Valerius stood over him, his expression cold and unimpressed.
"Do you think a month of training would be enough to negotiate with me using your physical strength, Ivan?" he asked.
Ivan was on the floor, gasping for breath. The kick had been precise. It had stolen his air but broken no bones. He pushed himself up, leaning against the fallen weapon rack, the cool steel of a sword pressing against his back.
"No," Ivan said, his voice raw. "I was just trying to get you to listen."
Valerius scoffed. "By pulling a knife? You have a strange way of holding a conversation."
"You weren't listening!" Ivan yelled, his voice echoing in the small office. "You dismissed me like a child!"
"You are a fucking child," Valerius said. He walked back to his desk and picked up his half-smoked cigarette, relighting it with a small flint lighter. "A child who failed his first real test and now thinks he understands war because he read a book."
"This isn't about me!" Ivan insisted, forcing himself to his feet. The pain in his chest was unbearable. "It's about Alaric. He's walking into a trap."
Valerius's expression softened for a fraction of a second, but his voice remained hard. "This is Alaric we are talking about, Ivan. The Crown Prince. At your age, he was already leading training patrols on the northern border. He could best knights twice his age. He is the finest soldier this Empire has produced in a generation."
"Even the finest soldier can die if he walks into an ambush!" Ivan shot back, his voice cracking with a genuine, desperate fear for his brother. "Even Alaric can die!"
The words hung in the air. The casual confidence in the room vanished. Valerius's face became a mask of stone. He took a slow drag from his cigarette.
"Do not speak of such things," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "The Crown Prince will not fall to a pack of rabid dogs in the plains."
"They are not dogs!" Ivan said, stepping forward, away from the weapons. "They are organized. They are intelligent. The book I read..."
"The book you cannot name," Valerius cut him off. "A convenient fantasy from a boy who wants attention."
Ivan ignored the insult. He tried a different tactic. He pointed to the large map of the Golden Plains on the desk. "Look at the canyon. It's a perfect kill box. If you were the enemy commander, where would you place your ambush?"
Valerius looked at the map. His military mind, honed by decades of war and strategy, could not ignore the tactical problem. He walked to the desk, his eyes tracing the lines of the terrain.
"Here," he said, his finger tapping the high ridges on the east side of the canyon. "And here. To block the exit. You would let the vanguard pass through, then strike the main body from above, causing chaos and blocking any retreat."
"See?" Ivan said, a flicker of hope in his voice. "You see the danger."
"I see a theoretical danger," Valerius corrected him, straightening up. "One that exists in every military campaign. Alaric is not a fool. His scouts will sweep the ridges before the main force enters."
"Their scouts won't find anything," Ivan said, remembering the terrifying details from his past life. "The Devourers burrow. They hide underground. They wait until the main force is inside the trap, then they emerge from all sides at once."
Valerius looked at him with deep suspicion. He put his cigarette out in a small stone tray on his desk. "Burrow? What book did you read that contained such a specific, and frankly, ridiculous detail?"
Ivan was trapped again. He had no answer. "It... it was a very old text," he stammered. "The pages were torn. It was a bestiary from the First Age."
Valerius shook his head, his patience gone. "Enough. This conversation is over. You have a vivid imagination, Prince Ivan. Nothing more. You have been reading too many of Kaelen's epic poems."
"So you're just going to do nothing?" Ivan asked, his voice full of disbelief. "You're going to let him walk into it?"
"I am going to trust the Commander of the First Legion to do his duty," Valerius said firmly. "And you are going to go back to the palace and do yours. Which is to stay out of matters that do not concern you."
He turned his back on Ivan, a clear dismissal. He began rolling up the map of the Golden Plains. The negotiation had failed completely.
Ivan stood there, his fists clenched at his sides, his body trembling with rage. He had failed. Again. He had come here with a plan, and it had been shattered against a wall of duty and disbelief.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to fight. He wanted to do something, anything. But he knew it was useless. Valerius was an unmovable object.
He turned to leave the office, his shoulders slumped in defeat. All of this had all amounted to nothing. He was just a boy who had been kicked in the chest.
As he reached the broken doorway, he heard soft, approaching footsteps in the hallway. The sound was calm and measured.
He looked up.
Prince Gareth was walking toward him. His scholarly robes were slightly damp from the night air. His spectacles were perched on his nose, and his expression was one of weary disappointment. He looked like a tutor who had been called in the middle of the night to deal with a misbehaving student.
Gareth stopped in front of him. He glanced past Ivan at the mess in the Commander's office—the splintered door, the scattered weapons on the floor. Then he looked back at his younger brother's disheveled state. He sighed.
"Ivan," Gareth said, his voice quiet but firm, carrying the weight of academic authority. "Let's go back to the palace."
He paused, adjusting his spectacles as he delivered the final blow.
"There is nothing worse than a child who does not know when to stop playing his games."