Chapter 122: A Very Clear Message

Roiner

King Lucien gasped, stumbling backward in horror. He clamped a hand over his mouth, his stomach violently turning as he nearly threw up right there on the marble floor.

Roiner quickly slammed the lid shut, cutting off the sickening stench of decay. "They are sending a message, My King. A very clear, very bloody message. These people mean war, and they are not afraid to show it."

King Lucien gripped the railing of the throne, his breathing ragged. "If they returned my brother’s theron’s head... what about Alaric’s head? Where is his?!"

"My guess," Roiner said quietly, his mind calculating every brutal possibility, "is that they are parading Alaric’s head through the southern packs to break their morale and prevent any resistance. They know their own army took heavy damage during the fight, so they are using the head for the dark arts."

Lucien shook his head fiercely, panic rising in his chest. "No! We need to gather all the remaining packs, build a new army, and charge at them right now while they are still recovering from the battle!"

"No, My King, we cannot do that," Roiner stated firmly. "Yes, we must!" Lucien argued, his voice cracking with desperation. "Am I supposed to just sit here and let them keep my brother’s head? Let them get away with murdering my family?!"

"It was war, My King. This was always a risk," Roiner replied, his tone remaining ice-cold out of necessity. "They defended their ground. But if we march a fresh, hastily gathered army out there right now, we will be slaughtered."

"No, we will not!" Lucien shouted, stepping right up to Roiner’s face. "You just said they are weak! If we strike now, while they are vulnerable—"

"We will still lose," Roiner interrupted, cutting him off without hesitation. "Did you not hear the man? Our forces were winning during the battle until something supernatural happened at the very last minute and flipped the entire board. This is not a war that can be won on open ground by throwing swords at them. If we want to win this war, we have to take down the witch."

Roiner paused, letting his words sink in. "My theory is that without the witch, there is no Rogue King. He relies entirely on her dark sorcery to win his battles. What should we be focusing on is finding out how we are supposed to fight an enemy we cannot even see?"

King Lucien looked utterly defeated, his broad shoulders slumping as he stared down at the floor. "Exactly, how on earth are we supposed to bring down a witch who can raise the dead, harvest human souls, and use dark magic with zero apparent consequences?"

"I do not know," Roiner admitted honestly. "But what I do know is that we cannot afford to lose the northern packs. Those packs are unimaginably wealthy. They have massive, untouched armies. We are going to need their resources and their manpower in the long run if we want to survive this century."

King Lucien frowned deeply, his eyes narrowing. "I do not understand what you are getting at."

Roiner took a deep breath, choosing his next words carefully. "Marry the princess off to the Rogue King."

Lucien stared at him as if he had grown a second head. "What did you just say?"

"Marry Princess Molly to him," Roiner repeated steadily. "She can serve as our eyes and ears inside their camp... a spy. But more importantly, it will satisfy his demands and keep them from marching on the northern territories."

King Lucien exploded, shoving Roiner back a step as he roared with fury. "This is utterly, insanely ridiculous! No way in hell is my daughter going to marry that murderous psychopath!"

"My King, please heed me," Roiner urged, his crimson eyes locking onto Lucien’s with desperate intensity. "She must marry him. It is the only way to save the realm."

"We don’t even know if those animals will keep their word!" Lucien spat.

"Yes, they will," Roiner reasoned, keeping his voice low and logical. "They are weak right now. They will never admit it, but I am certain our army inflicted heavy damage on their forces. Once they secure the southern packs, they will be in no position to launch another massive campaign immediately. But if we give them the princess, they will have a good reason to halt their march. If we do not... they will take the northern packs by force. The witch alone could level every city up north if she wanted to. But from what I have analyzed, she prefers working alongside her brother. If her brother gets what he wants, a royal bride and the southern lands, she will not act because she will have good reason not to. We need them held back. We need time. Marry off the princess. She will not be abandoned there forever. For now, we simply need time to be bought."

King Lucien covered his face with his hands, his breath coming in ragged, broken gasps. "I... I do not know what to do anymore. Everything is on the absolute verge of total collapse."

"Listen to me," Roiner said softly, stepping closer. "Trust me. Nothing will happen to Princess Molly. She will marry him, yes, but I promise you, I promise you, we will place someone inside their ranks to watch her twenty-four hours a day and keep her safe. She will be an asset to us, doing something vital for the kingdom and all the packs. If you refuse to sacrifice Princess Molly momentarily, you have doomed the entire realm to rouge chaos."

King Lucien dropped his hands, his eyes bloodshot and hollow. His voice dropped to a haunted whisper. "Roiner... answer me honestly. Knowing your own heart... if you loved someone, would you sacrifice them for the good of the realm?"

Deep inside Roiner’s mind, a cold, violent wave of absolute refusal surged upward.

No, Roiner thought instantly, a fierce, protective snarl echoing in his soul. Absolutely not. Never. If this whole situation involved Aina, I would have ripped the heads off the Rogue King and his wretched sister with my own bare hands weeks ago. I would burn this entire continent to cinders before I let a single hair on her head be touched.

But out loud, standing in the cold stone halls of power, Roiner kept his face an unreadable mask of absolute obedience. He looked directly into the king’s grieving eyes.

"Yes, My King," Roiner lied smoothly. "I would."

King Lucien let out a long, shaky breath, his resolve finally crumbling to dust. "Send for the princess... and fetch the doctors. The ones who know of Malric’s condition." Lucien’s voice hardened into a lethal whisper. "I want them all dead. Every single one of them."

Roiner gave a slow, respectful nod. He knew this command was coming. There was no way the crown was going to leave the physicians who knew of Malric’s permanent crippling walking around as loose ends. Now that the crown was short two kings, had lost an entire war, and possessed a severely depleted army, the truth could not get out. If word leaked that Malric could never shift again, he would be legally barred from taking the throne. It would make the crown look catastrophically weak.

Worse than that, it would signal to the entire world that they were no longer favored by the Moon Goddess.

The only reason the royal bloodline sat on the throne and ruled all the packs was because they had conquered them by divine right and the explicit decree of the Goddess. If whispers spread that they were cursed by bad luck or divine abandonment, the superstitious packs would immediately turn their backs on the throne and begin pledging their loyalty to the rogue faction. With a terrifyingly powerful witch backing them up, the public would easily convince themselves that the witch and not the royal family was the true favorite of the Goddess, and that the divine mandate had shifted.

Priests under the Moon Goddess were notoriously unpredictable; they would stretch any tragedy into a sign of divine wrath. A panic of that scale could not be allowed to happen.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Roiner agreed quietly. "I will send for the princess. And I will personally deal with the matter of the doctors, ensuring that absolutely no one outside these walls ever learns of Prince Malric’s true condition."

Roiner turned on his heel and strode out of the Throne Room, his long coat sweeping behind him as the heavy doors closed shut in the dark.