Chinua walked with a slow, deliberate stride, the iron plates of her armor clicking softly in the quiet street. Beside her, Hye moved like a shadow, his hands resting peacefully behind his back, his dark eyes scanning the rows of tightly shuttered townhouses. The great monsoon storm had passed, but it had left a suffocating, unnatural stillness in its wake.
On either side of the wide avenue, strips of white cloth hung limp from every doorframe, every iron handle, and every wooden windowsill. They fluttered like ghost wings in the dead air—a silent, desperate plea for mercy. Behind those closed doors and broken lattices, the civilians of Kark City held their collective breath. No one dared to step outside. No one dared to make a sound, frozen by the terrifying certainty that a single wrong move would bring the wrath of the Hmagol vanguard down upon their heads.
As the two commanders passed a narrow alleyway, a few frightened faces appeared in the cracks of a wooden shutter. The moment Chinua's gaze drifted toward them, the civilians violently snapped their eyes away, staring down at the dirt in sheer terror. To look the conquerors in the eye was to invite death.
Then, breaking the oppressive quiet, a child's whisper echoed from behind a cloth-draped doorway, thin and trembling.
"Mother..." the little girl whimpered, her tiny voice cutting clearly through the silence of the street. "How long do we have to keep this tied to us? How many more days do we have to wear the white cloth on our wrists?"
A sudden, panicked rustle followed inside the house as the mother desperately hushed the child, pulling her back into the deep shadows of the home before the conquerors could hear.
Chinua paused, her heavy boots coming to a halt on the damp, slick stones. She looked at the door where the innocent voice had come from, then down at her own gauntlets, caked in the dust of a conquered kingdom. The war for Kark City was won, the gates were open, but the true, suffocating weight of the occupation was only just beginning to settle over her soul.
Hye smiled and turned his head to look at Chinua. "So, Chinua... how long are they going to keep wearing these white cloths?" he asked, intentionally raising his voice just enough to ensure the listening civilians hiding behind the door could hear him.
Chinua ignored the tease, her expression remaining focused. "Where is the mayor's estate?"
"How should I know?" Hye replied with a smirk. Without a shred of hesitation, he walked right up to the cloth-draped doorway and lifted it open, stepping inside.
Within the dim, half-ruined home, a terrified mother instinctively clutched her young daughter tightly in her arms. The father immediately threw himself forward, placing his body between the conquerors and his family to protect them.
"Sir," the man stammered, his voice trembling as he pleaded. "It was just a child talking nonsense. Please, I beg you, do not take it to heart."
Hye chuckled softly, raising his hands to show he carried no weapon. "Relax. I only came in to ask you a question: which way is it to the mayor's estate, and who exactly runs this city?"
The man swallowed hard, trying his absolute best to master his paralyzing fear. "The mayor... he fled to Ngabo City with the first wave of refugees."
"Ah. Well, then," Hye mused, turning his head back toward the street. "I suppose Chinua can just take over the mayor's estate, seeing as he abandoned it."
The father was left utterly dumbfounded by the strategist's casual tone. He nervously scratched the side of his head, completely unsure of how to respond. "I... I guess so."
Hye reached into the folds of his robes, feeling around his chest pocket for a moment before pulling out a thick, intact piece of baked bread. "Here, little one," he said with a warm, disarming smile, kneeling down to the little girl's eye level. "I bet you are hungry. You've never tasted Hmagol bread before, have you? Give it a try. It's quite good in its own way."
He reached forward gently, taking the little girl's hand and placing the bread into her small palm. Standing back up, he let the cloth door fall back into place. "Thank you for the information, brother. Oh, and by the way—hang in there for now. Let us figure out the logistics first, and we will help you rebuild what was destroyed. In the meantime, I highly suggest you relocate your family to one of the inns on the south side of the city. That district took the least amount of damage from our assault, and besides, that's where the food is."
He stepped back out into the street, walking up to stand beside Chinua. He shrugged his shoulders lazily. "The mayor fled the city. Which means we might be in a bit of trouble, considering neither of us has any idea how to actually govern a city. You might need to send a message to that royal brother of yours to dispatch a civil official. The people who chose to stay behind are the poorest and most economically disadvantaged; they will need immediate administration."
"General!"
A scout came running down the quiet avenue, his boots splashing through the puddles before he halted and bowed deeply before Chinua and Hye. "General, Captain Yisü has just returned. He has brought Minister Esen with him, who just arrived to drop off our winter military supplies. They are currently waiting for you in the inner keep's conference room."
Hye broke into a hearty, delighted laughter.
"Talk about perfect timing," he said merrily, boldly throwing his arm around Chinua's armored shoulder. "Our governor problem is officially solved."
Inside the temporary military conference room, the atmosphere was thick with anticipation. Flanking both sides of the long wooden table were Chinua's top commanders—Haitao, Dawa, Jochi, and her other trusted men—alongside Esen.
Chinua walked deliberately to the head of the table, taking her seat in the center, while Hye smoothly claimed the first chair to her immediate right.
