Fractured Crown - Chapter 3: The Trap Springs

The invisible man theory changed everything.

Aria sat in the war room with Lyra, Darius, and Cassian, reviewing everything they knew. The sharp smell of iron-gall ink hung in the air--Lyra had been writing for hours, and the wet scratch of her quill had become background rhythm. The afternoon light slanted through the narrow windows--tall arched openings in the traditional Valdorian style, their stone frames carved with grape vines--casting long shadows across the maps and papers spread before them. Dust motes drifted in the golden beams, stirred by the movement of frustrated hands through evidence they'd examined a hundred times.

"Pattern analysis suggests deliberate obfuscation," Lyra said, spreading documents across the table with methodical precision. Her voice carried the clipped cadence of someone who processed the world through facts and connections. "Someone trained to be forgettable. Operating inside the conspiracy for years without triggering any of our detection protocols."

"It explains how they kept hitting us despite increased security," Darius said. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his brow drawn tight. "If the mastermind is someone we see every day but never really notice..."

Cassian pulled a sketch from the stack of papers before him--a bird of prey clutching a shattered crown in its talons. "I found this in my father's correspondence. The raven and broken crown--the same symbol painted at every attack site. It was the sigil of his network." His jaw tightened. "The raven represented the shadow operation itself. Eyes that watched from darkness. And the broken crown was the purpose--what they intended to do to the monarchy."

"A declaration of intent disguised as a calling card," Lyra said, pulling the sketch closer. "They weren't just marking territory. Each symbol left at a crime scene signaled to every conspirator in Valdoria that the work continued, even after Varen's death. A recruitment tool and a loyalty test in one brushstroke."

Darius straightened against the wall. "Which means whoever's been leaving them has been communicating with the remaining network in plain sight. Using symbols we saw but didn't understand."

"Until now." Cassian's hand found the leather case in his pocket. "My father designed the network to survive him. The symbol was the thread holding it together--proof that someone carried his mission forward."

"Then they've been observing our countermeasures in real-time. Adapting their operational approach with each iteration." The baby kicked, strong and insistent. Four months along, and already this child seemed to sense when her breath came too fast.

She forced herself to focus. Guilt doesn't catch conspirators.

"The question is how we find someone designed to be unfindable," Cassian said. He'd been quiet through most of the discussion, turning something over behind his eyes. His father's sword was propped against his chair--a constant reminder of the legacy he was trying to undo. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his fingers kept returning to the leather case in his breast pocket. His mother's hair. Aria had seen him reach for it three times in the last hour, each time his hand closing around it like a man gripping a wound shut.

"We look for absences." Aria turned to the window, thinking. Outside, Stormgate's courtyard bustled with normal activity--servants carrying baskets of fresh herbs and vegetables from the castle gardens, guards on patrol in their Valdorian purple cloaks, nobles crossing between buildings on their way to the afternoon prayer bells at the castle chapel. Any of them could be the invisible man. All of them, probably, were exactly what they appeared to be. That was the problem. "Someone who's always present but never contributes. Never stands out. Never makes mistakes that draw attention."

"That criteria matches approximately forty-three percent of Stormgate's staff." Lyra pulled out a ledger, her eyes scanning columns of data. "Cross-referencing against access patterns and temporal proximity to attack sites should narrow the field considerably."

"Not anyone." She turned back, and the movement made her aware of how her center of gravity had shifted, how her body was changing to accommodate the life growing inside her. "Someone with access. Someone who could reach the warehouse, Aldric's chambers, and the kitchen. Someone on our list of thirty-seven names who we dismissed as too ordinary to matter."

Lyra pulled out the list. The parchment was soft at the edges from handling, the ink fading from countless fingers tracing across names. They'd been through it dozens of times. Eliminated suspects. Identified Lady Petra as the bomber.

But Petra had been a tool. Not the mastermind.

"Read them again," Aria ordered. "Slowly. Tell me everything we know about each one."

The fire in the grate had burned low, its heat failing to reach the table. The room smelled of tallow and old maps--parchment and linseed oil and the faint metallic tang of the iron weights holding their charts flat. Outside, the wind had picked up, pressing against the windows with a hollow moan that made the candle flames lean and recover.

