"Yes, Aloysius, and not just him alone — I can feel some empresses and princesses siding with him…" Josh's words drifted into the night air, cold clouds curling from his mouth. The sound carried strangely in the open space, swallowed quickly by the vast silence of the imperial square.
They stood beneath the towering stone likeness of Josh Aratat himself, the emperor carved with him holding the kingly staff and his gaze fixed upon eternity. The statue's shadow stretched long across the marble ground, casting both men into a pool of darkness that seemed to shift with every flicker of the torch braziers lining the plaza. The scent of snow mingled faintly with the metallic tang of iron from the statue's base — offerings left by soldiers and citizens alike.
"I learnt through our spy network that some empresses and princesses were also siding with him," Naze murmured, voice low and tight. "He is presently in a foreign land. No one knows where exactly, but rumour has it he's gathering powerful men from higher-level empires — men hungry for dominion." His tone held both spite and sorrow, like a blade dipped in both poison and regret.
Josh clenched his jaw, his eyes traveling up the massive statue. How strange it felt to stand under his own likeness — celebrated as saviour, yet powerless in truth. The people saw a legend cast in stone; he felt only the brittle bones of his mortality.
"Why can't they see that what I'm doing is for them?" His voice cracked with restrained anger. "Why are they so blind?" His breath fogged, dissipating into the endless sky. The memory of his lost cultivation burned in his chest — a hollow furnace. If he still had his strength, he would have struck now, ending Aloysius before the rot could spread. Instead, he was forced to endure, to plan, to watch as betrayal grew roots.
~Sigh~
Both men sighed at once, their voices joining in a single weary note that lingered in the open night. The sigh rose up the statue as if even the stone emperor shared in their fatigue.
Then, a voice — sharp, feminine, steady — sliced into the air.
"I will go and destroy them."
Josh and Naze turned. From the far side of the square, under the pale wash of moonlight, Lola approached. She moved with deliberate steps, the wind tugging faintly at her cloak. Her hand brushed across the curve of her swollen belly as though she meant to remind both herself and the child within, of her unyielding strength. The frown etched across her face was not fleeting anger, but a long-carved resolve.
The brazier flames flickered at her passing, gilding her figure with gold. She looked less like a woman in her condition and more like a war goddess clothed in flesh.
Naze's presence thinned instantly — he slipped into the statue's vast shadow, vanishing as though swallowed by the stone itself. He left without a word, as silent as the oath he had always carried: Josh must face this moment alone.
Josh's eyes lingered on Lola. "You heard everything," he said softly, though it was not a question.
"I did," she answered, her gaze unwavering. "And I say again — I will go and destroy them. This empire will not bleed while I breathe."
Her words rose beneath the statue of Josh Aratat and vanished into the night wind. The stone emperor seemed to watch them, unmoving and enormous, as if the bronze echo of his own name listened for counsel.
Josh felt a war inside him — pride, fear, anger, helplessness — all jostling for command. He looked at the pregnant warrior standing firm beneath his statue, and for the first time in a long while he felt both very small and immeasurably great.
"Honey, you're heavily pregnant," he said, voice softening. He stepped close and took her hand. "We could be expecting any moment now. Keep your mind on happy things — for you and for the baby. I'll figure out a way."
Lola's jaw tightened; the resolve in her face did not falter. "What of the Beasts of Havoc?" she countered. "They respect you. If you demanded their help, wouldn't they answer?"
Josh inhaled slowly, watching his breath blur in the cold. "They pride themselves on not interfering in human quarrels," he said. "Calling them would be a mistake. When I had my cultivation base I might have swayed them — or at least commanded their attention. I don't have that power now. If anything, they're in a position of strength we cannot touch."
He wrapped his arms around her then, careful, as if the embrace needed the gentleness of someone handling the last fragile thing on earth. The warmth of his body pressed against the roundness of her belly; he felt, beneath the cloak and the armour, the small firm life moving like a promise.
"Leave the thinking to me," he murmured, half a plea, half an order clothed in tenderness. "Our heir matters more than every grudge and throne. I struck a bargain with the great Archmage Amber Nois — she has promised to teach him the ways of magic. You will teach him the kingly way. The trusted nobles will see to his education in law, war and trade. We will raise him to be something the snare of traitors cannot choke."
Lola's eyes softened for a heartbeat at the mention of Amber Nois, then hardened. "Promises from distant towers don't stop daggers in the dark," she said. "But if you see a path that keeps the child safe, I will trust it."
Josh's face lit with a fierceness that was as much hope as it was defiance. He pictured the child — a future built from a scrap of courage and a handful of bargains. The image steadied him. The kingdom's stability was fragile, he knew that: like fresh grass on thorned ground, ready to be mown by any hungry goat that came along. He had lost a furnace of power and could no longer lay down thunder as before; so he laid down plans, alliances, schools of thought, and a single stubborn trust in the child to come.
They began to walk toward the palace, their steps slow in the hush of the square. Torchlight licked the carved features of the statue and cast the couple into long silhouettes that merged and separated with each wavering flame. The air smelled faintly of iron and old incense — offerings left by citizens and soldiers, nailed like prayers into the feet of the stone.
As they passed beneath an archway and into the corridor that led to the inner court, a pair of eyes watched them from the shadow of a fountain — small, quick, and immediately gone. The watcher slipped between pillars and melted into the tessellated gloom as if swallowed by the city itself. No flag unfurled, no herald announced them; only that fleeting glimpse remained, like a bruise forming on the edge of consciousness.
Josh did not see the eyes. He did not know the spy had moved so close that for a heartbeat it had seemed the world held an extra breath. He only felt the weight of the future in his arms and the steady heartbeat against his palm — both his wife's and the small life within her — and he wrapped his hope around them like a cloak.
Behind them, the statue kept its silent vigil. Ahead, the palace doors yawned open: a bright, guarded mouth. The empire slept, but not untroubled. Somewhere in its ribs traitors stirred. Somewhere, plans were being stitched into poison. And somewhere else a narrow pair of eyes had already carried the seed of new schemes into the dark.