Light awoke to the soft, golden light of dawn filtering through the window of his wooden house. He sat up, the aches from his long journey were now gone.
Outside, he could hear the distant, joyful shouts of children at play. A small, strategic smile touched his lips. His past life as Aerion had taught him many things about conquest, and one lesson stood out above all others:
A siege is won not with catapults, but with a single cart of bread thrown over the wall. Hunger for kindness is stronger than the hunger for battle.
He moved with a quiet purpose, grinding the dark, shimmering tea leaves with a stone mortar and pestle.
These were A-Grade leaves, a luxury from the capital, infused with a faint hint of mana. As he boiled the clean water he had summoned, he thought about his plan.
The adults were suspicious, their pride a fortress wall. But the children... their curiosity was the unguarded gate.
