Melissa held her cloak closed against the cool air the beginning of winter had brought as she walked down a busy road in one of Pel Harvand’s poorer quarters. Soon the snow would come, making everything more difficult for her family. Andreas, her youngest son, would need new winter clothing after the growth spurt this year. Money was tight, even with her husband’s army pay. He’d been just too old for the draft, but volunteering had come with a bonus, and they needed the money. It was getting harder to find work for people without useful skills or training. At least her older son had been able to land an apprenticeship…

She entered an alley and slowed when she saw the two cloaked figures that were standing in front of her home. It shouldn’t be the gang, she’d paid the protection money. One of the two had a crossbow, but it was unstrung and fixed to their pack. The two were in quiet discussion, so Melissa carefully walked closer, ready to run at any moment.

The one with the crossbow noticed her first, the cloak’s cowl revealing a young man’s face as his eyes snapped towards her.

Melissa steeled herself, straightening her back and tightly grasping the knife at her belt.

“Can I help you?” She asked forcefully.

The young man gave her a curious look but remained silent. She was about to speak again, when the other figure turned towards her.

“…mom?”

Melissa froze. She couldn’t believe her ears, nor her eyes when the person dropped her cowl, frigid wind blowing through dark hair that was so similar to her own. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Salissa?”

Her daughter smiled, fear and guilt warring with happiness and hope.

“I’m home.”

--- ----- ---

A few kilometers away in the ducal palace, Duke Bertold Harvand leaned back with a subdued sigh, watching as the gathered officials moved to leave, some of them in quiet conversation. His eyes roamed to the window overlooking the sea. A seagull, his family’s – and his country’s – heraldic animal, was drifting on the breeze, scouting the waves for sustenance. He pulled himself out of his thoughts and turned to an elderly man that was just getting up.

“Lord Pondris, please stay for a moment. You as well, General.”

Lord Vander Pondris, the duchy’s aging spymaster, and General Marcus, its highest-ranking soldier exchanged a quick glance and pulled up the two closest chairs. The others looked back curiously, but soon the room was empty and the door closed quietly.

Duke Harvand was young, but not overly so, as streaks of grey had already started to mar his auburn beard and hair. Compared to the two relics that served him he was a veritable spring chicken, fresh out of the egg. Both of them had held their posts since the time of his father, while Lord Pondris had even served his grandfather, albeit in a different capacity. Decades of dealing with uppity lords, inflexible officials and the ever-slowly grinding gears of bureaucracy had taught them many things, and first among those was patience.

Which was why neither of them so much as bat an eyelid when their duke stayed silent for a while, long after they were alone.

Finally, duke Harvand’s thoughts were sufficiently ordered.

“I wanted to talk to you about Marrad.” Bertold said. “His actions still make no sense, and I feel like there is something we are missing.”

“Your grace,” Lord Pondris replied slowly, “we have had this conversation before. Both of us agreed with you that his actions seem erratic and illogical, but my ravens have made no progress on figuring out the brat’s reasoning.”

“What about their navy?” Harvand asked. “Maybe this whole cavalry business is a diversion, and he plans a naval invasion.”

“I can assure you, your grace, that would be even more foolish than running headfirst into our city shields.” General Marcus said, shaking his head. “The only places fit for disembarking a sizeable force are either right here or up north in Pel Miyad. Attacking our capital from the sea is a fool’s errand, and Pel Miyad is the farthest point from Marrad’s ports. They would have to sail up our entire coast, giving us plenty of time to move against them. Even if they managed to take the city, we could easily hold the pass up the cliff with a fairly small force, making it an utter waste of forces and material on their part.”

“Preparing a naval invasion would also be a massive undertaking.” Lord Pondris added. “Our assets in their logistical infrastructure would detect any attempts in that regard weeks in advance. I can assure you: No such attack is being prepared at this time.”

“What then?” Duke Harvand said, slapping the table. “Because I know that he is an idiot, but even he isn’t stupid enough for this. Marcus, are you sure about those numbers?”

“Yes, your grace. Once the fourth and fifth division have finished their preparations and reinforce our border, I am confident that we can at least hold it. My staff has even simulated a few scenarios in which we let them push on Pel Mahavir and use the city shield as either an anvil for a major flanking maneuver, or a distraction to make gains on a different flank.”

The soldier paused, deliberately folding his hands on the tabletop.

“We still struggle to calculate the impact their cavalry will have, I am afraid. If it is worse than we assume, even the fairly small number of mounted soldiers might sway the fighting in their favor. My greatest worry is still our supply situation, however…”

“Of course.” Duke Harvand said, grimacing. The three men were quiet for a while, then the duke spoke again.

“What about Pertam?”

“They say suspiciously little.” Pondris said. “I was not expecting an enthusiastic show of support, but they should have at least tried to solve this diplomatically, as they usually do. I have dispatched additional ravens to find out what is going on down there, but my resources are stretched thin. I have no reason to believe that Pertam will support the brat, but it does not seem like they will support us either. For now, at least.”

“Disappointing.” The Duke said with a frown. “If they did join forces, what would that mean for us, general?”

“I will run the question by my staff, your grace, but I think we might still be able to hold. We would have to give up our entire holdings east of the Rift, of course, but I believe we would still be able to keep our heartland safe. Pertam’s army is… less experienced than Marrad’s, especially outside of the flat terrain of their homeland.”

The duke looked down at the table in thought, his fingers absently tracing the elaborate carvings that adorned it.

“So the threat comes not from our allies, nor by land or sea. What then, from the air? Has he tamed a dragon now as well?”

His two advisors exchanged another look, the long-time colleagues, friends and allies holding an entire conversation between the two blinks, then General Marcus leaned forwards.

“Your grace, we understand your… caution in this matter. My staff is preparing for any scenario they can think of, scouts from all three divisions are out in the wasteland looking for any hints of Marradi trickery, and the ravens are leaving no stone unturned in trying to ferret out their plots. There is nothing more we can do.”

Pondris nodded. “At this point we need to trust in the steps we have taken and the people we have assigned to the task. If we let the brat rattle us, we are handing him an advantage he has not earned. If there truly is a plot, I trust that we will know about it soon enough to take measures to contain it. If we lose our cool and react to a perceived threat, however, Marrad does not need any kind of secret plan to defeat us. At this time, the best we can do is hold firm.”

Bertold mulled over the words of his head spy, then sighed.

“You are correct, of course. Still, I cannot shake the feeling that we are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Marcus, maybe you can have your staff increase their efforts on the simulations. I would feel better if you told me that we truly had a plan for every eventuality, however unlikely it might be.”

The general inclined his head.

“Of course, your grace. In fact, while we are on the matter, a short while ago I received a report from the fifth division. Apparently, General Asher sent out a banner of recruits to aid the Guild in the extermination of a major goblin nest.”

“Oh?” Bertold cocked his head in surprise. “I thought you had declined the Guild’s request for aid.”

“Ah, that was a slightly different matter. Asher was well within his right to approve this specific operation. Anyway, the extermination was successful, and despite stiff resistance, including a magic-wielding goblin shaman, the combined force took only minimal casualties.”

Both the duke and lord Pondris looked surprised at that piece of information. The general continued.

“Now, the Guildmaster said that the monster wave is almost over, which should greatly reduce the strain on his personnel. Together with this new report, that gave me an idea…”

The duke and Lord Pondris leaned forward in their chairs as the three most powerful men in the duchy stuck their heads together to plot a secret scheme of their own.

As the sun slowly sank above the tranquil waves, the three duchies were just as surely sinking into a sea of strife and turmoil, their leaders determined to write their destinies with their own hands – if necessary, in blood.