2412 Qintax 16, Kindreth

Dawn announced its arrival by showering Gandirk with amber light through the spires, defeating the soft flow of the plants around him. Last night's onslaught didn't last the entire time the moons shone overhead, but the Heiress left most of them sleepless and tired to the bone.

Jona pored through the battle logs by himself, using the streams of sunlight and the Liferewarder's shine to discern the frantic scrawl of his soldiers. The day had been long enough for him to be able to ignore the pounding headache pulsing on his temples.

Cardovia knew their weakness, and it's that their people didn't know the terrain as well as Jona and his soldiers did. That's what led them to the avalanche scenario a few weeks ago. Thus, they make up for it by attacking in short bursts. This way, they would drive Gandirk to near-insanity and force it to reveal one card up its hypothetical sleeve until there was nothing left.

It's a trap Jona played perfectly into.

They also resolved to adopt such a method to avoid losing more people and to help them get used to the place faster. Even their fighting styles seemed to have evolved to tackle a nature fairy's weak spots, including the fingers and the senses.

Most of the nature synnavaim involved being in tune with the forces around an individual. Manipulating said forces and getting them to follow one's will only came second. Cardovia learned fast by targeting the soldiers' fingers first to prevent them from performing precise kaviste listris. The enemies also carried some sort of handheld device which jumbled the basic senses for the time it took for them to skewer Jona's comrades.

The parchment and ink scribbled on them were the only testament those people existed. Reduced to a mere number being added or as little lines scratched across pressed fibers, Jona doubted these people were happy. Far from it. Nobody wanted to die in a war. Not even remembered by the territory one fought for, to eventually give their lives for it—it's a different kind of pain.

Not to mention Jona didn't really need to consult these messy narrations filled with raw words to describe the battle. He could already confirm whose soul departed and whose still walked and survived. Still, he forced himself to look through the incident reports written by the eyewitness accounts to authenticate these deaths. It provided insight on how they met their end.

Because if he was supposed to protect these people, he's surely doing a wonderful job at it.

If Nael was here, he would have seen the crease in Jona's forehead from frowning too much, and if he could read what's going on in Jona's mind, he would have insisted Jona wasn't failing in his duty even though Jona already was.

Speak of the witch, he needed to wake Nael up and tell everyone to gather to hear his last message. The sheets of parchment crinkled when Jona shuffled them back into one pile. Maybe he'd get back on it later. If there was even a later.

On his way up, his gaze fell onto the crystalline petals of Dwanzeig' throne. His gut turned at the message it gave him—one he's too ignorant to understand. The tips of his fingers caressed the petals, feeling the cold, glass-like surface press against his skin. It was truly like glass. The only thing missing still was those crystals being able to reflect his face back to him.

"You told me how to save you, but I didn't understand," Jona muttered under his breath. He doubted the throne still wanted something to do with him after his blatant disrespect towards it. "What did your light that night mean? Please tell me."

True enough, not a speck shifted around him. Not a breeze blowing through the spaces between the spires. Not a rustle in the grass or in the leaves of the trees. Everything was as still as it should be, and Jona half-expected Cardovia to open-fire from the heavens. Two soldiers in charge of shooting down aerial attacks could barely hold against the droves the Heiress kept sending them.

Which brings another worry in Jona's gut. In the battle in Acosa, the Heiress showed up, drowning the palace with those unholy spears of pure magic. They seemed to come straight from the fluffy clouds and pulverized the bridges, chipped the strip of land holding the building up, and lit the entire sky purple and pink. And yet, on the days the siege against Gandirk happened, she was nowhere to be found. Couldn't she spare this battleground a day?

Not that Jona looked for a fight with the Heiress. The last time didn't go quite well. Besides, the Heiress could flatten the sanctuary with one hit. Let her be occupied with something else just so Jona and everyone inside Gandirk could live another day.

Call that selfish—some other territory or throne got her attention and, therefore, her wrath—but it was the only thing Jona could do to lift his spirits up. Well...whatever's left of it. Because who was he kidding? Nael was no stranger to it, seeing how Jona dealt with every onslaught that ended. Jona would spend the next hours knocked cold, unable to rise from the sheer ache holding on to his form with no intention of letting go. Sometimes, it burned, like most of the dried branches catching the embers of missed spells and intentional sparks cast by their enemies. Mostly, though, it was merely the weight pressing against Jona's muscles, making moving them an inch feel like a thousand-fortwere hike up Gandirk's incline.

Maybe he should have asked the throne how in Wikone's name was he supposed to stop feeling like this. But even if it answered, he'd be too stupid to comprehend it, anyway.

