The War Room of Frostveil Keep was not a grand hall. It was a cavernous, circular chamber carved into the mountain's heart, its walls the raw, dark rock. A massive, scarred table of black oak dominated the space, its surface etched with a permanent map of the Northern Reach—a map that was more wishful thinking than reality now. A single hearth fought a losing battle against the chill, the firewood rationed to pathetic, smokey logs.
Captain Erikson did not sit. He stood before the cold hearth, his bulk blocking what little heat there was, his arms crossed over his chest.
Naevia stood opposite him, her own cloak still on, the fur beaded with melting frost. She felt the weight of the mountain above them.
"You were gone for a month," Erikson began, his voice a low rumble in the stone room. "We expected aid. Soldiers. Wagons of grain. Magical wards. Instead, you return with that." He jerked his head towards the courtyard. "What is this, Naevia? A joke? A distraction from the failure?"
She flinched at the use of her name, not her title. Erikson had served her father since before she was born. His disapproval cut deeper than any bureaucrat's.
"The Capital's aid is… delayed. Tied in procedure. I brought what I could." Her gesture towards the door, where their meager supplies were being unloaded, was feeble even to her own eyes.
"What you could? A perfumed popinjay from the south who looks like he's never held a sword, only a hairbrush? The men are on half-rations. The children in the lower village are coughing with the early chill. And you bring a tea-maker?" The anger in his voice was hot, but beneath it was a raw, desperate pain.
"He is more than he appears," Naevia said, the defense sounding hollow. She had seen the river crossing. She knew it was true. But how could she explain it? "He offered help. Unconditional help. We have no other options, Erikson."
"Unconditional?" Erikson barked a harsh laugh. "Nothing is unconditional. He's a spy. Or a fool. Either way, he's a drain on resources we do not have. He eats food that could go to a soldier. He takes up space in a keep where we are stacking the dead in the ice cellars because the ground is too frozen to bury them!"
The image was a physical blow. Naevia's breath hitched. "The dead… who?"
"Old Man Griss. Froze in his sleep three nights ago. Lina, the miller's youngest. The cough took her." Erikson's eyes were bright with unshed tears of fury. "This is our reality, Duchess. While you were down south, we were here. Dying."
Guilt, cold and thick, flooded Naevia's veins. She had failed. She was failing. The stone walls seemed to close in. "I will see the families. I will—"
"What you will do," Erikson interrupted, slamming a fist on the table, making the map markers jump, "is send that pretty parasite back south on the next supply sled—if we had any supplies to sled! You will focus on the real threats. The Ogre band that took three hunters from Pinewatch Outpost two days ago. The ice weakening the eastern curtain wall. The fact that our glowstone reserves, our only reliable trade good, are nearly depleted because the main vein collapsed!"
He was right. About everything. The list of calamities was a avalanche, and she was standing at the bottom. Her father would have known what to do. He would have roared, inspired, led a charge. She was just a daughter, holding a sword too big for her.
The door to the war room creaked open.
Both of them turned.
Zane stood in the doorway, holding a wooden tray. On it were two steaming clay mugs. He had removed his travelling cloak, wearing just the simple black and white. In the grim, dark room, he looked like a ghost.
"I thought you might need these," he said, his voice calm, cutting through the tense silence. "The tea. As promised. It's just pine needles and a bit of honey, but it's warm."
Erikson stared, his face a mask of incredulous rage. "You. Get out."
Zane didn't flinch. He walked in, set the tray on the edge of the massive table, and pushed one mug towards Naevia, the other towards the space in front of Erikson. "I couldn't help but overhear the tail end of your discussion. A collapsing mine, you said? Ogres at Pinewatch? And structural issues with the eastern wall?" He leaned a hip against the table, looking at the etched map. "Fascinating."
"This is a private council," Erikson snarled, stepping towards him. "You have no place here, attendant."
"Actually, as the Duchess's personal problem-solver, all of these are precisely my place," Zane said, his amber eyes scanning the map. His finger, long and elegant, traced a line. "Pinewatch Outpost. That's here, yes? In the foothills of the Silent Sisters peaks."
Erikson froze. "How do you know that?"
"I looked at a map on the way here. I have a good memory." Zane's finger moved to a marked section of the wall on the map. "And the eastern curtain wall. The weakness is… here? Where the old stream used to run beneath it before it permanently froze. The foundation is heaving."
Naevia's blood ran cold. He was right. That was the exact spot her engineers had diagnosed. It was not common knowledge.
"Who told you that?" she asked, her voice sharp.
