Chapter 89 - Dinner

Notes :

I'll have the NSFW Special up early on discord, probably post it tomorrow. On patreon, first chapter 90, then the special.

Wew. These last few days have SUCKED. For those who haven't heard, there's been something of a mess on the indie publishing scene. Shadow Light Press, a young publisher who's name is suspiciously similar to my own, Shadow Alley Press (some people have speculated that they deliberately did this to try and piggyback off of our reputation), turned out to be a massive scam, trapping authors into hellish contracts.

This had a bunch of repercussions, like the shutdown of Immersive Ink, a community discord I was on (SLP was deeply involved in the server, with their founder being an admin and many authors/staff members being on the mod team), and my publisher has been catching stray rounds from people confusing the names together.

I got a bit too caught up in that mess making news posts on reddit, answering questions, plus some more stuff publisher side, and honestly at this point I'm just going to step back from it because I have too much stress already and I was supposed to be taking a fucking break.

But...hey, at least the launch of book 1 went well XD. That's what's important.

Chapter 89

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

The meal was absolutely delicious. Stars only knew where Kalia had found all that, but the venison would give some of the meals she'd had on Earth a run for its money. The wine...didn't, but she was impressed Kalia had found a bottle to begin with. Unfortunately, she'd had access to her aunt's cellar, and once you'd tasted something that had been carefully matured in a controlled environment by people who'd honed the craft since before humanity set out from Sol, as well as made from orbital farms drinking in exactly the sunlight you wanted, it was impossible to find anything that could compete with that.

Of course, the company helped. Kalia did actually ask some questions and debriefed her, but the atmosphere...

"So." Kalia brought the last bite up to her lips, and thoughtfully chewed on it, while Sapphiria tried not to fixate on her mouth and wishing she was eating something...else.

No. Bad Sapphiria.

"They're building a trebuchet." Continued Kalia, after swallowing. Her finger traced the edge of her wineglass, where the marks left by her lips could still be seen. "Can't say I'm surprised. The Bane liked their sieges. Though a single breach was enough for them to swarm their target."

"Maybe they don't have the resources to burn here."

"They certainly fear what the Hand will do to them." She chuckled. "I can relate."

"Right. Though, hopefully, not sympathize."

"No. Of course not." Kalia eyed her, and leaned forward slightly, still playing with her wineglass. Sapphiria almost suffered a malfunction as it gave her a plunging view down her neckline and...was she not wearing a bra? "Sapphi, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. Anything."

"Who's your aide? The one who sends the messages."

If Sapphiria had a heart, it would have stopped.

She just stared speechlessly as Kalia grabbed her glass and brought it to her lips, before taking a sip. Then, her gaze met Sapphiria's over the glass, and the AI relaxed a tiny bit.

"Relax. I don't mind." The mage-magistrate sighed. "Ancestors know I've kept my fair share of secrets. But..." She sighed, again, this time her shoulders sagged. "I have to admit it hurt. A lot. I thought...I could trust you. And I think I can. But you lied to me, didn't you? You're not alone down there. You never were."

Sapphiria gazed at her. Something must have slipped. How? Probably the communications. Something in the way they were written. Damn it!

Should she deny it? Could she?

Kalia would need to know the truth eventually...even if their relationship didn't make any other option untenable, she deserved to know the truth. And as Astralis' leaders, she was one of the people she'd need onboard and fully read in on the uplift plan.

Sapphiria briefly closed her eyes.

There was never any real choice, had there?

Sometimes...sometimes you had to play cash. And go all in.

"I..." Sapphiria took a deep breath, then grabbed Kalia's hands, before meeting her gaze. "Yes. I have lied to you. Mostly by omission...maybe a couple of times more directly. No, I'm not alone. And..."

She squeezed her eyes shut. Moment of truth.

"I'm not who you think I am." She felt like a weight the size of a starship had been taken from her shoulders, and she kept talking, almost stumbling over the words in the rush to get them out. "I wish I could explain it all. Tonight. But I can't. There's too much. Just...far, far too much. And honestly, I don't know how to put it, or make sure you can take it."

Kalia smiled wanly. It wasn't much, but it was a smile.

