The command chamber of Kaldaria was a cathedral of frost. Translucent pillars of permafrost reached toward a vaulted ceiling that shimmered with the pale light of the aurora borealis. At the center of this frozen sanctum stood Arianne Darko, the Commander of the Second Nation. She was draped in heavy furs and silk the color of deep sea-water, her back turned to the door as she stared out at the sprawling, crystalline city below.
Mikaela's entrance had brought the chill of the outside gale into the room, but the atmosphere between the two women was already below freezing.
"You speak of leaving, Mikaela," Arianne said, her voice resonant and low, not bothering to turn around. "In a time when the North has been swallowed by the tide and the very air smells of impending war, you wish to abandon your post."
"I am not abandoning anything," Mikaela countered, her silver hair catching the blue light of the chamber. "I am moving toward the center of the storm. Kael is in Forgemire, and that is where the power is shifting."
Arianne turned then, her eyes sharp and unforgiving. "You are a daughter of Kaldaria. Your mana was shaped by our glaciers; your loyalty was forged in our halls. Even if the A.N.Ts link you to that boy by name and duty, your priorities are to this nation first. Forgemire is a land of soot and slag. It is not your home."
The Argument of the Heart
Mikaela stepped forward, the frost on her boots crunching against the sapphire floor. "What is pushing me, Commander, is stronger than an obligation to a border. It is stronger than the necessity of a soldier's oath. We have played our parts in the Alliance, but the board has changed. Noelle—the greatest threat Tellus has faced in a generation—is a headless corpse in a hole. The 'Rogue Nations' are silent shadows that haven't dared to breathe against the Alliance in ages. The only thing that matters now is the power Kael holds."
Arianne's lip curled in a subtle, knowing sneer. "And you think you can tame that power? You think the boy who butchered five hundred men will listen to a frost-weaver from the North?"
Mikaela's gaze hardened, her deep blue eyes turning to flint. "I don't intend to tame him. I intend to transcend him."
The Last Scheme
Mikaela's voice took on a predatory edge, a cold ambition that seemed to steal the warmth from the very braziers in the room. "I will go to Forgemire. I will train with him, bleed with him, and learn the rhythm of his Emperor State. And when the time is right, when he has exhausted himself against the serpent or his own inner demons... I will kill him. I will take the Signet of Forgemire for myself. I will rule the Seventh Nation, and I will bring its fires to ally with Kaldaria. We will not just be a kingdom of glass, Arianne. We will be the iron fist of the world."
The silence that followed was long and suffocating. Arianne Darko watched the young woman before her, seeing the frantic pulse in Mikaela's neck and the desperate lie behind her eyes. Arianne knew. She knew Mikaela wasn't looking for a throne; she was looking for the boy she couldn't stop thinking about. The "scheme" was a mask, a way to justify a pull that Mikaela herself didn't fully understand.
"You are bullshitting me, Mikaela," Arianne said plainly, her voice devoid of heat. "You don't want his crown. You want him."
Mikaela opened her mouth to protest, but Arianne held up a gloved hand.
"Go," the Commander whispered. "If you wish to chase a monster into a furnace, I will not stop you. But know this: the moment you cross the border into Forgemire, you are a woman of no nation. You carry no title, no protection, and no name of Kaldaria. You are nothing until Kael takes you in—or until he destroys you."
Mikaela didn't blink. She didn't thank her. She simply turned on her heel, her silver hair whipping in the air as she marched back toward the heavy doors. She was a ghost of the North, heading toward the fires of the South, leaving behind the only safety she had ever known for a doom she was running toward with open arms.