Chapter 81

The three erupted in chaos.

Questions collided with accusations. Disbelief tangled with fear. The marshal barked something about treason. The archmagus demanded clarification. The queen’s voice cut in, sharp, then vanished beneath the rising swell.

I leaned back against a heavy oak desk and shut my eyes.

Adhaneth tapped lightly against my forehead. Once. Twice. Three times.

I counted the seconds.

I definitely shouldn’t have told them.

I’d just flipped the board. They held the pieces now. Did they see me as a greater threat? A useful weapon? A problem to be solved? Had I just painted a target on my family?

I already had enough fires burning.

The Iron Nation gathering at the border. Was I an idiot for thinking diplomacy might work? Did they need restraint - or intimidation? A soft hand or a drawn blade?

And the High Witan - how was I supposed to convince a pantheon I hadn’t kidnapped one of their own? What would divine retaliation even look like? Armies? Plagues? Assassins slipping through the night? Or something subtler - an accident, a sickness, a child gone missing?

“Seth,” the queen called softly.

I opened my eyes.

The study was quiet. Empty. I hadn’t noticed the others leave.

The queen stood a few paces away, watching me - not as a sovereign, but as a person trying to measure another.

“Walk with me,” she said. “Please,” she added

I pushed off the desk and followed.

We moved through the corridors in silence and emerged into the gardens a few minutes later.

The air was cooler than yesterday, heavy with the promise of rain or snow. Clouds drifted thick across the sky, casting rolling shadows that dimmed the flowers before letting light spill back across them.

“There are few places in this palace where I may be left undisturbed,” she said as we stepped onto the stone path. “This is one of them.”

I glanced around. Hedges shaped like beasts, carefully tended blooms, ivy trailing down white walls.

“It’s pretty,” I said, almost to myself.

“What is it like?” she asked. “Where you’re from.”

I let out a slow breath.

“Different. No gods. No magic. Just… noise. Responsibility. Concrete and steel. It stinks half the time. It’s busy - always something breaking, something due, something late.” I huffed a quiet laugh. “I spent fifty years trying to figure out how to live there. Thirty years doing whatever I could to make a living. I wasn’t good at life. I was lonely. Miserable.”

I looked up at the shifting sky.

“The gods kidnapped me. Dumped me in a forest. A half-formed god tried to kill me almost immediately." I smiled faintly. “It’s been the best three months of my life.”

A sad laugh escaped me. “Kind of pathetic, isn’t it? Trading miserable safety for joyful danger.”

She studied me, her expression softening.

“Sounds like a profitable exchange,” she said. “Not every mistake is failure. Not every success is victory. We all stumble through life improvising.” A faint smile touched her lips. “As you said - there is no manual.”

I nodded. “So where does that leave us?” I asked.

“For better or worse,” she replied, her voice gaining strength, “it leaves us exactly where we stand. On the brink of war. With a family you love. With the whole world ahead of us - full of mistakes and successes - failures and victories. In a world that will not wait for us to be ready.”

I smiled faintly. “Very wise,” I said. “You should be queen or something.”

She smirked. “I’ll consider it.”

* * *

The queen and I rejoined the Lord Marshal and the High Councilor in a smaller chamber off the study, where Theodor Bram stood.

The scholar was a thin, white-haired man with ink-stained fingers and a voice that carried the confidence of someone accustomed to lecture halls. He spoke at length about the War of Blood and Ash - its origins, its campaigns, its stalemates.

Garrethyn sat behind a wide oak table strewn with scrolls and bound volumes. He took notes in careful script, occasionally consulting a scroll, flipping through a tome, but offering no correction.

Dunfield listened like a man planning a campaign. He interrupted for clarification. Asked about troop movements. Supply lines. Motivations. He pressed Bram to widen his scope - to frame the conflict not as a string of battles, but as a geopolitical shift.

I stayed quiet.

Some of what Bram said I’d read before. Most of it was new. I tried to stitch it together in my head - how the war shaped the north, how the treaties rippled outward into alliances and grudges that still lingered centuries later.

History wasn’t isolated events. It was pressure. Momentum.

After several hours, Bram’s voice finally ran dry. I thanked him for his time. He bowed slightly, and withdrew. The door shut.

All three of us turned toward the archmagus.

Garrethyn chewed the inside of his cheek for a long moment, sorting through his notes. The scratch of parchment against parchment was the only sound.

“His account does not align with our recorded histories,” he said at last. “It is… close. But there are discrepancies.”

He looked up.

“Primarily along the northern border.”

Dunfield’s jaw tightened.

“He corroborates that the land between the Worldspine and the White Horse was granted to the goblins,” Garrethyn continued. “He claims Northwatch Keep was abandoned as a consequence. He speaks of the goblins’ neutrality during the war - their push for peace, their sacrifices.”

He tapped a scroll lightly.

“He also references treaties between the goblins and Arvellia, Dumrath Kol-Varn, and Iilvarion. We possess no written record of these agreements.”

Silence thickened.

“So it’s not just Elise and me,” I said quietly. “This is larger. Elyndra… or someone else divine.”

“Why?” Dunfield demanded. “And why only the north?”

“Me,” I answered.

Both men looked at me.

“Undermine my claim to Northwatch. Increase friction with you. If the orcs believe they’re marching on sovereign goblin land rather than Arvellian territory, they have little to fear from you.” I exhaled slowly. “It sparks war.”

“To what end?” Dunfield pressed.

“I don’t know.” I ran a hand over my face. “The last time Elyndra and I spoke, she said I wouldn’t start the coming war - but I would end it.” I shook my head. “If this was her plan all along, why warn me?”