Lyra began, her delivery systematic and unhurried. Each name came with a precise summary--years of service, documented movements, notable absences, financial irregularities or lack thereof. Name after name. Servants with long histories of loyal service. Guards with impeccable records who'd fought and bled for the crown. Minor nobles who'd been fixtures of the court for decades--faces so familiar they'd become invisible.

One name made Aria pause.

"Wait. Go back. Who was that?"

"Thomas Grey. Castle steward, fifteen years tenure." Lyra shuffled papers, locating the relevant file with practiced efficiency. "Employment history unremarkable. Zero disciplinary incidents. Zero commendations. Zero requests for advancement or transfer. His personnel file is essentially blank--no supervisor has ever noted anything about him, positive or negative. That degree of anonymity is statistically improbable. Most servants generate some form of documented interaction within their first three years."

"Always there." Aria's pulse quickened. Something about that description--the very blandness of it--set alarm bells ringing. "What do we know about his background?"

"Born in Crownhaven. Orphaned young. Employment trajectory: kitchen assistant to general servant to steward." Lyra frowned at the sparse documentation. "Background verification is incomplete. Standard protocol would require references from previous positions, but his file contains only self-reported information. Either the intake officer was negligent, or someone ensured the verification was never completed."

"Because no one thought to look closely." Aria stood, ignoring the protest from her lower back. "Find him. Now. I want to know everything about Thomas Grey."

***

Thomas Grey was gone.

His quarters were empty. His belongings removed. Not a trace left behind.

The room was small--barely larger than a closet, with a narrow cot, a washstand, and a single shelf that now held nothing but dust. The air tasted stale, like a space sealed and forgotten--no residual warmth, no lingering scent of habitation. Just cold stone and absence. The walls were bare, the floor swept clean. No personal items. No mementos. No indication that anyone had ever lived here at all.

"Evacuation was recent--within the last seventy-two hours based on dust accumulation patterns." Lyra's voice was clipped as she examined the empty space. "He anticipated our investigation vector."

"Or he was always ready to disappear." Aria's eyes swept the empty room. A servant's quarters--small, plain, unremarkable. Like the man himself. "He's been planning this for years. A contingency for every scenario."

"We've sent riders. Set up roadblocks. If he's still in Valdoria--"

"He's not." Darius entered the room, his face grim. "I got word from the border posts. A man matching his description crossed into the Northern Territories three days ago."

Three days. While they were still sorting through evidence, Grey had already fled. While they were chasing shadows, he'd walked calmly to the border and vanished.

"He's going to Lord Thane," Aria said. It made sense now. The northern lord's suspicious meetings. The conspiracy reaching into Stormgate. Grey had been the connection all along--the invisible thread binding it together.

"If Grey reaches Thane with everything he knows about our defenses, our investigations--"

"Then Thane will have everything he needs to plan his next move." Aria's breath hissed through her teeth. "We need to get ahead of this. Before they can regroup."

"How? We can't march an army north without cause. Thane hasn't done anything provably illegal."

"Then we provoke him." The words came out cold. Calculated. The voice of a queen who'd learned that survival sometimes required setting aside mercy. "Make him act before he's ready. Force a mistake."

"That's risky."

"Everything's risky." She straightened, one hand bracing the small of her back. "But waiting is worse. Waiting lets them plan. Lets them choose when and where to strike."

"What do you have in mind?"

Aria thought of the evidence they'd gathered. Aldric's files. Cassian's insights. The web of connections leading north.

"We announce what we know," she said. "Publicly. Name Grey as a conspirator. Name Thane as a suspect. Make it impossible for them to hide."

"That'll force Thane to either submit to investigation or openly rebel."

"Exactly. And if he rebels..." She met Darius's eyes. "We'll be ready."

"You're talking about civil war."

"I'm talking about ending this. Once and for all." Her voice hardened. "How many more people have to die before we stop pretending this can be resolved quietly? Petra killed twelve at the festival. Grey's been feeding information to our enemies for years. And somewhere out there, Thane is planning something worse."

"And if we're wrong? If Thane isn't involved?"

"Then he'll submit to investigation and clear his name." Aria didn't believe that would happen. The evidence was too clear. But she had to acknowledge the possibility.

Darius was quiet for a long moment. Then: "When do you want to make the announcement?"

"Tomorrow. Morning court. I want every noble present. Every witness possible."

"That's very public."

"That's the point." She turned to leave. "Make sure our forces are ready. If Thane moves, I want to meet him head-on."

