Location: Main Tower Balcony, Dum-Shadd Fortress

  Ellios despised this place.

  Not for its bleak architecture, but for the very air itself. The sea gale that battered the stone balcony offered no bracing refreshment; rather, it carried an aggressive payload of microscopic salt particles.

  His face, typically meticulously groomed and smooth, now felt tacky, as if coated in a thin, invisible layer of adhesive. His hair was stiff. But the true torment lay in his eyes.

  His hooded eyelids felt impossibly heavy, adhering to one another with every blink. A stinging, abrasive itch forced him to repeatedly grind his knuckles into his eyes, a futile attempt to dislodge the piercing salt crystals. The gale blew on without an ounce of mercy.

  Ellios lowered his hands, surrendering to the profound discomfort.

  He cast a sidelong glance at the small iron table beside him. The porcelain cup containing the Earl Grey tea, served by a thrall a half-hour prior, had long since lost its steam. The liquid within was now tepid, dark, and utterly vile. Upon its surface floated a thin, cloudy white film—a settled layer of sea salt and coastal dust.

  Ellios snorted softly. He would not drink that poison.

  He lowered his gaze once more, staring at the tips of his leather shoes, their polish already dulling under the assault of the briny mist.

  Before him, Duke Renville sat reclined in his massive chair, his broad back to the churning sea, acting as if the crashing waves behind him were nothing more than a tedious mural.

  Their discourse over the past hour had been... blunt.

  Ellios had attempted to cast his finest lures. He had prodded regarding the movements of the Northern Alliance, insinuated the vulnerabilities of Ironseat, and even attempted to stroke the Duke's ego by comparing his martial strength against that of Duke Ferdinand.

  The yield, however, was absolute zero.

  "The stability of the realm is the paramount priority, Son," Renville’s heavy voice echoed flatly, severing Ellios’s speculations. "A true soldier does not question which way the wind blows; he merely ensures his banner remains standing tall."

  Ellios exhaled a long, silent breath.

  It was a standard deflection. A textbook response. A safe, mind-numbing diplomatic platitude that sealed every conceivable avenue of negotiation.

  Renville refused to take the bait. There was no glint of ambition in his eyes, no scent of fear, no appetite for intrigue. He countered every one of Ellios’s provocations with normative dogma regarding "duty," "honor," and "oaths of fealty."

  Ellios felt as though he were attempting to negotiate with the very stone walls of this fortress. Hard, freezing, and entirely apathetic.

  This old man... Ellios thought, his frustration mounting as his eyes narrowed against the stinging wind once more.

  He was a walking fossil. He was entirely blind to the political tempest gathering on the horizon. He was merely a rigid, archaic grandfather, far too enamored with the past to realize the future was already holding a blade to his throat.

  Ellios pulled back from the table, recognizing the futility. There was nothing to be mined from this ancient bedrock save for moss and sheer stubbornness.

  Ellios dabbed at the stinging corners of his eyes with a silk handkerchief that now felt damp and briny. He throttled his frustration, drew a deep breath, and resolved to cast one final, desperate line.

  This time, he aimed squarely at Renville’s closest neighbor.

  "But, My Lord Duke..." Ellios began, elevating his voice slightly to cut through the roar of the sea gale. "What of the East? I hear the Delta of the Great Seine River is growing restless."

  Ellios scrutinized the rugged profile of Gauss’s face.

  "Duke Rahgaras and his volatile ambitions... Your territory and his share a remarkably long, porous border," Ellios continued, meticulously sowing the seeds of paranoia. "House Renville surely does not turn a blind eye to a neighbor who is actively stockpiling wealth and gunpowder right against your own fences, do you? How do you intend to address this?"

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  Silence stretched for a moment. Only the rhythmic crashing of waves against the rocks far below answered.

  Then, Gauss’s broad shoulders began to shake.

  "Bwahahaha!"

  The laughter detonated, unchained and booming, as if Ellios had just delivered the most uproarious jest in existence.

  Gauss Renville shook his head, the remnants of mirth still clinging to his lips. He snatched up his teacup—which was undoubtedly as cold as the sea and saturated with salt—and downed the contents in a single, prolonged gulp without so much as a grimace.

  "Rhavas?" Gauss snorted, slamming the cup down roughly. "That emaciated merchant?"

  He waved a hand through the air, a gesture of profound, effortless dismissal, as if shooing away a bothersome gnat.

  "Let him play in his vineyards, Son. The sun burns much hotter over there, frying the brains of anyone who spends too long thinking."

  Gauss’s ancient eyes locked onto Ellios, yet the gaze was utterly devoid of concern.

  "A lion never loses sleep fretting over what the sheep are doing in the neighboring pasture. So long as he does not attempt to vault my fences, I care not if he wishes to build a fortress out of wine barrels that reaches the sky."