"I'm pretty good at listening. And I'm sure it's not that bad."

"Yes. Yes it is. This isn't...Kalia this isn't a question of explaining something awful, or bizarre. I'm going to need to explain things you lack fundamental concepts for."

Kalia froze, her eyes searching Sapphiria's, before slowly nodding.

"Okay. But...you'll tell me eventually, right?"

"I will. You have my word. I'll try to fill you in as much as I can as this...whole mess goes on. But it might take me a bit for me to get it all straight with..."

The mage-magistrate smiled, tipping her wineglass towards the AI.

"Trying to keep us all alive?"

The shorter woman grimaced.

"Yeah."

Kalia leaned forward, and Sapphiria closed her eyes as their lips met.

It was soft. A promise.

They parted, and Kalia's eyes twinkled.

"Alrighty. I can accept that. I know how hard it can be to keep this bunch safe." She smiled, and Sapphiria got lost in her gaze. How could she possibly deserve a woman like that? "I look forward to hearing and meeting about the 'real' you, Sapphi."

The mage-magistrate leaned forward again, and this time, Sapphiria met her halfway, melting into the kiss.

The Bane, the pass, the production schedules...the entire damned universe could wait until tomorrow.

*****

"Captain, sir."

Captain Gerard Crozier, of the thirty-first Royal Infantry regiment of the Kingdom of Turlor, looked up from his breakfast with the tired resignation of a man who was far too used to having to abandon his meals in favor of putting out some fire or another.

Join up, they said! You'll see the world, they said.

He'd seen it alright. And left enough bits and pieces of himself across it.

"Yes, sergeant?" He stabbed a battered fork he'd dragged through far too many campaigns to remember into a potato, and brought it to his mouth.

"We have a new dispatch from the forward recon."

The captain's eyebrow rose. Forward recon was the appellation the Kingdom had given to the madmen, usually remnants of the Magistracy's shattered military, who operated behind enemy lines.

The Bane had advanced quickly. Far too quickly to be able to pacify the lands they traversed. Their maneuver to cut across lake Milas to rush Exacor may have surprised the forces there, and almost caused the fortress to fall, but it had also left a lot of land they had no time to comb for enemies, or properly take control of.

And with the Kingdom constantly transferring gunboats into the lake and using Sentinel Island, at the heart of the lake, as a naval base, they were suddenly having issues getting their supplies and reinforcements moving by way of water.

Which was why the forward recon was so important. Not in terms of harassing the enemy's supply lines, their contribution was rather slim in that regard. But in the intelligence they could gain. It was impressive how much of an advantage you could gain just knowing when the enemy was about to receive a new cohort of equites, or a new batch of siege onagers.

"Truly? Given the difficulties involved in crossing the frontlines, I assume it is quite important. Is the messenger alright?"

"He's got a nasty wound on his shoulder, and he'll never be able to play the pipe organ again, but he'll live."

Gerard winced. Shoulder wound and missing fingers? Not a good combination. Better than ending up as resurrected cannon fodder for the other side however.

"Make sure he's taken care of." The sergeant nodded, and the captain took another bite. He hadn't been a great admirer of the magistracy and its military before this war. But after witnessing for himself their sheer bloody tenacity and utter refusal to give up the fight, he was starting to be extremely impressed. The least the courier deserved was to be treated in keeping with his accomplishments. Gerard swallowed. "What is the message?"

"It was marked your eyes only."

"So?"

The sergeant smiled, and the captain answered in kind. They'd been fighting together for...thirty years, now? Something like that.

They'd fought overseas, in hellish jungles where the leaves stuck to your skin like glue and tried to digest you alive. The sergeant had carried him fifteen kilometers on his shoulders through a guerilla infested ashfield during the Malirian Succession War, and he'd returned the favor by dragging him out of the battle of the Violette Gates and into a hospital barge as they were being pounded by arcane artillery, the very sky ripping itself apart around them.

At this point, he trusted the sergeant more than his own damned family.

The NCO's face went serious however, and the captain find himself straightening a bit into his chair.

"They say there's been changes in the backlines. Units that were in reserve have moved into a defensive posture. And at least two maniples of equites are gearing up for immediate departure."

