Chapter 685: Seizing the opportunity

"Slow down. Slow down." Vela raised a hand, sighing as she tried to fit it all together. "That’s an awful lot of information for an operation that lasted a few hours."

Moon didn’t hold anything back. He told the team everything about the spire and the commander, including the secret chamber and the treasures it had held. There was no reason to hide it.

The Association was going to learn all of it eventually, he’d signed the transparency clause himself, and full disclosure was part of the deal. If the Association would know, his own team knowing first didn’t cost him anything.

"So you’re telling me," Vela said slowly, "that the spire runs on... the heart of a true elf."

Moon nodded.

"Yes. I believe so. When I took it out, the whole structure started collapsing almost immediately, and it wasn’t the explosives that did it. The only thing that changed was the heart leaving. That can’t be a coincidence."

Vela went quiet for a moment, thinking.

"Can we see the heart?"

Moon nodded and reached into his storage ring, drawing out the heart, still resting in the frost cradle he’d lifted it in.

The team leaned in, even after everything they’d seen in this gate, the heart held a strange, terrible beauty, flawless and deep red.

"I see," Vela breathed.

Marek cleared his throat. "So, ah... with a haul like that, and the crystals too, are we going to talk about how we split—"

"No." Vela cut him off before he finished, her tone flat. "That’s Moon’s. This wasn’t a team job. He and Theo went in alone, he took the spire alone, he found the chamber alone. The loot belongs to him." She glanced sideways. "Unless Theo wants to say something, since he was actually there."

Theo shook his head immediately.

"I didn’t do much. Set off one rune as a distraction. It’s all his."

Marek raised both hands. "Alright, alright. I was only asking. No harm in asking."

Vela let it go and turned back to Moon, and her expression grew heavier.

"So...Do you think the other spire has one too? A heart?"

Moon was quiet for a long moment, thinking it through.

Then he nodded.

"Although it sounds ridiculous, but most likely. Two spires, built the same way, guarded the same way, each one anchoring a horde. If one runs on a true elf’s heart, there’s no reason the other wouldn’t. Which means the black spire has one too, sitting somewhere underneath it, keeping the whole thing standing."

"The lesser elf is still alive. And with the heart it protected so carefully gone, and the home it lived in destroyed, it’s going to be far more aggressive. Right now it’s furious, which is the best time to deal with it, before it calms down and starts thinking clearly again. I say we handle it now."

"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" Vela asked. "It nearly matched a Surpasser in that duel with the other commander. You said so yourself."

Moon’s mouth curved slightly.

"The angrier it gets, the more mistakes it makes. A calm commander is dangerous because it thinks rationally. Whilst, a grieving, enraged commander acts on emotion, and emotion creates openings we need to exploit."

Nina and Kayn listened carefully, both having used their emotions more than their logical thinking during a battle previously.

Nina gave Kayn a small smile as if telling him, ’See...there is always things to learn.’

A faint sound, carried on the wind from outside the igloo made Moon stop speaking.

Moon lifted a hand, gesturing sharply for silence, and every member of the team went still. He moved toward the low entrance quietly, and slipped outside.

The team followed him slowly, one by one, easing out into the cold and keeping low.

Across the snow, they saw the southern commander, moving towards the spire. And behind it marched roughly thirty beasts, the last survivors of its horde, following their commander across the frozen wasteland toward the black spire.

"Why is it going that way?" Marek whispered.

Vela’s frown deepened as she watched, "It’s going to the northern commander, it’s doing the only thing left for it to do...ask its rival for help against the common enemy. Us."

The two commanders, who Moon had spent the entire day trying to turn against each other, were about to unite.

Moon smiled, "Not necessarily."

Marek turned to him. "What do you mean? It’s clearly going for help. You said it can’t win alone anymore."

"You’ll see soon enough."

Moon kept his eyes on the black spire in the distance.

The white commander and its column of beasts reached the spire’s territory and stopped, and a moment later the black spire lit up, and the gate at its base opened. The northern commander stepped out, bow in hand, and crossed to meet its rival.

The two of them stood facing each other across the snow, and they spoke.

Moon watched the exchange stretch on, roughly two minutes of their foreign tongue passing between them,

Moon assumed the white swordsman explained everything that had transpired. Then the archer said something, turned, and walked back into its spire, leaving the white commander waiting outside with its beasts.

"Where did the archer go?" Theo asked, glancing at Moon.

Moon frowned.

"I don’t know."

He’d expected the northern commander to seize the opportunity. The white swordsman was at its lowest point, standing alone with a weak army in its rival’s territory. It was the perfect moment to strike and eliminate a weakened enemy and claim whatever remained of its horde. That was what a rival did.

That was what Moon had been counting on.

Instead the archer had simply gone back inside its home, leaving its rival standing in the cold.

It didn’t make sense.

Neither hostility nor alliance explained it cleanly. The two commanders weren’t fighting, but they weren’t marching off together either. The archer had just... left, on some errand of its own, and told the swordsman to wait.

A minute passed when the the black spire’s gate opened again, and the northern commander came back out.

Moon’s eyes widened.