The moment the two commanders were seated, Esen stood up to formally greet her.
"Your Highness," Esen said, offering a respectful bow and a polite smile. "I have successfully delivered the military supplies, and I have also brought urgent news from His Majesty."
"Go on," Chinua replied, her posture rigid and attentive.
"First, here is the official royal decree naming this newly conquered fortress as Behrouz City." Esen stretched out his hands, reverently presenting a scroll of golden silk parchment. "As for the wider war... His Majesty formally requests that Your Highness halt our vanguard's advance for the time being."
At those words, a tense ripple went through the room. Every soldier present immediately shifted their eyes toward the minister, their jaws tightening.
"His reason?" Chinua asked. By the sharp, sudden drop in her tone, everyone who knew her well instantly recognized that she was deeply displeased by this development.
"The reason is that the Empire of Tanggolia has approached His Majesty," Esen explained quickly, maintaining his composure. "They have offered themselves as neutral peacemakers between our kingdom and Payapasa. They intend to host a formal peace treaty summit within Taegye City."
"What an absolute joke," Dawa sneered, crossing his arms aggressively. "Why would Tanggolia suddenly take such a sudden interest in this war?"
Hye leaned forward, a calculating look in his eyes. "So, Minister... your king has already agreed to this summit? And the person demanded to attend these peace talks is none other than Chinua herself, correct?"
"That is entirely correct," Esen confirmed, reaching back into the deep folds of his silk robes to pull out a heavily sealed envelope. "King Es Ke declared that if Chinua refuses to attend in person, he will flatly reject the peace talks altogether. This is His Majesty's private letter to Your Highness, explaining the situation."
"Thank you, Minister Esen," Chinua said, her expression smoothing into a polite, professional smile as she accepted the letter. "Oh, by the way... I am going to have to trouble you to remain here in Behrouz City for a time. I need you to ensure its infrastructure is restored and the civilian administration is up and running."
Esen bowed gracefully. "It would be my absolute honor, Your Highness."
"Guard, please escort the Minister to the guest quarters so he may rest," Chinua commanded.
"I shall take my leave now, Your Highness," Esen murmured, offering a final, gentle bow before exiting the room, leaving Chinua and her military council entirely to themselves.
The moment the heavy wooden doors clicked shut, Haitao spoke up. "Es Ke must have desperately begged Tanggolia to intervene."
"Tanggolia is incredibly smart; they want absolutely no part in the physical bloodshed of this war," Hye said, the corner of his lips curving upward into a sharp smirk. "As we all know, their Empress is King Es Ke's sister, yet our own royal princess, Princess Ankhtsetseg, is wed to Crown Prince Geming. The absolute best Tanggolia can do right now is try to force Hmagol and Payapasa to negotiate terms, desperately trying to save their own skin and maintain their neutrality."
"We will not negotiate away our hard-won victories," Chinua said, her voice cutting through the room with absolute finality. "Our objective remains entirely unchanged. We must seize Ngabo City to completely secure our borders and ensure we no longer share a single landmark with Payapasa."
"But if you refuse to go to Taegye City," Haitao pointed out quietly, "it will make His Majesty look incredibly bad, seeing as he has already given his royal word to accept the summit."
"And if Chinua does go," Jochi countered, "it will give Es Ke the perfect opportunity to launch a surprise counter-attack or entirely rearrange his shattered military positions."
"Then we simply won't let that happen," Chinua said, a dangerous, confident smirk spreading across her face. "He wants me to attend this summit? Fine. I'll go."
"I don't think Es Ke will dare to launch an offensive during the summit anyway," Zhi noted thoughtfully. "He still desperately needs Tanggolia's political backing. If he attacks us while the peace talks are active, he will completely burn his bridges with the Emperor. Therefore, he will most likely use this ceasefire to lay hidden traps, resupply his forces, and move his men into better vantage points."
"From this position to Ngabo, our absolute greatest obstacle will be the Mopia Valley," Hye said, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the war map spread across the table. "If I were Es Ke, I would ambush you right in the heart of Mopia. The forests there are incredibly thick, and there is only a single, dangerously narrow path winding up the valley toward Ngabo City. If the enemy secures the higher ridges, they hold an overwhelming structural advantage." He smiled warmly, seemingly amused.
"Why on earth are you smiling?" Bolor snapped, looking thoroughly annoyed by the strategist's detached demeanor. "Are you actually happy that the enemy holds the advantage over us?"
Hye chuckled softly, his eyes flashing with a proud, unyielding light. "For years, many of the male commanders sitting in this room—and thousands of male soldiers across the entirety of Hmagol—have constantly looked down upon Chinua's female vanguard. They always whisper behind closed doors, mocking them, asking what a woman could possibly achieve in the brutal reality of warfare."
The proud smile stretched across his face. "This time, in the treacherous heights of that valley, those very women will be the ultimate weapon that saves your as—"
Chinua cleared her throat loudly, cutting him off with a stern glance.
Hye merely grinned, entirely unbothered. "Anyway... you will all see exactly what I mean when the time comes for us to cross the Mopia Valley."