Interlude XXII – Ashen's Calculus
Ashen traced lines in the snow with a knife point, her mercenaries clustered close.
"Seraphine will have to strike soon," she said calmly. "She's too proud to wait. That's when she'll bleed the most."
One of her lieutenants frowned. "And if she holds? If she simply walls herself in?"
Ashen's smile was patient, cold. "Walls don't save you. They only delay the moment you learn how much you've lost."
----
Interlude XXIII – Darius' Balance
Darius stood on a low rise, eyes narrowed at the faint torchlight flickering along Seraphine's battlements.
"She's going to break the stalemate," he murmured.
A Wanderer beside him asked, "Do we intervene?"
Darius shook his head slowly. "Not yet. Let her and Ashen carve each other down. Balance isn't forcing the scales—it's waiting until the weight tips on its own."
----
Interlude XXIV – System Log
[INFINITE REALMS – AGGRESSOR PHASE]
Status: Defensive Stability Declining.
Threat Modifier Unlocked: [SIEGE PRESSURE].
Warning: Probability of Realm Loss Increased to 37%.
Countermeasure Suggestion: Proactive Engagement.
----
The fortress walls groaned under another night of drums.
Seraphine paced the war room, her boots heavy on stone. Valeria stood stiff at her side, helmet tucked beneath one arm. Noctis lounged at the table's edge, flipping a dagger lazily.
The map before them was simple: citadel at the center, enemy camps encircling. Too many fires, too many shadows.
"They'll tighten the noose until we strangle," Valeria said grimly. "We can't last."
"Then we don't wait," Seraphine answered. Her voice carried the same steel she didn't quite feel.
Valeria blinked. "You mean to strike out?"
"Yes."
Noctis's smirk deepened. "Finally. Thought you'd never say it."
The order spread at dawn: a counter-raid.
Soldiers whispered in the halls, fear and relief mingling. Action meant hope, even if it carried death.
When the gates opened, Seraphine rode at the front, sword gleaming. Valeria's shield wall pressed beside her, Noctis slipping between ranks like a shadow.
Snow crunched under boots. The air was knives against their skin.
The silence broke when arrows hissed from the treeline.
"Shields up!" Valeria barked.
The wall rose. Arrows rattled off steel and wood. Then Seraphine's hand lifted, her blade pointing forward.
"Advance."
They surged into the woods.
The ambush was swift and merciless. Ashen's mercenaries waited in staggered lines, blades glinting in the half-light.
Steel clashed in bursts of chaos. Valeria rammed through the front line like a battering ram, her shield splintering spears. Noctis vanished into the trees, reappearing behind enemy archers with a grin slick in blood.
Seraphine fought like a storm. Her sword carved arcs of silver, each strike punctuated by a roar. She cut down two, three, four men in a breath, her cape torn and dripping.
But Ashen had prepared for her.
The second wave struck from the flank—armored sellswords with hooked spears meant to drag shield-bearers down.
Valeria's formation buckled. Screams rose as men were pulled into the mud, blades stabbing down into them.
"Hold!" Seraphine's voice thundered, but the line bent further.
For a heartbeat she saw it: collapse. Ashen's victory.
And she refused it.
She hurled herself into the breach, cutting down the front rank with raw fury. Her soldiers rallied to her, their fear shifting to grim fire.
For a moment, the tide turned.
Ashen appeared on a ridge above, cloak snapping in the wind.
Her voice carried across the chaos, clear as a blade.
"Fall back."
Her mercenaries obeyed without hesitation, pulling away in a disciplined retreat.
Seraphine's soldiers gave chase, but Ashen vanished into the treeline, her army scattering like smoke.
The field was theirs.
But it was a graveyard.
Bodies lay thick in the snow, red blooming wide. Half of Seraphine's force limped or bled, many beyond saving.
Valeria knelt by the dead, jaw tight. Noctis flicked blood from his daggers, grinning faintly though his eyes tracked Seraphine.
And Seraphine stood in the center, her sword heavy, chest heaving.
They had struck back. They had survived. But the cost was gouged into the ground around them.
And Ashen had chosen to retreat. Not lost. Chosen.
That truth pressed heavier than the blood on her hands.
The survivors dragged themselves back through the citadel gates.
Cheers rose faintly from those who remained inside, but it was hollow. Every face looked at the wounds, at the missing, at the truth no one wanted to speak:
If this was victory, how many more victories could they endure?
That night, Seraphine walked the battlements alone. Snow drifted, covering the churned mud of the battlefield below.
Her hands still shook from the weight of her blade. Her soldiers slept, if they could.
She looked west, toward the hills where Ashen had vanished. Somewhere out there, her enemy smiled.
Seraphine whispered to the night, a vow that felt like a prayer and a curse in one:
"I'll break you before I break myself."
The drums did not return.
But the silence was worse.