Maisara looked over her reports. Sudden attacks in the north. Several at the same time. And Olonia was using her eagle now. She was attag during the day and the night, sometimes her forces would engage before she even got there. This past week, Lubska’s “Army” had been movihargically. And now, it was moving as if it was frantically running out of time.

  Something had ged, these frantic moves had the stink of Kassandora on them.

  “Produ is up again, we’re running at full-steam in the new district.” Arascus listeo Sokolowski finish his report. War administration was always a pain, every facet of peacetime ruling could be delegated away whereas every facet of wartime ruling had to be carefully monitored because no o Arascus would do a job as well as him. So he sat in the Imperial Governance Office of Kirinyaa, the building that once housed the National Assembly. It was the only building that would do, designed by Divines, for Divihere was no other building with doorframes Arascus could simply walk through without ing his neck. It did make all the humans look ically dowhough, but Sokolowski seemed to take no issue with it, he simply kept on giving his report. “I’ve put a man called Haki in charge of the anization of the new housing district. He’s native here and that’s all I’ll say about him.” Sokolowski finished with a perfect salute as Arascus leaned ba his chair. Helenna tapped her pen against her piece of paper and readjusted the folders by her side.

  “That’s all you’ll say about him?” Arascus asked, Damian Sokolowski did not eve to the accusatory tone. He wouldn’t though, Kassandora’s men rarely got flustered. This man was being another Iliyal, in his military uniform he stood, with the honorary rifle and pistol on his belt. All the officers were allowed t their onry into the Imperial Governance Offices, it wasn’t like they posed a threat to Divines anyway.

  “I am certain he will do an acceptable job.” Sokolowski said. “He has finished a degree in urban pnning from Nanbasa’s Westpoint Uy.” That was one of the best in the try, especially when it came to issues like this. Other schools could cim to have better stists and teology, but no one produced better administrators than the pce that y in the middle of the try’s administrative tre. “And he uands that the own is to be designed for the war effort. Foundation excavations started a week ago.” Arasodded as he looked over to Helenna.

  The Goddess of Love scrawled something on her piece of paper and shrugged. She wore the bck HAUPT uniform that had bee synonymous with Arascus’ rule. Today, her hair ale brown, that simply meant the woman was satisfied. Arascus wished all Goddesses had their emotions on dispy like that, it would make living in this world far easier. Helenna’s tall cap, with the emblem of a rose with huge thorns, sat on her desk in front of her. “Do you have anything to add?” Arascus asked. She probably wouldn’t, but the woman should be kept on good terms for now. She should feel as if she was doing something until Irinika and Mam were rescued from below at least.

  “Nothing.” Helenna said, her hair turning a brighter shade for only a moment, as if it was a beati. “Thanks for asking.” Sokolowski did not even look at, that was ahing Arascus liked about the generals of Kassandora. They could stand in front of a circus and not see anything if not asked to.

  “And the Epa situation?” Without Kassie here, it was hard to get news. Damian Sokolowski made a sorry face.

  “I do not know. General Tremali only sends updates to Goddess Kassandora.” Arascus retreated further bato his seat. That was a big failure of how Kassie anised her armies, without her here, it was almost impossible to get any news.

  “So she does.” Arascus said as he stood up. “You’re dismissed General.” He saluted to the human. The humaurhe salute to the Divine. “Get to the sea-wall and keep preparing defences. If you hear anything from Tremali, then send word to me. We o keep track of the Epan situation.”

  “Yes Sir!” Damian Sokolowski answered. He turned around and made the formal goosestep out of Arascus’ room. Arascus sat back doeered over his map of coastal Kirinyaa. Defences in Nanbasa were plete, that was true. The city was not fully defended, but it was defended enough to be able to repel the first wave. The rest of the try though?

  Pitiful. Iniri had gone where she could. Most of the cities had her grown seawalls now, though none as grand as Nanbasa’s t monsters, and only a few were reinforced in the same manner. But that was why Arascus had made so much publicity in the past week about being in Nanbasa and about preparing its defences. It n him, Kassandora and Helenna had agreed on.

  A news cycle filled with nothing but updates on the defences served two purposes. The obvious one was the rallying of morale amongst the popution. They saw he was w on the immihreat, and they gave their support when needed. Fortia’s invasion of Epa only brought credeo threat and it set a fuse off for Kirinyaa’s popution. They thought they had until Fortia finished up in Epa, so the news of defeaking months to plete was glossed over. Months to defend a try was already fast. Whereas the other purpose it served was to force Alsaria to engage. Nanbasa specifically. Kassandora had given a presentation on how unassaible the walls were on national news. Helenna stantly talked about the procurement of arms and how Nanbasa alone produced most of the tries’ onry. That wasn’t even a lie. And Arascus made vague references about how not even titans would be able to cross the walls of Nanbasa once all the defences were finished.

