Trestia, the arrogant beating steel heart of the east. It was one of the two great industrial cities of the Empire. It was also the single city of the Empire to not use a wall for its defenses. For the first half of the Empire’s existence, Trestia was an independent city, ruled by powerful, daring and greedy people. Even after they were absorbed into the Empire’s nobility, these characteristics did not change. As the city was surrounded by plains, except for a single mountain, from which the river that crossed it sprang, instead of relying on a wall, its people were protected by a series of Death Zones. Full of traps and manned sentry towers accessed only by underground tunnels originating from the city center, not a single Infected ever managed to penetrate these defenses. As the city grows, these defenses are constructed around a wider perimeter, older traps are disarmed, while the sentry towers become police stations, from which the city’s law and order emanates from. Trestia was, by far, the biggest city in the Empire in terms of constructed square meters. Despite that, it was only the third most populous city, due to the fact that much of its claimed land was mostly automated industries.

Alexander was rightly impressed by the view from the room he had in the small fort located in the city’s center. Yet he was also annoyed by the position he found himself in. Trains going through the numerous rails in and around the city, despite various checkpoints, obviously did not trigger any of the automated defenses, as trade had to flow uninterrupted to the rest of the Empire. For that reason, the city was very vulnerable to attacks by humans, which led to it being easily annexed by the Empire once it had put its mind to it. Now, Alexander was put in the unenviable position of having to defend from an attack of either his younger brother Charles or younger sister Lia.

“Those bastards… Who would have predicted that they would both rather go through the Death Ridge, rather than try to beat me to Raging Flame Fortress?”

Or, either of them were already beaten and the other decided for the Death Ridge. The result was the same either way. Alexander had wasted time waiting many days and then even had to leave a contingent of men in the fort to make sure he wouldn’t get blindsided by either of them being cute and playing a needless game of chicken where they simply waited for a long time before heading to the fort. Going on ahead and seeking confrontation in the next city wasn’t a good idea either, as Alexander was liable to run into Phillip then. A possible three-way fight would be extremely dangerous and unpredictable, not the kind of fight Alexander would ever willingly take. So there he was, waiting for defensive battle on a bad defensive position.

A loud beeping separated him from his thoughts. Someone was contacting him through the communicator. He had asked to only be bothered for military matters, did his opponent finally arrive?

“Commander, a Mobile-Fortress was sighted, it has stopped quite far from the city, outside the range of any artillery. Your presence is required in the Command Room.”

A big grin appeared in Alexander’s face. Even if he might be annoyed by his position, he was glad that the situation would soon come to a head and he could crush his opponent.

“I’m on my way.”

\

The Command Room was normally used to monitor Trestia’s defenses, but at that moment, it was also being used as Prince Alexander’s base of operations. Manned by more than a hundred people monitoring every square meter of the city’s outskirts, it was the beating heart of the city’s defenses.

Alexander did not hesitate in his questions the moment he stepped inside of it.

“Is it Lia, or is it Charles? Why have they stopped?”

Among the six candidates to the Throne, Alexander was the only one who rejected the usual tradition of almost never being directly talked to, as he believed such a thing to make commanding his men unnecessarily complicated.

The man he had just talked to, Konstantinos, was a General in the Empire and his second-in-command. He saluted Alexander before answering.

“Commander! It seems to be the Unbreakable, Princess Lia’s vehicle. Also, shortly after stopping, it sent up signal flares that asked for ‘emergency communication’. What should we do?”

This led to a few questions in Alexander’s mind, which he felt he needed to answer first. How did Lia beat Charles? Maybe he had underestimated her too much? What did that flare truly mean? Usually the context it be used in was either a precursor to surrender negotiations or to ask for assistance by a previous foe against an attack by the Infected. Either way, Alexander had two choices in order to establish communication with the Unbreakable. Send messengers to the Unbreakable, which would be very impractical but low-risk, or Turn off the city’s jamming and establish wireless communications with the Unbreakable, which would be better to answer an emergency with, but carried all sorts of risks.

Alexander tried to think of what kind of person Lia was. Would she try to pull some kind of trick like that? Using signal flares for anything other than their intended purpose was very serious, and even if he did not interact that much with Lia when they were younger, he did not remember her being the kind of person to break any kind of serious rules. In fact, he could not remember her having broken any rules at all.

“I want any anti-air to keep their eyes open for any attack drones that might come from the Unbreakable. I want the jamming turned off and to establish communications with the Unbreakable.”

\

The tension was palpable inside the Unbreakable’s Command Car. Lia could only hope that Alexander would be reasonable. Besides her talk with the Egregius of the Tal, the fact that after Death Ridge the Unbreakable had suffered no attacks by Infected helped feed into Lia’s paranoia. She hoped it would not be necessary to fight through Alexander’s forces to enter Trestia, but she would not hesitate to do it if it proved necessary.

“There is an incoming connection from Trestia.”

That had a slightly calming effect. It meant that at the very least, Alexander was willing to turn off Trestia’s signal jamming and have a decent conversation. Perhaps they could reach the city without any casualties on either side.

An image of Alexander appeared on the biggest screen of the car.

“Hello there, sister. I’d comment about how nostalgic this was, but I don’t think we ever interacted with each other very much.”

