Meanwhile
On the other side
The encampment in the Middle Ring smelled of wet iron and old promises. Tarps snapped in a wind that carried the copper tang of spare blood, and fires burned low in iron basins, throwing a sickly, shuddering light across faces that had learned to look polite in the dark. Kreg's banners were not banners in any noble sense; they were torn strips of cloth sewn onto poles, each strip marked with a sigil that read like a warning more than an emblem. Men and women moved with the tight choreography of those who had rehearsed a single act of war for too long.
At the center of the camp, a long table of rough planks had been spread under a canopy. Maps lay across it, pins and strings and little clay markers in place of soldiers. A man with a voice like gravel and teeth like old coins kept tallying routes and supply lines; another argued for a diversionary strike along the river. They spoke with the confidence that comes from repetition: the plan, refined, polished, repeated until it felt inevitable.
Kreg listened like a man who collects the world's noise and distills only the parts he needs, just like a swan. He sat back from the map and let the others continue. His countenance was an armor unto itself — distance and appetite braided in a face that had weathered more than the ordinary man's longings. The Blacknight Dragon Sword rested near his hand on the table, the flat of its scabbard embedded with a runic pattern that drank the light like black glass. It hummed faintly, the way a caged thing hums when it remembers wings.
"Let us push through the middle ring at dusk." a general said, pointing at a narrow pass where the city's stone softened into market alleys. "They have fewer patrols there at the end of the day. If we break in and push through to the inner ring, the K.P.P. will be forced to move. We can cut them off from their reserve lines."
Another man, younger, suggested a feint — send a small force north to draw air support away.
Kreg's fingers flexed once on the hilt. The hum under his palm answered like a throat cleared. He did not like the clatter of small plans. He liked the precision of a single, decisive instrument. "No feints." he said quietly. "We do not disperse what we are. We point and we drive. The inner ring is the heart. Strike the heart and the limbs will flail."
The generals exchanged quick glances. They had learned not to let the hush of Kreg's voice be the only answer. Debate continued at the edges of his silence like smoke skirting a bonfire. They worked numbers and maps. Kreg watched them with a patience that made them braver and also smaller.
Razille arrived then — she had the gait of someone who knew which shadows could be trusted. Her postknight garb had been altered just enough that she did not look like a courier but not enough to read as a soldier. She carried no weapon openly; something smaller and less obvious was hid in the fold of her cloak. She passed the sentries with a nod and moved to stand at Kreg's side.
For a heartbeat, the generals quieted. Razille had been the ghost that had slipped between the kingdom's seams; now she stood at the center of the plan. Her hair fell in a dark ribbon, and there was an intensity about her that could have been courtesy or a threat, depending on the hour's lighting.
"Father," she said, too quietly for strategy-voices to catch. There was a curl of something like warmth in the word that did not fit the sparseness of the camp.
Kreg turned his head without taking his hand from the sword. The motion was smooth and practiced, as if he had done it in sleep. "You are late." he said.
"I had to make certain the story took hold there." she replied. "The square yesterday was precisely timed. The people were ready. Orsic moved. The K.P.P. made the spectacles as usual. And the Postknights—"
Kreg's smile was almost a thing of amusement then, if a smile could be carved from iron. "You did as you were told to." he said. "You have done you job pretty well."
Razille's lip twitched. "I did not — I did not intend to harm. I never wanted—"
"You wanted to be near me. Right?" Kreg asked. His voice did not flash; it was a low undoing. "Do not use innocence as a cloak where talk is needed. You are not a child who misplaces a toy. You are the instrument who will bring justice to what misfortune WE have faced all those years."
She bristled, and for a breath she behaved like the woman who had once leapt in defense of a quiet village. "I am not your tool, father." she said, the word 'father' carrying a different pressure than it had before — less reverence and more accusation. "I am a human being just like others."
Something in Kreg's eyes tightened; his hand closed on the scabbard until his knuckles paled. He stood and stepped across the table toward her. The generals fell silent as the air tightened. Even in the camp that had learned to listen to blades as if they were voices, the father's rage was a new shape.
"It seems," Kreg said, and his voice went cold as a removed sun, "you have made friends while pretending to serve my cause."
He dismissed the commanders with a single tilt of his head. "Leave us... for now." he ordered, and they, knowing the art of obedience to menace, and not daring to be the wrong kind of insolent, slipped away like tide-threads from a rock. Only the rustle of canvas and distant murmurs remained.
When the tent became empty, saved for the two of them, Kreg came close. He took Razille by the throat — not in a sudden flare, but with a sure, practiced motion that left no room for the stirring of the heart. She made a small sound and did not strike back. He wanted the look of surprise on her face; perhaps he wanted it to prove something cruel to himself.
"You would trade me for those puny friends of your?" he said, the words like a blade being put to slow use. "This kingdom took everything from me. From us. My law was stripped out, my honor trampled, my office rendered into mockery. They took my name and turned it into a jest. They took my family and they made graves where houses had stood. And then, when there was an opening, they called me a criminal and sealed me in that damn prison."
Razille's eyes found his. They were steady in a way that made the words more terrible. "Your pain is not a license for the kind of darkness you are bringing. Please there is still time. We can end this peacefully." she said.
Kreg's grip tightened. "Huh? End this? You think I am an idiot. You think I do not remember the faces who cheered when my house was broken?" His voice came through a thin throat of memory. "Do you think I do not remember how the law turned its back because of political convenience? They made heroes of men who lied. They put a god on their lips and used it as a mask. I will not bow to a world that mistakes cowardice for caution. I will take this kingdom and I will teach it what it accepts as truth."
Razille's breath came in quick little pulls against his fingers. There was fear there, and also something like defiance. "Is that why you came back?" she asked. "To teach the whole world... the grief?"
"This world owes me some score to settle." Kreg said. "And you—" He released her then in a deliberate manner, not out of tenderness but with the care of one setting down an instrument. Razille fell to her knees on the dirt of the camp, hands pressed to the place on her throat where his fingers had been.
"You will not let me be soft." she whispered, not entirely pleading. "I wanted a quiet life, a life where—"
"A quiet life?" Kreg's laugh was a small fracture of sound. "A life of peace for you would be to accept the theft of all we were and walk into the shadow. No. You have done what you must to be seen. You have been the hand in the kingdom. I will not be the man who lets you be small."
He reached down and lifted her by the jaw with a rough tenderness that made her flinch. "You will stand in the blaze." he said softly. "And if you cannot stand, you will hold the sword until you can."
Razille's eyes glimmered with something between revolt and sorrow. She said nothing. She had not left anything on the camp for pity; she had accepted the role she had claimed and the price that would follow. She had been his means — his child, his emissary, his shadow. For all that she had once been a companion to the Postknights, the father had remade her into a weapon.