***

That night, Aria couldn't sleep.

She stood at the window of their chambers, watching moonlight silver the courtyard below. Tomorrow she would set fire to whatever fragile peace remained. Tomorrow she would force Valdoria to choose sides.

The moon was full tonight, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. Stormgate's courtyard was empty except for patrolling guards, their armor glinting as they passed through pools of light. Somewhere in Crownhaven, a dog barked. A baby cried. The temple bells rang the midnight hour--twelve slow, sonorous notes for the Stormmother's vigil, the count that had marked the goddess's watch over Valdoria since the first queen knelt at her altar. The sound echoed across the capital like a solemn benediction. Normal sounds of normal lives, unaware that their queen was about to drag them into war.

The weight of that responsibility pressed down on her--all those people, sleeping peacefully, trusting her to make the right choices. What if she was wrong? What if this announcement triggered a war that killed thousands?

There it was again. The spiral. The same thought pattern earlier--turning every decision into potential catastrophe, every action into a path toward failure.

She forced herself to breathe. To examine the fear instead of drowning in it.

Her fingers found the old gesture without thinking--three pressed to the heart, then opened toward the sky. The Stormmother's sign. Her grandmother had taught it to her before she could read, whispering that the storm goddess watched over queens who ruled with honest hearts. Aria had stopped believing years ago. But the gesture remained, muscle memory deeper than faith.

Yes, the announcement was risky. But so was inaction. Thane was already planning something--the evidence was clear. The question wasn't whether conflict was coming, but whether she faced it on her terms or his.

The fear wasn't wrong to exist. It was information. A reminder that the stakes were real, that her choices mattered. But it couldn't be the only voice she listened to.

She didn't go looking for comfort. Instead, she pulled on a cloak and walked the corridors.

Stormgate at midnight had its own rhythms. The scuff of guards' boots on stone. The distant murmur of servants on the night shift. The air carried traces of the day--woodsmoke, spilled wine, the iron tang of a castle that never fully slept. Torchlight flickered in iron sconces, throwing long shadows that swayed like living things. She nodded to the guards she passed, their surprise at seeing their queen wandering at this hour, and kept walking.

She found Cassian in the library, surrounded by his father's papers.

He looked up when she entered, startled, then embarrassed. "Your Majesty. I didn't expect--"

"Neither did I." She settled into the chair across from him, ignoring protocol. At midnight, in a library lit by three guttering candles--their smoke threading upward in thin grey ribbons, sharp with the smell of burning tallow--they could dispense with formality. "Can't sleep either?"

"Haven't been able to. Not since I read the files." He gestured at the papers spread before him. His hands were shaking--a fine tremor he didn't seem aware of. "Every night I come here and read them again. Looking for something I missed. Some explanation that makes it all make sense."

"Does it help?"

"No." His laugh was hollow. "It makes it worse. But I keep coming back anyway. As if reading it enough times will change what the words say." He pulled a sheet from the stack, held it up. "This one lists every person my father ordered killed in the spring of his fourth year. Eleven names. One of them was a stable boy who overheard the wrong conversation. Fourteen years old. Same age I was when my mother--" He set the paper down with exaggerated care, as if gentleness with the evidence could undo what it documented.

Aria studied him. The candlelight carved deep shadows under his eyes, accentuated the tension carved into his face. He looked older than his years. The skin beneath his eyes was bruised purple, his cheekbones sharper than they should have been--the face of a man grinding himself down over something that wasn't even his to carry.

"Do you find anything new?" she asked. "When you come here each night."

He stiffened. "Sometimes."

"After the festival--the twelve who died--I started reviewing the security logs every night. Every shift rotation, every guard post, looking for the gap I should have caught." She didn't look at him. Her eyes found the candle flame instead, watching it lean and recover. "I went through them so many times I could recite the rotations from memory."

"Did you find the gap?"

"There was no gap. Petra had inside access. The security was sound." She traced a scratch on the table with her fingernail. "But I kept reading them anyway. Every night. Because stopping felt like admitting I'd done everything I could and people still died."

The silence between them was thick with recognition. Cassian's hand found the leather case in his pocket again--the reflexive gesture, the wound he kept pressing.

"I was eight when my parents were murdered," Aria said quietly. "For years I convinced myself that if I'd left my room that night--if I'd screamed louder, run to the guards--something might have changed. I needed it to be partly my fault. Because that was easier than it just being--" She opened her hand, palm up. Empty. "Cruel. And senseless. And completely beyond anything an eight-year-old could have changed."

