His gaze landed on Vaelira.
"You're leading the rest of our group. Twelve people under you. I want a number. How many points can you guarantee from your squad without suffering a single member's death?"
The word guarantee sat heavily in the air.
"I don't need to say it," Kaiden continued, and his tone dropped just enough to make the curse in her chest pulse, "but you won't have a repeat of Leon. Is that clear?"
Vaelira's breath caught.
Leon.
The swordsman. Mid-tier. Competent enough to be useful, expendable enough to be sacrificed.
It had worked. The boss died. Leon died too.
Clean math. Acceptable losses.
"You won't sacrifice a member of your team because you feel like it. Instead, you will go out of your way to use your powers as the Arcane Puppeteer to build walls of bodies between the enemy and your subordinates. Corpse shields, animated barriers, whatever it takes. You work with Diaz to ensure no one dies." His eyes didn't leave hers. "Understood?"
