A gold-plated star dangled in the air, swaying lazily before his tired eyes.

He stirred, his eyelids peeling back with a sluggish, crusty resistance. A crushing weight sat upon his chest, pinning him into the mattress like a specimen under a glass. As his vision cleared, he realized the room was round. Too round. He had always loathed the lack of corners.

And the walls, they were a stark, sterile white.

He hated white. It was the color of bone, of salt, of the shroud. He wanted yellow. He wanted the warm, golden hue of harvest and sun.

"Yellow... make it... yellow..." he croaked, his voice sounding like two dry stones grinding together.

A second later, the silence of the tent was shattered by a sudden cacophony. The space was crowded with faces, too many faces, and his ears were instantly flooded with the roar of voices.

"The Prince is awake! He is awake!" hailed an elderly man with a beard like a waterfall of white wool. He waved the stick from which the gold star hung, turning to the frantic congregation of courtiers. "The Five be praised! He returns to us! The gods have seen fit to answer our prayers!"

Awake? Sorza thought, a wave of dizziness threatening to pull him back into the black. Was I asleep? What is this?

"Your Grace! Please, do not attempt to rise! You must remain still!" A hand clamped onto his wrist, a bold, offensive restraint, and Sorza felt a flash of royal indignation. He moved to pull away, but his muscles felt like sodden string. He realized then it was his chief physician, fingers pressed firmly against his pulse to measure the frantic thumping of his heart.

"Wha... ’’ he swallowed ’’What is going on?"

The questions rained down on him, heavy and suffocating. Where was he? Why was the bed so soft? Why did his chest feel as though a horse had stepped on it?

"You collapsed, Your Grace, during your audience with the Prince of Habadia," the physician muttered, moving a hand to Sorza’s forehead to check for a fever. "You have been in the dark for three hours. We feared the worst , a stroke of the blood , but luckily you fell upon the grass. Your head is intact, even if your humors are not."

Habadia. Nibadur.

The names were a trigger. The memory of the rose water and the silk towel rushed back, and with it came a throbbing pain in his skull, as if a blacksmith were using his temples as an anvil.

Ah, yes. He had lost. He had lost his war, and soon, he would lose his life. The Fox would not be content with a retreat; the Fox would ride for Oizen.

He felt his guts twist, his stomach turning into a basin of broken glass. He was scared. By the Five, he was scared shitless. Alpheo was coming. Alpheo, who had been mocked, whose lands had been burned, whose people had been slaughtered.

He was coming to him...

Sorza had chosen this path. He had signed the scrolls, sent the envoys, and invoked the steel. Now, he would be put down just as his father had been, guts spilled into the mire, skull crushed beneath the indifferent hooves of a warhorse, until neither he nor his son would be recognizable as men.

"Your Grace," a servant whispered, leaning over the bed, "the Prince of Habadia requests your consent to enter. He waits at the threshold."

Fuck him! Sorza wanted to scream, but his lips were torn and sticky, glued together. His throat felt raw, as if he had been swallowing sand. He couldn’t find the strength for a tirade.

He could only manage a small, jerky nod. Even that slight movement sent a fresh spike of agony through his neck, but the door was already opening. The man who had sold him for a bastard boy was stepping into the light.

The Habadian Prince had exchanged his heavy war-plate for a tunic of fine-spun wool, but he still carried the scent of rose water.

Damn that bastard

He approached the bed with a measured, heavy tread. As he looked down at the shivering wreck that was the Prince of Oizen, a genuine flicker of pity, laced with a sour tang of guilt,crossed his handsome features. It was the look a rider gives a horse with a broken leg; he felt for the beast, but he was already reaching for the mercy-dagger.

Nibadur raised a hand, his voice quiet but carrying the absolute weight of command. "Leave us. All of you."

The physicians, priest, servants, and some nobles and even a squire hesitated, looking toward their prone master. Sorza, his throat feeling as though it were lined with rusted needles, managed a single, jerky nod. He watched through blurred vision as the room emptied, the rustle of robes and the soft thud of boots fading until the heavy silk of the entrance fell shut.

They were alone. The only sound was the howling of the autumn wind against the canvas and the rhythmic, labored whistle of Sorza’s breathing.

Nibadur pulled a stool toward the bedside and sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"How are you?" he asked softly. The question was almost tender, devoid of the biting sarcasm from their earlier confrontation.

Sorza struggled to draw air into his lungs, his chest heaving under the weight of the gold-star pendant. He felt the cold sweat on his brow and the bitter taste of ash in his mouth. He looked at the man who had traded his life for a Kakunian bastard, and for a moment, the terror was eclipsed by a final, searing spark of hatred.

He swallowed, his torn lips peeling apart with a wet, painful sound. He gathered the ragged remains of his strength, forcing the air up through his scorched throat.

"...Fuck... you..."

