Chapter 62: 62. Two People Learning to Be Less Alone
Yuki was looking at Glacielle with an expression that Lucian knew well because Glacielle sometimes looked at Octavia like that. It was the look of someone who has just met someone in their niche and hasn’t yet decided how to feel about it.
Lucian wondered if Yuki would warm up to Glacielle as quickly as Octavia had. The unspoken tension in the air hinted at the potential for a deep connection, but only time would tell if they would bridge the gap.
About ten minutes into the briefing, the argument about which Mythic to target started. It quickly turned into the kind of fight that happens when two people who are both right about different things are in the same room.
Their voices rose, each passionately defending their position while others watched, caught between amusement and concern. As the debate escalated, Yuki realized that this clash might just be the spark needed to solidify their alliance, provided they could find common ground amidst the chaos.
Seraphina thought the Devourer was the most important emergency because it was killing people right away and couldn’t be fixed. It took away everyone it ate, and there was no way to get them back.
More people died because of the delay, and there was no way to change that. As the weight of their decisions pressed heavily on them, they felt a surge of determination. They needed to act quickly, uniting their strengths to confront the Devourer before it claimed any more lives.
Brother Aldric thought that the Corruptor was the biggest threat because every death it caused gave the enemy an advantage. The numbers in the situation were really bad.
A hundred people turned meant a hundred fewer defenders and a hundred more attackers. This swing got worse with each passing hour.
As time slipped away, they strategized fervently, knowing that every moment counted. With the dawn approaching, they resolved to gather their allies and launch a preemptive strike, hoping to catch the Devourer off guard and reclaim their homeland from the brink of despair.
"Fire first, contain later," Seraphina said for the third time, sounding clipped and impatient, as if she were being patient because the room needed it and not because she wanted to.
"Contain first, then eliminate," Aldric said in a calm voice, as if he had been in arguments like this many times before and knew that being calm and persistent worked better than being loud. "If the Corruptor turns another hundred defenders in the next six hours, the extra enemy fighters will cancel out any advantage we get from killing the Devourer first."
"We won’t have enough defenders to hold the Corruptor if the Devourer eats another defensive line in the next two hours."
"We need to come up with a new strategy quickly, or we risk losing the entire perimeter. Every second counts as we scramble to reinforce our positions and find a way to turn the tide."
The room had split itself roughly along the lines of immediate threat versus systemic threat, and both sides were getting louder and louder, which was making things worse without solving anything.
Lucian had been listening and doing the same math as Aldric, but from a different point of view. He put his hand flat on the table.
"Enough!" he declared, his voice cutting through the chaos. "We need a unified strategy, not just a tally of our fears."
"If we don’t act decisively now, we risk losing everything."
"In fact... we can do both," he said.
The room didn’t get completely quiet, but the noise level dropped enough for his voice to be heard. He leaned forward, eyes scanning the faces around him, searching for that spark of agreement.
"Let’s combine our insights and create a plan that addresses both our concerns and our goals," he urged, hoping to ignite a flicker of collaboration among the group.
General Ironheart, who had been watching the fight with the look of someone who had seen a lot of fights and was waiting for something worth responding to, looked at him. "Tell me more."
"Divide the troops you have," Lucian said. "We’ll take the Devourer."
"We’ve dealt with Mythic-class targets before and know how to plan an attack." He looked at Aldric. "Brother Aldric is in charge of a team that is fighting the Corruptor while also trying to purify it."
"Seraphina, your fire magic is better for containment than elimination, so you support the Corruptor front." He stopped. "Attack both targets at the same time, but in different ways."
"The Devourer doesn’t have time to move, and the Corruptor doesn’t have six more hours to grow."
He put it down flat and waited.
The silence that came after was different from the silence that came after the argument. General Ironheart looked at the map for a moment, then looked at Lucian for a little longer.
Lucian could feel the weight of his gaze, a mix of expectation and uncertainty. He knew that the next words could change everything, shifting the course of their mission and their lives.
"You have my father’s tactical clarity," he said. "I respect that."
Lucian thought the sentence hit him in a place it shouldn’t have. "Your father?"
Ironheart’s face changed in a way that was too hard to read quickly.
"After we survive," he said, "not before. The plan is good."
He looked around the table. "We’re working on two fronts at the same time, and here are the assignments."
...
Lucian spent the next fifteen minutes of the briefing thinking about a sentence that had just changed his mind about something he thought he had already settled. His father.
Ironheart had said it like it was a well-known reference point, like there was a person behind that word who lived in this world in a way that was connected to Lucian’s new life.
He put it in a file. He would take it out later, when he had time to review the contents.
The tasks were clear, prompting the council members to depart quickly and efficiently, as is typical for those on a tight schedule. They had just two hours to prepare.
The assault occurred simultaneously at noon. He ended up walking out of the room next to Seraphina, who kept up with him without saying anything.
"Good call in there," she said without looking at him.
"Do you really think so?"
"I thought so before you said it, but you said it when I was still thinking about it." She stopped. "That’s worth something."
He looked at her thoughtfully, realizing that sometimes the unspoken thoughts held more weight than the words exchanged.
"Maybe it means we’re more in sync than we initially believed," he replied, a hint of a smile forming on his lips.
"Perhaps it’s the silence that allows us to understand each other better," she mused, her gaze drifting to the horizon.
The air between them felt charged with possibilities, as if their unvoiced thoughts were bridging the gaps in their conversation.
The armory was quieter than the council chamber because people were checking their gear and didn’t want to disturb anyone else who was doing the same thing nearby. Without any specific plan, Glacielle and Marshal ended up working near each other.
Lucian watched them from across the room while he sharpened his blade and did his breathing exercises with the part of his mind that didn’t need to be told what to do. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something significant was brewing beneath the surface of their interactions.
As the sounds of metal clanging and leather creaking filled the air, Lucian focused intently, trying to decipher the unspoken tension that seemed to linger between Glacielle and Marshal.
They were having a conversation. There wasn’t much, just the quiet conversation of two people who were getting to know each other and realizing they had more in common than they thought.
Marshal talked about a way to keep weapons in good shape, and Glacielle showed him how to make the adjustment. Marshal then changed her grip on one of the Dawn Reapers in a way that Glacielle saw and nodded at.
It was useful, but it also marked the beginning of a slow-moving dynamic that would take time to develop and was clearly inevitable.
"Wow, that’s really something, isn’t it?"
Octavia sat down next to him on the bench, so close that their arms touched. She was wearing full armor, but it looked different from the others.
It didn’t look like armor that protected her from the outside; it looked like an extension of herself. He could feel the faint readiness of her tentacles in the air around her, even though they weren’t out yet.
It was the same feeling he’d started to have at the edges of his synchronization, where he wasn’t quite feeling anything and wasn’t quite perceiving anything.
He asked, "What is?"
"Watching two people who have been alone for a long time figure out how to be less alone with each other." She was watching the two of them across the room with the calm interest of someone who had been watching this kind of thing for centuries and had learned to enjoy it. "It takes practice."
"Most people rush it and break it. They’re both careful enough to let it grow at the right speed."
Lucian put the whetstone down.
He said, "You’ve been quiet since last night."
