They emerged from the emerald gloom of the camp at first light, a small knot of riders cutting through the morning mist. Beside Basil and his father rode ten silent guards, their armor muted by the dew.

The morning was bitingly cold, the kind of chill that seeped through wool and found the bone. Basil adjusted his fur pelt, pulling it tight against his back. After three months of hard campaigning without a proper wash, the hide had begun to stink of woodsmoke, old sweat, and damp earth, though he had grown so accustomed to the scent it felt like a second skin.

Mesmerized by the freezing air, he watched his own breath bloom in front of him in pale, ghostly clouds. He began to mouth silent words, testing to see if the mist would follow the shape of his speech. It did, swirling in the air like a dying spirit.

He felt his father’s eyes on him, hard, weary, and ancient.

Suddenly, Basil felt far too young, a flash of shame heating his cheeks at his own childishness. But then, with a faint, knowing smile, Alpheo let out a long exhale of his own,watching as a great plume of white smoke drifting toward the canopy.

Long before he would return to the dust as all men must, Basil knew he would carry this moment in the marrow of his soul.

It was a fragment of normalcy that would one day bring him to tears in the lonely time that would follow. But that was a grief for a distant future. Now, his father stood like a mountain of iron against the enemies who dared to threaten their hearth.

Unbowed and unbroken.

His father was a sight to be beheld that was for sure.

He wore black plate that seemed to swallow the morning light, every inch of him encased in dark steel, except for his head. He rode bareheaded, his dark hair catching the wind like the wings of a hunting bird. Though his home was set against reckless, impossible numbers, three moons had passed and he remained as he had begun. Unbent.

This is what a king should look like, Basil thought, his heart swelling as his father offered him a rare, private smile. It was the second time in his life he felt the door to his father’s world truly swing open, inviting him to see the machinery of power before he was tasked with turning the gears himself.

But Uncle Jarza’s words echoed unbidden in his mind: Your father’s eyes obsess over the long shadows he casts, blind to the light that makes them.

Even now, miles from the Bastion, Alpheo’s gaze drifted toward the east. There was an inherent, heavy sadness in his eyes, a flicker of guilt as he looked toward the horizon where Asag and his men were holding a line of blood in his name and without him.

A half-hour later, another party crested the rise and began to cross the wide, flat plain. His father had chosen this place with the eye of a fox; here, the land was a vast, level expanse of grass. There were no ridgelines for archers, no corpses of trees for hidden cavalry. It was a stage of empty earth where no one could craft an ambush, and where the parley would be held in the unforgiving light of day.

His father had told him that there would be time where compromises had to be made, this was the one he intentended.

Basil watched his father’s eyes; they were twin pits of cold, dark iron, harboring a hatred so ancient and deep it seemed to predate the war itself.

They were set on the one who had crafted all this death, he who would have broken them at their whims if he could. Not satisfied with the lot he had given, he had dared to intrude upon their solace.

His father’s eyes promised him only death.

Nibadur of Habadia arrived upon a magnificent black sorrel, the beast’s coat as glossy as polished onyx. The horse held its head with a regal, mocking pride, its breath blooming in the air just as the men’s did.

The Habadian Prince was a vision of curated splendor. His breastplate was lacquered a vibrant, deep green to match his sigil, bisected from neck to groin, by a streak of slate-grey that formed the silhouette of the Habadian Tower.

A heavy crimson cloak billowed behind him, contrary to Alpheo, who wore no cape at all. Basil knew his father often favored the imperial purple, he would bet every silveii in the treasury that the color looked more at home on his father’s scarred shoulders than it ever had on a Romelian Emperor.

Nibadur was pristine. His blonde hair was cropped close to his forehead in the modern fashion, and his skin was clear, smelling of expensive oils and soap, that no doubt he was a fan of.

His father, by contrast, hadn’t seen a bath in a week, his neck-long hair unruly and wild as a lion’s mane. Yet, in Basil’s eyes, the unwashed Prince of Yarzat was twice as majestic as the polished man before them.