“Would she answer if we asked?” the queen said evenly, drawing our attention. “Is she not the goddess of written truth?”

“She’s missing,” I replied. “Her demesne is empty. The High Witan is looking for someone to blame, and I was the last one to see her.”

Dunfield’s mouth opened, then closed again. Whatever he’d meant to say, he swallowed it. His expression suggested it wouldn’t have been charitable.

“She’s dead?” the queen asked.

“No. Her Faith hasn’t unraveled. If she were destroyed, there would be… fallout.” I hesitated. “Wherever she is, she’s alive.”

I wasn’t sure whether that comforted me.

“Yveth warned me there are fates worse than destruction for a god,” I added. “I don’t know what that means.”

All eyes turned to Garrethyn.

The old wizard shook his head slowly. “My knowledge of divine mechanics is… lacking. It may be prudent to consult an expert.”

“Do so,” the queen said. “And ensure they are discreet.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” He bowed.

She turned to Dunfield. “Jenson, muster the troops. We will not march yet - but we must be prepared. The orcs will not move until spring. That gives us weeks, not months.”

He nodded once, already calculating logistics.

“Isn’t that exactly what she wants?” I asked. “If someone is manipulating history to start a war, shouldn’t we avoid the obvious move? I can try to speak with them-”

“We cannot allow a hostile **** to gather at our border without response,” the queen said firmly. “If we appear weak, we invite escalation. Let them see our strength. Let them decide whether blood is worth it.”

Her voice carried neither panic nor bravado - just cold strategy.

The brink of war felt a little closer.

* * *

I had to do something.

The problem was, I had no fucking clue what.

Arvellia was mustering for war because of me. Maybe not directly - maybe this was the gods playing chess with mortal lives - but the weight of it was settling squarely on my shoulders. Elyndra was rewriting history for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand. Brand had set this whole chain in motion. Ashlara was paying for it. And now armies were moving.

I stepped home and gathered the girls in the common room. The air was heavy before I even spoke. When I explained what I’d learned - about the hordes gathering, about the Iron Nation threatening to march on us - the room became oppressive.

They were understandably upset when they heard an army was coming. They were more upset when I told them I intended to go speak to the orcish warlords.

“How the fuck do you even think you’re goin’ to talk to them?” Mirri exploded. “Fight your way through an army? Get your head outta your ass and think this through.”

“I am thinking this through,” I shot back. “The second the orcs cross the border, the war starts. Thousands die. Because the gods have a **** boner for me.”

It occurred to me, briefly, that Mirri’s vocabulary was rubbing off.

“Look,” I continued, forcing my voice down. “I show up. I ask for parley. If it goes sideways, I step out. Low risk.”

“Low risk?” she barked. “Walkin’ up to an army that wants you dead is low risk?”

“It is when I’ve got the best healer in the world ready to fix me when I do something stupid.”

“Urrrrh!” She threw her arms across her chest and turned away, refusing to look at me.

I dragged my hands down my face and exhaled.

“Ashie,” I said more quietly. “What can you tell me about the warlords?”

Ashlara looked troubled. By the argument. The thought of the hordes marching. The very real possibility I was about to get myself killed.

“They’re strong,” she said at last. “Smart. Honor-bound. Each horde answers to a warlord, and each warlord seeks council with a shaman.”

She frowned slightly, thinking back.

“I met Kael Grath’kor Varnak once. He came to fetch Hek when we were young. I was terrified.” A faint bitterness flickered across her expression. “Hek hated him. Said he was rigid. Proud. Too traditional. Hek bragged he’d be a better warlord one day, but no one believed him.”

She folded her arms.

“The warlords make war and keep peace. They raid one another to stay strong. To test their warriors when there’s no true enemy. They may unite for a cause - but they don’t like each other.”

“So the hordes will camp separately,” I said. She nodded.

“There’ll be a central place for the warlords to meet,” I continued, thinking out loud. “Some neutral ground between camps.”

I turned to Serah. “How high can you fly?”

“Higher than an eagle,” she replied evenly.

“I have no idea what that means in numbers,” I muttered, “but I’ll assume it’s high enough.”

I talked it through. “If we fly high enough, we stay out of bow range. Scout the layout. Find the meeting ground. If we think it’s possible, you land peacefully - a show of **** without aggression. If not, I drop Adhaneth and step down to her.”

I looked to Ashlara. “What do orcs use as a sign of parley?”

She hesitated. “Cover your left eye with ash. Carry a spear. Drive its tip into the earth and do not touch it again until the meeting ends.”

I nodded. “Simple enough.” Then, quieter, “Assuming we can get close enough for them to see it.”

I turned to Serah, meeting her amber gaze.

“Are you willing to fly me?” I asked. “I don’t want you hurt. We’ll be careful. If you’re not comfortable, I’ll find another way.”

She studied me for a long moment, searching for something - recklessness, perhaps. Or doubt.

“I will fly you,” she said finally. “The last time I was injured, it was because I chose to remain in this form.” Her expression was determined. “My scales are harder than steel.”

“I’m going with you,” Ashlara declared.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Her mouth opened to argue, but I pressed on.

“If Kael thinks you killed Hek - and he probably does - you showing up might end the conversation before it starts. I need to know whether he’ll even speak to me.” I me her gaze and held it. “And I need you here. If the gods make a move. If the Iron Nation pushes early. If anything happens while I’m gone.”

Her jaw tightened.

“Let me try this first,” I said softly. “If it works, I’ll bring you with me next time. Okay?”

She ground her teeth, anger and fear warring behind her eyes.

Then, slowly, she nodded.