After a few days of preparation, Accadeas led his army north to invade the kingdoms of Jaspel and Quijon while Fayde simultaneously led his army east towards the capital city of La’gun.

A garrison force was left in Enrain to maintain the peace and a similarly sized force was sent south to garrison the fortress of Dun’alchadel and west to fortify the ruined town of Riik’in.

These garrison forces would also be responsible for maintaining the peace in the western and southern regions allowing the farmers and villagers to return to their daily lives. Although many of the peasants were fearful of the Demihumans occupying the territory, they were eager to return to their farms as it was almost time for the harvest.

The various Khans along with their sons and daughters were divided among the different armies and garrison forces in order for them to gain experience at command and merits in battle. This was something Fayde had enthusiastically agreed with as he thought it would give him a reprieve from their fawning and attention.

Unfortunately for Fayde, it didn’t quite work out the way he wished.

“Oh! Fayde, look at that! What is it? What about that? Fayde, do you like the way I braided my hair? I asked my mother to especially braid it for me in our tribe’s traditional style! What do you think of my…..”

Fayde sighed deeply while riding his horse at the head of an army of ten thousand.

Felicia, the daughter of Rajal Khan of the Tigerkin, had been incessantly nagging him since they began their march.

Allein, Reia, Tris and Laila were normally at his side. However, today they had taken a step back and only Felicia was accompanying him. Apparently, Felicia had been chosen as a potential wife without Fayde’s knowledge.

His other wives had been in discussion with the various tribal mothers and some of their daughters had been chosen as candidates to be his wife. Felicia, belonging to the Tigerkin tribe, was the leading candidate.

He was also informed that it only meant she would be given priority until after their official marriage and that there most likely will be more candidates in the future.

Since Fayde was already married to women of both the first and second ranked tribes among the Demihumans, it was only natural that Felicia would be the next candidate since she belonged to the third ranked tribe.

At least this was what Reia had informed Fayde about. He had no idea that it was customary, and the responsibility of the wives of a Khan, to deal with the relationships between tribes or within a tribe and also find suitable marriage candidates to strengthen these relationships.

Since Reia had taken the role of Fayde’s head wife, this all fell under her jurisdiction. Fayde was told that he had no say in any of it and he should just trust her to handle these things.

Fayde found that despite the fact that he was the Great Khan, he didn’t quite have as much authority as he thought he might. While the other Khans would certainly respect his authority and follow his leadership, especially during wartime, he was nothing more than a prisoner to tradition in other aspects.

“Well, even though I’m somewhat annoyed by her overly exuberant personality, I shouldn’t hold it against her. It’s not like I have a bad opinion of her.” Fayde thought to himself.

She was still young, probably not much more than seventeen or eighteen. It was natural for her to be enthusiastic and vibrant. These could even be considered to be normal for a young lady her age.

She clearly lacked experience in dealing with relationships with members of the opposite sex and Fayde supposed it was admirable that she was putting so much effort into pleasing him.

He just couldn’t help finding it quite tiresome.

“Are you even listening to me!” Felicia said angrily while stomping her feet.

“Yes! Of course I am. Your hair suits you very well, it is very pretty…”

“Tch… I’m not even talking about my hair anymore!”

While Felicia continued to berate him for his lack of attention, Fayde could only look back helplessly at his wives who were doing their best to hide the fact that they were laughing at him.

Reia finally decided to come closer to calm Felicia down.

“Felicia, you have to forgive Fayde. He has a lot on his mind and didn’t intend to ignore you.” She chuckled while soothing Felicia.

“Hmph! Fine, I understand. I’m sorry I got angry at you.” Felicia said sincerely after calming down.

“No, I should apologize. Having such a beautiful young lady keep me company and I was so negligent. Please forgive me.” Said Fayde intentionally to flatter her.

Felicia lightly blushed and was clearly satisfied with his compliment.

“Hehe, she’s easy to please.” Thought Fayde having satisfactorily avoided her ire.

“Why don’t we leave Fayde alone for a while?”

Felicia glanced over at Fayde one last time and nodded, “”Okay, but next time you better make some time for me!”

She ‘humphed’ and let Reia lead her away.

Fayde admired Reia’s ability to handle these types of situations. She was certainly the best choice to be his first wife. She always deftly handled any issues pertaining to his wives and servants.

Fayde had long since learned of the important role that women played in Demihuman society. Even though it would seem that Fayde was the leader of the nation, it was his wives who truly held significant power.

They were responsible for internal and external diplomacy as well as making many of the decisions that dealt with the daily lives of the Demihumans. They were even responsible for implementing the decisions made by the Khans.

Fayde’s responsibilities were more related to overall policy, handling disputes and military leadership.

“Oh, Reia, can you ask Allein to come over? I need to speak with her about something.” Fayde called out before Reia left.

