Being called on so suddenly, Rebecca's first reaction was to jolt upright. For this small-time heir of a fallen house, the scene before her and the circle of powerful figures around her were things she couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams.
Even the time she'd wandered into the forest as a child and been knocked unconscious by a wolf's paw hadn't produced hallucinations of this caliber. Watching her ancestor banter effortlessly with the great and powerful, she'd practically forgotten that she was supposed to be a key participant in this meeting.
But credit where it was due, Rebecca was nothing if not thick-skulled. Even slightly dazed, she drew on her formidable, perhaps even nerve-deadening, mental resilience to calm herself. After organizing her thoughts briefly, this small-town lord from the south began recounting the nightmare that had befallen Seawright territory to the High King.
Every person in the room listened with rapt attention. Even though none of them had expected a girl this young to be the speaker, the disaster itself was enough to seal every mouth shut in gravity.
Those present already knew the broad strokes of what had happened in the Southern Marches. The story had been fermenting across the south for some time, with rumors flying in every conceivable version. This wasn't entirely Wayne's doing, the rumors he'd deliberately spread were mainly about his own "resurrection." He hadn't particularly embellished the disaster itself. But catastrophes were inherently the best rumor fuel, and after two months of brewing and spreading, the story was common knowledge throughout the south.
Commoners might lack the means to investigate the truth, but nobles didn't. Through various channels, everyone present had learned something about the events. Denethor II even had confidential reports from numerous southern nobles. But no report, however thorough, could match the accuracy and credibility of a firsthand account.
As Rebecca's narration grew increasingly fluid, the disaster was slowly pieced together in full, its connection to the Dark Tide of seven hundred years ago established. And the appearance of a dragon draped the entire affair in an additional layer of mystery.
Watching the High King and nobles furrow their brows, Wayne let out a quiet sigh.
These people had been so preoccupied with the founding duke's resurrection and whether House Seawright would try to reclaim privileges from the crown that they'd practically forgotten House Seawright's primary reason for coming to the capital. reporting the monsters. But he couldn't blame them, after all, who had the bigger presence? And he'd manufactured that presence himself...
"...The greater part of Seawright territory has now been reduced to scorched earth. Dragon's breath carries magic, land it has burned cannot grow crops for years. My people have been forced to shelter under Viscount Andrew's protection," Rebecca was on her feet now, fists clenched, all trace of earlier timidity and nerves gone. "Your Majesty, and esteemed lords, Seawright territory may be small, but this disaster is a signal. The dragon's intentions may be unclear, but the monsters are a concrete catastrophe. Those same monsters appeared seven hundred years ago. They caused the destruction of the Gondor Imperium, and my ancestor lived through it all."
Denethor II began conferring in low tones with his Lord Chancellor and the Northern Grand Duchess. Others huddled in discussion as well. Clearly, they weren't dismissing Rebecca's report, and for that she could thank the steadily spreading rumors, the confidential dispatches from the south, and the existence of Gwayne Seawright himself. Without all of that, a backwater noble from the south running to the High King to claim her territory had been destroyed by monsters and a dragon would have been met with mockery. Forget sparking discussion, she might have been charged with wasting the crown's time.
But how seriously they would take it, and how much they would actually do in response, that was another matter entirely.
After all, this world had been at peace for seven hundred years.
"Duke Seawright," spoke the tall, thin man seated several places to Wayne's left. He was the Western Grand Duke, Baelor Tyrell, an apparently refined and scholarly gentleman. "I believe in your descendant's honesty regarding this matter. But the whole thing is truly extraordinary. Forgive me for asking, are those monsters truly the same creatures from the Dark Tide seven hundred years ago?"
"I fought them for twenty years straight, right up until I died. I'd recognize them even as ashes," Wayne said gravely. "And I've engaged them again in combat. I can confirm those monsters are the same type that emerged from the Dark Tide. Unfortunately, they disintegrate rapidly after being killed, making it impossible to preserve specimens. And the dragon that came afterward burned the entire territory, so there's no way to send anyone to Seawright territory to investigate the site now."
Baelor Tyrell exchanged a glance with the Eastern Grand Duke, Sylas Arryn, beside him. Wayne saw this and said.
"If you suspect House Seawright is deliberately exaggerating the truth to garner sympathy and use this as an opportunity to return to the center of power, you may as well say so directly."
"No, no, no, we wouldn't think that," Grand Duke Baelor said hastily. "We simply need to... verify these things. After all, this involves the Tide from seven hundred years ago. The magnitude of this... exceeds what any single human kingdom can face alone..."
"But they've already come knocking!" Rebecca couldn't contain herself and shot to her feet. "I saw them with my own eyes!"
