They had won.
Blake may receive all credits, be acclaimed as the hero sung by bards. But it was Cain that deducted the plan that made it true, and even though none may praise him for that, the knowledge was enough. Or at least he believed so.
The Confederation, mocked for generations as sea-scavengers unfit for soil, had done the unthinkable: they had broken a land kingdom on land. Days after the spears fell silent, the thrill still pulsed through Cain's blood like a tide refusing to ebb.
For all their history, they had been sea-wolves. In water they were storms made flesh , but on land they floundered, gasping like fish left to die on sun-cracked boards.
Everyone knew it; the whole world spoke it as truth.
They were a bother, a nuisance nothing more...
Thirteen years ago, Red Grain carved that truth into the bone of their people, it was an hard lesson but well-earned.
