spoke it was like every word he chose had been crafted for that moment.

  Probably the worst kept secret in the entire realm was that the Queen intended to step down in favor of prince Allan in the near future. Even before the war, she gradually transferred responsibilities to him in preparation for the day he would become king.

  As it stood, Allan was the de facto ruler of Central. The Queen still had the final saying in important things, and she was the face of the state, but the day-to-day matters were being handled by Allan without interference.

  Allan inclined forward and assumed a more formal tone as he decided to tackle the reason for the meeting.

  “Are you aware of the situation on Silver Lake Forest?”

  “I think the main roads that go through that forest are still blocked because of some monster army remnants.”

  Merchants responsible for delivering products to the castle had been complaining that the route to the Kingdom of Nariel to the west was taking double the usual time because they needed to do a detour instead of going through Silve Lake, directly impacting prices and availability.

  “Yes, but the situation is much worse than just the road. The monsters created a settlement there, between 2 and 3 thousand strong. This is basically an enemy army inside our own territory that we have no immediate means to counter.

  “The best course of action would be a preventive strike, but the South Frontier Army doesn't exist anymore, and the Capital Army, or what remained of it, is dispersed in small groups to deal with roaming monsters. The only army with any fighting capability we have is the North Frontier Army...”

  “But Duke Azure wants to be rewarded for the help.” Uther complemented as something obvious.

  “Exactly. Duke Azure wants Silver Lake Forest and surrounding regions as a territory to be given to his son. Not only will he have the only functional army in the realm and control over the North border, but he will also have control over all the commerce we have with the entire West of the continent. If he tries a coup, there would be little we could do.

  “The other option is to accelerate the replenishment of the Capital Army, but if we draft any more from the peasants, we will risk the next crop. We already lost more than two thirds of the last one during the siege and the entire South is devastated.

  “Right now, the commoners are hungry, but we are staving off the worst with our grain reserves, temporary tax cuts and imports. If the next crop crashes, we will be facing mass starvation with a death tool greater than this war.

  “I have a time limit of one month to reply to the duke’s proposal or we will have to wait until after the winter to do something. I want you to solve this situation in this time window.”

  Uther was caught by surprise.

  “Me? That was unexpected. What do you want me to do?”

  “I need the road open, and the monster enclave removed as a threat, how you will do it is up to you. I can provide limited support, but I am giving you complete freedom to resolve this problem as you see fit... may the gods forgive me.”

  Uther reclined back on his chair, laughing.

  “I thought you did not trust me.”

  “I told you are unreliable in the sense that I cannot count on you to follow instructions, but using your own ways you get results. If what I needed was an orthodox military operation, you would be the last person I would call. But if what I needed is a plan that could only had come from the mind of a madman, that despite its many glaring flaws end up working, you are the only one I would choose.”

  “I love you too, brother.”

  “You excel doing the unconventional in a situation were all conventional options give bad results.” Allan shrugged. “If one uses fire to drink, and water to heat his home, he has only himself to blame if things don’t work. I am trying a gamble for once. If you can’t solve that in one month, I will have to ask the duke for help.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “I will do all I can. Do you think this enclave have anything to do with the Seal of the Forgotten Gods?”

  I knew Uther was just probing, but nonetheless I tensed at the question.

  “It doesn’t look like. Since nobody from the Armored Sorcerer side assumed leadership of the monsters, we are working with the assumption that the Seal of the Forgotten Gods was lost. We are trying all means at our disposal to find it, but there are no clues. Someone getting its hands on it before we do would be catastrophic.”

  It was lucky that Allan was ignoring my presence because I gulped hard.

  “Brother, I don’t think I have ever asked you this, but what you would do if you found the Seal?”

  “It would depend on several factors, but if the underlying circumstances permitted, I would try to use it to reunite the former states of the Continental Empire.”

  “I never thought about you as a conqueror. Why would you want to do that?” Questioned Uther more amused than surprised.

  Allan stood pensive for a moment, moving the wine in his goblet in leisured circles.

  “A castle with more abandoned sections than used ones. A library with hundreds of crumbling books for each new one. A market that is way too big. Soldiers that would prefer to use centuries old weapons than anything our forges can produce today. Everywhere I look I get reminded of how bigger, richer, wiser, mightier we were and how far we had fallen, like the mediocre son of a hero, always compared and found wanting by any metric you use.

  “I refuse to accept that the apex of our civilization happened centuries before I was born and all we have left to do is gnaw on its bones. My dream is to build a nation that will not idolize anyone that came before, that will never feel lessened by anyone's past achievements.