"Easy. Calm down," Wayne pressed Rebecca's shoulder, guiding her back into her seat. He turned to Denethor II. "I understand your caution has merit, after all, entering a state of war carries enormous costs. I've brought additional evidence. Weapons and equipment used by our soldiers in the south. Though the monsters' bodies can't be preserved, fighting them inevitably leaves elemental contamination on gear. The corrosive residue on this equipment should give you something to work with. I believe that even your most accomplished royal scholars won't be able to match those corrosive signatures to anything from the known world."
Two burly attendants carried in a large crate. When it was opened, several battered swords and some twisted, mangled armor fragments were laid before the assembly.
The items looked as though they'd been soaked in strong acid. Once-smooth metal surfaces were pocked and pitted, with a murky discoloration. The worst-affected pieces had taken on a texture resembling rotting wood, a light rub between the fingers produced cascades of flaking debris.
"They're harmless now and can be touched directly. But until two weeks ago, this steel was still actively disintegrating," Wayne explained as the High King and nobles examined the samples. "If the historians of the last seven hundred years haven't been completely derelict in their duties, there should be records of this in the chronicles."
"There are, there are..." Denethor II nodded.
"In addition, we happened upon a hedge mage's notebook. His entries mention solar red-spot eruptions and signs of mana surges..."
Wayne laid out every piece of intelligence he could provide. But it was obvious that the information from the hedge mage's notebook didn't generate much concern.
For most people present, those details were even less convincing than the flakes crumbling off the swords and armor on the table.
"Do you know where that dragon went?" At last, the Northern Grand Duchess Victaria Stark broke her silence. More than the monsters, she seemed concerned about the dragon's whereabouts. "Or can you guess its purpose?"
Wayne shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't know."
His seniority might be unmatched, but that didn't mean he was more worldly than anyone present. The Gwayne Seawright of seven hundred years ago had never dealt with dragons.
Well, at least not in his memories.
After seeing those crystals the night before, Wayne no longer trusted his inherited memories quite so completely.
"In fact... three months ago, rumors about a dragon surfaced in my territory," the Grand Duchess said, enunciating each word carefully. "Someone claimed to have seen a dragon flying from the cold mountains farther north. But no other eyewitnesses were ever found, and the person who spread the rumor was confirmed to have been drunk, he'd mistaken the mountain blizzards for a dragon."
Wayne pressed immediately. "Did that person describe what the dragon looked like?"
"No," the Grand Duchess shook her head. "But I can continue investigating when I return."
"That investigation is essential, and not just about the dragon. The monsters too," Denethor II said. "We need to determine whether similar creatures have appeared elsewhere in the kingdom, or whether there have been abnormal mana surges."
Rebecca couldn't help speaking up again. "But investigation alone isn't enough. We have to prepare for combat. Those monsters appear suddenly, with no warning whatsoever. If preparations aren't made in advance, there's no time to mount a defense. By the time investigators find their trail, it will already be too late..."
Sylas Arryn, the duke who guarded the eastern border, shot Rebecca a displeased look. "Are you suggesting we put soldiers across the entire country on combat readiness, waiting for monsters that may or may not appear at some unknown future time?"
Rebecca answered instinctively. "If that were possible, of course that would be ideal..."
"That's impossible. We cannot mobilize the entire nation's military over a remote possibility. The regional nobles would revolt, and the crown's credibility would suffer," Duke Sylas said flatly. He was powerfully built and tall, with the unmistakable bearing of a warrior. "Furthermore, we still have to contend with the threat from the Storm Imperium to the east. That nation is a jackal, and it's been waiting to tear a piece of flesh from Andraste for more than just a day or two."
When the survivors of the ancient Gondor Imperium fled their destroyed homeland, they had broken out in four directions, eventually founding new nations to the east, south, west, and north of the continent. The Storm Imperium occupied the continent's east, and had grown into the most powerful of the four successor states.
The northern, southern, and western human nations all coexisted with pre-existing kingdoms or other races in their respective regions. Only the Storm Imperium had become the sole nation in the continent's east. Its strength and methods could be imagined.
Andraste and the Storm Imperium shared a border, and their frontier contained vast stretches of fertile land and rich mines, a conflict practically destined by geography.
In the first few centuries, the sister nations born from a common origin could still remember their kinship and maintain peace. But lasting peace was never realistic. A hundred years ago, during Andraste's civil war, the Storm Imperium had seized the opportunity to "make some adjustments" along the border. Relations between the two nations had been in free fall ever since, reaching a point that could only be described as perpetual tension.
No major frontal war, but the minor frictions had never stopped.
Given Andraste's current situation, the south was poor and had been peaceful for ages, the northern nations had no quarrel with Andraste, and the Dothraki Horde to the west had always been an ally, of the four frontiers, only the east had endured a century of military pressure.
Grand Duke Sylas Arryn, a hawk through and through, would never agree to diverting military strength toward defending against some phantom menace. To him, those near-mythical monsters were far less threatening than the Storm Imperium soldiers who paraded under his nose every single day.