"No one," Zane said, looking up at her. He shrugged. "It's obvious from the topography. The land slopes there. Water, even frozen, seeks the path of least resistance. The pressure would be immense." He took a sip from his own mug, which he had somehow produced from nowhere. "As for the glowstone mine collapse… that's a shame. But the primary vein ran east-west along a shale stratum, correct? Unstable. There are likely secondary, smaller veins branching north-south that your miners missed in their rush for the motherlode. You should probe there." He pointed to a blank area of the map north of the marked mine.
The room was dead silent. The only sound was the pathetic crackle of the fire.
Erikson looked from Zane to Naevia, his anger now mingled with a dawning, wary confusion. "Are you a mining engineer? A siege expert?"
"Just an observer with a passing interest in geology and pressure points," Zane said lightly. He turned his full attention to Erikson. The playful air was still there, but beneath it was a steel that hadn't been present before. "Captain. Your people are dying. Your Duchess went to the Capital and was given pretty words and empty forms. She brought me back because I offered action. You can stand here and rage at me, calling me names. Or you can tell me exactly how many Ogres were in that band, what direction they went, and what the current ice-thickness is on the weakest section of your wall. And I will help you fix it."
He said it all without raising his voice. It was a statement of fact. An offer.
Erikson's jaw worked. He looked at Naevia, seeking guidance, permission to throw this man out.
Naevia was staring at Zane. The man from the river crossing was back. The man who saw solutions in the shape of the land itself. The absurdity of the situation—the tea, the perfect analysis, the calm authority—crashed over her. He was either a miraculous savant or the most dangerous liar she had ever met.
But she had no other cards to play.
"Tell him, Captain," she said, her voice weary. "Tell him everything."
Erikson stared at her for a long, hard moment. Then, with a sound like a bear sighing, he deflated. The anger bled out, leaving only exhaustion and a sliver of desperate hope. He walked to the map, his finger jabbing at Pinewatch.
"Eight Ogres. Led by one with a rusted iron crown—a chieftain. They took the bodies. Headed north-northwest, towards the Glacier Fang. Our scouts tracked them for ten miles before the storm wiped the trail."
Zane nodded, his eyes distant, calculating. "And the wall?"
"The engineers say we have a week, maybe two, before a serious thaw or a direct impact causes a breach. We don't have the manpower or the liquid stone to repair it properly."
"Mm." Zane finished his tea. "And the food stores?"
Erikson's face tightened. "Enough for the keep's garrison for three weeks on starvation rations. The villages… they're on their own. They've been on their own."
Zane placed his empty mug on the tray. He looked at Naevia. "Right. First things first. We need to secure a food source and reinforce morale. A quick, visible victory." He tapped the map at Pinewatch. "We get the hunters back. Or we avenge them. Tonight."
Erikson scoffed. "Tonight? In a storm? It's a six-hour march in good weather. The Ogres will be dug in. We'd lose more men than we'd save."
"Who said anything about a march?" Zane smiled. It wasn't his sunny Capital smile. This was sharper. A hunter's smile. "We take a small team. Very small. We move fast. We use the storm."
"You're mad," Erikson stated.
"Probably," Zane agreed cheerfully. He looked at Naevia. "Well, Boss? Do we have a deal? My first act of attendant-ship. I'll bring back your hunters, or the Ogres that took them. It'll give your people something to believe in besides the cold."
Naevia looked into his amber eyes. She saw no deception. Only a terrifying, absolute confidence. She thought of the children coughing. Of the bodies in the ice cellar. Of her father's ghost watching her fail.
She made a choice.
"Do it," she said.
Zane's smile widened. "Excellent. Captain, I'll need two volunteers. The quietest, meanest trackers you have. And some rope. Lots of rope."
He turned and walked out of the War Room, leaving the two Northerners in stunned silence.
Erikson finally looked at Naevia, his voice a whisper. "My Lady… what in the frozen hells have you brought into our house?"
Naevia picked up the mug of tea he had brought her. It was still warm. A tiny, defiant pocket of heat in the crushing cold.
"I don't know, Erikson," she said, her own voice barely a whisper. "But for the first time since my father died, I don't feel completely alone."
Outside the room, walking down the torch-lit corridor, Zane—Emperor Voren—let the casual mask drop for a single second. His expression was solemn, focused.
"Eight Ogres. A collapsing wall. Starving children," he muttered to the stone around him. "This isn't a border skirmish. This is a collapse."
He flexed his fingers. A tiny, almost invisible shimmer of golden light, like captured sunlight, flickered around his knuckles for a nanosecond before he clenched his fist, snuffing it out.
"Time to go to work," the Emperor said, and his voice held the weight of mountains.