War? What War?

Rukelion had been waiting for a war announcement—hoping for it even—but wasn't prepared for the onslaught of emotions it would bring. He wasn't concerned about dying. He wasn't concerned about making it back to Daisy either.

The moment he heard the words 'war with Katalya' mentioned, it took everything in him not to set the entire street ablaze. War? What war? That had been a completely one-sided, premeditated slaughter!

No one in Katalya had more than twenty minutes of warning from watch towers on the castle wall. Soldiers were dispatched and summarily defeated by the plant and water mages with minimal help from other members of the Mirean military.

There was no time to evacuate anyone. Innocent citizens were taken out in the blink of an eye as Katalyan soldiers tried to fight them off. The plant mages were too powerful, able to create giant monstrous plant stalks loaded with thorns large enough to impale people.

The royal family was advised to stay in hiding but King Baratheon had never been a coward. He went out to burn those plant stalks to a crisp and was impaled on a thorn himself because of the water mages nullifying his magic.

It was all over after that. Rukelion had watched the rest of his family die once they managed to make it into the palace. They tried to fight and failed so he wasn't as brave as they were when his time came.

He had always been good at hiding in plain sight. When no one was looking, he crawled under one of the monstrous plants to make it look like he had been crushed and ended up cutting his forehead in the process. With only his legs and the top of his head sticking out, there was no way for anyone to check his pulse as long as he held his breath when they passed.

That was how he managed to fool them into thinking they had killed the entire royal family so he could live another day to take his revenge. He wasn't sure how long he laid there with his heart hammering in his ears before he dared to get up and sneak out of the palace.

By then, everyone was gone. The Mirean scourge disappeared as quickly as it came and left nothing but destruction in its wake.

Rukelion cut himself further on brambles infesting the city leftover from the devastation and bled heavily. That and the exertion from running as fast and far as he could for days with little sleep or food was what made him finally pass out by that stream where Daisy found him.

Logically, he knew that members of the Mirean Royal Army had been involved in the genocide. But he hadn't thought about any of them being people he knew.

Most of his squad was fairly young and the massacre had happened nearly four years ago but that didn't necessarily mean anything. People could join the army as early as age thirteen. Any one of the people he had been eating with, training with, and sharing barracks with could have been involved.

He was so furious that he barely managed to keep it together for Daisy's sake when they parted. She seemed terrified—either for him or of him; he couldn't tell—and he realized that he was probably making some sort of horrible face.

He tried to calm himself down for her sake. He could deal with everything else later but right now he needed to focus on placating the woman he loved.

Rukelion had momentarily neglected how she was feeling because of his thirst for revenge. He felt a prickle of guilt about that so he tried to focus on how best to make her not worry.

Even so, he was more upset that he had been since the original slaughter. Having it shoved back in his face like this…

He knew he shouldn't take advantage of the situation but right now he needed comforting so he did something he had been daydreaming about for over a year. He kissed Daisy. It was so fast it could barely be counted as a kiss but he had still done it.

She took a moment to recover from her surprise before calling after him, telling him she loved him, and reminding him of the plans they had made to live peacefully together after he had accomplished his goal. That was what finally made some of the fury fade away. His past may be horrifying but he did have something to look forward to in the future.

Daisy might not actually be IN love with him yet but Rukelion could tell she meant it when she said she loved him. She had done too much to show she cared for him not to. With that reminder, he was able to get through the emergency meeting.

As he stood among his peers, he couldn't help but wonder which of them had done this before aside from Veese. People's reactions to things varied but he could tell that some of the people here were horrified because they had never seen real combat before and only joined the army for the money. That ruled them out.

Those who had grim or weary expressions were harder to weed out. They may have experienced combat before…or they simply might not like the idea of real violence.

"Listen up! We're going to Aveleen first thing in the morning. It's much colder there than here but we're going to have to deal with it because the situation calls for immediate action. We've been called in because they're using water mages and need all the help they can get," Captain Bridger barked.

Rukelion's hands balled into fists. Aveleenian water mages. He didn't even have to come up with an excuse to destroy them for what they did since that was what he was being asked to do. Perfect.

The Mireans truly were ruthless. Turning on their allies after they had ceased to be useful was a despicable move. A despicable move that happened to benefit him for once.

He could use this turn of events to his best advantage. Eradicating half of his enemies and gaining glory that would likely promote him all in one go would significantly cut down on the time he would have to spend infiltrating these terrible people.

What was the king of Mirea trying to do, anyway? Rukelion still didn't know why he had attacked Katalya unprovoked. What was the point of trying to attack Aveleen now, especially when they were supposed to be allies?

Katalya hadn't been allied with Mirea but they hadn't been enemies. They hadn't done anything to provoke any sort of attack. Until the king went crazy out of nowhere, the two countries had left each other alone for generations. Not knowing why had been slowly driving him crazy ever since it happened.

Rukelion barely registered what the captain was saying and followed the rest of his squadron to go pack the necessary supplies. Moving the three most powerful squadrons out to the border to help would require a lot of manpower.

He didn't pay attention to anything happening him around him due to his own raging thoughts until he heard Ermes nervously talking to Veese. "Hey, Lieutenant…you've been to war before. What was it like?"

Veese did his best to reassure him. "Mirea's army is the most powerful in the world so, while there was fighting going on, we didn't sustain any casualties. Not that many people got hurt either. We went in, did our job, and went out. We honestly spent more time traveling than fighting."

Rukelion snapped what he was holding in half unintentionally and didn't notice the shards digging into his hand until blood ran down his arm and someone called him out on it. "May, your arm!"

"Oh," he said in a completely emotionless voice. He was so far past anger now that he expressed nothing at all.

"You need to take care of yourself! How are you going to fight with an injury?" Conrad, the one who noticed he was hurt, scolded as he began treating his hand. "You're the best we've got and everyone knows it. You could probably take on all of the Aveleenians by yourself when you're in peak condition."

"Right. Sorry."

Rukelion couldn't think about anything but what Veese said and how horribly, sickeningly different it was for the other side. Did he feel nothing for what he had been a part of? Did he even know why he had slaughtered so many or did he not care either way?

He knew one thing for sure. Veese and any other member of the military who had been involved needed to die.

All he had to do was figure out how to make it look like an accident. He would not be letting any of those heartless murderers return home, the same way none of the people they killed without cause would be able to.

For the first half of the army's march to Aveleen, Rukelion was in a daze blindly following orders out of habit as his mind raced thinking through every possible way to make killing his enemies happen. He had to come up with a bunch of contingency plans in case something didn't work so it wouldn't seem suspicious that he was involved in a bunch of accidents.

After much deliberation, he decided to use his fire magic. It could be done a few different ways to make things seem less obvious and more natural.

There was the old heating-the-sword-handle trick to make people lose their grip. He could also raise their body temperature until they felt so feverish they could hardly see straight. That would make them easy targets for their opponents.

Whatever he did had to be untraceable. The water mages might recognize what he was doing as magic and he couldn't kill all of them before getting rid of his Mirean problems first. Otherwise it would be even more suspicious if they died. This all had to be done according to a careful strategy but he was determined to see it through to the end.