  Ellios fell silent. His jaw hardened into granite.

  That was not the answer he had anticipated. He had expected vigilance, suspicion, or at the very least, a modicum of respect for an enemy's strength. But Gauss Renville genuinely did not give a single damn about Rhavas.

  A truly obstinate old fossil, Ellios thought cynically.

  He evaluated the aging figure before him with a cold, calculating stare. Gauss was exactly like the fortress at his back: ancient, massive, and impossible to reason with.

  Difficult, Ellios mused, his fingers rapping an impatient staccato against the armrest of his chair. Exceedingly difficult to crack a shell this thick to see what lies within.

  Was this the unadulterated arrogance of an aging general who believed himself invincible? Or the sheer idiocy of a man who had isolated himself from the outside world for far too long?

  Whatever the truth, Ellios realized he was hemorrhaging valuable time. In the eyes of Gauss Renville, the political threat of Rhavas was nothing more than dust carried by the wind—irritating, but fundamentally non-lethal. And that made Ellios, the consummate political player, feel entirely useless upon this salt-crusted balcony.

  Ellios braced himself to stand. His legs itched to abandon this damp stronghold. If the South was a dead end, he would pivot his trajectory Westward. Perhaps Ramsas or the Goldenpalm trade routes offered more promise than this old man marooned in the past.

  However, before Ellios could even part his lips to offer his farewells, Gauss Renville’s voice sliced through the air, sharp and sudden.

  "Son..."

  Gauss did not turn his head. His eyes remained anchored to the dark oceanic horizon.

  "...Do not journey to the West just yet."

  Ellios’s ascent halted mid-motion. He stared at the broad back of the old Duke, his brow deeply furrowed.

  "Remain here," Gauss commanded anew, the timbre of his voice dropping—no longer an advisement, but a grave warning.

  Ellios stared at Gauss’s profile in sheer bewilderment. The mask of the "senile grandfather" the Duke had worn moments prior seemed to melt away instantly, usurped by the hard, unforgiving visage of a war veteran scrutinizing a map of impending disaster.

  "Why?" Ellios demanded, his vigilance flaring back to life. "What lies in the West besides sand and merchants?"

  Gauss let out a rough, guttural snort. He slowly swiveled his massive chair, squaring his body entirely toward Ellios. There was no trace of jovial laughter remaining on his face.

  "That sand is boiling, Ellios," Gauss growled.

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows upon his knees, his eyes drilling sharply into Ellios’s own.

  "Ramos Boa is absolutely furious."

  That name froze the blood in Ellios’s veins. The sovereign of the Far West territories. The Republic of Salomos.

  "He is weaponizing this moment of chaos," Gauss continued, his voice heavy and saturated with loathing. "His propaganda is actively poisoning the minds of Carta’s citizens along the border. He spreads his venom through the forked tongues of serpents in the marketplaces..."

  Gauss mimicked the cadence of the agitators with palpable disgust:

  "...'The King is a rabid dog,' they say. 'Prince William has lost his mind,' they say. 'The monarchical system of Carta has failed and rots from the head down'."

  Gauss’s hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles blanched.

  "He offers them a sweet poison called Democracy," Gauss hissed, spitting to the side as if the very word tasted foul upon his tongue. "But he failed, because the Citizens of Carta still possess the Spirit of Heshawara."

  Ellios felt a glacial chill creep up his spine—not from the sea gale, but from the staggering political implications. Heshawara. That was an ancient doctrine that still held power even in this era.

  "That is political suicide," Ellios murmured, steeped in disbelief.

  "That is no mere politics, Son. That is a declaration of total war," Gauss cut in swiftly.

  Those ancient eyes flashed with feral intensity.

  "My intelligence network reports unnatural movements within the sands. Ramos is not merely shouting. He is deploying his grand terrestrial armada..."

  Gauss thrust his sturdy chin toward the west.

  "...Straight through the Goldenpalm Desert. Thousands of combat vehicles, sand-crawling tanks, and heavy artillery are currently cleaving through those dunes as we speak."

  Gauss offered a bitter, skeletal grin.

  "For a mission of absolute conquest against Carta. The putrid intent they have harbored for decades... has finally found its window of opportunity today, while we are all too busy staring at the North and the Sky."

  Ellios was utterly stunned.

  He had assumed Gauss was blind and deaf, rotting away in this isolated fortress. As it turned out, this old man had perceived a catastrophic threat that had completely eluded Ellios’s own network of spies.

  The West was mobilizing to plunge a dagger into the soft underbelly of Carta, bearing the false banner of revolution and very real steel. And Ellios... had nearly walked straight into the maw of that lion.