We thought we’d seen the worst the war had to offer in the fiery deserts of Arbusia. But the deeper we pushed into the Imperial territory, the worse it got. After the desert came the mesas. The great, steep table-top mountains sculpted smooth by continental winds, parted by deep, cracked gashes, and into those serpentine ravines the Orbeggians had assembled their cities, safe from the elements and invaders.

  The road into the imperial mainland of Tarachia could only be opened through Orbeggia, but resistance was fierce. Fighting in that region was like cracking open giant oysters of bedrock that tirelessly spat venom and fire at you. And beyond one city awaited another.

  Not even my full power could grant the Calidean army a speedy or easy breakthrough. My strongest spells fell on Orbeggia's vast walls of red rock like over-ripened tomatoes on a hot pan. I chipped away at the mesas day after day until I could no longer keep my eyes open, but only had so much smoking rubble to show for it, while the natives of that stubborn land dug deeper into their ancestral lairs.

  In the final days of September, the General and I studied from the distance the fractured, smoking escarpments, in the main ravine of which the lights of Takhilitan still indomitably twinkled. Under the quadrillion stars of the night sky, it truly sank in how big the world was and we had to doubt if there was ever going to be an end to this campaign.

  Over six hundred miles more lay between us and the Forbidden Capital, where the Emperor of Tarachia vowed never to surrender, commanding his people to fight to the last man. The rout of their main army weeks earlier and the loss of over 150,000 troops seemed to have had no effect whatsoever on the enemy's morale. It was as if death meant nothing to them.

  Day by day, the faces to vanish in my flames grew either younger or older, but they wouldn’t stop coming. How many more would I have to stamp out before it was the turn of the one who’d started it all? Would there be anything left of this planet but smoke and dead ash when it was done? And then, before the midnight bell on September 27, we were suddenly finished.

  An adjutant ran up the hill to the cliff edge, where the General sat wearily in a camping chair, leaning on her knees, and I stood close by.

  “It’s over! It’s over!” the adjutant yelled like a madman as he approached.

  Neither of us registered the meaning of the words. Our faith in their reality was close to zero. We thought he’d had a heat stroke and hallucinated.

  “What are you talking about?” the General asked.

  “We just got word, ma’am,” the man reported, too excited to even take a moment to steady his breathing. “The war is over! The Emperor is dead! Murdered by his personal guard! They have no terms! Tarachia surrenders! They surrender! It’s unconditional surrender!”

  “Don’t talk rubbish,” General Ruthford replied, still skeptical. “Has His Majesty accepted yet? Nothing ends until he says so. We are still at war.”

  The adjutant wasn’t listening anymore. He spun around and left running back down the hill path to the camp, his passionate yelling echoing over the quietly resting tents and the windswept plains. “It’s over!”

  Left in silence, we returned to stare at the glow of Takhilitan’s lights under the similarly glittering firmament. It could’ve been my imagination, but the mood over the city seemed inexplicably sunken and brooding. Extinguished. We’d had false news before, but I had a feeling it could be true this time.

  Yet, neither of us celebrated, or even smiled. We were long beyond joy, if we could even remember what the word meant.

  “See, 9XA,” the General finally remarked, “each land is her people, and it’s only when the spirit of the people is broken that a war is lost or won. And when a ruler is forsaken by his people, he no longer has a country.”

  I turned the words around in my mind, unsure if they amounted to anything sensible. Maybe she really was tired. Why tell me, anyway? I had no ambition to ever become a king, or a queen, or anybody in charge of deciding such things.

  For whatever reason, that scene returned to me now in training hall number four, where we listened to Rafel Siroquan’s story.

  The former empire teetered on the verge of a civil war. Defeat had left their government sundered into two main factions: the conservative Devouts, and the progressive Reformists. The latter group had resolved to do what they could to put the downfall behind them, to ensure the future and well-being of the common people, whereas the former was also concerned with the preservation of the traditional culture and values. On the surface.

  The Devouts feigned cooperation in public, while sheltering extremists still loyal to the old regime. The Calidean overseers ensured these elements remained in the minority when it came to the big decisions, but keeping them fully in check in a still-volatile federation was difficult.

  On these parts, Siroquan’s account matched with what I knew beforehand.

  “There’s a branch of the military under the command of a certain General Karnos,” the young man explained, sitting firmly on his knees on the training hall floor in front of me. “They’ve refused to acknowledge orders to disband and oppose the new regime, still holding a small province in the northwest under their control. They’ve been classified as a criminal organization without military status, but they almost certainly have contacts in the Devout party too, and are probably looking for a way to turn things around. Even if their odds of success are low. There aren’t that many of the rebels, and we’re hoping to resolve the situation without open hostilities, even if it takes time.”

  “I take it that’s not working out?”

  “No, the situation is under control,” Siroquan insisted. “Well, mostly under control.”

  “But?”

  “The thing is, General Karnos’s force includes something called the Locust unit: a former elite force trained to serve as the Emperor’s personal legion. In December, last year, we learned that a part of the unit had received orders to go dark and seek entry into Calidea through the Old Wood. A platoon had been dispatched already before the ceasefire, and had long since gone outside our tracking range. The ‘Locusts’ have all received special training to survive in extreme conditions, and accomplish their objective at whatever cost.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Like the General told me, then. Her information probably came from the occupation overseers.

  “So how does that explain why you’re here?” I asked.

  “Well, as you’ve guessed, I’m affiliated with Tarachian military. Since Belmesion is famously located on the eastern border of the Wood and carries out frequent research expeditions into it, we considered it the ideal position to survey the region. There's the highway leading to the capital close by too. Since I happen to be of the appropriate age and have some skill with magic, I volunteered to infiltrate the academy as a student and look for early signs of the Locusts’ approach. With luck, we’ll be able to locate and eliminate them, before they can carry out whatever operation they have planned in Calidea.”

