say she’s coming for us.”
Myron’s face went scarlet, but Sara seemed to have forgotten him entirely. She leaned back in her deep- cushioned chair, thin arms crossed over her chest as she met Alber eye to eye. “It’s a bad position any way you look at it. Forgetting the issue of whether or not the Empress is actually immortal, her empire has been a stable ruling power for as long as we’ve known there was another continent across the Unseen Sea. We know she has wealth, resources, and a troop capacity we can’t even quantify. Considering this, the force we sent running twenty-six years ago was likely little more than a small excursion.”
“Small excursion?” Myron cried.
“Yes,” Sara said calmly. “I wrote as much in my report at the time, which, by the way, you should read.”
Myron looked away with a sniff. Sara ignored him, focusing on the Merchant Prince.
“I believe it was a test,” she said. “An opening strike to reveal the strength of the opponent. That said, I don’t know why she’s waited so long to strike again. Maybe she truly is immortal and twenty-six years is nothing. Even so, now that she knows what we’re capable of, her course is simple. If our strength is our ability to communicate instantly through the Relay and move our troops to counter her attacks with our full strength at a moment’s notice, all the Empress needs to do is send enough soldiers that it doesn’t matter. Move, counter move. This time she will overwhelm us, plain and simple.”
“So what would you have us do?” Myron growled. “Roll over? Surrender?”
“I’m only being realistic,” Sara said. “The Relay was our trump last time, but that card’s been played.”
“So make us another,” Alber said, leaning back in his chair. “If she knows how to counter our advantage, make us a new one. That’s why you’re here.”
Sara clenched her jaw. “I’m working on it.”
“Well, it’s not going to be enough,” Myron said. “We can’t beat the Immortal Empire with wizard tricks. The Relay was fine and dandy, but it was our soldiers who fought and won. Talking tables and carts that roll themselves don’t sink ships.”
“Yes, Myron, thank you,” Alber said before Sara could snap back and make things even worse. “Your opinion is noted. Now, if you’re done antagonizing my wizard, what have you got for me?”
With one final, dirty look at Sara, Myron reached into his jacket and pulled out a packet of folded papers.
“We have five thousand soldiers on active duty across the Council,” he said, spreading out the stack of figure-covered papers on the table. He pulled a map from the satchel beside him and laid that out as well. “I think we can safely assume that any attack will begin as before, at Osera.” His finger tapped a long island just off the Council’s eastern coast. “As well as being geographically in the way for an invasion from across the Unseen Sea, Osera is the Council’s greatest naval power. Ignore them, and the Empress will have Oseran ships at her back while she’s fighting us on the mainland. Go far enough to get around them, and she lands in the mountains.” His finger traveled north, tapping the wild mountain country that formed the Council’s northern border. “Or the jungle.” His finger went south to the lush, tropical nightmare that covered the Council’s lower tip. “There’s no way around it. She has to take Osera first. Now, I can have our current forces to the coast in a month. With reserves, country-by-country conscripts, and heavy recruitment, we can probably field another ten thousand in the next two months. Training will take another four.”
“That’s six months,” Sara said. “We don’t have—”
“I can’t pull soldiers out of the air!” Myron roared, standing up so fast that his chair toppled behind him. “I’m talking about men, wizardess, not spirits! Men take time. I have to move them, equip them, train—”
“Myron.”
The general stopped. Alber Whitefall was sitting at his desk as before, calm as ever, but his eyes were narrow and his mouth was a thin, clamped line.
“Myron,” he said again in a soft, measured voice. “Do your best. Don’t worry about Sara. Just get me as many soldiers as you can. Understood?”
“Yes, Merchant Prince,” Myron grumbled.
“Excellent.” Alber gave him a smile. “You’d better go get started. Time is wasting.”
Myron Whitefall did not look pleased by the dismissal, but he gathered his papers and stomped into the hall without comment.
“Why is he in charge of our army again?” Sara said the moment the page closed the door.
“Because his mother was very insistent,” Alber answered, standing up with a sigh. “And because he’s not a bad general. He did secure the northlands, if you’ll recall. You’re seeing him at his worst. He was never one for politics, but he’s quite good with the soldiers.”
Sara glanced at the door and gave a dismissive snort. “I could have told you the Empress would go for Osera.”
“Yes, well, you have the benefit of experience, don’t you?” the Merchant Prince said, pouring himself a finger of brandy from the bottle on the table behind him. “And the day you feel like marshaling our army, I will be more than happy to let you. Until then, Myron will have to do.” He paused. “It would also help if you didn’t treat him like some idiot child.”
“I treat him as he shows me he deserves to be treated,” Sara said, pulling her pipe out of her coat pocket. She lit it with a spark from a tiny ruby, one of nearly a dozen she kept on a chain in her pocket, and took a deep drag, pointedly ignoring Alber’s glare.
“He’s right, though,” she said softly.
Alber sipped his drink. “About what?”
“I don’t have a trick to beat the Immortal Empress.”
Alber lowered his glass. “Then why am I paying for your little playground downstairs?”
Sara grew very still. “The Relay was the idea that started my career, Alber. If I could have flashes of genius on call, I wouldn’t be working for you. But brilliant as the Relay was, we were fighting the Empress’s army, not the Empress herself.”
“Come now,” Alber said. “You don’t actually believe all that malarkey about the Empress being an unkillable, magical queen, do you? Everything we know came from captured soldiers who knew they were going to die. Of course they’d tell us the Empress is our doom incarnate.”
“There’s something going on with her,” Sara said. “Maybe she’s just a powerful wizard who’s good at selling herself, but one thing’s certain, Alber. I have a dozen different projects going right now, all with good potential, but I don’t have a miracle. Not this time, and not like we’re going to need.”
“Sara,” Alber said, swirling his drink. “I am an old man who has been up for nearly thirty hours. If you have a point, get to it.”
Sara took an angry puff from her pipe. “My point is that no matter how many poor farmers Myron shoves into Council uniforms, it’s not going to be enough. The Empress’s army isn’t just men. In the last war, the Empress’s forces used spirits on a scale I’ve never seen before. She had amalgam spirits, blends of fire and metal better than even Shaper work, specifically created for war and directed by trained teams of wizards.”
“How could I forget?” Alber said dryly. “And I suppose you’re going to say we can’t field something similar?”
Sara nearly choked on her smoke. “Powers, no. Even forgetting the combination of spirits for war, I would have written wizards working in teams off as impossible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I’ve tried for years to duplicate it, but individual wizard’s wills are simply too different to…” She trailed off when she saw Alber’s bored look. “Never mind. The point I’m trying to make is that we caught a very lucky break last time. We can’t count on that kind of lightning striking twice. If we’re to have any real hope of keeping our lands, we’re going to need a different sort of army than Myron’s putting together. A wizard army.”
“You have wizards,” Alber said.
“A hundred, maybe,” Sara answered. “And that’s counting the idiots I give Council kingdoms to mind their Relay points. A hundred’s not an army. I’m talking about a large-scale, organized, combat-ready force.”
The Merchant Prince’s eyebrows shot up. “You can’t seriously be suggesting what I think you are.”
“I am always serious,” Sara said. “The Spirit Court accounts for almost every wizard born in Council lands. We cannot do this without them.”
Alber sighed heavily, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Banage is going to be a problem.”
