# Chapter 975: A King's Desperation
The world screamed. Not with sound, but with a silent, shuddering agony that vibrated up from the soles of their boots and into the marrow of their bones. Prince Cassian stood on the ridge overlooking the great basin where the World-Tree had dominated the landscape for a thousand years. Now, it was dying. Its colossal trunk, a pillar of living wood that had scraped the clouds, was buckling. A deep, splintering crack, miles long, fissured its bark, and from within, a light not of life but of decay pulsed in a sickening, arrhythmic beat. The sky, once a crisp, indifferent blue, wept. Not with rain, but with tears of shimmering, ethereal light that fell like slow-motion fireworks, each one a dying memory of the tree. The air tasted of ozone and bitter ash, a scent of finality. A low groan, the sound of a mountain tearing itself apart, rolled across the battlefield, silencing the war cries of both men and monsters.
Cassian's gauntleted hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, the worn leather creaking in protest. Beside him, Kaelen "The Bastard" Vor spat a curse, his brutal face, usually a mask of contempt, now etched with a primal fear. "It's coming from inside," the champion growled, his voice a low rumble. "Whatever's happening down there… it's killing the tree."
They all felt it. A pressure, a psychic weight that pressed down on their spirits, whispering of futility and despair. The shadow-minions, the chittering, multi-limbed horrors birthed from the Withering King's power, had momentarily ceased their assault. They stood unnaturally still, their violet eyes all turned toward the great, dying tree as if in worship. They were waiting. Waiting for their master to emerge victorious from the heart of the world.
Cassian's gaze swept over his forces. The combined might of the Crownlands' finest, the Sable League's mercenaries, and the scattered Ladder fighters who had chosen to stand with them. They were a formidable army, a force that could shatter kingdoms. But against this? Against the death of a god? They were nothing. He could see it in their eyes, the way their shoulders slumped, the way their knuckles were white on their weapons. Hope was a finite resource, and the sight of the World-Tree's death throes had just drained the last of it.
"We can't win this," Lady Maera V said, her voice devoid of its usual fire. She rode a magnificent warhorse, but even the beast seemed to sense the end, its head hanging low, its flanks twitching. "Not like this. Not against *that*."
She was right. A direct confrontation was suicide. They would break themselves against the coming tide and achieve nothing but their own annihilation. Soren was down there. Soren, the debt-bound fighter he'd befriended in the Ladder, the man who had become the fulcrum of this entire war. He was their only chance. And he was fighting a battle they could not see, against an enemy they could not comprehend. He needed time. One moment. One single, uninterrupted moment to land a blow that could save them all.
And they were going to give it to him.
Desperation was a cold, sharp thing in Cassian's chest. It cleared his mind, burning away the fear and replacing it with a terrible, crystalline clarity. He was a prince of the Crownlands, raised on tales of duty and sacrifice. He had always believed his destiny was to rule, to build, to preserve. But now, he saw his true purpose. It was not to survive the coming storm. It was to be the lightning rod.
"Sound the charge," Cassian said, his voice quiet, yet it carried over the unnaturally silent battlefield.
Kaelen's head snapped toward him. "What? Your Highness, that's suicide. They'll slaughter us."
"I know," Cassian replied, his eyes fixed on the fissured trunk of the World-Tree. "We are not charging to win. We are charging to be a distraction. We are the message Soren sends to his enemy. We are the scream that covers his footsteps." He turned to face his commanders, his expression grim, his jaw set. "Our goal is not to break their lines. It is to occupy them. To draw every last one of those shadow-things into a fight. To give the man below us the one thing he needs more than anything else. Time."
A heavy silence fell over his command staff. They understood. They all understood. This was not a battle plan. It was a last will and testament.
Maera V met his gaze, her own fear hardening into resolve. She drew her blade, the steel singing in the dead air. "For the Crownlands," she said, her voice ringing with a conviction she no longer truly felt, but would embody until her last breath.
"For Soren," Kaelen added, a savage grin spreading across his face. The Bastard was born for the hopeless fight. He raised his massive axe, its edge glinting with captured light. "Let's go make some noise."
