Laeroth's mutated dragon hand smashed the table before him, leaving it in splinters. This wasn't the first time he snapped. The times he lost his control could not be counted in one's fingers along with the number of amenities we lost caused by his berserk. 

I did understand his indignation this time.

One of the people who possessed the Tokens of Blessing was Ikesha. The only way to obtain this token was to kill the bearer. That meant that sooner or later we would have to take her life. Ikesha had agreed with the consequences due to her sense of responsibility, but her husband was indignant. 

"We just replaced that table..." I murmured, setting my empty cup of tea on the saucer on top of my lap. 

The Tokens of Blessing originally belonged to the Higher-Order. They were given by the Cauldron of Spirits to hail them as people who still had the right to lead, to take control, and to make decisions for the kingdom in the absence or the incapability of the king.

These tokens also held astounding and insurmountable power that distinguished them from other Ancients.

Because of the war, the Ancients had lost eight tokens. The people who stole them had motives. They used the tokens as bargaining tools to take advantage of us. King Genshi wasn't going to sacrifice his men again for tokens that wouldn’t be of much use to other empires anyway. They were valuable to us, yes, but so was our kingdom.

"C'est des Conneries... (This is bullshit).” His fists were clenched; scales surfaced on some parts of his skin. 

He was ready to break a vase to my face. I could tell when he was about to reach for it. He was subjugated by his wife’s gentle touch, the same hand that had brought screaming agony to the many cannon fodders and prominent warriors during the war. His face dropped into lament.

"I am begging you, Lucius, let us stick to the original plan.”

"We have talked about this. With this new plan, we can only take twenty more lives and plus a few if they get in the way, but with the old plan?" I scoffed right before continuing. "You are risking thousands. You are once again proposing a war. The lives of innocents are at stake here."

He scowled, plopping on the chair behind him. 

"When has it never involved the innocent? You are underestimating the Higher-Order. Do you really think that the Scums can take them on in a battle? It took thousands of soldiers just to kill eight. With our forces alone, we will surely be wiped out. We are betting everything on a fragmentary and half-done plan."

Laeroth didn't even give me a chance to reply when he reiterated our original strategy.

"We start with the Vosredal Empire, we take in the villages under their ruling and make our way up to conquer the capital."

"This is why this plan will fail. War takes up time, food sources, and more lives. We are never meant for a long duration of battle because once we hit our exhaustion stage we're done for. You underestimate the Vosredal Empire. They made a pact with the Pracia Empire and the Cheborg Empire. Even if we do conquer the Vosredal Empire, the other two Empires won't sit around and let us recharge," I explained it to him again.

I didn't know if I should blame the other blood mixed inside of him, but this man's head was as thick as his scales. No matter how many times I explain it to him he could never get it. 

We did try reaching out to the Republic of Xoba under Hanuman's rule; however, they did not want to entertain anyone outside of the borders especially from creatures who they warred with before.

We were Ancients that could be useful for their food source, but they also had Ancients residing behind their walls who were mated with some of them. They only had nuisances whenever catastrophes happened to pass by. Our deceased kind would destroy food sources and any kind of establishment. 

"How can you believe in something that's just thrown at you?" He mocked me. 

My encounter with the wicket was comical for everyone yet it was an experience that shed light on this crisis. Humour me all they want; the wicket is true. It had yet to show its capabilities to us.

"As a knight of our empire, I was always made to believe that the king's order is what we must obey and strive for until we cease breathing. We fight for our homeland. We keep it safe. I always believed in the monarchy but that is just because I was made to. I forced myself to be blind,” I said.

“I orchestrated the elements and killed in the name of Florencia. I fought for our kingdom to live not knowing that our empire will fall into its own imprisonment..." I looked up, admiring the ceiling of our huddle room which was decorated with white crocuses.

“I don’t think I can catch up with what you’re saying. Get right to the point.”

I crossed my leg over the other, leaning back. I was aware how impatient he could get. Beating around the bush would drive my good old friend mad. 

“I simply found a new king to serve, someone who our race has forgotten as we all glorified whoever sat on the throne.”

He snorted. “I see…so you truly have lost hope in real people and decided to place faith in make-believe creatures."

“He is real.”

“Then he should come for a cup of tea, otherwise, he is simply a fragment of your imagination, resulting from a desperate attempt to save yourself from despondency.” 

“It is not my mission to prove His existence to you nor does He have a reason to prove that He exists. Your faith is yours to splurge…”

He grew silent. There was no use holding a grudge to each other while we were in this kind of condition. 

Conflict was inevitable. Ikesha and I already agreed that she’ll take her own life once the time is up without her husband knowing. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to show my face to Laeroth once he finds out.  

"Do you remember the military cadence we chanted before, Laeroth?"

He raised his brow. "Why would you ask me about that now?"

"Do you remember shouting it with everyone else?”

Laeroth's scrunched up face softened. A saddened smile spread across his lips, eyes glancing up in memory. 

"How can I forget? We were young and despite marching through the valley of bloodshed without knowing if we'll even make it out, we were all yelling like a bunch of idiots waiting to be ambushed."

I shut my eyes to recount the memories that I've kept inside my mind. It was faded but it was still there.

War is a gamble. You gain something yet you lose not just a bit but a whole lot of yourself. There was not merely a trickle of blood but an entire lake. Tears were shed but not in drops. Screams were summoned in an unsynchronized rhythm. Some of our comrades turned and some of them didn't. 

I wished they died and remained unmoving instead of dying yet rising with an unknown purpose. I was a knight that knew how to silence the voices of life but not the ones from the dead. I didn't know how to help them. They had lost their honour and I couldn't save them from that.

‘Go forth knights of life, what do you fear? What do you fear?’

‘Nothing sir, do you hear? Do you hear? We fear nothing!’

‘Let our fire scorch the earth!’

‘Volcanoes explode in our mirth!’

‘Breathe in air and blow them storms!’

‘We shall shed the blood of their many lords!’

‘Dry the oceans, stop the river!’

‘Let them starve, they shall quiver!’

‘The ground will break from our command!’

‘The earth shall shatter by our hand!’

The voices of our comrades flooded my thoughts. We were prepared to live but were not ready to die. No one was. 

"I don't want Lucian to witness it. I just opened the world for him to see and if war sparks—"

"He is not a child anymore Lucius. He is not the child you left eighteen blue moons ago. Sooner or later, he will witness war with or without you. It would be better if he would witness it with your guidance," Laeroth cut me off. "That boy had been through his own war, and you know it. He had been a captive for so long until you came. You can teach him how to live but to do that you must also teach him how to survive. The weak don't get to live in a world dominated by the strong."

My hands tightly grasped the cup. He kept going.  "You won't always be there for him, you know? You may think you will, but you won't. That's not how the world works. Don't turn him into a predator but don't turn him into a prey either."

"I'm doing the best that I can. I'll do anything to make up for the lost time but..."

The door slammed open, one of the members was as pale as Garrison’s chalk collection. 

"Lord Lucius, your brother!"