For his entire life, the world had seen the Prince of Yarzat as a shifting collection of masks: the Fox, the War Prince, the Peasant’s Dog. To Basil, he was simply the man who huddled over parchment in a candlelit workroom, the father who walked the palace gardens with a gentle hand on Basil’s shoulder and a voice full of lessons disguised as idle observations.

With that weary smile of his, that was as light as it was heavy.

It had been agonizing to see the light go out of his father’s eyes after Egil’s death. Basil had never felt a sharper surge of purpose than the day he finally brought his own small flame to his father’s side, a single candle trying to chase away the shadows of a collapsing world.

There was so much darkness in his father’s life, a creeping gloom that the world seemed determined to deepen, and Basil felt that he and his uncles were the only ones holding the line.

It was them against the world.

That realization turned his blood to ice as he glared at the Lord of Epirietoli. Merelao sat there, insufferably calm, draped in silk and unearned arrogance. Basil would never forget the quiet flicker of anxiety that had crossed his father’s face as the Kakunian host approached the camp, a vulnerability his father tried to hide and failed.

Who was this lunatic bastard to hurl accusations? It was Yarzat’s forge that had hammered the plate on Merelao’s back.

It was his father’s vassal, Rykio, who had shattered the Bastard’s host when they tried to link with the royal vanguard. And it was his father’s own influence in the High Court of the Eternal City that had ensured no letter bearing the Star of the Gods would ever legitimize Merelao’s cousin.

They had handed this man his life and his crown on a silver platter, yet here he was, demanding "truth" as if he were the one holding the scales.

Basil was so lost in a silent staring contest with the blonde-haired Prince that the room’s shift in tone almost escaped him. His father’s voice, steady but tired, pulled him back to the map spread across the table.

"The scouts report the Oizenian host remains stationary, where they have sat for the last half-month," Alpheo began, his finger tracing the lines around Diroli. "I cannot say if Sorza refuses to move out of genuine confusion over his next step, or if he is simply desperate to bolster morale before he dares to order a march. We are in a stalemate. The enemy knows we are at full strength, yet he lingers. It is as if he is waiting for us to make the first move."

His father stopped, his face falling into that distant, thoughtful mask that Basil knew preceded a storm.

"Maybe the Crownless one is simply praying for winter," Asag voiced, leaning over the table. Of everyone in the tent, he had the most reason to want the blood to stop flowing. "He’s spent the season begging half the South to come to his aid, and they have all failed him. Perhaps he has finally realized that on an open field, he has the life expectancy of a Mayfly."

He let out a heavy, rattling sigh. "But who can truly fathom the mind of a man like Sorza? He’s good at nothing except digging his own grave. We should proceed with the assumption that he is doing everything in his power to preserve the current status quo. It matters little to him if his lands face a famine next year or if his position weakens; he is likely just staring at the horizon, hoping Habadia will find the courage to march to his side once more.Cowards are but the worst companion to have on a storm for they’ll push you overboard to take hold of the mast."

"A truly tedious man then. A prince who refuses to stand and defend his own soil is no prince at all," Merelao remarked, leaning back with the self-satisfied air of a man delivering a profound piece of wisdom.

The fool....

Did the man not understand the very irony of the moniker? Basil wondered.

"Someone ought to have told him that, my Lord," Jarza replied dryly.No more pleased than Basil to have the man there. "Unfortunately, we gave the old man of his to the worms before he could pass on the lesson.And from him he got the wrong one.Hence our circumstances."

"Well, I have never had the pleasure of meeting the man, so I cannot say if he is truly the coward you all claim," the gold-haired lord said. A small, playful smile carved its way across his lips, as if he found the entire thing to be nothing more than an endearing tavern tale. "The songs say one thing, yet the truth is often a different beast entirely. After all, there are plenty of songs claiming I’m a madman."

He let out a short, melodic chuckle, and a heartbeat later, the rest of the table joined in, though their laughter was far more hollow.

"Even if the Prince is as gutless as you think," Merelao continued, "I find it hard to believe that same rot has spread to every corner of his camp. You told me the Prince of Habadia left his host a rather generous farewell gift. I’m certain those six hundred mounted knights you mentioned will be quite the incentive for the Oizenians to finally take the field. Add in the lords who have watched their crops turn to ash, and we may finally have our answer. I’ve grown weary of dilly-dallying in the mud. I’d gladly end the year with one more victory under my belt.You want battle?Bait the knights..."

His father didn’t share the Kakunian’s enthusiasm. He leaned over the map, his shadow stretching across the represented plains like a dark omen.

"The desire for battle is a fine thing, , but it poses the question of where we choose to spill that blood," he said, his voice dropping into a somber tone. He tapped the open expanse of the fields near Diroli. "The enemy outnumbers us in cavalry at least two to one. In a straight charge on an open field, we aren’t asking for a fight, we’re begging to be flanked. I have no interest in watching my infantry get trampled into the dirt.’’

