Empress Evinda accepted Rohmhelt's request that she stay at the city of Bendhelt while he went on a brief tour of his forces near the enemy lines. With winter drawing to a close and more regular activity returning to the Empire even amidst the war, countless banal governing matters came their way. Even the staff Lohs had at his disposal as Chief Councilor to the Emperor seemed unable to keep up.

She sat in the spacious study in the Bendhelt governor's mansion with Lohs responding to each request. So many of the villages sending messages were so small she had never once heard of them. At some points she thought that some of them must not actually exist and were simply executing an elaborate prank.

"Wars truly do alternate between terror and tedium, don't they?" she grumbled as she signed an acknowledgement that the village of Jurfahn to the northeast would commit eleven of its twenty remaining military age men to the Emperor's cause.

"Momentous events always yield momentous administrative problems," Lohs coughed, still fighting the remnants of an illness he caught some weeks prior. "In this case, our casualties from last year's campaign were so heavy that we're desperately scraping for every soldier we can find. Do you know how many villages and cities there are in the western portions of the Empire?"

"It's thousands, but I'm not..." Evinda started and Lohs signaled he was ready to give the answer right away.

"Four thousand, almost exactly," he said, scratching at his bald head with the hand holding his pen. "So many of them only have fifty people, one hundred people, but they all do their part. Thankfully, Duronaht advanced on such a narrow front that we still control almost all of them, or at least we're able to communicate with them. For now. I worry what Duronaht has planned this year as the weather improves."

"Simel spoke to you, too, didn't he?" Evinda lamented, recalling the warnings of the Mind Angel.

Lohs winced and rubbed at a twitch on his face and blinked hard several times.

"Yes, you're absolutely right," the old man coughed again to clear vile sounding viscous phlegm from his throat. "It's clear he means to broaden the war. Dastov's information suggests irregular troops and Jagreth's creatures about to spring upon us everywhere. There's been consistent violence virtually everywhere by now to at least some extent, but... If they're right, this will be an awful year."

"After how many people died last year, to be even worse..." Evinda murmured, squeezing her hand tight.

"I did put together an estimate on that, just to try to understand what we've been through," he said, his voice trailing off. Evinda nodded and braced. "All across the empire, including what happened in Zarmand, I would say at least three million killed. And, no, there's never been anything else like it."

"Three million..." she gasped.

"And if this year isn't multiples worse, I'd be shocked."

One of the mansion's guards then stepped into the room and hastily bowed.

"Your Imperial Majesty, your brother Tujiv has arrived and..." he started slowly, but Evinda leaping to her feet threw him off.

"WHAT?!" she exclaimed. "He didn't tell me he was coming!"

The guard blinked back silently for a couple seconds.

"I, uh, believe it was very urgent from the sounds of it."

"Have him come in here at once!" she ordered, her hands shaking. She knew full well that there could be no good reason Tujiv would have traveled all this way without first taking the time to send a herald of at least some kind.

After the guard departed, Lohs cleared his throat as he stood from his papers.

"I wanted to say this before your brother makes any request. We are stretched desperately thin. I would be careful to make commitments we can't..." Lohs started, but Evinda swept her hand to cut him off. He instantly folded his hands and bowed apologetically. She opted not to scold him.

Seconds later, her brother entered in a disheveled state, his normally pristine thick white hair rumpled and wet, dirt spackled all over his now haggard face, and his dark brown and gold riding coat ripped in various places.

"Tujiv! What in Forynda's name happened to you?! And what are you doing here?!" she exclaimed, her voice choking with joy and shock at seeing him. "You look awful!"

"I road my horse so hard it died, but someone was nice enough to come along and lend me theirs," he said hastily, slurring his words slightly. "It's the Kedholns. They started a much larger attack last week and..."

He stopped as Evinda shook in a combination of rage and fear. Only just two weeks earlier, she had allowed her two daughters to go up to their ancestral home under a heavy guard to visit not only their beloved uncle Tujiv, but the rest of her family in both the Adrenyk lands she inherited and the Bolinsyk lands of her birth family. She thought that front reasonably safe compared to the rest. But now...

"My daughters. Did you...?" she started.

"Sister, you don't have to worry. I sent them west as soon as trouble started. The messenger must not've gotten to you. I'll kill that fucker for making you worry just now!" Tujiv fumed, pacing back and forth with his hands grasping like talons. He recomposed himself quickly enough, though. "I'm... we've lost most of our family's old lands and now we're relying on Adrenyk troops plus what you sent us to hold what you got from your marriage."

Evinda closed her eyes and breathed unnaturally deeply.

"Omonrel, that loathsome…" she hissed. "He's trying to bait me before they begin their main offensive here."

"I had precisely the same thought," Lohs added from the side, barely paying Tujiv any mind. "This is transparent at the end of winter."

