Amaury sat alone in the solar chamber of Calverne’s high keep, the stained-glass light behind him casting fractured halos across the war table.
Maps and missives were strewn in chaotic spirals — none of them good.
None of them hopeful.
He hadn’t slept in two days.
His wine had gone untouched.
And the voices hadn’t stopped.
Not the ones in his head — he wasn’t mad, not yet — but the real ones, clawing at the door of his court, murmuring through parchment and broken protocol.
Why did we burn our own homes, my lord?
Where are the armies you said would invade?
Was this your will, or the gods’?
The truth was worse than any whisper.
He didn’t know anymore.
Three raids, three fronts — well-coordinated, executed with precision, driven by noble zeal and sharpened doctrine.
They were meant to provoke the Romanus into overextending.
Meant to draw them into costly reprisals across scattered terrain.
Only fields salted under his own orders.
Only citizens fleeing, weeping, wandering toward the east with soot on their faces and curses on their lips.
Amaury slumped back in the high-backed chair and stared at the cracked goblet beside him.
He had shattered it in anger yesterday when Marshal Clément accused him of cowardice in front of his court.
"A prince who does not stand with his land cannot expect it to stand with him,"
the man had said, coldly, without malice.
One that rippled through his command like blood in water.
The nobles no longer held their tongues, he had led them here with promises of greatness and the expansion of their own domains.
But now some were rallying privately — whispering of retreat.
Some had stopped sending additional levies.
Others spoke of going back to serving under the king, or worse... fall into line behind one of his siblings competing for the throne.
He could see it in their eyes when he rode through the towns that remained.
They looked at him not with pride, but with the blank hatred of those betrayed.
They had obeyed his edicts — torched their barns, poured their seed stores into wells, crippled their livestock.
They had done it believing Romanus legions would come.
But the only boots on their soil were Francian.
Their prince had prepared them for siege.
But there was no siege.
Amaury stood suddenly, pacing the narrow stone corridor of the chamber.
His boots echoed harshly against the flagstones.
He felt like a man who had jumped — and now waited for the impact that never came.
That waiting was worse than war.
Because in the absence of bloodshed, there was blame.
He approached the southern windowsill and looked out over the half-frozen lake that hugged the keep’s base.
A column of smoke still rose from the village on the far bank.
Burned under his orders.
No military significance.
A preventative measure.
He told himself that again and again.
But it didn’t feel like strategy anymore.
It felt like failure.
"Where are you, Julius?"
he whispered, almost pleading.
"Come. March. Prove me right."
But still, the horizon stayed clean.
Still, the wolf remained at the door — not entering, just watching.
There was a knock at the solar door.
Marshal Clément stepped through, accompanied by High Lord Bellâtre and Lady Théonilde of the Marches.
All three bore expressions tight with disapproval.
The kind that had passed beyond anger into disappointment — or worse, calculation.
Amaury said, before they could find polite words.
"The remaining garrisons report no movement from the Romanus. No skirmishes. No probes. Not even scouts. They’ve entrenched."
"Nowhere, Your Grace. They’ve stopped."
Amaury closed his eyes.
Bellâtre stepped forward, voice cautious.
"We’ve received word from the eastern provinces. Refugees have arrived — some from towns your edicts destroyed. They say they no longer fear the Romanus. They fear you."
"And what of my court?"
Amaury asked without opening his eyes.
It was a single word, and it hit like a hammer.
Amaury turned to face them, fingers clenched tight behind his back.
"I gave these orders because I knew they would come."
"And now the people ask if we did this for nothing."
Amaury took a step forward, voice rising.
"They will come. Julius is not the kind to posture forever. He’s patient, yes, but not idle. He wants us to turn on ourselves. To bleed from within."
"he seems to be achieving without raising a single sword."
The kind that was not empty — but waiting.
Amaury walked to the hearth, stared into the dying fire.
It felt metaphorical.
Then he whispered something none of them expected.
The nobles exchanged glances.
Théonilde stepped forward.
Amaury turned. His voice was quieter now.
Not weak — but uncertain in a way it had never been.
Clément’s brow furrowed.
"The peasant girl? The mystic?"
"She speaks and people listen. She believes and they believe with her."
"A symbol. A symbols bound to my eventual rule."
He gestured toward the window again.
"I gave them fire. She gives them faith. I need that now more than ever. Before I lose the hearts I once commanded."
There was another silence.
But this one, too, was not empty.
The nobles didn’t argue.
They understood symbols — even if they distrusted them.
And Joan, whether they liked it or not, was rising in the public consciousness.
She had healed a dying child last week, they said.
Turned a river pure in a blighted village.
Spoken to the wind and been heard.
Real or not — such things spread.
"And if she says no?"
Amaury turned away from the fire and looked over the table — over the broken maps and cracked goblet.
"then Francia burns from both ends."
"And I won’t be the one holding the torch."