The guards posted at the entrance of Kyronkar didn’t even blink when I touched down in front of them, shifting back to my base form as I did so. Despite how odd the sight of a giant scaled lizard bat man carrying a strangely melancholy wolf was, I was a frequent sight here at the rise. I often had business with either Seneschal Stroud or with Wenzel himself. I didn’t even get an odd look from them.

  The Kyronkar elite were a different breed. They didn’t even look fazed by the catastrophe that had fallen on our home.

  Even still…I have to say, it was very disconcerting being this close to Kyronkar right now. The entire massive bulk of the edifice was quite literally pulsing with visible Aether, as it seemingly generated a massive emergency Ward array across the entire city. While the dreaded pressure from earlier wasn’t present, just standing at the foot of the behemoth was enough to set my skin to tingling. And it didn’t seem like it was going to let up anytime soon.

  While I was busy acclimating to the sensation, one of the senior officers stepped from the ranks to nod at me respectfully. “Marshal Hart. The Regent has called an emergency meeting in the Messer room. Your subordinates have already arrived, though we are still awaiting a number of others to attend. The meeting has yet to begin.”

  I paused before I could stride through the wide open doors of the monument. “Messer room? I’m…not familiar. Is Seneschal Stroud available to lead me there?”

  One of the younger, junior appearing guards winced not far from me. The senior officer I was speaking to immediately twisted his head to glare bloody murder at the young man. Somehow, he’d detected the slightest decorum of breech from behind his head. The young man didn’t react, simply staring frozenly off into the odd horizon the sky had become. The senior officer snorted, and when he turned back to me, there was a frown on his lips. “Unfortunately, Marshal…that will not be possible. I’m afraid Seneschal Stroud was one of the victims of the catastrophe. He…suffered an incredibly violent apoplexy and had already passed by the time a Healer could arrive.”

  I grimaced at the news, bowing my head as I translated that. Here in Herztal, when they spoke of an ‘apoplexy’, what they really meant was a heart attack. Stroud had certainly been a bit…unhealthy looking, but I hadn’t expected the pressure to affect him that deeply. I suppose the man had either been lower level or older than I had thought. His death was going to hurt Kyronkar. The man had essentially orchestrated the running of Kyronkar, through a complex series of nested servant groups. He’d been like a particularly porcine spider, snorting his way along the threads of stewardship. Not only that, but Isolde would be unhappy. From what I had seen, my Captain treated the man like he was an easily distressed Uncle by the Royal family.

  I sighed and shook my head while the officer continued. “I can lead you to the Messer room instead, Marshal. If you’ll follow me?”

  Silently, Fade and I did as we were asked. The atmosphere immediately changed as soon as we entered the main hall of Kyronkar. Both physically and atmospherically.

  For one, the sizzling sensation against my skin immediately ceased. Blessedly, it seemed like the stone of the monument was thick enough to block out whatever process was generating the additional wards protecting the city.

  Secondly, outside the courtyard had been dead silent as the guards stoically bore through their duty in a time of crisis. You could, and I’m pretty sure I had, easily hear a cricket chirp in the silence. Inside, there was a different story. It seemed without the guiding hand of Stroud there to corral them, the staff of Kyronkar…

  Were running around like a couple of hundred packs of chickens with their heads cut off.

  Sheer chaos, as they say.

  The din of all of them running around without direction echoed up and down the halls and floors of the gigalith that was Kyronkar, accompanied by their murmurs and shouting. I’m not even sure what they were doing, and frankly, I don’t think they did either. Some were standing around in packs, while others sprinted through the halls with strangely determined looks on their faces. Presumably they were all trying to fulfill their tasks, with vary degrees of enthusiasm, but I doubted anything was getting done efficiently.

  Thankfully, they all had the presence of mind to clear a path for the officer, Fade, and me as we followed him to the lift. Just like the massive lifts that transported people to and from the different layers of Blutstein, there was a smaller version within the tower itself that stopped on each of the many, many floors. With a few barked words from the officer, it was cleared out for our use, except for the attendant within, waiting by the lever. It was tall and thick enough fo the young man to lean against, looking like nothing more than a bar of iron set into a notch in the floor.