"A spring offensive from Duronaht is coming headed west and so Omonrel decides to strike at my homeland to the northeast of here, to spread us out," the Empress seethed.

"It's not just a diversion!" Tujiv protested. "Forynda save me! Do you think I would've ridden so hard down here if it were just a nuisance?! You've got no idea how bad it's been up there!"

She clenched her jaw to avoid shouting at him. After all she had been through, especially those horrifying sights from when she was part of the fight against Myrvaness, to be accused of not knowing how horrible war could be was beyond her tolerance.

"Tujiv, I haven't written to you about what I've seen and what I've been through, but I promise you that it would scar your mind to your dying day!" she snarled at him. His entire demeanor diminished after her lashing. "Now, tell me, how many soldiers is that Kedholn bitch sending at you?"

The insults she used for the true leader of the House of Kedholn, Omonrel's adopted noble house, varied depending on her mood, but she was always invariably referring to Lady Selyn Kedholn. Omonrel's relationship with the Kedholn's produced what was truly the oddest relationship in all of Vorlanys. While Kedholn males kept the name alive and sired children, the house’s power lay with the women that Omonrel himself chose to be his true brides generation after generation. Angels couldn't breed with mortals, but Omonrel found a family willing enough to accept his bizarre arrangement for the promise of angelic blessings.

"About twenty thousand," Tujiv whimpered.

"What?! That many?! That's two full divisions!" she gasped. Even with the Adrenyk lands fully conscripted along with her weaker ancestral levies, they could only muster three thousand soldiers at best and then there were another two thousand that she had, over Rohmhelt's objections, provided. "Are you sure about that?"

"I suffered so many defeats so quickly, yes I'm sure about it. We were constantly severely outnumbered," Tujiv cried, his face crunching in around his lips. "I tried so hard! I didn't... I tried to avoid you needing to bail us out, but..."

Lohs, once Tujiv broke into sobs, took the opportunity to clear his throat and offer his piece.

"We're going to need all of the troops we can get. If this is hopeless, it could cost us dearly to send aid, even with new allies coming in this year," the old man cautioned.

"But, if we lose her lands," Tujiv protested, slightly composing himself, "the embarrassment will cripple us and..."

"We lost the capital last year, which is far more embarrassing," Lohs interrupted. "I mean no offense in saying so, Your Imperial Majesty, but losing your ancestral lands contrasted with losing the crown jewel of the entire Empire? In the minds of ordinary people, it just doesn't compare."

"I agree," Evinda said, deflated. Tujiv's mournful countenance, however, caused her to immediately reconsider. Much as she didn’t want to give Omonrel the satisfaction, there was little escaping the conundrum in which he had put her. "That said, any further symbolic losses at this point might cause a cascade of lost faith and I don't want to even risk it."

She could almost feel Lohs's heart thud into his chest.

"I'll send you two Kyosok divisions. They're both below full strength, so it won't be quite equal, but it'll have to do," the Empress continued. "Now clean yourself up. I won't have you riding back to my lands looking like that."

Tujiv was beside himself to the point he squeaked in joy and skipped out of the room, jumping at one point down the hall.

"I'm sure you know that I'll have to tell the Emperor about how this happened," Lohs grumbled behind her.

"Don't bother. I'll tell him myself," she said without turning to face the old man. "Tujiv is right. The symbolism of defending longstanding allies is important. We can't afford to look as though all we'll defend is Karmand. Whether it works in our favor... that's up to luck."

~

"My lady, we're still clearing out the fort. It might not be safe to--" the captain of Lady Selyn Kedholn's personal guard tried to dissuade her from examining her newest conquest, but she held her right hand high to cut him off.

"Protecting me is your job, captain," Selyn chided him as she fastened her white enameled breastplate and placed a similarly styled helm atop her thick and glossy black hair. "If you don't think you're capable I'll just have to replace you."

She let him mull that over while she set her eyes on the small burning gray stone fortress on the hillock due west from her command post, locally called Fort Hogadiv after one of Evinda Adrenyk's great grandfathers. Only perhaps one hundred feet wide on each side, it wasn't the most imposing structure she had taken, but it was yet another blow to her reeling foes. It would allow her to lay sole claim over everything for two miles on all sides and make impossible any incursions into her own territory.

"It'll be done," the captain conceded.

"Good," she turned and smiled at him. "Follow me."

Selyn theoretically was merely the wife of Lord Wemnaht Kedholn, the eldest of the most recent generation of Kedholn males, but she brought with her the true power that made the Kedholns what they were: Omonrel. As had persisted for centuries at that point, Omonrel picked the women he wanted brought into his adopted family. The men were there merely to father the children as Omonrel couldn't reproduce, even though he lay claim exclusively to the Kedholn women's affections. Back in Kedholn Manor, which itself was built by Omonrel to be the most ostentatious noble estate in all of Vorlanys, the Sculptor Angel erected statues of all of his mortal lovers, but never of the house's men despite it being theoretically their family. They had their one necessary purpose and no other.

