Conner ran back toward the town's levy and took command of the men.
The levies were already assembled when he arrived, farmers with crude helms, a handful of old soldiers, boys pressed into service with more courage than sense. They stood in rough ranks, waiting for Julius's orders as if they'd been built to him all along.
Conner moved straight to the building behind the levies.
An old man stepped forward.
"We await your command, Commander Conner," he said.
"At ease," Conner replied. "We know one another here, no need for formalities." He glanced at the men and the thin line they formed, then toward the town beyond. The governor and a small circle of elders were gathered nearby, faces pinched with worry.
"The enemy was near by night. They'll be here soon," another older man warned.
Conner didn't like the governor, he never had, but this was not the moment for old grievances. He knew how to set aside politics for the work at hand.
"Do not worry," Conner said, meeting the steward's eyes. "We have an emergency plan. We will strike at the heart of the town. They will regret coming here." Then he stepped back outside.
Under the watchful gazes of his men he seized his sword and mounted his horse. With a roar that pulled at the square like a bell, he addressed the levies.
"My brave soldiers! The enemy is near. They come for our land, our homes, our empire. Will we let them take it?"
He swept his gaze across the ranks. Some men had no shoes; some armor was patched so often its original shape was lost. It was impossible to ignore how thinly the Empire's defenses had been stretched. Julius thought of the crumbling glory he had grown up respecting, the lords who no longer paid taxes, the crown that no longer held its weight.
"Today we face the enemy. Today we protect our home. Today we defend our empire. Today we are the last line of defense and today we crush the enemy to the ground. Are you with me?"
A rough cheer rose, ragged but real. The levies tightened their grips on spears and pikes. They were tired men and frightened but Conner's voice had given them a shape to hold.
---
Julius and Octavia had reached the road just outside town when they saw the flames.
"Mother, what will happen now?" Julius asked in a low voice.
Octavia forced a smile she did not feel. "We'll go to the capital, the place I told you about. The academy, the palace… all the things you imagine." She tried to steer him toward wonder, though her own hands trembled. She did not want to tell him the truth.
"What about Father?" Julius asked, pride in his voice and dread in his chest.
Octavia froze at the question. For a heartbeat she could not speak; then she lowered her voice to a whisper. "I don't know, Kealmar. You mustn't think about that right now. He will do what he must."
Julius was a smart child. He understood more than she allowed. The look he gave her asked the question she did not answer and she let the silence speak instead.
"Come on. We don't have time to stay,"
Octavia said, steadying herself. "Move."
---
Back in the square, Conner and his men held their line, waiting through a roar that grew nearer by the heartbeat. At first the noise sounded like many feet; then distinct drums and a peculiar march rose through the smoke. The soldiers around him stiffened—the cadence was familiar enough to plant unease.
Conner had heard rumors that the Empire itself had turned to strange measures: forced levies, scraps taken from its own provinces, desperate officials plundering where they once protected. The idea that the Sun Empire, which Conner had always seen as a protector, could be turning on its own people felt impossible yet that very notion wormed into the square like a cold question.
He pushed it away. There were men to position, gates to hold, and a town to buy time for. Questions of loyalty would have to wait until the living were safe. For now, the only thing that mattered was the line beneath his horse and the men who trusted his voice.
The enemy drew closer until their banners were clear — not invaders from a distant land, but a lord of the Sun Empire itself. The town's force numbered roughly a thousand; the enemy, about five thousand. Conner felt the weight of the numbers like a cold hand in his gut. Their defenders didn't even have proper weapons. There was only one chance: strike when the enemy least expected it.
Both armies stared at each other across the field. A messenger rode forward under a white cloth and shouted the demand: surrender now and no harm will come. Everyone who heard knew the lie beneath the promise; they would all die if they yielded. The town refused.
Fate tightened like a rope. Conner felt it in his bones. He moved to the front of his ragged formation and raised his sword high.
"My friends, the time has come. With me, charge!"
They gave him everything they had. The enemy had no time to understand what happened before the town's line fell upon them.
It was a bloodbath; the invaders had stalled only long enough for their lord to step from his tent and pull their nerve back into place. The attackers' ranks straightened, breath steadied, and the tide that had favored the town began to roll the other way. The defenders found themselves thrown from an answer into a desperate hold, outnumbered, underarmed, but merciless all the same.
No one could get close to Conner. Men that tried to reach him simply vanished into the wake he cut: a spear met the flat of his blade and snapped, a charging man caught a pommel to the wrist and toppled, another dove for a gap and never rose.
He moved through the press like a living wedge, blunt, efficient, unstoppable in purpose. Where a shield rose too slow his sword found the seam; where a man lunged, Conner met him with a turning parry that used the attacker's momentum to throw him face-first into a broken stall. The square narrowed around him into a corridor of bodies and clotted dust; every struck blade sent up a shower of sparks that smelled like iron and burning
"Coward! Fight me and you will see the might of the Empire!" Conner shouted.
Benedict's reply slipped through the smoke with a thin, cruel laugh. "And what are you, Conner, the man who left the Empire when it needed you most? You are the real coward here."