Hiral's campaign shifted in silence.
His strategy unfurled like a patient net, woven city by city, street by street.
He dispatched elite squads—handpicked, lean, and unshakable in their loyalty—to key cities straddling supply routes and merchant hubs.
Their orders were precise: secure discreet stockpiles of food and medicine, gather intelligence from taverns and guilds, and intercept couriers whenever possible.
At night, they sabotaged what they could without exposing themselves—burning a caravan here, diverting a supply chain there. Small cuts, meant to bleed the enemy slowly.
And yet, Ro's armies proved maddeningly resilient.
Reports reached him from scouts and spies: their engineers could turn forests into lumber camps overnight, refashion broken wagons into siege parts, and draw clean water through contraptions that seemed plucked from alchemists' dreams.
They manufactured kits and arms on the march, turning scarcity into abundance with a frightening efficiency.
Hiral, hearing these accounts, felt the twist of something perilously close to greed. If only we had such tools… His army could stride across kingdoms unchecked. His people would never know hunger in a campaign. For a fleeting moment, the vision took hold.
But he shook his head, dispelling it with a sharp breath. To think in such way would lead to one's own downfall.
Something Hiral would not court.
The weapons of Ro might serve today, but tomorrow they would enslave his nation to the same hunger for power that had corrupted their King.
He did not need their tools.
But to stoke their people's pride.
And so he turned his attention to them—the quiet backbone of kingdoms, the true storm behind thrones.
Through merchants he had carefully placed years prior, his whispers seeped into Ro.
Stories spread like wildfire in marketplaces and counting halls: prisoners of war starved and broken, trade routes strangled by the army's arrogance, taxes bleeding the hardworking farmers and artisans to fund the King's stubborn vendetta.
The proud and independent folk of Ro, who prized their autonomy above all else, began to murmur discontent. If this war continues, we are the ones who will pay. Not the throne.
Meanwhile, he did not spare his own people from the same storm. He encouraged voices that questioned the Empress's aims, nudging commoners and lesser nobles alike to ask—what purpose does this war truly serve?
How many fields must be emptied, how many children left fatherless, for the sake of a border quarrel that spiraled into madness?
He rattled both cages at once.
It was dangerous. To pit people against their rulers was to play with a fire that could consume even him. But that was the only way forward.
Because while the kings and empresses dreamed of crowns and glory, Hiral dreamed of something far greater:
A war ended not by swords, but by the weight of a people who would no longer bleed for rulers blind to their suffering.
The ground was shifting. He could feel it.
But he knew this was only the first step.
****
The fire crackled low in the brazier, throwing shifting shadows against the canvas walls of the command tent.
The night outside hummed with the murmur of soldiers bedding down, the ring of steel being set aside for sleep, the watchmen calling shifts in the dark.
Tirin, sitting across from Hiral, studied him in silence for a long while before finally asking, voice quiet but steady:
"What is it you truly see, General? Beyond these maneuvers, beyond the whispers you scatter into both kingdoms. What lies at the end of this grand plan of yours?"
Hiral did not answer at once. He poured himself a measure of watered wine, watched the ripples catch the firelight, and then smiled faintly, though it never quite reached his eyes.
"A future," he said, "that has no need for General Hiral."
The words hung heavy in the air.
Seran, leaning against a tent post, arched a brow. "And what in the blazes is that supposed to mean?"
Hiral's smile deepened, a little wistful. "It means exactly what it sounds like."
"Don't toy with me." Seran pushed off the post, voice sharp. "If you mean some martyr's end or a path where you burn yourself out so others may walk—then speak it plain. Because if that's the road you're on, I'd rather beat sense into you now than stand by and watch you march into it."
Hiral chuckled, the sound low and rich. "You really should have been a poet, Seran. You wield words with the same flare you do a blade—more dramatic than half the bards I've met."
But Seran wasn't laughing. His jaw tightened. "You didn't answer me."
Hiral only shrugged, deliberately light, and reached for a map scroll at his side. "Later."
The refusal was final.
Seran scowled, muttered something about stubborn fools, and stormed out of the tent to patrol, his steps heavy against the trampled earth.
Silence lingered in his wake until Tirin exhaled softly, rubbing a hand across his brow.
"He isn't wrong, you know. To be worried. These plans you're weaving… they're threads pulled too taut. If they snap, it won't only be you who falls, it will be all of us. The risk—"
"—is the only path left," Hiral finished gently, setting the scroll aside and meeting Tirin's gaze with calm resolve. "If we do not take it, then no matter how often we win, how many times we rebuild, nothing will change. The suffering will simply continue, dressed in new banners and new crowns. But if it works—"
He leaned back, eyes distant, voice steady as iron. "If it works, peace across the continent will not be a dream. And it will not fade with a single reign. It will last."
Tirin's shoulders sagged. He looked down at his hands, then back at Hiral with something caught between admiration and grief.
"I sometimes wish," Tirin murmured, "that you were not such a great man. That you could have been just a soldier, or even a farmer, living quietly with wine and laughter and a family of your own. But fate had to give you vision… and because of that, you carry more than you should. More than any man should."
Hiral smiled again, softer this time, though the weight in his eyes did not lessen. He reached for the brazier with the poker, nudging the coals until sparks rose like fleeting stars.
"Perhaps," he said. "But if someone must carry it… better me than another."
Tirin had no answer to that.
He only sat in silence, the crackling fire between them, knowing that whatever Hiral truly intended, it was already too late to dissuade Hiral from it.