Knowing she was Omonrel's beloved among all of the women in the world had little to do with how she saw the world. When he had approached Selyn to offer her his devoted love, she remembered saying "There wasn't a chance you would choose anyone else." And she had every reason to feel that way. Tall, elegant, with ravishing dark features including deep brown, nearly black, eyes, she'd long been told she was one of the world's great beauties. That so many focused on such things and not her other attributes bothered her not at all. If anything, it just made the real work easier.

She entered Fort Hogadiv through its crumbling gatehouse at the head of her personal guard and breathed in the smoke of victory. Burning stone, pitch, and bodies filled the air. It was a glorious aroma. The corpses of at least one hundred defenders were stacked into two piles and prepared for cremation.

Commander Cintov, who had led the operation to sieze the fortress, ran up to Selyn in his full plate. She only identified him due to his black-plumed helmet.

"My lady," he bowed, "we haven't yet secured the fortress entirely! There are still some pockets of resistance in the stores under the northwest tower and we're..."

"Doesn't sound like a real problem. You should be able to flush them out easily enough," she admonished him. "Pour pitch down the hole and drop a torch in it. Easy as that. They either run up and surrender or they burn to death."

Cintov mumbled from behind his visor. Selyn was sure she knew what his objections were even if she couldn't hear him.

"Fine," she said. "Let me handle this. I'll make them an offer. I assume they'll be able to hear me?"

"Yes, my lady," Cintov bowed. "Right this way."

The northwest tower was still reasonably intact after a few days of siege engines raining down destruction on the fort otherwise. This was especially true for the approach downstairs to the storerooms below the tower. She saw the vents that provided the defenders with the air they needed to keep the fight going even in the miserable and isolated conditions they found themselves in. Selyn raised her right hand and then slowly lowered it to get her troops to stop the attempts to batter the heavy metal doors to the cellar into submission. Once the battle had quieted sufficiently, she began speaking, her voice aimed toward the vents leading into the chambers below.

"I am Selyn Kedholn and I come to tell you that your fight is over. You are beaten and no one is coming to help you," she announced with a trill of self-satisfaction. "Surrender now and end this pointless fight. Or..."

"NEVER!" a muffled shout echoed up the vents at her.

"Or," she smirked, "I'll have my men pour pitch down into your chamber and light it on fire. You'll burn alive, choking on the smoke of your own flaming skin while I stand here and laugh. That is my other offer. You should like my first one better."

She waited for a response for ten seconds. Her men looked to one another with apprehension while no response came.

"Burning alive it is. Commander Cintov, prepare..." she bellowed again before an answer came up from the vents.

"WAIT!" the shout came. "WE SURRENDER!"

Within only a few moments, the heavy doors to the cellar opened and a couple dozen leather-clad red-skinned Kyosok soldiers, came out with their hands raised high. Selyn's soldiers cheered at their foes' humiliation. She motioned for the men to halt their cheer while she approached to within ten paces of the surrendering remnant.

"Good choice. Unfortunately, I don't exactly want to spend the resources to house you, so I'm afraid the best I can offer you is quick deaths," she chuckled. They were dumbstruck by what she said, but her own soldiers weren't. They grabbed the prisoners and forced them to the ground. "Commander Cintov, kill all but one. Make it quick and tasteful. I trust you to make a good choice. Send the one you spare on his way to let his friends know how damned pointless it is to resist."

"You promised us..." one of the condemned captured men screamed in exasperation.

"I never said I'd spare your lives," she laughed. "And you are being treated better for surrendering. I've been very fair."

She turned away to head back to her command post as Cintov barked orders to his men as to which of the prisoners should be spared. Seconds later, she heard the unmistakable sweet sound of blades cutting across throats and bodies tumbling to the ground.

As she walked back to her command post, she saw Omonrel's silhouette floating just above the ground against the bright blue sky. She smiled and her pace quickened. His smiling ivory face, thick black hair, and crystalline blue eyes greeted her with silent adoration as her men left the two a respectful space to themselves. He deferentially extended his hand to her, which she took and the two embraced. His ordinarily cold skin warmed instantly in her arms. Omonrel stroked her hair and traced his finger around her face.

"You truly have such a talent for this," he smiled, his eyes flashing.

"I don't need you to tell me that," she smirked.

"But I shall all the same," he laughed. "And you will rule this world, not any son of that dead Emperor."

"And hopefully sooner rather than later," she said, kissing the angel upon his lips. "I'd like some time to enjoy it."