The captain frowned. Their last batch of intelligence indicated the Bane were expecting even more reinforcements, making room for additional troops. Sending some of their reserves back...

"Guerilla activity?"

The sergeant shrugged as the captain took another bite.

"If that's the reason, it ain't ours. But here's the really weird thing. They sent a couple of contuberniums of recon troops, and our people followed them. They're not heading west. They're going north."

Gerard stopped chewing, and swallowed the potato with an audible gulp.

"The mountains?" He said.

"Yes sir."

The captain leaned back. They were in the foothills of the Starborn mountains, positioned there to defend Exacor's northern flank. The Iceborne river was a formidable defensive barrier, though one he feared would turn against them if the winter was too harsh and the upper layers froze. At least Borealis, the source up in the mountains' flank, was a tumble of rocks so thick and jagged, moving alongside the slopes was all but impossible. So no way to get above it, crossing the river was the only way through.

The Starborn mountains were impassable. Everyone knew that. Except...

"Starfire pass?"

The sergeant nodded.

"Unless they grow wings, or want to go all the way to Travira, there isn't really anywhere else to go."

"If they wanted to go to Travira, they'd take the Northern Tradeway and then the Bronze Path, not hug the mountains." The Bane were Imperial by the Ancestors. Logistics and roads were in their blood...err, anima. Whatever the hell kept them running. "Do you think they're heading for Icerend?"

"If they are, why are they acting like they'd advancing to contact with an enemy force? You don't send recon forces cross country for something that's hundreds of kilometers away."

The captain set down his fork, his mind churning on overdrive, pushing aside the last fragments of fog from his lack of sleep.

"So there's something there they're fighting."

"Only thing that makes sense. Who, though?"

"That's exactly what I'd love to know." Gerard sighed. "We need a messenger. Best we got. Tell the forward recon to shadow the Bane's troops. Something has them scared, and we need to know what it is."

"Not gonna be easy. They don't eat, sleep or shit. Keeping up with them is going to be a bitch."

"I know." The captain drummed his fingers on the tabletop. That plank of wood had more history than some military units. It looked like someone had ripped a door off and put it on trestles mostly because that was exactly what had happened, but it had gone through some scraps since then. "But we need an edge. Damn it, we need any edge. No matter what we throw at the bastards, we've barely made them blink! Anything we can use, even if it's just to pull some forces off of the siege, is good to take."

Unspoken was that if they didn't find an edge, Exacor was going to fall. The Bane were methodical, relentless and had seemingly bottomless wells of manpower. Once that happened...

They could try to hold the bridges in the river behind the city, the tributary from Lake Milas that went into the Iceborne river. But they'd get pushed back. That place was nowhere near as defensible as the fortress city. It was why, after all, it existed in the first place.

They'd get pushed back to Umbra, the capital of the Prefecture. The last buffer state between the Bane and the Kingdom itself.

And retreating to Umbra would leave Noctan, the Prefecture's Convergence and one of the last two in living hands on the continent, exposed.

The Bane would fall on it. Then it would be one long bloody walk until Turlor itself fell. The Kingdom could do a lot, but it couldn't win this damned war alone!

Not that it was looking any better on the southern front anyway...

"I'll get someone to pass it along."

"Thank you sergeant." The captain looked down at his meal, and sighed. "I should probably-"

"Finishing eating, sir." The sergeant glared at his boss, and the officer smiled.

"Lord Carel won't be happy."

"Lord Carel is a stuck up asshole whose mustache has more wax than actual hair. He can wait."

"Sergeant."

"Sorry, sir. I'm sure Lord Carel will appreciate you giving due consideration of this new intelligence, to avoid wasting his extremely valuable time, sir, and will not begrudge you a few minutes. Sir."

"There you go." The captain chuckled. "Dismissed."

The sergeant saluted, and left the tent.

The captain grabbed another bite. The NCO was right. Pushing that tidbit up the chain could wait for a few minutes.

But he simply couldn't keep wondering what the hell was going on up there to warrant such a reaction. A small voice, of instincts honed over decades of warfare, told him it had to be big.

Very big.