Chapter 733: War Mapping and Quiet Resolve
Imdiately after Brynhild left, Orion turned to Sophia.
"Is sothing the matter?" she asked him, a frown on her face.
Orion shook his head. "Not really. I spoke with Noctis while you were sleeping last night."
"Okay?"
"First, Oculum was right. There’s more to the prophecy. Noctis knows the real version," he told her.
Sophia’s eyes widened at that. "Really?"
"Yes. And I’ll write it down for you, but that’s not what I want to talk about right now." He leaned against the door and crossed his arms. "There’s a war coming, right?"
"Yes." Sophia replied.
"Then don’t you think we are supposed to be doing more?" He held her gaze, his expression serious. "Noctis did warn that too much pressure might make lose sight of things I shouldn’t, but amidst all that, I still feel like we are too relaxed."
Sophia said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
"And also," he said, "we have to solve most of the mysteries surrounding whatever is coming before it arrives at our doorstep. So I was thinking... what if we mapped everything out like we did before? What if we wrote everything down? Perhaps it would help guide us so we don’t miss anything."
Sophia was quiet for a while. The idea made sense, but the last ti she and Orion had done sothing like this, they had not even checked the book to know what had been resolved and what had not.
"Where’s the book we wrote everything in before?" she asked him.
Orion wasted no ti searching for it. When he opened it to the page they had written on, Sophia noticed that most things were crossed out.
"You crossed things out?" she asked him.
Orion nodded. "I did it one night when you were asleep. The only thing we still haven’t resolved is the writing from the shrine," he told her.
Sophia nodded slowly, her eyes scanning the page. "And now we have more things to resolve."
She closed the book and released a sigh. "I think it’s a good idea, but this isn’t sothing we will have to do ourselves. I think we have to do it with the council mbers. This is bigger than the both of us combined, after all, " she told him.
Orion nodded in agreent.
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Every mber of the council was seated in the council hall, and even Garrett—who rarely attended these etings—was present. He had several sheets of parchnt spread in front of him, along with a pen and a small pot of ink. Orion had told him he would be responsible for taking down everything said during the eting, and Garrett was quite eager to do the job.
It was also a privilege, he knew, to be seated among the council of elders of the pack—wolves who were highly respected, whose decisions shaped the future of everyone in Nightshade. He sat up straight, pen poised, ready to write.
"I’m sure we already know why we’re here," Orion said from where he sat at the head of the table. His voice carried easily through the hall, calm but edged with sothing sharper underneath.
The others nodded in unison.
"Firstly, there’s a war coming. The first group of warriors have already been sent into Nirvana. Ethan, Jeffrey, and so others are with them too," Orion said.
"But that is not enough, is it?" Daniel spoke up from his seat, his hand on the huge oak table.
Orion shook his head. "I’m certain we all know it isn’t." He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "It should be noted that this land is our ho. Nightshade is our ho. And if the Enclave makes it through, then we lose this battle."
He took a slow look around the table, eting the eyes of each person present. Caspian. Brynhild. Lysander. Eldric. Daniel. Madam Tyler. Mary. Tobias and even Garrett, who swallowed hard under the weight of that gaze.
"The Enclave is bringing the war here," Orion continued, "but it should be a war that ends in Nirvana. Let’s make it so that the walls surrounding us are not breached. Let’s make sure the Enclave does not make it to our ho at all."
Everyone was quiet for a while, the weight of his words settling over the hall. Then Brynhild spoke up.
"That is actually a good idea," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "We can keep the filth and the brutal battle away from the others—the ones who are not warriors. The elderly. The children. The wolves who have already given too much."
Caspian nodded from his seat. He stood up slowly, one hand pressed to his lower back, and stretched with a grimace. The movent was stiff, which wasn’t quite a surprise to anyone present in the hall. When he finished, his hand went straight back to his spine and he groaned.
Ronan rolled his eyes at the gesture, Caspian who noticed gave him the middle finger, a smile pooling at his lips.
Then he turned to Eldric, who was adjusting his glasses with careful fingers.
"We need the map we have of Nirvana," Caspian said. "We must draw out a eting point that would be appropriate to fend off the bastards coming for us. We need to intercept them before they reach the pack buildings."
Eldric nodded, his green feather earring swaying with the motion. He stood up from his seat then.
"I shall send for it imdiately," he said.
He moved to the door and opened it, speaking in low tones to a guard stationed just outside.
"Go to the library. Find Jacob and request for the map of Nirvana—the large one, with the topographical markings. Bring it here at once."
The guard nodded and hurried off. Eldric watched him go for a mont, then returned to his seat, adjusting his glasses once more as he settled in.
Lysander spoke up then, his voice cutting through the silence. "We have a date for the placent test for the healers," he said.
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