"Gathering the majority of the forces in the border villages is the most sensible option." Emily said, stating the common decision of the hall. She looked at King Dain, who was standing at the head of the table to his right. The King locked eyes with her for a moment.
"But Arthur is specifically targeting the northern side of the border." Sending soldiers there would mean killing them." One of the platoon commanders said. Emily hadn't met him yet.
"You are right." Aespa said. She was the commander of the first platoon. She was a young girl in her late twenties. "But we need to protect those villages. There are very few soldiers there. The people are defenseless. We cannot allow the same things happening in the South to happen there as well." She continued.
At that remark, the entire hall turned to Emily. The raid in which the southern commanding general was killed. Emily was the general who took his place.
The King turned to Emily. "What do you think, General Emily?" he asked. Emily let out a sigh.
Defending a village was easy. But once General Sarah got involved, everything became complicated.
Emily was a smart girl. She knew the general who came before her. He had had the chance to talk and get to know him a few times. He wasn't a simple man. He was smart and had advanced strategic knowledge. Despite that, he had been defeated. She knew she had to be careful.
"First and foremost, we need to think about the safety of the people." Emily chimed in. "They won't come from the south again." They know that the soldiers are concentrated there. They come from the north. They are not stupid enough to cross the swamp. No army passing through there would have the strength to fight. The terrain will expose them too much. They will probably come from the forest.
"What do you suggest?" the king asked.
"Let's start by directing the scouts to the forest." Emily said. Scouts were a section in the kingdom that had no numbers. They were raised deep within the forest and in harmony with it. They were good at camouflage and survival. No one could stop them when they were in the trees.
"Let's do the same for the meadows." Aespa said. The king nodded in approval.
"Let's send word to the villages."There should definitely be guards on duty in the village, both day and night. Additionally, let the sentinels be doubled. Let's send additional messenger birds. The third platoon commander said. Emily couldn't remember the man's name. She hadn't fully met everyone yet.
"Besides." Emily said. "Let's place camouflaged guards with boats and on land in the swamp."
There was a silence in the room. "What's the point of this?" said the third platoon commander. Asher. Emily had just remembered the man's name. He was a man who wasn't very bulky and looked young. His slightly curly, reddish hair didn't help him look older at all. If it were up to Emily, she would say he was twenty years old, but she knew Asher had been a platoon commander even before her. He is at least 28.
"We must take all kinds of precautions." Emily said. "Maybe they prefer to come from the field and engage in a pitched battle instead of taking the risk of going through the forest and encountering scouts." Emily returned to the king along with everyone else. The king hesitated for a moment. Then he looked at Emily and shook his head. "Better safe than sorry. We will place the guards. Prepare the cars to carry the boats." He said. Emily let out a breath full of gratitude.
"One more thing." Emily said. She was trying to look as non-pleading as possible. "If you permit, I would also like to go to the front.As a general, it would be better for me to be at the front with the soldiers."
The king gave her a rather emotionless look. "Alright," he said. "You are the general. If this seems right to you, then do it that way. But let the commanders whose soldiers are going with you from your company also come. One hand washes the other." He concluded.
Emily couldn't help but smile. "As you command." She said.
"Does anyone have something to say or an objection?" The king called out to the hall. No one said a word. This plan had appealed to everyone. "Then I am ending the meeting," he said. The commanders started to disperse.
As Emily headed towards the door, Aespa came up to her. They paused in front of the door. "General Emily!" She said.
"Commander Aespa." They greeted each other by bowing their heads. "Please." Emily said.
"I don't want to take up too much of your time." Aespa said. "I just want you to know this." She said. She hesitated for a moment. She averted her gaze. Emily could sense his hesitant demeanor. "I understand that you're trying to be careful, but please don't get carried away. I know you witnessed General Kahn's death." – he was the general before Emily – "but remember, you are not him, and what happens to him won't necessarily happen to you." Emily stopped. She had witnessed Kahn's death. What she saw was etched in her mind and even became the subject of his nightmares. She had a hard time getting over it, but he learned a lesson from what she saw and understood what the other person was.
"I'm grateful for your concerns." Emily said. "And believe me, I have more reasons to kill General Sarah than just General Kahn's revenge."
Aespa nodded in response to this and left Emily's side.
Emily was going to kill her because there was no acceptable reason for what she had done. Emily was going to kill her because she didn't look human. Emily was going to kill her because… She didn't even want to admit this reason herself, but Sarah looked so much like her father. They were both monsters.
"General Emily?" said the king. Emily realized at that moment that she was standing in front of the salon door. "Excuse me, Your Majesty. Right away, I'll go out…"
"No, wait." Saying that, the king interrupted. "Let's walk a bit," he continued.
Emily paused for a moment. "It is an honor for me, sir." She said. The king waited for her to catch up and then they walked out through the door.
There was silence for a while. The king walked, looking out the windows in the wall and responding to the salutes of the soldiers passing by. They moved towards the quieter parts of the palace. After a while, the number of windows and soldiers passing by decreased. Emily had started to feel uncomfortable with the confinement when King Dain began to speak.
"How did he die?" he asked. For a moment, they locked eyes. Emily had understood that the king was talking about General Kahn, but she hadn't expected him to ask about it. She had expected advice, counsel, and good wishes.
"Sir..." she said. All the images were becoming clear in her mind. She felt like she was reliving the same things again. The smell of blood in the air, the sounds of swords, and the smile on the girl's face. That smile on Sarah's face...
