Jasper had left Citadel Sapphire a conqueror, and now returned to it filled with shame.

  General Peridot’s incomplete fortress loomed over a plain of melting snow and black stone. It was only a modest castle by Lavaland’s standards, with half its spires incomplete and hundreds of magmorian workers toiling to complete the outer wall, but it already boasted a certain majesty. A moat of magma dug from the earth’s bowels formed a ring of fire around the structure, while its central tower offered Lavaland’s army a wide view of the entire region.

  When Jasper left with his troops to raid up north, he expected to return to Citadel Sapphire with his people’s acclaim, their wagons filled with loot and their magma hearts swelling with pride. Instead, only a paltry force of survivors followed him home in shared disgrace under the watch of werewolves guards and a wereowl ambassador.

  He had lost everything. His sword, his troops, even his honor. Would General Peridot take his life for his failure too?

  “What is that?” Sagesse the wereowl asked, her voice heavy with indignation.

  “What you bores in Roynimalia closed your eyes to,” Goreville replied with a growl. Unlike his fellow ambassador, the werewolf observed the fortress with the wary eye of a trained warrior. Jasper could tell he was already memorizing the citadel’s defenses in case they had to assault it one day. “The magmorians have been building this place up for months.”

  “We work stone better than you werelings,” Jasper replied with pride. Citadel Sapphire had already grown a new tower since he departed it a month ago.

  “I cannot believe that you magmorians would be so brazen as to build a fortress in our lands!” Sagesse complained. “This is a dire violation of our sovereignty!”

  Jasper scoffed. “And what will you do about it? Send us a sternly worded letter?"

  Sagesse glared at him. “Do not tempt me, magmorian. I believe in words and diplomacy backed up with sharp talons.”

  “Unlike you, Lord Wepwawet won’t have to send more than one army to take out your base,” Goreville added. “His mercy has its limits. Never forget that.”

  Jasper’s heart surged with the flames of fury, but though he wanted nothing more than to reply that their so-called ‘god’ only overcame his troops by treachery, all excuses sounded hollow in his head. The fact was that he had lost and his men paid the price for it—the end.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Wepwawet’s words either. He had said that Jasper would find redemption once he understood the olive branch metaphor, but nobody could tell him what an olive even was! The riddle was maddening!

  “General Peridot is built from sharper stone than me,” Jasper warned as he spotted a magmorian patrol moving across the plain to intercept them. “No man nor wereling can stand up to him.”

  “We shall see about that,” Goreville replied sharply.

  A group of magmorian wyrm-riders soon arrived to encircle them with obsidian-tipped spears. The werewolves drew their weapons and barred their fangs in response, though Goreville calmed them with a single wave of his hand.

  “Captain Jasper? Is that you?” the magmorian patrol’s leader asked in disbelief upon recognizing him. “Where are the rest of your troops?”

  “We are all that remains,” Jasper replied, his shoulders crumbling in shame. “These werelings are enemy ambassadors.”

  “Angry ambassadors, I might add!” Sagesse said sharply before stomping the ground with her staff in impatience. “I demand to see your leader immediately!”

  “Big talk from a bird!” the magmorian leader replied with disdain. “Methinks we should just roast you where you stand!”

  “You would be a fool to try,” Goreville warned without raising his voice. He showed no fear, though the torc around his neck seemed to glow a little brighter in the face of incoming danger. “We have come to speak with General Peridot, and we shall do so… one way or another.”

  His iron-hard confidence took the magmorians aback long enough for Jasper to calm them down. “These werelings have been escorting me back to Citadel Sapphire so that I may carry a message to our glorious general,” he said. “Harming them would shame Lavaland’s honor.”

  The riders exchanged glances for a brief moment, but thankfully listened to reason. “We will take your word for it, Captain Jasper,” their leader said. “But we will have to disarm them.”

  “Bold of you to think losing our swords will weaken the pack of Grand-Loup himself,” Goreville mocked them before fearlessly surrendering his own weapon. “Our fangs cut deeper than steel.”

  His example encouraged his followers to surrender their blades, and they soon traveled back to the citadel under heavy escort. Jasper’s soldiers sighed in relief upon walking on the stone bridge looming over the citadel’s lava. They were safely home once again.

  “You have more pull than I thought for them to listen to you,” Goreville noted once they passed through the keep’s gates.

  “I had some influence,” Jasper replied. He had been his beloved Princess Topaz’s personal shield for years before enrolling in the Verglane campaign to earn fame and glory in her name, but he knew his reputation would crumble once word of his defeat spread.

  His beloved Princess Topaz wouldn’t even look at him again!

  General Peridot eschewed all luxury and decorations inside his keep, except the sapphires which gave the citadel its name. Workers had encrusted these gemstones—first found buried in the quarry which served to supply the fortress’ stones—in most halls and corridors before using spells to light them up, thus casting most rooms in a pleasant blue glow.

