The coalition's first diplomatic convoy left Kaldrath a month after the tournament's conclusion, and I'd insisted on joining it personally rather than trusting the delicate work of continent-wide alliance-building entirely to Seraphine's considerable but still mortal capabilities.
"You do realize," Seraphine said, watching me help load supply wagons alongside soldiers who still hadn't quite gotten used to a literal god volunteering for manual labor, "that part of the point of building a coalition is delegating enough that you're not personally present for every single conversation."
"I know," I said. "But half these kingdoms have never heard of me directly, and I suspect a personal introduction carries more weight than a letter, especially given how strange the actual pitch is going to sound."
She couldn't argue with that logic, though her expression suggested she still found something faintly absurd about a being capable of leveling mountains insisting on helping tie down cargo straps.
Our party was larger than I'd expected — Seraphine herself, leading the diplomatic effort with her father's full authority behind her; a contingent of Kaldrath's elite guard; Kai, whose own two years of quiet investigation into this world's various cultures made him an invaluable guide; Selene, unwilling to be left behind now that her research had become directly relevant to matters of continental security; and Aria, who'd finally, formally extended her absence from Valoria with Eldrin's blessing, citing the simple, practical truth that whatever was coming would eventually reach every corner of this world, hidden village included.
Kael had stayed behind, much to his own visible frustration, tasked by his father with managing House Drenmoor's considerable logistics contribution to the growing coalition effort. "Someone has to make sure the actual supplies keep moving while you're all off making history," he'd said, with only a little bitterness, before we departed.
The road out of Kaldrath wound first toward Sylvaris, the elven enclave whose ancient neutrality and considerable magical knowledge made it, according to Seraphine's careful diplomatic assessment, the single most important early alliance to secure.
"The elves haven't involved themselves in mainland politics in over a century," she explained as our convoy settled into its traveling rhythm on the first evening. "Their neutrality is practically a founding principle at this point. Convincing them to break it will require more than urgency — it'll require proof that this threat genuinely transcends the mortal conflicts they've spent so long deliberately avoiding."
"I can provide proof," I said. "I'm fairly confident a demonstration of what actually tore a hole in the sky above your capital would get their attention."
"Careful," Kai said, falling into step beside us. "In my experience, the more ancient and isolated a culture is, the less impressed they tend to be by raw power alone. Sylvaris has survived a hundred years of careful neutrality specifically by not getting swept up in every mortal crisis that promises to be civilization-ending. They'll want more than a demonstration. They'll want a genuine, considered reason to believe this crisis is different."
He was right, and I found myself grateful, again, for the particular clarity his own hard-won experience navigating this world provided — a perspective neither Aria's village wisdom nor Seraphine's court diplomacy quite covered on their own.
The journey to Sylvaris took the better part of two weeks, cutting through terrain that grew steadily wilder and more untouched the further we traveled from Kaldrath's cultivated farmlands. I spent much of it deep in quiet conversation with Selene and Kai, cross-referencing everything we'd gathered about the Architect, the Grey Sovereign, and the pattern of "trainees" scattered across what increasingly looked like a much larger and older story than any of us had originally suspected.
On the twelfth night, camped at the edge of a forest so ancient and dense that even my own senses struggled to fully map its depths, Aria found me sitting alone near the fire's edge, turning the silver ring she'd given me over in my fingers.
"Still carrying it," she observed, settling beside me.
"I promised I'd bring it back," I said. "Haven't managed that yet. Figured the least I could do is keep it close in the meantime."
She smiled, and for a moment, watching the firelight flicker across her face, the enormous, continent-spanning weight of everything we were building felt, briefly, considerably smaller and more manageable than it actually was.
"We're going to need more than diplomacy and old rings before this is over," she said quietly. "But I'm glad, whatever's coming, that I get to face it standing next to someone who still remembers to keep small promises in the middle of everything else."