  The attendant perked up at our entrance, in his snappy servant's uniform, and actually saluted. I’m…pretty sure this kid wasn’t a soldier. “Lieutenant McGruder, sir! Where can I take you?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” The apparent Lieutenant said shortly. I…wasn’t really great at interpreting Herztalian military rank at a glance, so I’d take the kid’s word on it. “You are going to take the Marshal and his companion here to the fifty-first floor, and then lead him to the Messer room. Good luck, Marshal,” McGruder said to me, with a salute of his own. “I need to get back my post.”

  I nodded easily to the Lieutenant's words, and then he left. That left me with only the young attendant, who only goggled at me for a moment before throwing the lever next to him. With a lurch, the entire massive hunk of stone that was the lift started rising into the air with startling speed.

  I hid a grimace at the sensation. I always found this lift bit…disconcerting. It was bad enough that it had no obvious method of suspension, but it didn’t even have walls, much less railings. There was just a lever built into the floor that caused the lift to go up or to go down. I’d asked, once, just how the attendants knew when to stop the lift, considering there was no indicator.

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  The answer was that everything was done by feel. You just kind of…estimated where you stopped the lift.

  Fade whimpered quietly near my feet as the lift picked up speed. However, the fifty-first floor wasn’t that far up the great bulk of Kyronkar, and so the ascent didn’t take overly long. The young attendant accidentally stopped us on the fifty-second floor, to his very obvious dissatisfaction, and so I had to bear through the lurching sensation as he sent us hurtling down a floor. Once there, I wobbled my way off the lift, feeling like I’d just spent the last several weeks at sea. The attendant did as the Lieutenant asked, and led me through the halls of the floor I’d never been to before, stopping in front of a large set of double doors. He hurried back to his post as I examined them.

  Embossed on the black basalt surface were two single-edged longswords, presumably the ‘Messers’ that gave this room its name. Each stood upright on either side of the double doors, blade facing outward, while two actual sword hilts acted as the handles, standing out below the etchings. I grasped the right one and opened the heavy stone door, and was immediately hit by a wave of low conversation.

  Inside was a somewhat…dour sight.

  The Messer room was larger than I was expecting. More of a small hall, really, easily big enough to fit several hundred people inside. The center of it was dominated by a long, rectangular table hewn from the same basalt as the doors, around which maybe half that number of people were gathered. The atmosphere inside was tense, as they gathered together in groups around it, speaking in hushed tones fraught with worry and dread. They seemed to come from all walks of life. By far the most unnerved in the room were the nobility, of whom there were quite a few gathered. I could see nobles high and low alike gathered in circles and speaking in low voices, for once uncaring about the social strata that defined their existence. I could see incredibly rich-looking merchants by the dozen, closely huddled together as they whispered, while not far from them were representatives of the military. These seemed to be the real movers and shakers of the Army and the Navy, the Generals, Admirals, and their staff, all of them sitting in neat rows on opposite sides of the table.

  To my shock, I think I saw the first of the actual Bluebacks that I’d ever personally encountered. A trio of them sat with the Navy on their side of the table, each wearing a short blue cloak over their shoulders. They sat in complete silence and in utter stillness, in what almost seemed an overexaggeration of military decorum. In the tense situation that we found ourselves in, even the Admirals they sat next to had tense shoulders. Not the Bluebacks, though.

  They might as well have been statues.

  Well.

  At least until I stepped into the room.

  Almost as one, the two men and one woman turned their heads to face me, the minute my foot crossed the threshold. While their expressionless stares were a bit unnerving in their intensity, I met them head-on, unblinkingly. I wasn’t intimidated by these people.

  They weren’t the only ones who had walked the trenches of espionage.

