Lucian's pov
The council chamber had always been a waste of my time. I sat at the table watching the same useless faces waiting to tell me that nothing had changed.
"Still nothing," I said, not even asking.
The eldest, Hakin, cleared his throat carefully. "The Great Library at the Frozen Pillar has been searched thoroughly, Alpha. Your men—"
"My men spent 10 billion to be able to access that Library. If an archive of that size can't find a record of the Black rose and its connection to that riddle, then it isn't a Library but a scam."
"Waste,"Vraal growled in my mind. "We should have spent that gold on more silver-tipped spears. Books don't win wars, Lucian."
"Tell the scouts to look deeper. If they come back empty-handed again without finding the meaning to that riddle, they don't come back at all."
I stood up, looking at the massive map on the table. My eyes drifted past our established borders, settling on a small cluster of dots near the northern neutral zone.
