“I know, but an attempt is all we need.” That’s what Lucinda said in regards to breaking up the coalition army we were facing a few weeks before the real battle even began. Shortly after stating it, she rummaged to my things in my work room, probably searching for a map.

As she made quite a mess, I retrieved a large map out of the drawer and laid it down on my desk. Being in this room was still hard as the blood patch on the floor still wasn’t cleaned up properly and red strains remained. Being a ruler wasn’t easy and I was beginning to question if I was even fit for that task. Lucinda always made her plans look so easy, while I was struggling to keep a few nobles in check.

Like always, she knew exactly what to do, or at least I assumed that. After the map was laid out, she took a quill and ink and started to draw lines on it, some dotted, others drawn completely. Did she even knew how costly these maps were? I assumed not, or she simply didn’t care like usual when she destroyed property.

“I do hope this isn’t some kind of childish drawings.” The lines seemed to end in random points, overlap completely randomly. Even though they probably meant something, I honestly couldn’t find any pattern in them.

“It´s not!” She pouted and although I couldn’t discern her emotions like always, I got the feeling she was quite angry. “You have about a week to figure it out.”

And then she left me. Yeah, she was angry, no doubt about that.

Shortly afterwards, I compared this map to the road network, the waterways, simply everything I could find. To my knowledge there was simply nothing that justified these lines. But she wouldn’t simply draw lines on a map and then reveal it as a big joke in the end, would she?

In any case, I put the map aside for now as I still had to recruit an army. Hours went by and after some time, I noticed that Lucinda wasn’t causing a ruckus at night like always. Neither did she rest on my couch, reading a book and commenting about it drily.

“Oh.” This wasn’t just the day Tom would go towards the capital city, it was also the day Lucinda would depart. I hurried out of my room, looked through the window into the front yard and found it completely devoid of any life. She was already gone without leaving a word behind. “Oh.” I said once more and returned to my work room. Depressed, I sat down and stared at her map again. 

She was really angry because of my comment about these childish lines, I knew that much by now. And if she was this angry, she wouldn’t leave a useless map behind. “What are you hiding?” I asked this map once more.

The lines went from certain larger cities, including Eastminster outwards and then stopped in the wilderness. Some also started in the wilderness and ended where absolutely nothing was. Some lines were dotted as they crossed the path of others and others weren’t. The content of this map was truly a mystery.

Five days later, I had already largely forgotten about the map. I had made zero progress in figuring out what it was and thus simply discarded it on the fourth day. We would stick to traditional tactics in beating this coalition army, especially when one fourth of the enemy´s soldiers rebelled during the fight.

At least, until someone knocked on my door and a timid maid entered. I haven´t seen her before, but that was to be expected because I usually dealt with the head maid. She was incredibly nervous and even forgot to curtsy in front of me, not that I cared.

“How can I help you?” I asked, already grabbing the dagger that was secured to the bottom of my desk, even when the guards outside my room let her in.

“Your daughter told me to deliver this.” She trembled as she placed a small rock, that had a slightly red hue to it on my desk. “And that the world doesn’t consist of black and wide … so please stop thinking two dimensional.”

“I see … you can leave now.” She hurried out of the room, nearly tripped over her own two feet and closed the door behind her again. I picked up the rock carefully, but also with interest. Was this iron? Why would Lucinda give me a rock with iron in it? And why was it so brittle?

I sighed unhappily as I still couldn’t grasp her intention until I froze on my chair.

“Stop thinking two dimensional, huh?” I rummaged through my stuff and soon found the map I was searching for. “It is no wonder I couldn’t find anything that fitted these lines. These lines just don’t represent anything on the surface, but rather underground. A long, long time ago, we used to mine iron here. These tunnels should persist to this very day …” I concluded. I didn’t know in which obscure book Lucinda found these tunnels, but if they could still be used, we could crush the enemy easily.

I hated that I didn’t come to the same conclusion earlier. My family lived on these lands for generations and it needed someone else to point out how my ancestors made their money. These mines are completely unused now as they were unprofitable, but they still could be used to travel, although it is usually forbidden to do so.

Angrily, I picked up the rock and threw it against the nearby wall where it fell apart completely. My right eye twitched as I stood up, went towards the remains of it and picked up a small piece of paper. It was a simple message.

‘1500, Sept. 2, F2A6b’ The amount of troops I should bring, the date and the location based on the royal localization system. Lucinda thought about everything: From the fact that I wouldn’t be able to figure out the map, to giving me the exact information I needed to have.

This was probably the last time I even considered betraying her after the issue with the elves was solved. I couldn’t win against her, no matter what.