Things had turned out more interesting than Damon would’ve expected.

The person before him wasn’t wrong. The system did say only one leader had to die, which meant truces made tactical sense. An alliance against a shared enemy was logical. Clean, even.

Except there was nothing clean about trusting someone who could end the quest the moment your back was turned.

He looked at Ivy. She was already looking at him with the expression that told him she’d reached the same conclusion half a sentence ago.

Edmund was quick to read the silence.

"We request to meet on neutral grounds," he said, adjusting smoothly. "Somewhere between the two citadels, so that terms can be discussed properly. Away from either side’s walls."

"We’ll send representatives," Ivy answered before Damon could.

Something crossed Edmund’s face, a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth that vanished almost before it appeared. Almost.

He accepted the answer with a nod, told them to meet at the location where they’d found him in three days, then excused himself with the practised ease of someone who had gotten what they came for and knew when to leave.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Hana spoke before anyone else could.

"It’s a trap." She said plainly, without any changes in her tone. "He spent the entire meeting trying to work out who the leader of this citadel is. He thinks it’s Ivy."

"That damn rat!" Theodore was on his feet instantly, already moving toward the door with the particular energy of someone who resolved most problems with violence and saw no reason to change that now.

Damon stopped him with a look.

"Let him go. If they know we saw through it, we lose the only advantage we have."

Theodore held for a moment, then dropped back into his chair with the controlled frustration of someone who understood the logic and hated it.

"What are you thinking?" Victor asked.

Damon looked around the table.

"We found the third citadel," he said.

The room shifted. Ivy’s gaze sharpened, Theodore’s frustration redirected into something more focused, while Victor went still.

"It’s far above the clouds. Higher than anything should be." He let that land for a moment. "We also brought one of their people back with us. Nyla is watching over her in my room."

"Did you manage to get any information out of her?" Ivy asked.

"Not much. Their leader’s name is Aria, and there are only a few hundred of them. She attacked us instantly without hesitation."

"So we’re surrounded by two hostile citadels," Ivy said flatly, more so to herself than the others. She made a small cross on the map across the table, somewhere in the centre of the northern district, marking the third citadel.

"So which one do we focus on?" Victor asked.

"Real enemy is better than a fake ally," Damon said. "Unlike Edmund, Ning Xiaoyu didn’t hide her intention. If we can get her citadel to simply stay out of our way, then we can focus on dealing with the citadel on the outskirts."

The room was quiet for a moment, the particular quiet of people turning an idea over and finding it held weight the more they thought about it.

"You want to negotiate with the people who attacked us on sight," Theodore said. Not quite objecting, just making sure he’d heard correctly.

"It’s in their best interests. If we deal with the second citadel, then they can finish the quest without lifting a finger."

"It’s worth a shot," Ivy said, nodding along with the logic of his explanation.

Slowly, as everyone agreed with the idea, each person left the council meeting room.

Ivy left to deal with her usual daily matters, land disputes and room allocations and the other hundred small frictions that came with housing over two thousand people who barely knew each other. Victor left to deal with those who returned injured from any scouting or gathering missions, and Theodore simply went to train, which was how he normally spent his free time.

Damon took Hana to his room, where Nyla was holding Ning Xiaoyu.

As they entered, they saw the two girls sharing a hot beverage, which caught Damon slightly off guard. He was slightly concerned the imprisoned girl might try to escape, so he was surprised to see the two of them get along... somewhat.

"You’re back," Nyla said, rising to her feet.

"We are," Damon replied. "We just met a representative of the second citadel, he wants us to team up against the citadel above the clouds."

Although he was pretending to say it to Nyla, the corner of Damon’s eye was focused purely on Ning Xiaoyu, making sure she heard his every word.

Her expression changed.

A flicker of concern, which looked foreign on her face, appeared.

The girl’s hand curled into a fist as she awaited his next words, which he held a moment too long on purpose.

"We rejected them." He finally said, and an invisible weight disappeared from the girl’s shoulders. "It was a trap, they were trying to ambush us." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Damon moved toward the small table at which Ning Xiaoyu and Nyla were sitting.

"We have a proposal of our own. If your leader promises to stay out of our way, we will kill the leader of the second citadel and finish the second world quest."

Ning Xiaoyu sat in silence for a few moments, not because she was refusing to answer but because she was thinking it through. "That... might work. But you will have to bring the proposal to our leader yourself. Just you, nobody else."

That was exactly what Damon wanted. Sending anyone else would put them at risk of being captured and used as leverage, but him? He was confident in dealing with, and if not, escaping any situation, even if he considered the citadel’s debuff.

"She doesn’t have any hidden intentions," Hana said, reading the girl’s thoughts like a book.

"Good," Damon nodded. "We leave before sunrise."