"There's nothing you can do to protect your daughter, let alone a grassroots mage who's this close to being considered a traitor for turning his back to the Kingdom in its hour of need against the undead.

"The incoming storm will end both their lives, yet you have the power to spare them from such a cruel destiny. Give me what I want and all will be well."

"I'll show myself out. Farewell, Velan." Jirni's voice was shaken as she walked through the door with wavering steps.

Only once she was certain no one was following her along the corridor and Orion's buttons didn't detect any surveillance spell, did she regain her confidence. Her worried grimace disappeared and was replaced by a stone-cold face.

"Did you get everything, dear?" She said in her communication earpiece.

"Yes. It's almost exactly as you predicted, only that now we have Velan saying it with his own voice instead of just another of your 'paranoid' theories." Orion inwardly cursed at those who had refused to take his wife seriously due to the lack of proof.

"I'm not worried about Velan, so much as about Kallion. That little runt needs a lesson. Make sure that Mirim hears the recording. In this game, she is our queen." Jirni closed the call and made sure to retrace her steps.

Lady Ernas collected the small beads she had left on her way in before someone could notice them. All the important households were protected by dimensional sealing arrays that prevented eavesdropping, the use of communication amulets, and even recording devices.

Communication earpieces, however, didn't rely on dimensional magic to work, but only on air magic. They transmitted the sound without recording it. It was the reason why they had a short range that made them useful for small teams on recon missions but not for spy works.

Jirni, however, had placed several relays that had transmitted her conversation with Velan to the other receiver in Kamila's ear. She was waiting outside the array's area of effect, with Jirni's communication amulet in one hand and a signal amplifier in the other.

The set up had allowed Orion to listen and record everything even though he was hundreds of kilometers away, giving Velan's spies the opportunity to keep an eye on him.

Once she left the Deirus Household, Jirni thanked Kamila for her help and the gods for giving her a deputy she could trust. Velan would have never felt confident enough to spill the beans if Lady Ernas brought along a member of her family.

That's why Jirni had made sure all her relatives were in places where Velan's spies could find and follow them easily. Jirni was known to trust no one and putting such knowledge in the hands of someone who could exploit it to their ends was a gamble that Archmage Deirus knew Jirni would never take.

Yet it was exactly what she had done.

Velan Deirus was a brilliant man, who had worked hard all his life and became an Archmage before he was even forty. He had achieved such a feat thanks to his talent for magic and his political ingenuity that allowed him to be at least five steps ahead of his competition.

Jirni Ernas, however, was a manipulator from a bloodline of manipulators who had mastered human interaction as it was a martial art. Be it politics, relationships, or work, Lady Ernas had learned from a tender age that just staying ahead was pointless.

Jirni knew that the only way no opponent could ever beat her was if she wasn't even playing their same game.

***

Once she got back to Belius, Captain Yehval was still shaken from the revelation that it was Archmage Deirus behind all the disciplinary notes in Lith's file and the cold reception he had received during his service as a Ranger despite his outstanding performance.

'I don't know what's worse. Whether to know that there is such a huge threat on the horizon or not being able to tell Lith until I meet him in person. Lady Ernas insisted that no channel is safe enough and she was damn right from the beginning.' Kamila thought.

She walked through the familiar halls of the command room where she had worked along with the other analysts and handlers for years. Until a couple of years ago, her colleagues were the only family she had and now most of them treated her as a stranger.

Some deeply respected Kamila for her career-making move of approaching Lady Ernas during the mission in Othre. Others envied her and thought that they would be in her place if only Ranger Verhen had been assigned to them.

All of them gave her the salute for a few months now and either treated her with deference or spat the moment she turned her back. Kamila had only a handful of friends left and she was cut off from the office's gossip, so she couldn't make head or tails of their behavior.

'I'm just a freshly appointed Captain with no authority. Everyone knows that Lith is going to leave the army and that Lady Ernas's position is getting shakier by the day because of Phloria's trial. What do they know that I don't?' She thought.

Kamila walked to her desk, collecting the last of her things. Lith was the only officer she was in charge of as handler and soon she would become a full-time Royal Constable.

'I wonder if distance will put a dent into our relationship. As long as Lith was a Ranger, he had to call me every day and, as his handler, I was allowed extra free time to take care of him.

'Once I become just his girlfriend, however, the army will revoke all our privileges. Maybe I should ask Lady Ernas for…' Her train of thought derailed when General Berion called her amulet to summon her to his office.

Even from his hologram, Kamila could notice that the General had a shaky voice and was sweating bullets. She knew Berion as a man who wouldn't even flinch in front of his own death, so seeing him upset was ominous at best.

Her gut feeling turned into a knot the moment when she opened the door to the office, finding that Berion was standing to the sides while Queen Sylpha herself was sitting at his desk.

Kamila had only met the Queen twice and both times at galas where they had barely exchanged a few words. She was so stunned that she gave the Queen the salute while performing a curtsy.

"Close the door, Captain Yehval." Sylpha didn't even raise an eyebrow at Kamila's comical performance.

As soon as Kamila obeyed the Queen performed the final hand signs for a powerful set of arrays that sealed the room so that nothing and no one could get in or out the room.

"Sit down. We have much to discuss. This conversation is related to state affairs, so disclosing its contents to anyone will be considered as an act of treason and punished according to our law. Am I clear?" Sylpha asked.

"Yes, Your Highness." Kamila gave her a bow, incapable of standing the Queen's steel gaze.

"Only you, General Berion, and I are allowed to discuss the matter at hands. Ranger Verhen and even Archon Ernas are not granted clearance to know until the events will be set in motion.

"There's a huge storm brewing on the horizon and secrecy is of the utmost importance."