CHAPTER 30: LET THE GAMES BEGIN

Silken curtains swayed in the perfumed breeze of House Marvik’s upper hall.

A crystal sphere the size of a carriage wheel hovered above the polished table, its depths roiling with images of war.

Beyond the magic’s shimmer, the courtyard of Dawnhaven’s Castle appeared, the barrier still unbroken, the bombardments still hammering it without end.

Lord Seravant, draped in peacock silks, leaned forward with an amused sneer.

"Two months, and he hasn’t so much as scratched the shell. If Valerius were my heir, I’d have recalled him by now."

Lady Marvik herself lounged on the couch, draped in crimson velvet, sipping honeyed wine.

"You’d recall him because he’s costing you coin. But Veltharion has coin to spare, or so he tells us. Let the boy waste it; it’s not our coffers bleeding."

From the far side of the room, the Viscount of House Veylar chuckled into his goblet.

"Ah, but it is our entertainment, is it not? Watching House Ignarion hurl fortunes at a wall they don’t understand? I could watch this for a decade."

A woman in healer’s green, Lady Caltrisse of the Silver Hand, rested her chin upon her knuckles. Her voice was calm, clinical.

"If you knew anything of barrier magic, you’d know it can be breached, not through brute force, but through attrition. This one... it’s old. Old enough it may be a gift from the Eidolons themselves. It drinks in the magic hurled against it. The more he attacks, the more it feeds."

The room stirred with murmurs, some thoughtful, some scoffing.

"So you say it will never fall?" Seravant asked, raising a brow.

Caltrisse shrugged.

"All things fall. But not because a boy in a fury throws his father’s treasury at them."

The scrying sphere shimmered, shifting its view for a moment, from the courtyard to the coastal waters. The image swelled with storm-grey waves.

A merchantman listed violently to one side before the crystal caught the moment its keel cracked in two.

Lord Seravant frowned.

"Have you heard? Losses on the Shivering Sea have doubled this month. Half the spice convoys from the south never made port."

Marvik waved him off.

"The Shivering Sea has always taken her toll. Rogue waves, storms, hidden reefs, she takes what she will."

The Viscount leaned forward with a sly smirk.

"And yet, the captains swear no wave or reef struck them. They say something came from below. Swift as a lance. Split a warship’s spine like dry driftwood."

Caltrisse’s lips thinned.

"Sailors’ tales. Always some sea wyrm or phantom queen to blame."

"Perhaps," Seravant said, voice tightening, "but curious, isn’t it? Normally, the storms are fiercest in the later months of Autumn. And yet during the midst of summer, the Shivering Sea has already claimed more vessels in one week than it did all of last year."

Marvik’s eyes gleamed.

"I understand your worries, but ships can be replaced. Men can be bought. The war... however. " She gestured at the sphere, now focused once more on the siege. "...the war will be decided here."

In the image, Valerius stood before the artillery lines, his face pale, jaw set too tight. The unblinking eye of the crystal magnified the twitch in his cheek, the way his lips moved in silent curses between orders.

"Longer volleys!" he barked to men already sweating from the heat of their own guns. "Keep the fire sustained!"

"Longer volleys?" one of the onlookers murmured. "At that pace, they’ll run dry in weeks."

From the sphere’s edges, the view shimmered faintly as words from far away filtered in, the voice of Veltharion himself, the Ember Throne’s tone sharp as a blade:

You will send me a complete ledger of all resources expended, and an honest report of your progress. You will not drain House Ignarion for pride’s sake.

Valerius’ eyes, even through the scrying haze, showed the crack forming, a man who had built his siege upon the belief that overwhelming force must yield overwhelming victory, now confronted with the truth that the wall did not yield at all.

The gathered lords and ladies drank, whispered, and smiled. For them, this was sport. For Valerius, the first tremors of desperation had begun.

---

Caedrion stood in his spire, gazing into a crystalline mirror that cast back a perfect reflection.

He was not dressed in his usual noble regalia. Instead, he wore armor sculpted to his form down to the atomic level.

Jointed for fluidity, yet unyielding in protection. Enchanted Pyroclaustic plate lay over him like a second skin.

Aelindria worked in silence, tightening each leather strap and fastening each buckle until the plates fit with exacting perfection.

The armor’s blackened surface gleamed with a lustrous onyx sheen, its edges and contours traced in rustlight enchantments that pulsed along his leylines.

His feet were encased in knee-high cavalry boots, spit-shined to a mirror polish. His hands, gloved in black leather, were as much weapons as the steel they wielded.

Upon his head sat a close-fitted helm of his own design, small enough to wear beneath a feathered cap, yet crafted to guard skull and nape alike.

She fastened his sword belt and baldric: a cavalry saber at his hip, a revolver opposite, and a second revolver holstered across his chest.

When he turned to face her, Aelindria drew in a breath.

The boy she had grown beside, married only days ago, was gone. In his place stood a man shaped for war.

She held him close, whispering a prayer into his ear.

"May the Architect protect you..."

He smiled faintly, brushing her cheek with the back of a gloved hand before stepping past her toward the open doors.

The time had come to retaliate with proper force, and to prove to the world that the old ways were ending, not with ceremony, but with fire and blood.