  The goal was simple. It was to paint Nanbasa as a target so that the other cities would not be the focus. There recisely no ce that Uriamel would only invade Nanbasa, but if most of Uriamel’s armies hit this city, thehers had a ce. “What do you think Helenna?” Arascus decided to make small talk. He had to be in the capital for now, but that was because mundane issues came up every hour or so. Someone had to be here to solve them.

  “I was talking with Neneria.” Helenna said, she looked at Arascus with those warm eyes of hers and turned away after a moment, some colour in her cheeks. “Back when Iniri got lost in the Jungle. She said this to me, and she said Kass told her. The wait is the worst part.”

  “That is Kass’s line.” Arascus firmed, although no one uood the way Kassandora uood it. To everyone else, it was the fact that fear of a threat was usually greater than a threat itself. To Kassandora, it was more akin to needing release. “And she’s n on it.”

  “No, she’s not. It’s terrible.” Helenna firmed. “I sit here and look out the window and there’s just o.” She looked past Arascus and out the window. “I’m gd it’s just o, but then that dread sets in again.” Arascus turned on his chair as he watched Nanbasa. All the streets were lit, the vehicles iy’s animal reserve were turned off, but he could pick them out here and, hidden urees, starlight glinting off them. Traffic had died down iy, a good amount of the popution had fled to the rural tryside deeper in the try. A few had even gone so far as to already start building on the nd recimed from the Jungle.

  Now, the city was like a tired heart. It beat twice a day, during m rush hour and during the traffic jams in the evening when everyone was returning home from their work. Every other time, it remained quiet and dead, without so much as even a pedestrian walking about. The animals from the zoo had been evacuated, even the infrastructure of the city’s manufacturing district had been moved. ons had been positioned oop of skyscrapers and city blocks, windows had been blown out to give vantage points for soldiers, roads around the port had been torn up to make sure they wouldn’t serve Uriamel’s forces. That entire part of the city had been rigged to blow.

  Arascus looked up at the starry sky, the darkness retreating as the e edge of daproag from the east. “Do you think we have a ce?” Helenna asked from behind him. He heard her stand up and walk besides him.

  “I see no way forwards but victory.” Arascus replied and the Goddess of Love sniffed in humour.

  “That may work on Princesses, but not on me.”

  Arascus sniffed back, with just as much humour as she put into it. “Of the Old Guard, I assume there isn’t a single one of us who isn’t so jaded as to ugh at that.” Helenna popped open a bottle of wine behind him, the cork hit the ceiling and nded somewhere. “But I do genuinely believe it.”

  “We all have our failings.” Helenna said as she came over, a gss of wine poured for Arascus. “And I don’t think that’s a failing.”

  “her do I.” Arascus replied. “At least one of us o be an optimist.”

  “I would have assumed that was Fer.” Helenna replied.

  “Have you ever talked with Fer?”

  “Have I?” Helenna asked, almost aghast as to how her honour could be questioned so much.

  “I meant about the future.” Arascus said. As pleasant as Fer was, she was also the Goddess of Beasthood. The more o to know her, the more oarted to uimate her nature.

  “I’ve not.”

  “Then you should.” Arascus said. “But Fer lives in the moment, she’s not an optimist or a pessimist, she’s just here.”

  “We didn’t have anyone like that.” Helenna said. “The Forces I suppose, but for them, it’s more that they don’t want to cause trouble because then they’d have to work. Maisara, Fortia and Al…” Helenna chuckled. “There isn’t much to say about them, is there?”

  “There’s nothing to say that’s not been said before.” Arascus said. “But oimist is needed. Someone o see the light at the end of the tuo guide the others.”

  “And you see it?” Arascus looked down at the burgundy wine Helenna passed. Whether he saw it or not was not important. What was important was that others thought he saw it, because then they would want to follow along in his footsteps.

  “I have to see it.” Arascus said. “Because if I don’t, then who does?”

  “Mmh.” Helenna purred from the side of his chair as they watched the first sliver of the Sun breach the horizon. “I like the hoy of that answer.” Arascus merely sipped from his gss. He knew she would. Helenna liked any sort of news as long as she could read into it. So they sat, and waited, and watched the Sun rise.

  Arascus looked over the city. Past the animal reserve Nanbasa was built around, now poputed by military vehicles, artillery and self-propelled anti-air. Eae holding its gun as if it ore ready to defend against a giant animal. He looked past the industrial district, the warehouses evacuated of maery to be repced by soldiers and explosives, the whole se of the city ready to blow if it fell to invading forces. He looked passed Iniri’s seawall, a magnifit barrier of wood, taller than city blocks, filled in with crete and steel and peppered with its own turrets and men. He looked past the dark blue o, once filled with tless ships, y and still.

  Over the horizon, the Sun was rising, daushing away the starry night. And with that dawn came a figure. Floating in the air carried slowly. She was small, but Arascus could tell who it was with a single ghere weren’t many Goddesses that tall, who let their pale hair grow so long it fell like a curtain behind them, past their hips. Who did not need armour but instead only donned a dress of white and gold.

  Alsaria had e.