On the right side of the table, Edric’s finger traced a line east of the Bastion, settling in the rugged throat between Nonium and Nerdum, both cities still flying the Oizenian banner.

"We make our stand here," Edric proposed, his voice gaining a gravelly edge of excitement. "The terrain is a nightmare of broken hills and steep inclines. It’ll turn a cavalry charge into a stumbling crawl. We could take a page from the Northern Rebels’ book of nine years ago, I still remember thinking it a bitch we would have to scale that. Thankfully enough we had Robert baiting them to their death.’’ he realised a bit too late he was diverging, so with a cough he took back the point he was trying to make ’’ We dig in atop the heights, sharpen the stakes, and force them to climb into our teeth. It would neutralize their greatest advantage in a single stroke. It’s a fine bit of ground for a slaughter."

Basil nodded along, the logic seeming unassailable. But his youthful certainty lasted only as long as it took for his father to speak.

"It is too fine a ground, " Alpheo countered, his voice a cool splash of water on the commander’s heat. "I doubt even Sorza is incompetent enough to charge blindly into a mountain trap. He may not be a genius, but only a suicidal fool would fail to see how heavily that earth favors us. Beyond that, we’d have Nonium at our backs. It would take but one messenger to have their garrison sally out and take us in the rear while we’re busy looking down the hill."

The Lord of Epirietoli let out a long sigh, his mouth flattening into a line of pure, unadulterated boredom. "This is becoming wearier by the second. I am perfectly willing to lead the vanguard against these ’mounted bastards.’ I have done it once before, what is it do it once more?Only those who dares to jump may fly. Give me the mounts and I shall give you victory..."

"Perhaps my Lord forgot that we are outnumbered at least two to one in the saddle," Rykio snorted in reply. He would have probably even turned his head and spat, if only he wouldn’t have receive a clout behind the ear strong enough to rattle his teeth.

His father had been clear enough on the hospitality they were to show to the unwelcomed guest.

Anyway if Rykio hated the man, he kept it underwraps as he continued."I say we repeat the tactic of the Bleeding Plains. We divide our strength, bait their heavy horse away from the center of the field, and give the Legions the time they need to grind the Oizenian infantry into the mud."

That sparked a firestorm of debate that quickly filled the cramped space of the tent.

"Three-quarters of our current host are levies no better than the enemy’s," Jarza pointed out sharply. "If the center buckles before the cavalry is dealt with, the ’time’ the Legions have won won’t be worth a copper damn."

"Then we stack the deck," Asag offered, his hands moving over the map like a master of tiles. "Put every veteran Legionnaire on the left flank. Have them shatter the enemy’s wing in the first hour, then wheel the entire line like a closing gate.Perhaps delaying the rest of the flanks from clashing using an oblique formation would gain us the edge to send the enemy’s left running..."

"No.No.No. That’s not enough. There’s a forest south of Nonium," another voice interjected.This time belonging to Xanthios "We could anchor our flank there to negate a sweep of thier cavalry, then follow Rykio’s lead."

"And if the enemy slips a light force through the trees? They’d be in on our backs before we could redraw the line!They would be as blind as us, with the only difference they would have man to spare to protect their flank against a possible attack from the trees.We’ll be skewered in the back and sent home with bloody sides."

Arguments began and ended with the violence of a summer storm. Strategies clashed like thunder over the table, voices rising and breaking against one another like waves against a cliff.

Basil felt a sudden, dizzying sense of overwhelm. To his young mind, a battle had always been a singular, heroic event, but here it was being dissected into a thousand terrifying variables. Each man at the table seemed to be fighting a different war, one of geography, one of numbers, one of pride. The sheer weight of the "what-ifs" began to press in on him; every plan that sounded perfect a moment ago was instantly torn to shreds by a dozen lethal flaws.

It was a chaotic first lesson to be sure, and one he would remember, even when it was his own hand that would in the future be hovering over a map and his own voice leading such a council.

Of the whole ordeal, the venomous arguments, the desperate strategies, and the shouted contradictions, one specific moment remained etched in his mind, destined to outlive every soldier in that tent.

It was the image of his father, standing motionless amidst the storm of his ally and lords. While the others lunged at the map like starving dogs at a carcass, Alpheo remained silent, his gaze drifting away from the fortified heights and the protective forests.

Slowly, he extended a single finger, pressing it down upon the most unassuming, featureless stretch of dirt on the entire map. He spoke the name of the place, a lackluster, forgettable patch of earth that held no tactical glory and offered no natural cover.

Basil would recall the shouting stopped instantly, the once tent loud as a markept place becoming as still as a crypt.

For in that moment, the whole council looked at their Prince with the most complicated of gazes, as if the Fox of Yarzat had finally, and truly, gone twice as mad as the Bull sitting across from him.

And yet he would also recall that it would be that, the ground they would in fact make thier stand in.

For whatever his father said, it would also fly.