Wyn stood in the council meeting room that had been converted into what all the warriors were calling a 'war room' long after the meeting had ended in the late afternoon and everyone else had filtered out to continue with the rest of their duties. The sun set slowly in the windows along the one wall to her right, but she concentrated on the map that had been carved into the table that took up most of the room, at all the little flags that showed an Aupanan town that had been destroyed.

The sanyuinel came during the night and only the smoke of smouldering ruins were left as a signal for the nearest communities or patrols that anything had happened.

No survivors, no bodies.

Just ruins.

There was no massing force of the enemy that they could pinpoint, though they had yet to wander south of the rolling foothills, preferring the mountainous northern region of Aupana. No trade or messages made it through the pass between Aupana and Sellexu but Sellexun forces had reported no attacks within their borders.

Sellexu had a force it wanted to send, but a battle in the pass was not something they wanted to chance.

And ferrying forces across the bay could be done, but slowly, and they had not decided where they wanted to land the Sellexun warriors or the Alliance forces.

In the north, where Aupana's Rangers and Lansend's platoons were being wiped out as easily as the villages?

Or further south, where they could form a defendable line and advance as an entire group, step by aching step?

The door opened and Wyn glanced away from the table finally, arching a brow to note Eric stepping into the room, holding a large roll of paper and a notebook.

He paused where he was and offered her a lopsided smile and a half-shrug. "I thought everyone was gone. I want to adjust my map of the older sites. And see if there's a pattern of attack that is being reused."

Wyn nodded and motioned to the table, before stepping over as the younger man fumbled with his armload.

She grinned and took an edge of the roll, helping him spread it along the floor to the side of the table and set it in place with weights. "Still trying to find the artefacts?"

"Hmm... The problem is, we know where they went into battle. But none of those battles were survived by any of our forces. The artefacts must have failed, drained like we now know they can be drained, and the forces were wiped out, caught unaware when the magic stopped working." Eric pointed to large swaths of areas on his map that he had coloured a similar blue to the magic from the diamond and the sword.

"How large were the forces?" Wyn watched him move back and forth between the two maps from a few steps away, shaking her head as she noted the battles didn't appear to be in the same locations as the current attacks.

Other than most of them being in the north, they were some distance away.

"Sizable. The populations were smaller back then. They had barely settled beyond the settlement camps from the ships. One generation on the land, maybe two, by the time the Sanyiunel really attacked. They came from a fair distance away, and as far as I can find on the history, the continents they were on experienced some sort of disaster. Not sure if it was drought, sickness, or some sort of sudden need for exodus, but they were already survivors. It just happened that it was mainly warrior-based societies that made it to the bay." Eric offered a shrug as he worked, before finally standing up and moving to stand beside her.

"Bigger forces than ours?" Wyn asked gently, to refocus his attention on her original question.

Eric side glanced at her and smiled sheepishly. "No. Not in total. And... they were divided, even amongst the different camps as well. . . they were more like head knights, who gathered those loyal to them and decided how to fight things their own way. Aupan and Sellexor were able to amass the largest forces closer to the end, but they had already been decimated. And then, Sellexor's faction settled in to their territories and played the long game."

"But we don't know how much the Sanyuinel population has recovered as well. They might have grown the same amount our forces have. And we still don't know how they're moving around, where they're based."

"Underground." Eric shrugged again as he stared at the map.

Wyn blinked at him, turning to look in his direction when the door opened once more, admitting Keana, Shiar, Tomeii, and Ocia, all with the same unreadable expression on their faces.

Eric turned away from the map and looked at the group, crossing his arms over his chest and sighing. "I suppose you need this room for a meeting now?"

They were answered by a dozen white cloaked foxes stepping into the room, taking up positions and escorting Rael and Kannein, and then only moments later the Sellexun guard moved into the room with Caelur, who looked like he had come straight from his offices. His hair was slightly mussed, like it was when he was working on administration and toying his fingers through it in frustration.

