Chapter 68: A Little Longer
The healers rushed back in less than ten minutes later, and the moment Reid saw their faces, he already knew.
"Your Majesty the scout he didn’t make it," the lead healer said quietly, grief plain in her voice despite the professional composure she tried to hold onto. "his injuries were too extensive. we did everything we could but still he didn’t make it."
The war room absorbed the news in heavy, exhausted silence.
"did he say anything else," the Emperor asked finally, voice rough. "before..."
" Yes your Majesty he did say one thing," the healer said. "he came to briefly, just before the end. he said, ’the enemy is strong, and we cannot fight it.’ that was all. he didn’t finish anything beyond that."
The words settled over the room like a physical weight, heavier somehow than the losses that had come before, because there was nothing actionable in them at all... no location, no strategy, no hope of a workaround. Just a warning, stark and hopeless, from a man who’d bled out trying to deliver it.
Jayden pressed both hands flat against the table, staring down at the marked map still spread across it, jaw tight enough that the muscle jumped visibly along his cheek. "we cannot fight it," he repeated slowly. "four scouts. four lives. and that’s what we’re left with."
Logan said nothing at all, simply staring at the map with hollow, exhausted eyes, the fight visibly draining out of him in real time.
The Emperor stood at the head of the table, and for a long moment didn’t speak, didn’t move, simply absorbing the weight of everything they’d sacrificed for so little in return. Thirty-one Sentinels at the toxic zone. Four scouts now, dead trying to gather even the barest scrap of intelligence. And still, after everything, they had no location, no strategy, nothing but confirmation that whatever waited up north was strong enough to make even trained, careful observation a fatal mistake.
’is he even still waiting for us,’ the thought crept in, unbidden and cruel, before the Emperor forced it back down. ’or has he already given up hoping we’ll come at all.’
"go," the Emperor said finally, voice quiet but firm, addressing the room at large. "all of you. rest. we’ve pushed everyone past reasonable limits these past weeks, and grief poorly rested makes for worse decisions than grief properly grieved. we reconvene at first light with clearer heads."
Nobody argued. Reid, Jayden, and Logan filed out slowly, exhaustion dragging visibly at every step, murmured words of quiet, hollow comfort passing between them as they went, none of it quite enough to fill the space the day’s losses had carved out.
The Emperor remained. He stood alone in the war room long after the others had gone, staring down at the map, at the marked cluster of villages up north where three teams of scouts and one desperate runner had all met the same fate trying to gather information that ultimately amounted to nothing more than a confirmation of how thoroughly outmatched they truly were.
’Julian,’ he thought, exhaustion and grief pressing down heavy and unbearable now that there was no audience left to witness it. ’Julian, right now, you must be waiting for us to come and save you. wondering why it’s taking so long. wondering if we’ve given up.’
He thought of the way Julian had refused him, sharp and unbothered, the day he’d offered marriage like it was the most natural proposition in the world. The way Julian had looked him dead in the eye and told him, without hesitation, exactly where he could put that offer. The insults, delivered with such casual, devastating precision that half the court still whispered about them weeks later.
He thought of how much he missed it. All of it. Even the parts that had wounded his pride.
’you never once let me intimidate you,’ he thought, something aching and raw settling deep behind his composed exterior now that no one remained to see it crack. ’you insulted me to my face the same day you refused my own cousin, and I think, somewhere in the middle of being furious about it, I started to admire you more than I’ve admired anyone in longer than I can properly remember.’
He sat down slowly in the chair at the head of the table, elbows braced against his knees, head bowed, the weight of the Empire and every life lost trying to save one Guide pressing down heavy and absolute across his shoulders.
"I really miss you, Julian," he murmured, voice barely audible even in the empty room, raw in a way he’d never once allowed himself to be in front of anyone else. "I really do."
He closed his eyes, exhaustion finally catching up with him fully now that the careful composure he’d maintained for the entire court had no reason left to hold.
"just hang on a little longer," he said quietly, to a room that couldn’t hear him, to a man who couldn’t either, though he said it anyway, because saying it out loud felt like the only thing left within his power to do. "we will come save you. I don’t care what it costs, or how many times we fail before we manage it. we will come."
He sat there a long while after that, alone in the dim, quiet war room, the marked map still spread out before him, the weight of four more deaths and no usable answers settling heavy across every plan he’d tried to build.
Somewhere, far to the north, past a boundary that had already claimed the lives of everyone brave enough to approach it, Julian remained exactly where the twins had chained him, utterly unaware that in a war room hundreds of miles away, an Emperor who’d once demanded his hand in marriage now sat alone in the dark, quietly grieving the distance between them and promising, to no one but himself, that it wouldn’t last forever.