Cassian's throat worked. He set down the paper he'd been holding, very carefully, the way someone handles something that might shatter.

"My mother's hair," he said, barely above a whisper. His fingers tightened on the leather case. "I carry it because--" He stopped. Started again. "I tell myself it's to remember her. But it's more like pressing a bruise to make sure it still hurts." A long breath. "If it stops hurting, then I've accepted what he did. And I'm not ready for that."

The words settled between them, raw and unfinished. Not the clean insight of someone who understood their own grief--the messy, contradictory logic of someone still inside it.

"Lyra hid my security logs three days ago," Aria said.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face. "She what?"

"Walked into my chambers, took the folder, and told me I was using it to flay myself. I called her something I won't repeat." The ghost of a tired smile. "She was right. I haven't slept better since she took them. But I haven't slept worse, either. And I think that was her point."

Cassian looked at the stack of files. The mountain of his father's sins, spread across a library table at midnight. His hand rested on the top page, fingers curled, as if he couldn't decide whether to push the pile away or pull it closer.

He didn't push them away. But he closed the file in front of him. Carefully. Deliberately.

"We should have moved faster," he said, and the quiet tone didn't hide the blade in it. "Grey's been gone three days. Three days of head start because we followed procedure. Reviewed evidence. Convened meetings." He picked up a quill from the table and turned it between his fingers, the motion too fast, too tight. "My father operated for years because people followed procedure. Because the system protected him."

"The system also caught him, Cassian."

"After how many dead?" The quill snapped between his fingers. He stared at the broken halves as if surprised by his own hands. "I'm sorry. I just--we know Grey is heading to Thane. We know where Thane's estates are. Send riders tonight. Intercept Grey before he reaches the border. Don't wait for more evidence. Don't build a careful case."

"And if we're wrong? If Grey isn't heading north? If we send soldiers charging across Valdoria on a hunch and provoke the very conflict we're trying to prevent?"

"Then at least we'd be acting. Instead of sitting in a library cataloguing atrocities while the people responsible plan their next move."

The anger in his voice was the kind that burned from the inside out--not hot, but corrosive. Aria understood it because she'd felt it herself, those first months after learning the truth about her parents' murders. The desperate need to do something, anything, to transform helplessness into motion.

"I understand wanting to move fast," she said carefully. "But speed without direction just makes you a weapon someone else can aim. We announce what we know. Publicly. Force Thane into the open. Make him react to us instead of the other way around."

Cassian's nostrils flared. For a moment she thought he'd argue further--push for the riders, the interception, the immediate violent answer to violence.

"Fine," he said, voice rough. "Your way. But if people die because we waited--"

"Then I'll carry those deaths. The same way I carry all the others." She held his gaze until something in him loosened, just barely. "That's the job, Cassian. Carrying it. Not letting it drive you into decisions you can't take back."

He exhaled--a long, shuddering breath that seemed to drain something from him. "How do you do it?" he asked. "Make decisions that might get people killed, knowing how it feels after?"

She was quiet for a moment. One hand resting on her belly where the baby had finally settled into sleep.

"Badly," she said. "I stand at windows. I count failures. Some nights the list is longer than others." She straightened in the chair. "But tomorrow I'm making an announcement that could start a civil war. And I can either spend tonight reading logs that won't tell me anything new, or I can spend it preparing for a decision that might actually save lives." She looked at him. "That's not wisdom, Cassian. That's just running out of hours."

He held her gaze. Then he pushed the stack of files to the edge of the table. Not discarding them--he'd need them for tomorrow's announcement. But putting distance between himself and the nightly ritual.

"Get some sleep," she said, standing. The chair scraped softly against the stone floor. "Tomorrow we start something we can't take back."

"Your Majesty?" He stopped her at the door. "Thank you. For saying what nobody else would."

She nodded and left.

Darius was still awake when she slipped back into bed, though he'd been pretending otherwise. His arm came around her immediately, warm and solid.

"Went for a walk," she murmured against his chest. "Talked to Cassian."

"I know. I checked the guard logs." A pause. "How is he?"

"Drowning. Same as me." She pressed closer. "We talked about the logs. The security reviews I keep doing."

