The flickering light of a captured screamer crystal threw long, dancing shadows across the campaign tent. It cast a sickly, pulsating glow on the maps spread across the table, a chaotic tapestry of Aethelgard marked with the battle lines of a war that felt both endless and pointless. Veridia stared down at them, a half-empty goblet of cheap mortal wine clutched in her hand. The victory was ash in her mouth.
She replayed the last cycle in her mind, a nauseating loop of tactical brilliance and catastrophic cost. She had outmaneuvered Zael's betrayal, yes. She had broken the pincer movement funded by Malakor's proxies. But the cost… so many of her mortal forces, the brutish but loyal Collective warriors, now lay cooling in the mud outside. She could still hear the faint, distant cries of the wounded, a sound the wind carried through the tattered canvas walls.
*A victory that leaves you weaker than before is not a victory. It's just a slower defeat.*
For every move she made, they made two. She was a pinball, ricocheting between Zael's chaotic ambition and Malakor's grinding, honor-bound siege. This kingdom she was building wasn't a throne; it was a cage, bigger and more complex than her exile, but a cage all the same. She was a pawn for the Patrons and their thirst for spectacle. A pawn for Zael and his market calculations. A pawn for Malakor and his righteous fury.
"My, my, dear sister." Seraphine's illusion materialized at the edge of the light, shimmering with condescending pity. She was, as always, immaculate, her very presence an insult to the surrounding filth. "The great queen, drowning in paperwork and paranoia. All that effort, and you're no closer to getting rid of me. In fact, you've just made more powerful enemies. Was it worth it?"
The words, meant to be salt in a fresh wound, landed on the deadened nerve of a truth Veridia had just accepted. She slammed the goblet down. The cheap wine sloshed over the map of her pathetic, hard-won territory, staining the drawing of the Slag Crown like a fresh, spreading bloodstain.
***
Veridia ignored her sister, pushing away from the table. She began to pace, her boots sucking at the damp earth of the tent floor, her movements sharp and jerky, a caged animal wearing down a path in its own prison. Every path on that map was a dead end. Every choice led to a checkmate orchestrated by someone else. She was trapped in a game where she didn't even know all the players, let alone the rules.
She stopped abruptly. Her eyes, which had been scanning the physical map of Aethelgard, went distant. The crude drawings of mountains and rivers faded, replaced by a far grander, more terrible schematic in her mind.
It started with Zael's face, that perfect, condescending smirk from his message crystal, calling her a "fragile asset." His image dissolved into Malakor's, his features tight with a cold, aristocratic fury. Then came the Patrons, their faces a collage of cosmic boredom and selfish desires—Kasian's manic grin seeking a gamble, Vesperia's serene smile demanding a beautiful tragedy. And finally, Seraphine's own face, her entire existence predicated on turning Veridia's pain into a higher E-Rating.
She saw the lines of power connecting them all, a vast circuit board of influence. She saw the flow of capital from the faceless Consortium to the major players, the currents of fame that Zael and Malakor rode, the tributary streams of Patronage that fed her own meager existence.
And the goal… the Pardon. What was it?
*A gilded leash.*
A return to the Court as a novelty. A curiosity. The disgraced princess who clawed her way back, now reformed and ready to be a good little asset in their next production. She would still be a piece. A more valuable piece, perhaps, but still a piece, moved by the same hands that had exiled her. Revenge on Seraphine? A petty, distracting sideshow. The life-link wasn't the problem. The exile wasn't the problem.
The game was the problem.
All the power she had gained, every boon, every spectral blade, had been a gift. A scrap thrown from the table by her keepers to make the fight more interesting. True power was not a gift. It was never a gift. It was a theft.
Seraphine watched, a flicker of genuine unease crossing her perfect features at her sister's sudden, unnerving stillness. The silence was more disturbing than any tantrum. "Lost for words, are we?" she tried, her voice losing some of its biting confidence. "Finally realized what a pathetic, endless trap you've built for yourself?"
Veridia's expression, which had been a mask of raw frustration, slowly transformed. The heat vanished, cooled and forged into a chilling, focused calm.
***
Veridia turned from the maps, her gaze falling upon Seraphine's illusion. The rage was gone from her eyes, replaced by an ambition so vast and cold it made the shimmering light of her sister's form flicker and lose cohesion for a half-second.
"You're right, sister. This is a trap," Veridia said, her voice a low, steady thing, stripped of all its former heat. She let the admission hang in the air, a concession that was not a surrender, but a redefinition of the battlefield. "But you're looking at it from the perspective of a prisoner. You see the maze."
She took a deliberate step forward, her shadow eclipsing the blood-stained map on the table. Her posture had changed. The caged fury was gone, replaced by the stillness of a predator that has finally chosen its prey. "I'm starting to see the architect's blueprints."
Her gaze was unwavering, pinning Seraphine's intangible form in place. A thin, predatory smile touched Veridia's lips, a smile more terrifying than any snarl she had ever produced. It was a look of such profound, cosmic arrogance that Seraphine's own witty retort died before it could form.
"Forget the bond," Veridia whispered, dismissing their entire shared history with two words. "Forget the pardon."
A beat of absolute silence descended upon the ruined tent, a quiet so profound it felt like the drawing of a breath before a final, world-shattering scream.
"We're taking over."