“Where should we start?” Braydon pondered aloud once they had found a room and sat down to discuss, there had been quite a lot of things that had happened over the past months and he had no clue how much Nela had been paying attention to outside matters. At the very least, he knew that she liked to keep tabs on the people that she cared about. So Nela should at least know about how things were going for the Royal faction.

“How about the state of the other factions?” Once they started talking about something other than her personal matters, Braydon could immediately see Nela relax. Her usual smile once again gracing her face as she once again focused on figuring out the best way for them to act. ‘Her ability to focus on the task at hand really is frightening.’ Braydon knew that he could never do that, he was far too easily distracted, but Nela was a different case altogether. She could completely ignore everything else once she was focused on a topic and would see it through to completion.

“Well, as you should have heard, Duke Oakley’s faction was mostly destroyed by the Casburland army. The remnants have mostly been absorbed by Duke Ryder or adequately decimated. One of those remnants added to Duke Ryder’s side is my brother.” Braydon decided to go one faction at a time, starting with those who no longer mattered to the outcome of the scramble for the kingdom. Or at least those he thought no longer mattered, Nela might have a different opinion on that.

“And the Duke himself?” Nela refrained from making any judgements until she heard more. And she immediately narrowed in on the most important part about Duke Oakley’s faction. The man himself was never accounted for after the battle. It was unknown if he was dead, captured or had escaped. It was all well and good if he were dead, but the other two outcomes might leave complications.

“It is as you suspect, we have no clue about him.” Braydon let out a breath as he said it. He didn’t have much of an opinion of the man personally other than that he could be a bit overconfident. The problem was that his status as a Duke would always carry importance, regardless of the strength that he wielded. Many people would eye his title if he were gone, and many would seek to use him for their own agenda if he were alive.

“Then I advise that we search for him as soon as possible. His status is too dangerous to be left as an unknown.” Nela made her first observation, Braydon agreed but he still had qualms with it.

“How do we even go about looking for a man who might not even be alive anymore? He could be anywhere by now. Not to mention that if he were that easy to find, the other dukes would have already made their own moves by now.” There were just too many complications to be wasting resources on a wild goose chase. If they spent too much effort on finding the Duke, then it would not be long before their enemies found out and tried to exploit that.

“I didn’t mean ‘we’ as a faction, I meant ‘we’ as in the Lord of Cliforge. And it doesn’t have to be something we do in the short term, just something that we are doing constantly and quietly.” When Nela made the distinction clear, it was clear that she was thinking much further ahead than Braydon was. He was still focused on how to win the war, she was already making plans for once it was over; even when there was no guarantee that they would even still hold any power by the end of it. 

“Then I will make it happen, moving onto the other factions then.” Braydon decided not to discuss it further. While he was in his own mansion, there were many other people that he could not trust with knowledge of what they were discussing. Nela was clearly thinking about taking actions that the King might not approve of if he knew. There were some things that further discussion was not the best idea, some things were just better left unsaid.

“How about Duke Burn? He surely is cunning enough to have gotten out of the battle relatively unharmed.” Nela carried on, her expression not changing as they moved back onto the current state of affairs. 

“He got out about as well as we did, alright. The thing is that he has not taken any conventional actions since then. Instead of trying to make it back to his territory as Duke Ryder rested in the north to consolidate Duke Oakley’s allies, he decided it was a better decision to attack Earl Blake.” Braydon was still incredulous about that decision, he felt that it was the man’s dumb luck that Duke Ryder didn’t try to punish such a misjudgement. 

“So that man is finally getting what he deserves.” Nela couldn’t help but expose a look of joy when she heard that Earl Blake was suffering. It didn’t really matter to her who did it so long as somebody acted against him. And Braydon didn’t blame her, Earl Blake had made the majority of her life much more miserable than it had to be, especially in the past several years.

“From what I have heard, almost all of Blake’s allies have either been killed or humiliated, their lands not faring much better than their owners. From the last report that has reached us, all that is left is the Earl’s own seat of power. Duke Burn is trying his damned hardest to make life  within the city walls as hard as possible, though it looks like it might turn out to be a prolonged siege.” Braydon decided to finish talking about both the Duke and the Earl all at once. There was still the largest menace to get to afterwards and he was much more concerned about that than whatever was going on between the two.

“Interesting… Do you know if there was any bad blood between them?” Upon hearing the full situation in the east, Nela took much more interest in it than Braydon did. That was par for the course considering her personal grudges with Blake and her father’s lands being in close proximity, but it was clear that she had some thoughts about it on a strategic level. 

Braydon was not about to pass up on her opinion on this, he had not been able to ask her opinion on matters for at least two months. Even if talking about Duke Ryder was important, Nela might be able to think of something useful to their cause. He knew that with her personal matters, he might not get many occasions to sit down and focus on matters of strategy. At least until she got to see her father again.

Darkwood

Hi Hi. 

And here is the second piece of fan art that I am going to show off (yes I am going to show them all):

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