  I received a slight nod of respect from the creepy bastards, and I returned it as I walked further into the room. Beyond the military representatives were those from the Martial Orders. To my distress, this number was vanishingly small. Only a small handful of Martial Orders hadn’t committed nearly their entire forces to chasing down that horde. It was a sobering reminder that nearly all of our combined forces were out of the city at the moment. I had been deliberately avoiding thinking about what was happening to them right this instant. What was happening to the world right now, outside of the barriers protecting Blutstein?

  My thoughts veered away from what might be happening to my friends and loved ones out there. Including…Sylvia.

  I couldn’t deal with that right now.

  Instead, I approached those among my companions who were still within the walls of Blutstein. Maria and Renauld were sitting with a few of our officers at a section of the table that was fairly close to the head. As I reached their position and leaned over the back of their chairs, my eyes flickered briefly up to the head of the table.

  There, Wenzel sat with the royals. The monochrome Regent Lord of Herztal sat in the absolute center of the table, there at the end, and wasn’t even looking at anyone. Instead, he appeared to be poring over an open scroll with a frighteningly intense look in his eye. To his right sat Oskar, dressed in what seemed to be a practice uniform of some kind, stained with the dirt and sweat of intense training. The future High King of Herztal had his arms crossed over his chest and looked only seconds away from exploding into a rage. He was almost vibrating in his chair, and I think he might have gotten up to pace if it wasn’t for the armor-clad gauntlet of Augustine on his shoulder. To his right, neatly aligned in a row down the perpendicular edge of the table, sat the High Lords of the Assembly. The true movers and shakers of Herztalian society were making an attempt at looking put together, but I could see the sweat on their brows as a new catastrophe loomed over Herztal. Almost all of them were in attendance, I noticed. There were two noticeable absences among them.

  The High Lords of Trade and Justice were not here.

  Meanwhile, Isolde sat to Wenzel’s left, looking far more put together than her brother. Tellingly, she still wore the prototype uniform we’d been considering for our forces, instead of a more Princessly dress. It wasn’t anything special, merely a long white cloak bearing the blue and red compass star of the Polaris Reach upon the back.

  But it did neatly signify her loyalties.

  She sat with her hands clasped on the table in front of her, and seemingly feeling my eyes, her own flickered up to meet mine. They darted to her left tellingly, and I followed them to find Bleddyn sitting on the perpendicular edge of the table, right next to her. Her new fiancé looked distinctly out of place, considering he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. The bare-chested Werewolf looked particularly antsy, drumming his fingers on the table before him in stark contrast to his new betrothed. I noticed that there was an open seat next to him.

  I nodded at her and spoke into the ears of my Commanders. “What are we waiting for?”

  Maria didn’t turn to look at me. “You, I think,” She ghosted to me. “Nearly everyone else that matters is in attendance.”

  I looked at her sideways. “Trade and Justice?”

  She shook her head minutely. “Dead. Their bodies were found an hour ago.”

  I cursed under my breath at the news, as Renauld turned in his seat to look at me in concern. I noticed that his eyes flickered in confusion to Fade at my heels, but he didn’t comment on the presence of my familiar. “Was Lina okay?”

  “She’s fine,” I smiled slightly at the Healer. “Bait is watching her at the Bastion. She-”

  I was interrupted before I could speak any further. The conversation had died out in the room, and when I looked up, I found Wenzel had set down his scroll. The man’s sheer presence as he regarded everyone gathered was enough to silence the chatter. I nodded minutely to the Regent as his gaze passed over me, and I saw a flicker of acknowledgement in those obsidian orbs.

  “Everyone, be seated. Guards, close and bar the doors. All those capable or willing to attend have already arrived,” Wenzel von Steinmark said heavily, his voice echoing in the silence. At his bidding, the guards near the entryway did as he commanded. As the heavy basalt slabs rumbled to a close, the Regent set both of his hands on the table and stood from his chair to loom over the gathering. “I hereby call this council of war to deliberation. We have much to discuss.”

  War, huh.

  Damn.

  That had some…implications.