The War Cabinet was the only place where the world made sense.
There were no emotions there. No hidden intentions. No moral judgments. There was only logistics.
Distance. Time. Resources.
If you have a hundred men and food for fifty, the equation does not ask for mercy; it demands a cut.
Aurelian stood before the massive map of the Northern Frontier. It was eleven in the morning.
His officers—men twice his age and half his intelligence—waited in silence around the table.
"Lieutenant Kaelus recommends pulling the supply line back to the Bitter River," said a captain, sweating nervously as he pointed at the map.
Aurelian didn't look at him.
His gaze remained fixed on the eastern border, his back to them.
"If you retreat to the river," Aurelian said, his voice flat, "you'll lose three days of marching in spring due to the thaw. The river rises. The mud traps the wagons. You'll lose thirty percent of the cargo before reaching the first outpost."
He turned.
"Did Lieutenant Kaelus fail to review the climate data from the last five years? Or is he planning to starve our own soldiers out of laziness rather than calculate alternate routes?"
Silence crushed the room.
That was how he liked it. Fear was an excellent lubricant for efficiency.
"I—I'll rewrite the orders, General," the captain stammered.
Aurelian walked to the table.
Sat down to sign the day's authorizations.
It was mechanical.
Read. Assess. Sign.
Read. Assess. Sign.
His mind—trained to compartmentalize the chaos of battle—had always functioned like a clock.
Tick. Tock.
Problem. Solution.
But today, the clock was off.
He picked up the quill pen. Dipped it into the inkwell.
The document before him was a standard requisition for new horses for the royal guard.
Horses.
The word jumped off the page.
If it were a prize horse, I would have done the same.
His own voice echoed in his head—the lie he had told in the carriage.
And then her response, delivered not in words, but in gold scattered across the table.
The contempt in her eyes. The way she had looked at him as if he were small.
Aurelian's hand froze mid-signature.
He saw the children running in the garden.
Saw himself smashing the furniture.
Felt again the hot shame of having lost control.
"General?" the captain asked cautiously. "Is there a problem with the requisition?"
Aurelian blinked.
The quill's tip, left too long against the page, released an excess drop of ink.
A thick, ugly black blot spread across the royal crest at the bottom of the document.
He stared at the stain.
Imperfection.
Error.
Filth.
His breath caught.
"General?"
Aurelian raised his eyes slowly.
The captain took a step back, startled by the expression on his commander's face. This was not bureaucratic irritation.
It was pure, distilled hatred.
"Leave," Aurelian said softly.
"Sir, I need the signatu—"
"GET OUT."
The shout detonated against the stone walls—loud, violent, irrational.
Aurelian grabbed the stained document, crushed it in one hand, and hurled it to the floor.
The officers did not hesitate. They scrambled out, nearly tripping over one another, slamming the door behind them.
Aurelian was alone.
His chest rose and fell too fast. His heart beat unevenly.
He looked at his hand. Black ink stained his fingers.
"Damn you," he whispered to the empty room.
He wasn't talking about the ink.
He stood, went to the basin of water in the corner, and scrubbed his hands. Hard. Furiously.
The skin reddened, but the feeling of filth remained.
He commanded armies.
He moved the fate of the kingdom with a pen.
Yet he could not purge from his mind the image of a five-foot-three elf turning her back on him and walking away with the only good thing he had done in years.
Aurelian looked at the map again.
The lines were clear. The enemy was visible.
But the enemy dismantling him now was not in the north.
She was in his cousin's house.
And he had no strategy at all to defeat that.