"Nerini is awake." Keana offered once the door was closed, his eyes scanning the room and moving to look at the map, taking it in before he assessed Eric's map on the ground while continuing. "I locked her in the treatment room after she woke and crossed the distance between us in an instant. She's faster than humanly possible. And more."

"But everything we knew indicated..." Eric trailed off, his cheeks flushing when the attention of the room went to him.

There was deafening silence as Wyn watched Keana frown deeply in thought, as if trying to settle something in his mind. Though she could never know for sure, some part of her intuition told her he had been scared and needed this distance to decide his own opinion.

"She just let you leave after that?"

Keana blinked and looked over at her before nodding once. "I think she moved out of reflex, but she didn't try to hurt me. Just took my weapons away. She backed down and... we spoke rationally. Looking at her, I see her power like I always have. And that other part... from the poison, it seemed to become muted by the rest of her."

Then he briefed them on the small conversation they'd had before he'd left her in her room, finishing to another stretch of long silence.

"Aupan says that when we gave her the sword the first time, it brought her back, along with..." Tomei was staring at a blank space beside her, frowning softly for a moment, before she shook her head. "His brother. They helped her reinforce her mind and Sellexor was teaching her more about using her gift when the sword chose me and he was pulled away."

"Back?"

"Apparently, the Sanyiunel, the leader, can trap people's souls, or minds, within a world of his own creation. From what Sellexor told Aupan, it was a battlefield of humanity's destruction, and it changed to show more modern armour, like what we have now."

"Nerini mentioned it felt like she was gone for eons." Keana murmured softly, glancing around the room.

Wyn shook her head with frustration and took a step toward the door. "My friend has been through enough. We will not lock her away or treat her like a criminal, not after she survived all that."

"We don't know..." Ocia was already shaking her head, her expression closed to any form of empathy toward Nerini.

"I know that if Nerini is there and if she's struggling with herself, if she's fighting to be who she is to us, that us abandoning her is only going to finish the work of the enemy." Wyn snapped as she turned to the other woman, before looking around the room. "If the rest of you have forgotten how much we've all fought and sacrificed for our hopes and dreams, then stay here, afraid. I'm going to go find my friend and help her finish her journey back to us."

Real stepped up beside her and laid a hand on Wyn's arm, offering a gentle inclination of her head. "I agree Wyn. But Rini wouldn't want us taking risks either."

"I will go get her, bring her here." Keana offered a sketched bow, only pausing long enough to accept Shiar and Ocia's offer to help before they left the room.

Wyn frowned and paced across the room again, looking down at the map that Eric had drawn on the floor as she wrestled with her frustrations. She knew that being prudent was best, that Rael was right and Nerini would be the first to get angry at them for taking risks for her, but she also knew that her friend needed her.

Another thought returned to her, unbidden, and she looked up and toward Eric.

He was standing beside his brother now, frowning thoughtfully at his feet, hands clenched. As much as they teased him for caring more about books than anything else, Wyn knew he had a large heart that was probably aching to see his sister back safely with them.

That thought made her consider the fact that they had done little to include him when Nerini was missing. He had been by himself, probably worried sick as well, and they had turned away in their own worry and grief, looking for outlets or ways to help.

"Eric... she's going to be ok." Wyn offered gently, drawing his surprised gaze up toward her.

Eric smiled faintly, though genuinely, and nodded. "I know." He looked down at the map at her feet and smiled a bit wider. "The ground... the earth, the type of soil and rock under our feet in Lansen, I remember them from living there most of my life. There are caverns and tunnels all over the mountains and foothills. Some of them didn't seem naturally made, and I can't be sure, but I remember not being able to explain their formation through a natural process, it always puzzled me, because they were caves that formed in a way that I didn't understand. The rocks and ground of Sellexu, what I saw of it, and what I read about it.. it's different."

....