"I see you have enough life left in you to curse me," Nibadur said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. It was a expression Sorza would have gladly widened with a dagger, had his fingers the strength to even curl into a fist.

"...Betray...er," Sorza wheezed. The word felt like a shard of hot coal in his throat.

"Aye, perhaps I am. One day, I hope you have the clarity to see things from my vantage. Perhaps then you will understand why I am doing this. If I retreat now , I can at least salvage Kakunia and one day come back to aid you."

The glare Sorza leveled at him was a silent, black vow of vengeance, provided he lived long enough to draw another breath for that.

"I will speak plainly now, for time is a luxury neither of us possesses at this very moment," Nibadur continued, leaning closer. The scent of rose water was suffocating in the enclosed space. "You need to listen, Sorza. I am leaving. My host and my brother’s will break camp by nightfall. There is nothing you can do to tether us here, and I am truly sorry, but this campaign has breathed its last. Now, we must discuss what comes next."

My death, Sorza thought. The screaming. The mud. The salt in the eyes. He said nothing, his gaze fixed on the whiteness of the walls. He hated white.

"The Prince of Yarzat is coming for you," Nibadur said. "He admitted as much while we parlayed. If he does not meet you on the field, he will put the torch to every acre of Oizen. He will burn the grain, the thatch, and the very soil until all you rule is naught but death and famine. ’’

He felt the cold iron of the Yarzat lances sliding between his ribs.

"I see the fear in you. I’d be a liar if I said I wouldn’t feel the same were I in your place," Nibadur murmured, his pity genuine now, the way one pities a lamb in a thicket. "But while I must withdraw the bulk of my banners, I have taken... liberties. I promised my lands and titles in the south under you, for third sons and shit-distant cousin. That hunger remains. Some of my lord will leave their retinues behind to bolster your command under their candidate for enfoiffment."

He peered intently into Sorza’s wide, wet eyes. "Do you understand? A portion of my host will stand with you.

Above all my cavalry. There are many wandering knights, that followed us in hope for glory, booty and to get taken by a landed lord.

Six hundred heavy cavalry, Sorza. Six hundred of the finest lances in the south will ride in your name. You will not be alone when the Fox arrives.And this time you can be sure he will move for battle."

The news brought no comfort. Six hundred lances? Six thousand would not be enough.Fuck twelve had already not been....

Sorza’s breath began to quiver again, coming in high, thin gasps. The chest-weight returned, heavier than before. Boom-boom-boom went his heart.

How could he hope to stand?

The monster of dread rised in his belly. The fox would weave some new nightmare, some trick of the light or the mud, and annihilate them just as he had at Aracina. Just as he had at Apurvio. If twelve thousand had faltered, how could six hundred save him?

His mind raced backward, clawing at the past. He wanted to go back to the morning he signed the scrolls. He would give anything to un-rip the peace. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want the glory. He just wanted the screaming to stop and rest, and sleep.And die old.

"I... I can’t," Sorza managed to choke out, his eyes darting to the tent flap as if expecting Alpheo to step through it at any moment.

At that words Nibadur let out a long, weary sigh, the sound of a man who had exhausted his store of patience.

He reached out and clamped a heavy hand onto Sorza’s shoulder, his fingers digging into the silk and the trembling muscle beneath.

"Listen to me. Look at the walls of that castle when you are out of bed. We have battered the garrison inside for months. We have starved them, pelted them with stone, and bled them on those walls. Do you truly think they are made of different clay than us? They are as broken as we are. Their spirits are threads, held together only by the Fox’s name."

He shook Sorza’s shoulder once, a sharp jolt to break the Prince’s staring trance.

"When I pull my main host, you will still hold the lines. You will still outnumber Alpheo’s forest-wolves, and with the six hundred lances I am leaving you, you will vastly out-cavalry him. The odds are not against you, Sorza, they are favoring you. Retreat from the siege and invite the Fox for battle, that is your only chance to turn the table.

Choose a terrain that is flat and he will have no place to hide from a charge of heavy horse.He may be as genius as the The Red but there is naught he can do against knights."

Sorza’s breath continued its ragged, whistling song, his eyes darting to the tent’s roof. He could already hear the bells of his death

"The battle is coming," Nibadur hissed, his face inches from Sorza’s. "It is the only thing left. You can stay in this bed and watch your princedom dissolve into famine and peasant revolts, or you can step up and take the sword. If you do not meet him on the field, he will simply wait until your own people hand him your head in exchange for a loaf of bread.You are set for famine, so you either need victory or be ready for civil war for the Fox shall do what he did with the Hercuelians.."

At that Nibadur stood up, the light catching the gold star above the bed and casting a flickering glint across his blue eyes.

He looked down at the prince with a cold glint in his eyes.

’’A crown is warrented by strenght!If you will not seize the moment, others will for you. You Must Attempt. Or all shall be lost.And you will forever more be known as the Prince without a Crown.This is only I can give you now, a chance.’’