He made it out of the innermost sanctuary, boots tapping against the manicured path snaking towards the western side where the soldiers lived. The glow of the Liferewarder faded behind him, taking away the marvel it added to the early sunlight. He stopped at the crossroad leading to where Nael was and the grove leading to the lip of Gandirk. With a strained sigh, he trudged left.

The grove, filled with the bioluminescent trees which were still to lose their glow, stretched on past the influence of the spires before starting to slope down to lead to the lip of the mountain. Their ancestors certainly had a flair of glamor when they designed this place. It did little to stop the twinge arising in Jona's gut, though. If anything, he wasn't amused at being the reason why their founders' legacy was being torn down.

When he reached the edge of the mountain, the rest of Ardgate bled from the tip of his boots. The chunks of upturned rocks and earth still stained the foot of the peak he stood on—that much hasn't changed. Most of the fires had stilled to nothing but a few sparkling embers, and the dry weather seemed to have encouraged it. No matter how much he wanted rain, he wouldn't go as far as to pray to Satris for it. Rain meant having slippery mud, and he couldn't have his soldiers losing their footing even though he had faith in their capabilities of fighting through the slough.

A sheet of green spread from the radius of brown, marking the beginning of Gandirk's jurisdiction and the end of Ardgate's lush forests. Mountain ranges shrouded by the hazy veil of clouds stamped the horizon, showing Jona every place he could be instead of this current peak. And how he would give anything to be able to go.

His teeth dug on his chapped lips. It's been a while since he had managed to apply tint into them, like it's been the same time since the siege started. The Heiress' men probably hid in the lush carpet of canopies beyond Gandirk, gathering their strength, their ammunition, and more reinforcements. It was also a good point to tell if there were more soldiers arriving from any direction and deal with them before they even reached Jona and be of any help.

As a summary, Gandirk was screwed. There's little they could do about that.

Jona blew one last heavy breath into the wind, letting the heavens get a taste of his discontent, anger, and even his despair. Let the gods—if they exist—catch a whiff of what their machinations were doing to him.

With nothing left to do except stare, he turned and tramped back to where he came from. The soldier's quarters zipped by his periphery on his way to his room. The rings shrieked against their contact with the metal rod when Jona yanked the flap back. Light from behind flooded into the dim expanse of the cave. His gaze fell into a bundle of blankets curled up on the mattress. A shock of auburn hair sat atop the pillow.

A small smile pulled at the corners of Jona's lips as he sauntered in and sank next to the mattress. He reached over and shook Nael's shoulder. "Hey, we need to go," Jona whispered, careful of waking the soldier in a sudden. It's rude. "I need to address the remaining soldiers and that includes you."

Nael groaned and shuffled beneath the sheets, pulling it with him on his way to turn away from Jona. "Five more minutes," he muttered.

Jona scoffed despite the amusement budding in his gut. The sentiment was a mismatch from their current situation, but he welcomed it. The war could be damned. Nothing's stopping him from admiring his boyfriend. "You seem to be forgetting something, Soranal," Jona said, imitating the voice of Nael's commanding officer back in the Komerian branch of the Natura. "Who do you think you are, sleeping in like a yoggin?"

The sheets rustled and flapped as Nael sat up in a hurry. His gaze landed on Jona, his face falling into a relief-ridded sigh. He clutched at his chest. "Oh, it's you," he scratched the back of his neck while turning his head this way and that in an attempt to shake off the knots. "That's a messed up way of reminding me how well you can impersonate people."

That's true. Jona needed only to hear a person once before picking up on their voice. Some gaits were harder to do, but Nael's former commanding officer was a simple man with a simple build. Jona didn't need forever to get most of the man's inflections. Consider it one of his useless talents.

"I'm going to call an assembly," Jona said, breaking whatever false comfort that built up between them. "It would mean everything if you're there."

Nael bobbed his head, his auburn hair bouncing against his forehead. He laid a hand on top of Jona's. "Am I not allowed a preview?" he said.

Jona exhaled a brief gust through his nose. "And be bored with the actual thing?" he drew closer, invading Nael's personal space. Their noses were inches apart, and Jona wondered how long it would be before he got weirded by it. "I can't have that, Soranal."

"You're getting bolder, Lidivar," Nael's shaky breath betrayed the thoughts he wasn't putting into words. When he laughed, a whiff of his breath brushed against Jona's lips. "Damn, being able to use the Royal family name in a conversation feels so good I almost understood why it's illegal."

Jona snaked a hand behind Nael's head, his fingers burying themselves in auburn hair sticking up in all unnameable directions. His gut didn't twist even though he was the one doing everything he swore to never let anyone do to him.

