Back at the capital of Zura at the royal council chamber, the air reeked of fear. The air itself felt heavy, thick with incense and the tallic tang of anxiety.
King Roman sat at the head of the oak table inlaid with black marble, his knuckles white against the carved lion heads of his armrest. Around him, his ministers and generals shifted uneasily, their silks whispering like frightened birds.
Maps lay sprawled across the table — ink-stained reminders of a campaign that had gone horribly wrong. Red markings bled across the seas where the Zuran fleet had once reigned supre. Now, those sa waters were graveyards of splintered masts and drifting corpses.
"Three ships escaped," said one admiral, his voice trembling. "All others are lost, Your Majesty. The flagship was taken, the admiral captured. We... we believe the Estalians have salvaged the command ship along with others that sank in the Azul Bay."
King Roman’s jaw tightened. The candlelight caught the gold threads of his robe, but nothing in that glow could soften the cold fire in his eyes. "Salvaged?" he repeated, the word slithering with venom. "You an stolen — taken from under your noses while you ran like cowards."
The admiral flinched.
A silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the hearth.
"The loss of the fleet ans more than ships and n," said the King slowly, his tone lowering to sothing deadly. "It ans weakness. And weakness invites vultures." He rose from his throne, towering, his shadow stretching across the table like a storm front. "If the people lose faith in , they lose faith in Zura itself. Tell , gentlen — which of you will hang first for that?"
No one answered.
Far from the capital, the crippled general who had once commanded many of those lost ships lay bare to the waist, his breath shallow as silver needles pierced his flesh. The chamber slled faintly of herbs and burning oil. The healer, Nam Bewan, moved with deliberate calm, his fingers deft, his eyes half-closed in concentration.
"Do not move, General," he murmured. "The nerves must awaken in their own rhythm. Pain ans life — silence ans death."
Turik gritted his teeth as the sting of the needles spread fire through his legs. Sweat glistened on his forehead, his muscles twitching involuntarily. He welcod the pain, even craved it. Pain ant hope. Pain ant he might rise again.
Mira stood nearby, her hands clasped before her, watching the procedure with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. The rhythmic clinking of tal tools on porcelain bowls filled the silence.
"Again," Turik growled. "Do it again. I felt sothing."
The doctor hesitated. "It is too soon, General—"
"Do it!"
Nam Bowan obeyed. More needles slid into place, glinting under the lamplight like a row of tiny swords. Turik’s entire body shuddered — and then, for the first ti in months, his right foot twitched. Only slightly, but enough to draw a gasp from Mira.
A cruel smile curved Turik’s lips. "There. You see, Doctor? The gods have not abandoned yet."
Nam Bewan nodded, quietly relieved. "Your will is strong, my lord. That alone will bring you far."
Turik laughed — a harsh, broken sound. "My will?" He turned his gaze to the ceiling, eyes burning with old hatred. "No, Doctor. It is vengeance that keeps alive."
Back in the council chamber, King Roman slamd his fist onto the table.
"Find Odin," he thundered. "Find the prince they call Vaskar. If they believe they have won, they are fools. I will burn their victory to ash before the year is out."
The council bowed, trembling.
Princess Lireya swept into the council chamber with the practiced grace of a queen who had never truly learned humility. Even now, her gown whispered against marble as if the room itself should bend to her step. She stopped before the king nd bowed only slightly — enough to puncture the air with civility.
"But, Your Majesty," she said, cool as a drawn blade. "Our intelligence did not point to Odin or Prince Vaskar. It nas a woman — Lara, the betrothed of Prince Alaric."
King Roman’s fist drove into the table until the wood groaned. Cups rattled; papers skittered. "A woman?" he barked, the single word scalded with contempt. "Our flagship bested by a woman? Have we beco mockery?"
Lireya’s smile was thin and poisonous. She stepped closer, voice low with a heat that was almost jealousy. "She is no ordinary woman, Father. The rumors say she and her brother invented strange engines — a tryke, a bicycle, even a flying contraption that looked like a galleon. They speak of iron horses that walk the land and shiny ships that sail the sky."
The council murmured; so faces betrayed incredulity, others envy. Lireya’s throat tightened for a breath as she watched her father’s reaction. Pride warred with sothing sharper in her breast — a burning jealousy and a smoldering resentnt as she recounted Lara’s feats.
"She is also a fighter," Lireya added, softer now, the word dangerous as a promise. "Trained. Ruthless. Not rely clever, but lethal."
King Roman’s gaze swept the room like a judge weighing testimony. When it landed on the head of his spy network — the man whose hair was comically bald on top and long and heavy at the sides — the spymaster’s swagger died. He could not et the King’s eyes; sweat beaded at his temple.
"How do you know this?" the King demanded. "My spies report nothing of the na."
He dared not et the King’s gaze, and sweat was pooling on his forehead.
The spymaster stamred. Lireya answered before he could—her tone sharpened with relish. "I have a source, Father. An insider. The woman who betrayed Prince Reuben— Mira. She followed Turik and, under pressure, she talked." A small, vicious smirk curved Lireya’s lips. "I only had to threaten her with the guards."
Mira’s na landed like a stone. A few at the table shifted; pity and scorn crossed faces that had once called her beautiful.
"Puten," King Roman snapped, turning his dark, volcanic stare on the spymaster. "Do you confirm this?"
The man swallowed and nodded, voice thin. "Princess Lireya is right, Your Majesty. We intercepted a dispatch: Lara — or Odin’s daughter, as so reports call her — orchestrated the sabotage. They sohow acquired gunpowder enough to breach our flagship’s hull."
The King’s silence lengthened until it filled the chamber like fog. His black eyes narrowed until they were slit. When he spoke, his words were cold and precise. "Summon Turik and Mira. Find a way to kidnap Lara. Then, I can get back on Prince Alaric’s ddling and Odin’s insolence."
And sowhere, in the quiet room with the view of the sea, Turik whispered the sa na under his breath — Odin — and felt the first spark of life return to his leg.
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