NELNIFA CORLEDIA IS SUPPOSED TO BE WEAK. During a brazen attack against her people, she is left with no choice but to take the lead. With knowledge coming from dubious places, a territory in shambles, and a people too scattered to fight back, she ha...
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2412 Qintax 08, Daleth
Nelnifa eyed the crates whose contents neared the floor. There might be a ton of containers in their camp, but if they couldn't put something in it, then what's the point? It was her turn to go to the forest and try to find what she could for the rest of the camp, but with their people coming back less and less, the Marshals dragged her back to the command tent.
Now, all of them idled inside, doing their best to stop asking each other questions about when the next correspondence was going to arrive by haldone. A game of poserne had already started, and from the looks of it, they followed the original match rules, going as far as making leagues and dragging everyone who passed by the tent for a game or two.
So far, Laie and her league was in the leading, and Nelnifa's league, which formed out of compulsion and not of her own will, came in second. The points were close, and if Nelnifa had the gall to be relaxed in the middle of war, she would have been bummed by it.
But she had different things to be bummed about. Word arrived yesterday about how the offensive front was doing against the outpost in Orayta. The reports weren't good. The Heiress had equipped her soldiers with as much dwarven metal she could, and it's proving to be hard to go against. As something that deflects all kinds of keijula magic, it's the perfect roundabout the unwritten laws of magic usage—one the Heiress and the Sovereign exploited without limit.
Her teeth dug on her lip. If she relegated more of the soldiers in this camp, had them go down there and lend a hand, what would it do to the covert operations she had launched? The systems of information worked well enough with this many heads and hands. Would they struggle and make a mistake leading to their ruin if she dared touch it?
None of them had been in a war, and Nelnifa still has much to learn about being a person, much less a Potentate and a war general. That's why she had to go out of her way and seek help from dubious places, and when she got it, she swore to use it in ways to help her people. She's no use sitting around and playing...cards.
"Are you still upset about being locked up here?" A voice jarred her out of her thoughts and back to the present. The howls and cheery conversation from the other Marshals and the invited soldiers from the command table went back to her senses in full swing. She raised her eyes to follow Ilphas as he snatched a spare stool from underneath the table and settled next to her on the corner of the tent. "It's for your own good."
Nelnifa refused to look at him, at the perfect strands of straight, beige hair shielding his forehead and framing his pristine face. Her anger might dissolve if she saw it for longer than two seconds. "What good would it be if I survived but our people suffered?" she asked.
"What good would it be if you didn't, and we'd be left to scramble around on our own?" Ilphas countered. His voice wasn't tinged with chastisement, but it still carried the same weight. They weren't talking in loud tones, but Nelnifa was sure the noise around them decreased notches.