She started explaining without beating around the bush. She didn't want to, but after all, the king had commanded it. "When I noticed him, he was lying on the ground." "Above him was General Sarah," she swallowed. "General Kahn's arm was severed."
She hesitated. "My king, it's not my place, but why do you want to listen? In war, such things happen..." she was going to say that such things happen in war, but she stopped. Sarah's actions towards the general came to mind. Such things wouldn't happen in war, such things wouldn't be done. This could only be done in a massacre, in an atrocity.
They locked eyes with the king.Emily saw sadness in the king's eyes. She was surprised. The king generally didn't look like anything. He spoke little and rarely showed any expression. But at that moment, Emily might have thought so too, but at that moment, it seemed to her that the king's eyes were filled with tears.
"General Kahn." The king started speaking. "He was my friend since the days I was a prince. There was an 8-year age difference between us. I remember calling him big brother." He paused and scrutinized Emily. "He was the most detail-oriented and meticulous person I have ever known in my life, and that was one of the reasons I made him a general. He had been a strategic genius since his youth. He was a very smart and equally kind man.
When I was young, I never made plans with him. Except for the times I wanted to escape the palace and be alone. He would make perfect plans to get me out. But it was very difficult to have fun with him. He would constantly get hung up on things and try to fix them."
The king stopped. He looked out the window next to him. "I always used to tease him, 'one day this attention to detail will kill you.'" I never would have guessed that one day I would be proven right."
Emily and the king locked eyes. "That's why." The king said. On his face, in addition to that sad expression, there was also anger. "I want to know how and by whom he was killed."
Emily took a deep breath. She was completely justified in wanting to know, but after hearing this, any remaining motivation to explain had vanished. What he heard would not comfort the king. General Kahn had not died painlessly or peacefully. He had suffered until his last moment.
Emily took a deep breath. She would tell the King everything. She had the right to know. He would have loved to know how his mother died and how she felt in her last moments.
"When I saw him." She started speaking. The king turned to the window. "he was lying on the ground. General Sarah was standing at his head. General Kahn's arm was severed.
I remember Sarah's smile and General Kahn's angry face. General Kahn was holding a sword in his other hand. He swung the sword one last time, and Sarah severed his fingers, causing him to drop the sword. "The King swallowed hard." Sarah dropped her sword to the ground, drew a dagger from her belt, and plunged it into General Kahn's abdomen. She twisted the dagger and widened the wound. General Kahn didn't make a sound, but I think he died somewhere in between.
After thoroughly opening his abdomen, Sarah pulled out his intestines like a rope and draped them over her shoulder. She dragged General Kahn away. I saw them later, after the battle. General Kahn was hanged from the roof of a house by his intestines.His arms and legs were under his torso, lying on the ground."
There was a long silence. The king wasn't crying, his eyes weren't even welling up, but somehow, in a way she couldn't understand, Emily knew the king was on the verge of tears and was holding back from speaking to avoid crying.
"he was my only friend, since my youth." He said with a trembling voice. Emily could only say, "I'm so sorry." She could only say. She had some knowledge about the king. He was the youngest of the 7 siblings and had 6 older brothers. All his brothers had died one way or another—probably having devoured each other for the throne—and the throne had fallen to him. All they knew was this.
"You may withdraw." The king said. Emily started walking back in the direction they came from.
That girl needed to be eliminated. Someone like her shouldn't exist. She had to kill her. She would definitely kill him. Just like she did to her father.
The following days were very busy and exhausting, especially for Emily. The masters had consulted her on the design of the boats to be used in the swamp, and Emily had helped determine the shape and features of the boats according to the swamp's structure. Special clothes for camouflage had been sewn, and Emily had chosen the colors of the clothes. She knew that the area was mostly filled with pale-colored grass that was not taller than a person. She suggested the yellow color and helped choose the shade—after all, he had passed through there before. She had done something similar for the Scouts' uniforms.
In determining the soldiers who would go to the border and the companies from which they would be selected, his word held great importance. King Dain had never interfered in this matter. In fact, after that meeting, after talking to Emily, hardly anyone had seen or heard from him. They had settled the elections among themselves. The king's indecisive stance in military and political matters had surprised Emily, but she didn't have time to question it.
Aespa and the entire squad of Aespa were coming. Asher would take half of his squad and accompany him. The remaining ones were a few handfuls of the best soldiers selected from other squads, sent by the squad commanders.
All the horses had been cared for, and the wheels of the carts had been renewed. The swords had been sharpened, and the newest arrows had been prepared. The provisions had been prepared and packaged in a way that they would be well preserved. The road, the campaign, and the war preparations were progressing smoothly.
Emily stepped in front of the mirror and started examining herself. She looked at her hair that fell just below her pure white shoulders. Her hair was normally slightly voluminous, but today it was completely straight. She looked at her eyebrows and eyelashes. They were as snow-white as her hair. looked at her skin. It was pure white. It was as if it had sunk into the black and the snow had stuck to it instead of falling to the ground, completely white. Her skin made her look younger. She was twenty-two years old, but even when she looked at herself, he didn't see twenty-two. She looked nineteen, felt thirty, but was actually twenty-two.
Then she came face to face with herself. She had bright blue eyes. She had sky-blue eyes. She had sea-blue eyes under the midday sun. She had bright blue eyes – not light blue, bright blue. He loved his eyes very much. She had inherited them from her mother. The only thing she got from her mother was them. Her eyes reminded her of things that brought her peace. The water, the sky, her mother...
Her mother used to call her "My Sky." Hrr mother loved her that way too.