He was quiet, his thumb tracing slow circles on her shoulder. "The ones Lyra took?"

"Mm. I think he understood why she took them. I'm not sure he's ready to put his own files down yet." She closed her eyes. "But he closed one. That's something."

"It is." He pressed his lips to her hair. "You're different tonight."

"How?"

"Quieter. Less like you're trying to convince yourself and more like you're just--tired of the same argument." Another kiss, this one lingering. "I'll still be here when you need to have it again."

"I know."

She lay in the dark, his heartbeat steady against her ear, and thought about tomorrow. The announcement. The risk. Valdoria balanced on the edge of a blade.

She fell asleep planning, not spiraling. The last restful sleep she'd have for a long time.

***

The throne room was packed.

Nobles filled every available space, dressed in their court finest--silks and velvets in the traditional Valdorian palette of purples, golds, and deep crimsons. Jewels glittered in the morning light that streamed through the high windows. The air was thick with perfume--jasmine and orange blossom, the scents favored by Valdorian nobility--and the rustling anticipation of silk against stone as nobles shifted in place. Word had spread that the queen had a major announcement--something related to the festival attack, the ongoing investigations.

Aria stood before her throne, pregnancy now visible enough that whispers circulated. She ignored them. Let them talk. This wasn't about the baby. This was about Valdoria's survival.

"My lords and ladies." Her voice carried across the silent hall, strong and clear despite the flutter of nerves in her stomach. "For months, we've been plagued by attacks. The warehouse murders. Lord Aldric's assault. The festival bombing. Twelve innocent people dead. Dozens more injured."

Murmurs of agreement. Everyone knew the toll. Everyone had lost someone, or knew someone who had.

"Today, I can tell you who's responsible."

The murmurs stopped. Absolute silence. The kind of silence that pressed against the ears, filled only by the pounding of her own heart.

"Thomas Grey, a castle steward who served this household for fifteen years, has been identified as a key conspirator. He was the connection between the late Lord Varen's network and those who continue his work today. He has fled Valdoria, taking our secrets with him."

More silence. Processing. She could see minds working behind noble faces, calculating implications.

"And the person he fled to? The one who's been orchestrating these attacks from a distance?" Aria let the pause stretch. "Lord Thane of the Northern Territories."

Gasps. Shocked whispers. Some nobles looked at each other in disbelief.

"We have evidence," Aria continued. "Letters. Financial records. Testimony from Lord Varen's own son, who has bravely come forward to help unravel his father's legacy."

Cassian stepped forward. His face was carved stone, but Aria caught the way his hand found the leather case in his pocket and held it--anchoring himself to his mother's memory as he publicly dismantled his father's. The murmurs intensified--Varen's son, helping the queen? Impossible.

"Lord Thane will be summoned to Crownhaven to answer these charges," Aria said. "If he's innocent, he has nothing to fear. If guilty..." She let the implication hang.

A noble near the front spoke up. "Your Majesty, with respect--Lord Thane is powerful. His territories are extensive. If he refuses to come..."

"Then he declares himself in rebellion against the crown." Aria's voice went cold. "And will be treated accordingly."

"You're risking civil war!"

"I'm ending a conspiracy that's killed dozens of my people." She looked across the assembled nobles. "I know some of you fear war. I fear it too. But I fear something worse: a kingdom where traitors can murder innocents and face no consequence. Where lords can plot against the crown from the safety of their castles. Where my people live in constant fear."

She descended from the dais, walking among them. Each step deliberate. Each noble she passed meeting her eyes or looking away.

"I don't want war. I want peace. But peace isn't the absence of conflict. It's the presence of justice. And justice demands that Lord Thane answer for what he's done."

The hall was silent. Then, slowly, nobles began nodding. Murmurs of agreement spread.

Not everyone was convinced. Skeptics and doubters filled the room, those who thought she was overreaching. But enough supported her. Enough understood.

"The summons will be sent today," she announced. "Lord Thane has two weeks to present himself. Pray he chooses wisely."

The announcement was done. The die cast.

Now they waited to see if it would be peace or war.

***

The answer came faster than expected.

Two months after the announcement, during which Aria had grown visibly pregnant--six months now, her belly round beneath carefully tailored gowns in the Stormborn purple--a messenger arrived from the north. Not with Thane's surrender.

With his declaration.

