The Empire’s Grand Design

The truth was worse than he had imagined.

It unraveled before him, a cold, merciless thing that could not be fought with steel, could not be purged with fire, could not be crushed beneath the weight of discipline.

This war was never about battlefields. Never about armies clashing beneath banners.

It was about something far worse.

The Enforcer stood across from him, his presence filling the chamber like a storm that had yet to break. His voice was measured, his words slow, deliberate—as if dragging Veylan down into the depths of understanding, forcing him to see what had always been lurking beneath the surface.

"The enemy is not simple betrayal," the Enforcer said. "It is not coercion. Not possession. Those can be undone, reversed, fought against. This—" He gestured around them, to the shattered remains of the Order, to the ruin they had brought upon themselves. "—is deeper."

Veylan's fingers curled against the wooden table between them.