"We come here in peace; we lower our arms until our truce is done. The Gods bid us truth; we abide by it," Nibadur spoke first. His voice was smooth, cultured, and entirely devoid of the weariness his father had.

"We come here in peace; we lower our arms until our truce is done. The Gods bid us truth; we abide by it," Alpheo repeated. His voice instead hoarse, as a grinding rasp that made Basil’s chest ache.

The vows were sealed, the blessings of the Five invoked, and only then was the hate allowed to breathe.

"I have long desired this meeting, Prince Alpheo," Nibadur began, his horse shifting slightly as he leaned forward in the saddle. His smile was graceful, practiced, and utterly hollow as every fiber of the being that whore of his mother had given birth to.

It would have been far honourable for that accursed man that claimed to be Nibadur’s father, to have finished on his wife’s tits that night, just to spare them this man.

"Ever since word reached the south of your victory against the Herculian host, your name has been a constant guest in my halls. I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that we might meet upon a proper field of honor, a clash of steel where the sun might witness the measure of ours"

He paused, his eyes flicking momentarily to the dirt on Alpheo’s greaves before returning to his face.

"It is a pity," Nibadur continued "that I was never given that chance. Instead, I find myself playing a game of hide-and-seek in the mud with a man who prefers the company of briars and shadows to the honest light of a vanguard. Tell me, does the ’Fox’ ever tire of the damp, or has the forest floor finally become more comfortable to you than a throne?Three months of war and yet this is the first whiff I get of you."

If Basil had been in his father’s saddle, his hand would have already been white-knuckled on the hilt of his steel.

But that why he would have erred. He was still too young and inexperienced.

Alpheo made no motion of anger. He sat as still as the stone of the Bastion itself, his expression as barren as the frost-bitten plain.

"Gods forbid," Alpheo said, his voice a low, grinding rasp. Behind him, a lone crow cawed . "Were it so, you would have ridden home in a box of pine, and I would have been freed of your accursed presence months ago."

Nibadur’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes hardened into chips of blue glass. "And instead, you shall have to suffer mine as I carve a path through your lands. You are outnumbered, prince of Yarzat. You are alone. When I finally breach that gatehouse and put every soul inside to the sword, I shall make my way to your capital. There will be no shadows left for you to hide in then."

The Habadian leaned forward, the silver etching on his green breastplate catching the pale morning light. "I have waited long for you to send a rider. It is not in my interest to see more blood spilled if words can suffice. Men do not sing of glory when they squash a cockroach beneath their heel; they will not sing of this victory either, I presume.

All that stands between this war ending or the complete annihilation of your house is a few sentences. Let us not bathe our blades in red any longer. You know the size of the host at my back. You know there is no hope for you on an open field. All that stands between me and total triumph is that one grey castle."

And yet the Bastion still stands, Basil wanted to interrupt, the words burning in his throat. He bit his tongue until he tasted copper and looked at his father.

Alpheo remained a statue of black iron, offering no rebuttal.

Nibadur took the silence as a sign of a crumbling will. "It is a matter of days before we breach it. I offer you terms now so that a forced peace might bloom. But understand this: when those walls fall, my mercy falls with them. The terms will become... harsher. I would suggest that—"

"Lies."

The word cut through Nibadur’s polished oratory like a blade through silk. Alpheo finally looked him in the eye, stopping the Habadian from continuing.

"Every word you have uttered since the greetings has been a lie," Alpheo said, his voice rising "Would you tell them even now, under the very ears of the Five you have invoked? Would you turn this field into a house of deceit while the gods watch? You speak of crushing cockroaches, yet you have spent three months breaking your teeth on a single stone.

And as I look at your chipped teeth. I presume the stone is still unscathed.There is too much hardness in our people for you to swallow, I gather...perhaps hard blood, that is?’’His father gave him a quizzical smile.

Nibadur instead seemed as if he had just swallowed a turd.