  Emily interjected,

  “Why such a roundabout approach? Couldn’t your people just have let our people know the bad guys are on their way, and we’d take care of them ourselves?”

  Siroquan looked awkwardly at the floor. “Well. It’s...complicated.”

  I answered for him: “Because of politics.”

  Emily tilted her head.

  “Politics?”

  “We Calideans aren't some selfless heroes of justice ourselves,” I said. “Few on our side care about the difference between the Devouts and Reformists. The Empire had to give up a lot of territory and pay heavy reparations, but there remain hardliners in our government who feel we let them off too lightly. If word got out that they have troops still making moves against us—even if it's only a small rebel detachment—it could easily be used as an excuse to wring additional concessions. Beyond that, we could criminalize the Devout party altogether and force the Tarachians to purge the conservative half of their country. It would turn the older generations against the younger and plunge what’s left of the already unstable empire into a civil war. The mainland’s desolation would be inevitable. Well, you reap what you sow, some might say.”

  Siroquan squeezed his fists on his knees.

  “I know the defeated have no room to argue,” he said, “but we can’t just sit still and watch that happen. The innocent people who never took part in any fighting would suffer the most in that scenario. Our only choice is to try to stop the Locust unit before they can make their move. Enough people have died. It has to stop somewhere.”

  Noble words. But turning them real was another matter entirely.

  “Would there be no chance for us to negotiate?” the man asked me. “We can take care of our own ghosts, if only you’ll give us the chance to. Some degree of compensation should be possible too, as long as it stays out of public.”

  Negotiate? I was never trained to be a diplomat. Normally, by the time I got involved, deadly force was the only remaining solution.

  No, did this have to be any more complicated than that?

  “Why negotiate?” I asked Siroquan. “As far as I can tell, the least painful solution is to eliminate you here, and then the others, once they pop up. You serve your country best by quietly disappearing from the stage. Don’t worry. I know of ways to dispose of a body—without leaving anything incriminating behind.”

  I held out my palm at the youth.

  “Hey, hey!” Emily rushed to stand between us. “Are you going to kill him? Couldn’t we just pretend we saw and heard nothing?”

  I scowled at her. “You really are a fool, Emily. You’d trust a person, who was only just outed as an imposter? You’d even put yourself on the line of fire to protect him? What is this now? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with this man?”

  “No, not one bit.” She waved her hand to deny it. “But, it just doesn’t feel right, you know? You’ve got to stay true to what you believe, yeah? Okay, sure, he was hiding things from us, but I’d say it was for a pretty good reason. It’s not like we were honest with him ourselves! You’re hiding stuff from me even now, and I don’t hold that against you! Or maybe I do, just a little...Anyway! What are we even studying magic here for? It’s to help people, right? To do the difficult stuff that ordinary person can’t do! That’s what our power is for, isn’t it!? So shouldn’t we help them? Come on, Boss! Let’s be the good guys!”

  Using magic to make things better? As if I had any idea how that worked.

  “It’s fine, Troyard.” Siroquan gestured at Emily to stand back. “I appreciate you standing up for me. And I’m sorry for deceiving you too, for what it's worth. But we all knew this could be a one-way trip. Should we be caught, our government will deny ever knowing us. For my own part, I’d rather not make the damage any worse either. I’ve made my peace. The fact that the Kingdom isn’t oblivious to the threat is something on its own. Yes. Maybe it won’t end up as badly as we initially feared.”

  “What are you even talking about? How could you just blindly accept your own death! Are you all out of your mind? Geez…”

  “Hold on,” I had to interject there. “You all knew…? Just how many Tarachians are there in this damn country right now? Beside you and the Swordmaster. Are all those others posing as students too?”

  “Ahaha, our task force is pretty small, to avoid arousing suspicion,” Siroquan answered with a wry laugh. “I’m the only one of us here at the academy. You know Lord Jeiyd? He can handle the Locust force practically by himself. The rest of us are here just to gather information and support him.”

  “Jeiyd?” I repeated the name with surprise. “Naradhran Jeiyd? The Emerald Blade? That was him in Canelon that day?”

  “Yes? Have you met him?”

  “...”

  We hadn't met, but who wouldn't know a man of his fame?

  Imperial Guard Captain Jeiyd. The Empire’s own Sword Saint candidate. Wandering around in Calidea like a tourist…

  I rubbed my aching head. I’d heard enough, too much, and didn’t want to hear another word more.

  But I knew Naradhran Jeyid was a prominent figure in the Reformist party. It was his own father, who killed the Emperor, and thereby brought the war to an end, sparing us of potentially years more of empty bloodshed. The remnants of the old regime managed to execute the man before the Kingdom’s forces secured the Tarachian capital, but he became a celebrated martyr and hero on both sides of the border.

  It was ridiculous to think the Emerald Blade was a double agent colluding with old conservatists, for whom he was the traitor’s son and the worst villain in the world. So I had to admit that Siroquan's story was probably true. Killing or arresting this guy here would only create more adversaries instead of reducing their number. Maybe keeping him where I could see him was the better plan.

  In short, our business here was done. I heaved a sigh and turned to leave.

  “Do whatever you please.”

  Siroquan and Emily both stared after me in confusion.

  “Eh, does this mean you’re going to let me go?” he asked.

  “I’m not in the mood to kill you anymore.”

  “But what will you tell your superiors?”

  “What superiors?” I asked as I opened the door and went out. “We’re just students. My professor wouldn’t be interested.”