  The group made its way to the keep’s core, where they were forced to wait in a hall of stone. A winged kobold aide arrived soon after to greet them. “General Peridot will hear the captain’s report before meeting with the ambassadors,” he said. “If you would please follow me, Captain Jasper.”

  Jasper nodded calmly and then followed the aide back to General Peridot’s command room on the central tower’s top floor. The place had black walls and four windows pointing in all cardinal directions to better observe the region. A magma hearth drawing its heat and lava from below provided all the warmth a magmorian could need. Magmorian guards stood in all corners of the room with obsidian axes sharper than a dragon’s teeth.

  General Peridot awaited Jasper next to a stone table drowning under the weight of clay tablets.

  Magmorians rarely used metal since they found stone more aesthetically pleasing, but their elites could afford specially enchanted steel capable of handling their body heat. General Peridot was among that select number. As a ten-foot-tall magmorian encased in sleek plate armor of black and red metal, he cut quite the impressive figure. No one in the army had seen his face beneath his horned helmet, though six slits allowed a fiery glow to shine through. The general never went anywhere without his claymore and shield either, which he alone had the strength to wield with one arm each.

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  Jasper immediately kneeled and looked down in obedience. “I have returned, my general.”

  “It is good to see you alive, Jasper,” the general greeted Jasper, far more warmly than he deserved. “I feared for your safety once your company failed to return.”

  “Few survived,” Jasper lamented. “I come back to you defeated!”

  Jasper half-expected his superior to behead him on the spot for returning empty-handed and having lost most of his warband, but General Peridot simply assessed him for a moment before answering.

  “Give me your report,” he ordered. “And omit nothing.”

  Though recounting the tale of his defeat brought Jasper no end of shame, his pride wouldn’t let him lie to his superior. He gave him an accurate description of the whole disaster—from the witch’s visit, to his cataclysmic defeat at Narc, and then Wepwawet’s proposal to let him go free should he carry a message home—without downplaying anything.

  “So the reports were true,” General Peridot muttered to himself as he considered the information. Jasper had never seen the man show concern before, yet he sounded quite uneasy this time. “The werelings’ god has apparently returned to lead them…”

  “I’ve seen him summon the rain, cast lightning from the sky, and create walls from nothing,” Jasper warned. “Either he is indeed a god, or a more powerful mage than our own vizier.”

  “No mage alive can achieve such feats, Jasper. I believe that this Wepwawet is indeed either a god or an entity so powerful that any difference would be purely academic.” General Peridot pondered the matter a few seconds before changing the subject. “What of that witch who gave you the sword? Did you at least learn her name?”

  “No,” Jasper admitted. “I was a fool to take her at her word. She tricked me into a doomed battle!”

  “Yet her sword must have indeed protected you in battle, or else this Wepwawet would have smote you like he did with your men,” General Peridot pointed out. “It would have been much easier to repel your assault by assassinating you rather than flooding his own base. Such a roundabout strategy only makes sense when a simple solution is beyond reach.”

  Jasper hadn’t considered the implications. His superior’s keen eye for strategy and tactics showed once again. “The witch said that Wepwawet’s power only extended to a three-mile range or so,” he recalled out loud. “It has limits.”

  “I suspect so,” General Peridot confirmed, his finger repeatedly tapping the tip of his pommel. “What bothers me most is that this mysterious woman, if she was indeed human at all, called him ‘Set’s bastard.’ This implies there are likely more than two of these entities at play in Verglane, which I don't like in the slightest.”

  “More than two?” Jasper inquired. He already struggled to imagine an entity like Wepwawet could exist, let alone more.

  “If this Wepwawet’s sorcery is indeed as great as you say, then I would assume the only power capable of negating it would derive its power from a similar entity. A third party must have provided you with your sword through an intermediary.” General Peridot waved his hand and changed the subject. “Is this all that you have to report? Or do you have any other information to bring me?”

  “None that I can think of,” Jasper replied. It was time for him to face the music. “Now that my task is complete, may I humbly request a sword to drive through my heart?”

  “What?!” His demand startled his commander. “Why?!”

  “So I can expiate the sin of losing my men!” Jasper replied. Now that he had led the survivors home, he had little left to live for. “I have shamed Lavaland, our beloved Sultan, and even Princess Topaz’s beautiful name! I shall bear responsibility for my foolishness!”

  To his surprise, his commander denied him that mercy. “No one is extinguishing anyone’s flame today, Jasper,” he said, calmly but firmly. “If I had to kill every commander who messed up, I would have no army left to lead. The loss of your soldiers, while a tragedy, did provide us with highly important information. You have not fought in vain.”

  “But I’ve lost!” Jasper argued. “I’ve led my soldiers to death and defeat!”