  “I don’t wish for a war. Conquest, in itself, is useless and not worth to see our citizens, or even our neighbors, killed for it. But if I had an opportunity to make this dream come true, I would seize it. No matter the cost.”

  ***

  That was … intense.

  Allan had just left the room after giving Uther some more details about the mission.

  Uther was not exactly happy with the situation. In fact, he was with his head on the table and his arms covering it.

  “Gift, do I look like an army to you?”

  “I would not describe you like one, no.”

  After lightly hitting his head on the table a couple of times, he made a gesture for me to sit, and I did just that.

  “What do you intend to do?” I asked, pouring myself a cup of tea.

  He sighed and put himself together, straightening up.

  “Monsters are not a friendly bunch, even among themselves. To form any kind of coexistence they need a strong leader, someone that has a commanding personality but that can also beat the crap out of any contender.

  “If I can deal with this leader and create some infight to spice things up, the monsters will take care of themselves. It will surely take more than one month, but we can weaken them enough with that so that a smaller force will be able to reclaim the forest during spring.”

  I helped myself of a generous piece of the untouched honey cake and asked: “But if this leader is strong enough so that even the monsters follow him, would he not be difficult to defeat?”

  His reply was two knocks of his head against the table, and then he added: “This is the reason why the Gods created underhanded tactics.”

  I was in the middle of a bite when an idea popped, but I was aware of my status, so I intended to keep quiet about it.

  Uther saw right through me.

  “What?” he asked, annoyed.

  “Nothing, it is not my place to interfere in matters of state” and I continued to eat.

  “I think we are way past that, Miss Seal of the Forgotten Gods.”

  It was not like me giving a suggestion would hurt, so I spoke:

  “Why don’t we try to negotiate with them?”

  Uther looked at me like I had lost my mind, but since I started, I decided to defend my point. “Every solution I heard about any problem with monsters was always a variation of “kill them all”, but that was because Central had the upper hand. I don’t believe we can really afford a fight right now; we can barely keep the fields around the Capital safe.

  “In Cartographer’s Bane there are humans living close to monsters and even having deals with them, books I read even cited alliances of monsters and humans in ages before the Empire, so some form of coexistence is possible. I don’t know how much I can do; I don’t know if my influence over monsters has a limit in quantity, duration, or even how far can I go with my requests, but I can at least make it easier for you to talk with their leader and present a proposition.”

  Uther was about to dismiss my idea, but he stopped before the words left his mouth. I saw his expression change as he started to seriously consider it.

  “Assuming we follow the diplomatic route, I will need you to go with me, and unless you want your secret revealed, we will need to go alone. Are you sure you want to do that? I know you still struggle with traumas from the war.”

  My lips quivered a little.

  I finished the cake before replying, using that time to organize my thoughts. It was not something I had considered beforehand, it was just a moment's idea, but what did I want to do? My emotions were conflicting and ambiguous.

  “If you are asking me if I want to go to a forest full of monsters, of course I don’t, but that is just common sense.” I fiddled with my fork, unsure if I could put into words how I felt. “What frightens me the most are not the monsters; it is the feeling that me and everyone I care about will die and there is nothing I can do. That despair... That powerlessness...”

  It was always the siege.

  Those were memories I tried to forget, but that would not happen, not as long as I lived. I knew if I did nothing, they would fester inside me, making me hollow and bitter. I already could tell they were taking root in things like the way I would find excuses to not go to the city library, that was one of my favorite places, because every time I looked at the ramparts from there, it was like I could see the pile of corpses and smell the rotten flesh.

  “What I don’t want to ever feel again is that dread, that hopelessness. Maybe if I can do something, even if it is something small, just this once, it will help me get over it, help me feel less useless ...”

  “You know you killed the Armored Sorcerer and avoided the city been overrun by goblins, right?” Uther tried to cheer me up.

  He was right, but at the same time, it felt hollow to my ears, like he was praising someone completely unrelated to me.

  “I did nothing.” I kept looking at the empty plate. “I was in panic, and things just happened around me without I even understanding it. I deserve no credit for any of that, I was a puppet of fate, nothing more... If anything, that only makes me feel worst…

  “Even the people I helped on the ramparts, they just ended up dying later on ... I think no one survived the war... I never found a single person that did…” I squinted my eyes, pushing away the uninvited memories of still faces and hollow promises.

  Having made up my mind, I raised my head and stared at him: “I want to do this, please.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence before Uther continued.

  “It will be dangerous.”

  “More than fighting an unknown monster leader in his own territory while outnumbered five, ten to one?”

  “Probably less dangerous than that.” Uther sighed. “Unless I can come up with something better, let’s go with your idea.”