Chapter 79

The fragile peace, born from our enemy's paralysis, was broken not by the sound of war drums, but by the arrival of a single, unexpected caravan from the north-east. It flew no royal banner, but the standard of the House of Devon, the blue wolf's head of the most powerful and notoriously independent of the kingdom's northern duchies.

They were not an army. They were a diplomatic delegation, and their leader was a man named Sir Gareth, an old, seasoned knight whose face was a study in shrewd intelligence. He was the chief advisor to the Duke of Northwood, and he was nothing like the arrogant peacocks the King had sent. He came to my city not with demands, but with a proposal.

We met in the council hall. Sir Gareth's eyes missed nothing: the quality of our stonework, the steel of my guards' armor, the confident, well-fed demeanors of my council members.

"Lord Protector Castian," he began, his voice a smooth, practiced baritone. He used my formal Confederate title, a sign of profound respect and a deliberate snub to the kingdom. "My master, Duke Alaric of Northwood, has watched the events of the past few years with great interest. He is… impressed by your victory over the King's forces and by the prosperity you have brought to this land."

"The Confederacy values its peace and its prosperity," I replied neutrally, "and we wish only to be left to our own devices."

"A noble sentiment," Sir Gareth said with a small, knowing smile. "But a powerful, prosperous neighbor is never left to their own devices for long. The King's rage may have cooled, but his greed has not. And his Master of Whispers, Vaelin, is a cancer that grows in the heart of the court. Sooner or later, they will turn their gaze west again."

He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "My Duke believes in strength. He believes the King has become weak, a puppet of his own spymaster, and that the kingdom is decaying from the head down. He believes that new powers must rise to fill the void. He proposes a formal, military alliance between the Duchy of Northwood and the Wastes Confederacy. Together, we can defy the Crown and carve out our own, independent future."

The offer was a thunderclap. A full military alliance with the strongest of the northern lords would irrevocably plunge us into the heart of the kingdom's civil war. Borin's eye lit up at the prospect of such a glorious conflict. But I, with my knowledge of statecraft, saw the trap. Allying with one rebellious duke would make enemies of all the others. We would be trading one war for a dozen smaller, messier ones.

"Your Duke is a bold man," I said, choosing my words with extreme care. "And his proposal is a great honor. However, the Confederacy has just won a war for its own independence. My people have no desire to be drawn into the internal politics of a kingdom that cast them out. We will not be the hammer for your Duke's ambitions."

Sir Gareth's face showed a flicker of disappointment, but he was a professional. He had expected this. "Then perhaps a different sort of alliance?" he pressed.

"Perhaps," I said. "A military alliance is a promise of shared blood. I am not yet ready to ask my people to bleed for a cause that is not their own. But an economic alliance… that is a promise of shared prosperity."

I made my counter-offer. "The Confederacy will not march with your armies. But we will supply them. We will sign an exclusive trade agreement with the Duchy of Northwood. We will sell you our surplus grain at a fair price, ensuring your people do not starve when the King inevitably cuts off your supplies from the south. We will sell you our steel—not finished swords, but the raw ingots—allowing your own smiths to arm your soldiers. We will help you become strong, self-sufficient."

The brilliance of the move was not lost on Sir Gareth. I was refusing to become his soldier, but I was offering to be his quartermaster and his armorer. I was giving him the means to fight his own war, a war that would further weaken and distract the central government in Aerthos, keeping their attention far from my own borders. All at a handsome profit for the Confederacy.

"You would arm a potential rival?" he asked, testing me.

"I would arm a valued trading partner," I corrected him. "A strong and independent Northwood is a stable and predictable neighbor. That is far more valuable to me than a weak and chaotic one. And a Northwood that is dependent on our grain and our steel for its survival is a Northwood that will think twice before ever turning its armies west."

Sir Gareth was silent for a long moment, a slow smile spreading across his face. He stood and bowed, a gesture of genuine respect between two masters of the game. "Lord Protector," he said. "My Duke will be most pleased. I believe this is the beginning of a very profitable friendship."

The emissary departed a few days later, a groundbreaking trade agreement inscribed on a clay tablet. I had not fired a single arrow, but I had just plunged the kingdom of my father into the certainty of a protracted civil war, all while positioning my own nation to profit from the conflict. Vaelin's shadow war was a child's game compared to the grand, geopolitical strategy we were now playing.