  “You’ve survived fighting a god, and you believe this is a deed worthy of shame?” General Peridot shrugged his shoulders. “It is fine to lose a battle young so you can win a war when you’re old, Jasper. Pressure tempers iron to steel. If you feel you must regain your honor in your dead men’s name, then you must atone through service, not death.”

  “But–”

  “I don’t give you permission to kill yourself, Captain Jasper,” General Peridot cut in. “I order you to live and fight for your country. The end.”

  His words silenced Jasper. What could he answer to that?

  His superior had condemned him to live with his shame until he could shrug it off. He had no choice but to obey.

  “As for your message… I will hear it from these ambassadors’ own mouths.” General Peridot turned to his aide. “Summon them here. You can stay, Captain Jasper.”

  Jasper rose up and remained respectfully silent as Goreville and Sagesse both walked into the room. General Peridot sized them up with a glance, as he always did when facing potential enemies.

  “I am General Peridot, high commander of the Lavaland’s Expedition Force,” the general introduced himself. “I am told you are representatives from Verglane?”

  “Indeed we are, general,” Sagesse replied. “I am Sagesse, advisor and representative to Roynimalia’s council.”

  “And I am Goreville, humble servant of Lord Wepwawet, god of this land,” the werewolf said. “Which your very presence despoils.”

  “You serve a powerful master, Lord Goreville, but if he held sway over this region then surely he would have expelled us by now.” General Peridot shook his head. “Let us cut straight to the chase. As my captain already informed you, we’ve been ordered to seize new magma chambers to deal with our overpopulation issue.”

  “And Lord Wepwawet is willing to lend you ours,” Goreville replied. “If you respect his laws.”

  “The same goes for us,” Sagesse added. “Verglane is sparsely populated, so we would be willing to allow magmorian immigrants to settle in our magma chambers under specific terms. However, this fortress’ mere construction is a violation of our borders, not to mention your raids north. We demand that you cease both as a condition to any future agreement.”

  General Peridot listened to them without a word. Jasper expected him to agree to negotiations, and mostly hoped he did. His enthusiasm for this conquest had died with his troops.

  After seeing his power and ruthlessness, Jasper was now convinced that a conflict with Wepwawet would only lead to ruin. He had no doubt Lavaland would eventually prevail—they were the world’s greatest country, and no god could change that—but at too high a price. If the werelings were willing to talk things out, they should at least try to hear them out; and General Peridot was wise enough to listen.

  However, Jasper had seen his superior often enough to tell when something bothered him. General Peridot’s hand scratched his pommel’s grip with clear hesitation. He looked almost… distraught.

  “You find me most embarrassed,” the general finally said. “I wish you had visited me a few days earlier. Had you done so, we could have reached an agreement.”

  Ambassador Sagesse was no fool, and saw through his words. “Is this the magmorian way of saying no?”

  General Peridot exhaled a sigh of smoke through his helmet’s slits. “Unfortunately, we have recently received strict orders from above to conquer all of western Verglane and bring it under Lavaland’s control by any means necessary.”

  “What?!” Jasper couldn’t help but blurt out in surprise. He immediately regretted his outburst, but his surprise didn’t diminish. Since when?!

  “So this was a war of conquest from the start!” Goreville growled in response, his fangs barred behind his lips. “This overpopulation issue was just an excuse!”

  “It wasn’t,” General Peridot insisted. “Our initial orders were to scout north for magma chambers where we could establish colonies… but they’ve changed since.”

  “Has your leader taken leave of his senses?” Sagesse asked in disbelief. “Our people shall not stand idle while your armies march into our lands!”

  “We will not push into Roynimalia,” General Peridot replied. “Our orders are to seize western Verglane all the way to the Boisblanc Forest. If your people surrender this region to us, we shall not wage war with you.”

  “Do you take us for fools?” Goreville replied. “Your Fire Sultan just hopes to divide us so he can conquer us all one slice of land at a time!”

  “The order does not come from His Majesty Onyx, but from higher still.” General Peridot’s grip on his pommel tightened. He didn’t sound happy about it, but a good soldier obeyed nonetheless. “This is not a kingly command, but a holy mission.”

  His wording took Jasper aback, until he realized he had missed one very important detail: that his superior had immediately trusted his report about Wepwawet and his powers. Why would the general take such tall tales at face value?

  Unless… unless he had seen such miracles for himself.

  “What does that mean?” Goreville inquired with a glare.

  “It seems your god is not the only one who has decided to answer his followers’ prayers,” General Peridot replied. “Since you came as ambassadors under a banner of peace, I shall allow you to bring your superiors our answer: should the people of western Verglane bend the knee to Fire Sultan Onyx and pay him tribute, the Lady of the Eternal Flame shall welcome you into her fold. You have until the next moon’s turn to comply with our demands.”

  Ambassador Sagesse squinted at him. “Or else, general?”

  “Or else I will march with my army.” Fire glowed behind General Peridot’s helmet. “And Lady Pele won’t need to send another.”

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