The Shape of War

Regardless of the late hour, it took only minutes for the capital to fill.

Doors opened without invitation. Windows glowed. Streets that had been empty moments before became rivers of bodies flowing toward sound. People did not run. They gathered. They searched one another’s faces for meaning, for reassurance, for proof that fear was shared and therefore survivable.

The bells did not stop.

They rang without rhythm, without ceremony, their iron voices rolling across stone and tile, climbing towers, slipping into alleys. They did not announce time. They announced attention.

Andy stood among them, swallowed by the crowd. Shoulders brushed his own. Breath fogged the air. He saw the look again and again, reflected in strangers’ eyes.

Uncertainty.

Fear.

Then the speakers crackled to life.

A single voice carried across the capital, amplified and unmistakably composed.

“My name is Alizeth rose. First in command of King Rozwalt.”

The city fell silent.

Not the quiet of peace, but the quiet of obedience. Even the bells seemed to hesitate, their echo trailing off as if listening.

“I was ordered to keep what I am about to say from you,” Alizeth rose continued. Her voice was smooth, controlled, neither rushed nor trembling. “But that order was given in a different hour.”

Andy’s jaw tightened.

“We are surrounded,” she said. “On every side. Enemy forces have reached our borders, and now they stand at our walls.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd, but Alizeth rose did not raise her voice to chase it down. She waited. Silence returned.

“And what do they seek?” she asked calmly. “What has every enemy of this land always sought?”

She paused.

“Your king. Your emperor. The man whose shadow has kept them at bay for decades.”

Andy felt it then. Not panic. Pattern.

Alizeth had not said Rozwalt’s name.

“They demand his head,” she went on. “They demand it boxed, bound, and delivered, as tribute for your continued survival.”

Faces shifted around Andy. Courage stiffened some spines. Others paled. Fists clenched. Fear, given shape, began to turn.

“So tell me,” Alizeth said, her tone sharpening just slightly, “shall we give it to them?”

For a heartbeat, the city held its breath.

“No!”

The word erupted from somewhere near the front, raw and furious.

“Never!”

“Fight!”

The chant caught fire.

“Fight! Fight for our king!”

Andy did not join them.

He listened.

Why now?
Why speak from a tower and not a throne?
Why frame the threat before naming the king?

Rozwalt had always spoken for himself.

Andy’s fingers curled unconsciously, remembering the folded paper in his coat. Remembering how light it had felt, how heavy its meaning.

The chanting grew louder, more unified. Rage aligned faces that moments ago had been afraid.

Alizeth let it swell.

She did not interrupt.

Only when the city roared itself hoarse did the speakers fall silent.

Andy backed away from the square.

Beyond the capital walls, night lay undisturbed.

Torches marked the arrival of an army vast enough to reshape the horizon. Tents rose in disciplined rows. Fires burned low and controlled. No songs were sung. No banners waved high.

They wore layered black cloaks over darkened steel, their armor dulled to swallow moonlight. Each soldier bore a steel mask, smooth and expressionless, erasing the man beneath. When they moved, they did so with practiced economy, as if sound itself were rationed.

This was not a force assembled in haste.

It was prepared.

A messenger crossed the camp at a run, boots striking packed earth. He stopped before the largest tent, its seams reinforced, its guards silent.

“Enter,” came a woman’s voice.

Inside, lanternlight cast long shadows across crimson fabric and polished metal. Seralyth Morvaine sat upon a chair of red lacquered wood trimmed in gold, her posture relaxed, her dark hair falling loose down her back. Her eyes, sharp and intent, lifted to the messenger without warmth.

“My lady,” he said, bowing low. “Preparations are complete. The first divisions await your command.”

Seralyth smiled faintly. “Tell them to be ready,” she said. “History likes its openings clean.”

“Yes, my lady.”

He withdrew quickly.

Seralyth turned her gaze to the table beside her. A three-dimensional map of the capital stood there, meticulously carved and marked. Walls. Gates. Supply routes. Weaknesses.

A man stood over it, hands clasped behind his back.

Varrek Solain did not look up when she spoke.

“How many men do you think they have inside?” Seralyth asked.

Varrek’s eyes traced the outer districts, the barracks, the choke points. “Hard to say,” he replied evenly. “Rozwalt cultivated loyalty. Men like that don’t abandon their homes easily. Based on scouts’ estimates… six hundred thousand, perhaps.”

Seralyth’s smile widened. “And us?”

Varrek finally turned to face her. He did not bow. He never did.

“One point two million,” he said. “At your disposal.”

She exhaled slowly, savoring it. Her gaze lifted toward the tent’s ceiling, toward a sky she could not see.

“For years,” she murmured, “I imagined this moment. Planned it. Dreamed it.” Her eyes hardened. “To think it ends with him dying quietly.”

Varrek said nothing.

“Still,” Seralyth continued, her voice low and satisfied, “a demon is a demon, even in death.”

She looked back to the map, her fingers hovering above the capital’s walls.

“Prepare the first assault,” she said. “Let the city wake to reality.”

Outside, the army shifted as one.

And far beyond the walls, the bells of the capital rang on, warning a people who believed they were choosing war, unaware that it had already chosen them.