“Okay, I will send her over.”

Returning to the side of Laila and the others, Reia informed Allein that Fayde wished to speak with her and she soon made her way over to Fayde.

“You wanted to speak with me?” Allein said quietly.

Allein was much more subdued ever since her betrayal. Fayde really missed the old arrogant and confident Allein and hoped she would someday return to her former self.

“Yeah. We will soon arrive at the capital city and there was something I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Okay….”

Fayde hesitated for a moment and chose his words carefully.

“This isn’t easy to say and I understand if you refuse, but I will just ask. Tomorrow, will you reveal your dragon form in battle?”

In the past, Allein had always been careful when using her dragon form. In the dark of night it was difficult to see her dragon form because of her black scales and so she had used her full power in the past to protect Fayde.

She had never used her dragon form in daylight, but Fayde was asking her this very question and he knew it was a difficult request. She had kept her true identity hidden from Humans for a very good reason. She was afraid of drawing the attention of the Empire.

“I…”

“I know this is not easy for you, but it is no longer necessary for you to hide who you are. The Empire is our enemy regardless and whether they want to or not, there isn’t anything they can do about it at this time. We need to win with as few casualties as possible and I will be using my full power as well. There are many fights ahead of us in the future and we need to preserve our strength as much as possible. This is the only reason I am making this request, to save our people’s lives. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

Allein didn’t answer immediately and she looked as if she were deeply considering Fayde’s words.

“What you say is true. I shouldn’t hold on to past misgivings out of selfishness. I too need to do my best and prove to you that I am truly yours and to make up for my sin.”

Fayde sighed and looked at Allein with eyes filled with a hint of sorrow.

“Allein…. I’m sorry for how I treated you and your brother regardless of what you did. I didn’t bother to understand your circumstances. I was filled with anger, but mostly self loathing. In the end, it didn’t really have much to do with you. Just let it go. You don’t owe me anything.”

Allein looked at Fayde deeply and nodded, “I… I just want to be of use to you Fayde. You and my brother are all I have left.”

Fayde shook his head and said, “That’s not true. You have your sisters, Reia and Laila. You have all the Demihumans who are relying on you, and you have your family’s spirit which will always reside in your heart.”

“You’re right. I just need time. I will do what you ask, I will fight with all my strength. What of my brother? I haven’t heard anything about him recently…”

“Sorry, I didn’t intend to hide it from you but I just didn’t have the chance to explain. Your brother is fine. I sent him north with Accadeas. He will need his power and at least this way we can avoid any embarrassing explanations. We can just tell the others that he was on a separate mission in the north and rendezvoused with Accadeas. He can gain merits there and make a good name for himself. Also, I don’t think I can face him just yet…”

Fayde expected Allein to be angry with him but instead she surprisingly replied, “Thank you Fayde.”

This caught him completely off guard. He never expected her to thank him.

Glafandal was enjoying a glass of wine while reclining on a cushioned seat in his tent when he was suddenly disturbed by an angry voice.

“It has been two weeks since you arrived in our camp. I want to know why you have not yet done what you promised!?”

One of Jaspel’s nobles was angrily shouting, spittle flying haphazardly out of his mouth. This was a common occurrence and Glafandal hardly paid it any mind. These Humans were mere ants to him.

“How dare you ignore you me Imperial scum! I am a proud noble of Jaspel! Your only purpose here is to aid us in ending this siege, if you can’t even do that much what use are you!?”

A menacing glint flashed across Glafandal’s pupils but faded quickly.

“You promised that our flag would be flying over the city walls a week ago and yet we are still stuck outside of the city!”

Glafandal chuckled disdainfully and leaned forward while twirling the wine around his glass.

“This worm. I could snuff his life out in an instant, hehe. All in due time. He doesn’t have much more to live anyway, so I will humor him,” sneered Glafandal inwardly.

“Calm yourself, the magic formation is near completion, it will only be a short time more. Perhaps a day.. Or two.”

The arrogant noble sniffed loudly and spun, leaving the tent with irate footsteps.

“Refuse any further visitors. I do not wish to be disturbed.”

A temple knight saluted and left Glafandal alone in his tent. He leaned back on his seat and continued to swirl the blood red wine around the wine glass while peering intently into it.

“I can feel you drawing near… that wretched and evil power of the void. I can almost feel it’s corruption sinking into my skin. It won’t be long now. I truly don’t understand my goddess’s intentions. Well, she won’t mind if I play with him just a little bit… hehehehe.”

A crooked smile was plastered on his handsome face, his long pointy ears piercing through his crown of long hair.

“Ah, the atmosphere in this fragment is truly pitifully inadequate. Only lowly inferior Human rats could reside here. Soon.. soon I will be able to return to the forests of Ylyndar and my beloved Shyonia. I have been away from her for too long.”