Cassian drew his own sword, the family heirloom that felt impossibly heavy. He looked out at the faces of the soldiers, the men and women who had followed him to the edge of the world. He would not lie to them with pretty words of victory. He would give them the truth.
"The World-Tree is dying!" he roared, his voice amplified by his own Gift, a subtle ability to project his will. "The enemy believes we are broken! They believe we have lost hope! Let them think it! Let them believe it as we crash upon them like the final wave of a dying sea! We do not fight for glory today! We do not fight for survival! We fight so that one man may have his chance! We fight for the future he is trying to win! CHARGE!"
The war horn blew, a single, mournful, defiant note that shattered the oppressive silence. It was the signal. The army of the living, a tapestry of gleaming steel, worn leather, and tattered banners, surged forward. A collective roar erupted from thousands of throats, a sound of pure, unadulterated defiance in the face of oblivion. The ground shook beneath the thunder of their advance.
The shadow-minions turned, their violet eyes flaring with renewed malevolence. The moment of stillness was broken. They screeched, a sound of tearing metal and grinding stone, and surged forward to meet the charge. The two armies collided in a cataclysm of violence and light.
Cassian was at the forefront, a whirlwind of royal steel and desperate purpose. He cut down a spindly creature, its body dissolving into smoke and acrid fumes. Another lunged at him, its claws like obsidian daggers. He parried, the impact jarring him to his shoulder, and drove his sword through its single, burning eye. The world dissolved into a blur of motion. Parry, thrust, dodge, kill. There was no thought, only instinct. The air was thick with the smell of blood, both human and not, and the sharp, electric tang of the Withering King's energy. He saw Kaelen a few yards away, a whirlwind of destruction, his axe felling shadows in wide, brutal arcs. He saw Maera V, her blade a silver blur as she fought back-to-back with a Sable League captain, their movements perfectly in sync.
They were dying. He could see it. For every shadow-fell, two more seemed to take its place. His soldiers were being overwhelmed, their individual courage swallowed by the sheer, endless numbers of the enemy. This was a meat grinder. A sacrifice. And it was working. He could feel the psychic pressure from the World-Tree lessen, just for a second, as the Withering King's attention was drawn to the nuisance on its doorstep. *Give him a moment,* Cassian thought, his arm burning with fatigue. *Just give him one more moment.*
He fought his way toward a slight rise, a place where he could see the flow of the battle, where he could rally his flagging forces. As he crested the small hill, his heart sank. A new wave of shadows was pouring from the fissure in the World-Tree, larger and more terrifying than the first. They were being reinforced. The diversion was failing. They were being consumed too quickly.
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the din of battle. A high-pitched, keening wail from behind him. He spun around, sword raised, expecting a flank attack. Instead, he saw a figure stumbling out of a narrow, dark opening in the ground—a root cavern, one of the many that honeycombed the earth beneath the tree. It was a woman, her Synod acolyte robes torn and covered in grime. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief. It was Isolde, the Inquisitor-in-training who had been tasked with monitoring Soren. He'd thought her dead, lost in the initial collapse.
She staggered toward him, her legs barely supporting her. The fighting seemed to part around her, as if the chaos itself was too stunned by her sudden appearance. Cassian met her halfway, catching her as she fell. She was trembling violently.
"Your Highness," she gasped, her voice a ragged whisper. She looked past him, at the desperate, losing battle, at the dying tree weeping its light into the ash-choked air. Then her eyes locked onto his. They were filled with a wild, impossible light.
"He's alive," she said, the words torn from her lungs. "He's alive."
Cassian's breath caught in his throat. The world seemed to stop, the sounds of the battle fading into a distant hum. He gripped her arms, his gauntlets digging into her flesh. "What? Who?"
Isolde's lips were cracked and bleeding, but a fierce, desperate smile touched them. "Soren," she said, her voice gaining strength, filled with a terrifying, exhilarating hope. "Down there. I saw him. He faced the King. He… he burned. But he's still alive. Soren is alive."