The war room of Dawnhaven was no longer the half-ruined hall Caedrion remembered as a boy.

Maps covered the walls now, drawn on parchment and slate, each inked with new borders, supply routes, and sigil-marks for garrisons.

Models carved from blackstone marked regiments, cavalry, artillery.

Candles guttered low in sconces, their wax dripping on bronze tables hammered flat from the ruins of old House Ignarion's banners.

Here, in the heart of his reborn city, Caedrion met with his blood.

Aelindria sat at his right, her hands folded carefully over the swell of her belly.

Even so, her eyes missed nothing as they swept across the maps.

She had always had a talent for grasping strategy, though she spoke little unless her words carried weight.

Sylene stood beside her, sharp and regal as ever.

She had the air of one who had endured every storm the world could conjure and still found herself unbowed.

Her hand rested lightly on the pommel of a sword she no longer needed to wield, a symbol as much as a weapon.

Malveris leaned on the table, one hand braced, the other stroking the streaks of silver in his beard.

His pale eyes were fixed on the map as though he could bend it to his will by gaze alone.

Though age had set his shoulders heavy, the presence of an aristocrat still clung to him.

He had ceded power to his son who now ruled in his stead, but that did not mean that he would not act as an advisor.

Caedrion stood before them, a commander not by inheritance alone but by proof.

His cloak smelled faintly of forge smoke, his fingers still stained from chalk and sigil ink, yet his voice carried with the resonance of command.

"The army numbers fifty thousand," he said, and the words filled the chamber like the tread of boots.

"Fifteen thousand drilled in Dawnhaven itself. Twenty-five thousand drawn from the reborn Ashlands, farmers turned soldiers who now march with discipline. The rest are veterans of Ignarion's fall, folded into our ranks, tempered by loyalty or fear."

Malveris gave a low whistle, not quite mocking, not quite impressed. "Fifty thousand in less than a year. You've done what most kings could not in a lifetime."

Caedrion inclined his head. "Because most kings are content to stagnate. I am not."

Sylene's lips curved faintly, though her gaze was sharp. "And what do you mean to do with this force, nephew? No army exists only to be counted."

Aelindria's hand brushed the map before them, her finger trailing down the river-valleys that marked the borders of rival houses.

"He means to make them choose," she said softly.

Caedrion did not deny it.

He pressed his palm to the Ashlands marked on the parchment, a swath of once-blackened territory now shaded green.

"The envoys came. You heard their words. They would cloak their fear with honey, but fear it was. They know Dawnhaven rises, and they do not know if they will be trampled or spared."

"And what did you tell them?" Malveris asked.

"The truth." Caedrion's eyes hardened. "That I will not bow. That they may stand beside me or be swept aside."

Silence weighed in the chamber for a moment, broken only by the sputter of wax.

Sylene's voice cut through it, calm and precise. "So you mean to give them a choice. For how long?"

"six months," Caedrion answered without hesitation.

"By then, the foundries will be producing arms at double their pace, the crops of the Ashlands will be harvested, and the new batteries will have filled our reserves.

Six months for them to decide whether they will yield me their silence, or whether I march into their lands."

Malveris grunted, leaning back. "You speak like a conqueror, son."

"I speak like a man with no time," Caedrion retorted.

His hand drifted to his chest, where beneath his tunic the faint thrum of the artifact whispered.

"I have less than three months before I am dragged back beneath the waves. Our army can defend our lands from any foreign transgressions while I am away. But when I return I expect either submission or blood from the other Magi houses. There is no alternative now."

The admission hung in the air like smoke.

Aelindria's fingers tightened on the edge of the table.

"Then you would gamble our future on war before it is forced upon us?"

"Not gamble," Caedrion said, voice low.

"Shape it. If we wait, the houses will scheme, build coalitions, look for weakness. If we strike, we break them before they can move. One by one, swiftly, with precision. We do not burn their cities, we do not salt their fields... we bend them into our order, as we bent the Ashlands."

Malveris's eyes gleamed with something like pride, though he masked it behind a frown.

"Subjugation, then. Empire. Many have dreamed of it throughout our history, only Ignarion has come close. And even then the other houses still kept them from completing their goals."

"Survival," Caedrion corrected. "Call it empire if you like. But know this: the world is stirring. The sea, the frost, even the elves across the Shivering Sea... they all watch us now. If humans cannot stand united, we will be meat for their tables. I will not see Dawnhaven fall because the lords of Serevant or Caltrisse feared losing their titles."

Sylene regarded him a long moment. "You sound like your grandfather."

Caedrion's grandfather had been the last Lord of House Ferrondel who dared to be proud, dared to resist Ignarion aggression, dared to spit in the face of those who humiliated him and his kin.

And the House had paid dearly for it.

The words might have been a curse, but she spoke them like memory, soft and bitter.

Aelindria leaned forward, her voice level. "Six months is little time to prepare for war of such scale."

"Then we will prepare as though it comes tomorrow," Caedrion replied. "The key must be finished, and with it, our forges must not sleep. Every soldier drilled. Every regiment armed. If the houses yield, then good. Dawnhaven grows without bloodshed. If they do not…" His hand closed into a fist. "…then we march upon my return from the Abyss."

The fire in his eyes was not the fire of rhetoric.

It was the fire of certainty, of a man who knew the leash around his throat grew tighter with each passing day.

Malveris broke the silence first, chuckling without mirth.

"Well. At least you don't lack for ambition. The world will call you tyrant, you know. They'll paint you as butcher before you've even crossed their borders."

Caedrion's lips curved into something colder than a smile. "Let them. History has no room for the timid."

Aelindria studied him, her hand drifting unconsciously to her belly.

"Then if we march, we march for more than your pride. We march for those who come after."

He met her gaze, softer now, but no less resolute. "That is the only reason I march at all."

The chamber fell into silence again, but this time it was the silence of decision, heavy and unyielding.

The path ahead was clear, whether or not they liked it.

At last, Sylene straightened, her voice cutting like a blade.

"Then it is settled. Six months. Let the houses squirm in their halls. When the time comes, Dawnhaven will be ready. And the world will learn that Ferrondel does not ask, it takes."

The words echoed in the war room, cold and final, as though spoken by the stone itself.

And outside, in the streets of Dawnhaven, fifty thousand men drilled, their boots pounding in rhythm, their voices raised in unison. The sound carried up through the blackened ruins reborn into green, a drumbeat of inevitability.

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