Meaningless pleasantries. Was that a good or a bad sign? Lia hoped for the former case to be true.

“Greetings, brother. I will try to be as direct as possible. I seek safe passage to Trestia and an alliance until we have successfully dealt with an impending threat presented by the Infected.”

She said it. Was it too unbelievable? She hoped she did not sound like there was some kind of trick behind all of this. She would hate to have to deal with a disaster because she didn’t sound honest enough.

“Huh. I must say. That is quite an unexpected demand. Might I inquire as to why I should accept such a thing when you can give me no guarantees or proof of such a great threat that necessitates our cooperation?”

That was a good enough response. It would be quite foolish to simply take a rival for the Throne at their word, but at least he seemed to be willing to listen. Lia already knew the next step to convincing him.

“You have deactivated Trestia’s jamming signal, did you not? Then you should be able to use scouting drones, no? It might be far away enough that you don’t have vision of them yet, but there should be an army of Infected massing to attack the city, merely waiting for us to clash.”

Alexander whispered something to the man next to him, who then walked away, probably to give orders for the launch of the drones.

“You know. If this is some kind of trick, you really should try relying on less outrageous lies to trick people with. Now, if this isn’t a trick, I’d be very interested in knowing how you came by such knowledge, because you are implying some very interesting things.”

Good. Those were very good signs.

“I will be direct and honest. The Infected are not devoid of intelligence as was previously thought, at least not on a collective level. They have been hunting specifically for every candidate to the Throne. Charles’ army was wiped out by an ambush by the Infected.”

What she said about Charles’ army was not untrue, even if lacked complete context.

Alexander was scratching his forehead, apparently trying to make sense of things.

“Look, okay, I understand. Even if what you are telling me is true. It doesn’t necessarily mean I have to ally myself with you. Trestia’s defenses have never been penetrated by even a single Infected before. Even if I have to deal with slightly more Infected than usual, or even smarter Infected than usual, I’m pretty sure my skills are up to the task.”

Those were fair enough points, but Lia knew there was a small fact that he was ignoring.

“It doesn’t change the fact that having to deal with that and my forces at the same time poses a much greater risk to you then having my forces by your side.”

Which was a good point, but would usually mean one thing.

“Well, it doesn’t represent enough of a risk for me to give up my claim to the Throne, you know? Or are you telling me that you’re the one who’s actually going to give it up? It’s not a bad choice, you know? There’s more than enough precedent.”

Lia had no intentions of giving up on the Throne. However, she did not want to have to fight with Alexander in that situation. She needed to make him understand the seriousness of what was going on. Words alone did not seem enough; perhaps she just needed to wait.

“That’s what you’re not understanding brother: This is not a situation where we should be worrying about who is about to sit on the Throne. Depending on how things go, there might not be a throne for any of us to sit on.”

In a way, Lia was exaggerating, because she had no real confirmation of anything. What if she was just deluding herself? For a moment, that kind of dread washed over her. All signs pointed to a strategic maneuver by the Infected, but what if it just her imagination? What if she was just being paranoid? Even if the Infected had intelligence, which she had no proof for besides her own inference and the words of Jonah, that didn’t necessarily mean that the Infected were after her and Alexander, that they had some kind of grand plan. What if Alexander’s drones found nothing? It would be utterly ridiculous. As bad as it seemed, Lia found herself wishing that her worst fears were true.

“Fine, here’s how we’re going to do this: The drones have been launched already, I’m going to have them carefully scout as far as, say, behind Mount Edner. Now, I know for a fact that there can’t be a massing of Infected to the east, because I came from that direction not long ago… As for the north, that would be pretty ridiculous. South, well, fine, if we don’t find anything behind Edner I will consider flying in your direction, but remember that if you shoot down any of my drones, then any negotiations are off. Is that good enough for you?”

Behind mount Edner was a good guess. Lia saw no reason to refuse.

“Far enough. I will just sit back and wait for your reactions then.”

Her heart accelerated as the time passed. All she had was an indirect idea of how close the drones were to the other side. She could just keep watching Alexander’s neutral expression, waiting for it to change to something else, which would tell her the facts even before his words would. At a certain point, all color drained from Alexander’s face. That was it! She couldn’t help but feel a certain satisfaction of having her worst fears vindicated. She didn’t need a mirror to know she had quite the smug smile on her face. Alexander’s voice was pained and awkward.

“Ahem, color me surprised… I had no idea that there were this many Infected in the whole continent. I guess I will have to reassess my plans and… I need to rethink how we are going to hold the killing fields…”

He started babbling, which in turn made Lia nervous.

“Wait, can you transmit to me the drone’s images?”

It couldn’t be that bad. There was no way. Or so Lia thought.

“Be my guest. Konstantinos, give it to them, and call off any attack on them we had prepared, we will need every single person we can have. The Throne just became a secondary concern.”

As the images appeared before her, Lia’s smug smile was obliterated. What she saw was so far from her worst fears as to be in a completely different dimension. She was naïve, too naïve. Swarm did not give it justice, it was like an advancing sea.

“By the Flame…”

Those were the only words she managed to utter. Everyone else was too stunned to even say anything.