"He's raised an army," Kelvin reported, consulting a sheaf of logistics documents as he spoke. "Ten thousand men based on our scouts' estimates. Supply train suggests a three-week campaign capability. He's marching south at approximately fifteen miles per day--faster than standard infantry pace, which indicates high motivation or forced march conditions."

Aria's fingers went white on the edge of the table. The war room felt smaller than it had an hour ago. Rain had begun outside, drumming against the windows in heavy sheets, and the air carried a chill that came from dread as much as weather. "Already?"

"Mobilization timeline indicates preparation began months before our announcement. This isn't a hasty response--it's a pre-planned operation we inadvertently triggered." Kelvin set down his papers, and for the first time something cracked through the analytical mask. His hand rested on the logistics sheet, but his eyes drifted to the window--toward Crownhaven's eastern quarter, where she knew his sister kept a bakery with her two young daughters. "The mathematics suggest he was always going to march. We accelerated his schedule."

"Then we've been outmaneuvered." The map on the war room table told the story plainly. Thane's territories. The mountain passes through the Valdorian Alps. The roads leading to Crownhaven. All of it looking like a noose drawing tight. "How long until he reaches us?"

"Three weeks at his current pace. Two if he pushes and accepts the logistical strain."

Two weeks. The baby kicked inside her. Two weeks before an army arrived at her gates.

"Call the banners," she ordered. "Everyone who's sworn loyalty. I want our forces assembled in ten days."

"That's not much time--"

"It's what we have." She turned to Darius. "You'll command the field forces. I want fortifications, supply lines, everything ready."

"What about you?"

"I'll coordinate from Crownhaven. Rally the people. Manage logistics and intelligence. Keep Valdoria functioning while you prepare for battle." His expression shifted--not the expected concern, but something like respect. "A general doesn't need to be on every front. Sometimes the strategic position is behind the lines, where you can see the whole board."

"Aria..." His voice dropped, but the objection she expected didn't come. "That's... actually sound strategy."

"Don't sound so surprised." She managed a small smile. "I've been reading your old military treatises. The Valdorian Art of War has some useful perspectives on pregnant commanders."

"There's a section on pregnant commanders?"

"No. But there's a lot about knowing when to delegate and when to lead personally. This is a time to delegate the fighting and lead the coordination."

"Fine. But you stay in communication. Constant updates. If anything changes--"

"You'll know immediately." She reached out to touch his arm. "We're partners in this. That means I trust your judgment in the field, and you trust mine at the capital."

The next days were a blur of preparation.

Forces assembled from across Valdoria, called by riders who galloped down every road. Defenses strengthened--walls reinforced, weapons stockpiled, provisions gathered. Citizens evacuated from areas likely to see fighting, their belongings piled on carts, children clinging to parents as they fled to safety.

And through it all, Aria worked. Speeches to the troops, standing before ranks of soldiers who would die for her if she asked. Audiences with nervous nobles, reassuring them that victory was certain when she herself wasn't sure. Strategy sessions that stretched late into the night, candles burning down to nubs while they argued over troop positions and supply lines. She reviewed intelligence reports, approved logistics plans, coordinated the evacuation of border villages.

The baby grew heavier. Her back ached constantly. Her feet swelled until her shoes no longer fit. But she pushed through, because that's what queens did.

On the tenth day, their forces were assembled. Fifteen thousand soldiers, pulled from across Valdoria.

Fifteen thousand against Thane's ten.

The numbers favored them. But Thane had seasoned troops, mountain fighters hardened by years of border skirmishes. Veterans who knew how to kill and how to die.

This would not be an easy victory.

"We could negotiate," Kelvin suggested during the final strategy session, though his tone suggested he was simply ensuring all options were documented. "The cost-benefit analysis of diplomacy versus armed conflict--"

"Negotiate what?" Aria asked. "My surrender? My baby's life?"

"A settlement. Concessions. Something that reduces our casualty projections."

"Thane doesn't want concessions. He wants the throne." She looked at the map. "The only negotiation he'll accept is my head on a pike."

"Then we fight."

"Then we fight." She straightened in her chair. "And we win. Because the alternative is everything we've built destroyed."

Darius squeezed her hand under the table. A reminder that she wasn't alone.

"The troops are ready," he said. "Morale is high. They believe in you."

"Let's hope that's enough."

It would have to be.

Because in three days, Lord Thane would arrive.

And the battle for Valdoria would begin.