"One of the perks of being with someone like me, I guess." He answered. He never realized Nael had silver flecks in his dark eyes until now. Huh.

Nael laid a hand on his chest. "You used to hate being touched, Your Grace," he whispered, reminding Jona what other kind of distance existed between them. It mattered little, though. Not when Jona wasn't even sure if there was still a territory to rule tomorrow. "What changed?"

The question froze something inside Jona, causing him to draw away and straighten back to his feet. "If I disappear, you need to merge back to the forces in Acosa," Jona said instead. "Take whoever comes with you. Abandon Gandirk."

Nael scrambled to his feet, and even in the plain tunic and trousers he wore to sleep, stalked after Jona on his way to the cave's exterior. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, confusion and fear heavy in his tone. "Jona. Wait—"

"These are uncertain times, that's all," Jona picked at the skin peeling from his lips. It's one of the habits he picked up ever since those pesky scabs started showing. Jona turned to Nael who paused before the soldier crashed against him. "There's a high chance I won't be here tomorrow. Or the day after that. Maybe even some time during this day."

A grip clamped around his arm, and Jona traced it up to Nael's face. A determined scowl crumpled his features. "Take that back," he ordered. Once again, a mere soldier instructing a Grand Royal on what to do shouldn't be the norm around here, but Jona had little energy to fight it. He still had an entire war to think of. "We're all getting out of here."

Jona tapped Nael's arm with his free hand. "It's nice to be full of hope," he said softly. "But we also have to be realistic."

"What are you going to do when I disappear, then?" Nael said, his grip around Jona's arm tightening as if he was afraid Jona would vanish if he loosened it a centimeter.

Jona gave him a smile. He doubted Nael missed the sadness in it. After all, the same feeling gnawed at the pit of his stomach. "I won't forgive myself," he said.

Before Nael could blurt another cheesy answer to that, Jona squirmed out of his grip and trudged outside the cave. "Tell the other soldiers to gather in the inner sanctuary," Jona said. "I will be waiting."

Then, he let the curtain fall, separating him and Nael more effectively than a siege against Acosa.

Soon, all thirty soldiers piled inside the pocket of space where the Liferewarder was. They arrived to find Jona sitting cross-legged in front of the flower with crystalline flowers, his eyes closed and seemingly asleep. When he felt the brushes of soles quiet down, he wrenched his eyes open, terminating the weak connection he attempted to establish with the throne. He's hoping to be able to talk to that strange voice again, the one who warned him about the war that really came, and for it to tell him how to deal with this throne debacle with Cardovia.

He whirled to the gathered soldiers and noted their faces. With less people milling about the fortress, it's gotten easier to memorize their features and attribute a name to them. "Soldiers," he started. "Thank you for taking the time to be here."

A hush of silence and a few confused blinks. Jona sighed and brushed strands of green hair off his forehead. "I will be forward about it," he said. "We are not going to win. Not by a long shot."

Murmurs came alive. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Nael subtly shake his head. Let him. There's no reason to hide the truth everyone's been refusing to see for the sake of Jona's feelings. Well, he just had to break it to them the most direct way he knew.

"Cardovia will attack sooner or later," Jona said. "You are more than welcome to start planning your escape. Start new lives elsewhere. Forget your duty to the Crown and to me, and choose yourselves. I won't mind."

Jar shot up, his hair bouncing against his forehead. "Not a chance, Your Grace," he tapped a fist against his dented breast plate. "We knew what we're getting into when we agreed to be part of Gandirk's guard. This is the duty we will take to Pidmena's embrace."

Invoking the goddess of death's name in the middle of a despondent talk wasn't a good omen at any angle. Jona opened his mouth to respond, to make them reconsider, but another soldier named Fil started in support for her comrade. "I don't know about the others here, but there's no way I'm sitting this one out," she said, her arms staying rigid by her side. "Running is a disgrace to those who went before us."

That's...

"Don't worry about us, Your Grace," Nael joined the rest of the soldiers joining Jar's resistance. "We won't be walking away from the fight. Our fight."

Their eyes met, and for once, Jona understood what Nael told him through that gaze. Don't you walk away from us too.

Jona closed his eyes once more. When he opened them again, he counted less than thirty-five faces grinning at him as if they weren't going to meet their ends later on. A chill rose from his spin, locking his limbs in place. Just by the frayed ends of his magic, he knew.

They're here.

"Well, then," he faced the meager crowd and did his best to smile. "Let's fight."

He tapped his own closed fist against his chest. "Avraja," he said. The word that reached him was almost like a scream. A cheer.

His teeth ground against each other. There's only one way to save these loyal souls he owed so much to—he needed to find the secret of the throne and use it to get it away from here as far as possible.