Chapter 286 - 281 — Gift
The morning meeting in the southern war room had barely begun when a figure burst into the room. Zephyrion immediately frowned, staring at Horus with a question in his eyes. The others, too, turned toward him with similar expressions.
"P-Prime... t-there’s... they—"
However, the moment they noticed the panic written all over his face, many instinctively straightened.
Zephyrion’s eyes narrowed.
"What happened?"
Horus struggled to catch his breath, letting out several ragged gasps before finally managing to speak.
"Prime! It’s Tobias and the others. They’re back, but they’re—" He swallowed. "It’s bad. Really bad."
Zephyrion frowned. Tobias, under orders from him, had been sent to guard one of the guardian pillars. It’s bad... did that mean the guardian pillars were...
’Not now.’
Zephyrion immediately killed the thought. He had almost fallen into his habit of overanalyzing again. Right now, there were more important matters.
The war room had gone silent, shock evident on the faces of the other cadet heads. Some might have already realized the implications of Horus’ news, Zephyrion didn’t know. At this point, though, he didn’t care. He just wanted to see what state his ward was in.
"Take me to them."
Horus quickly nodded and led them out of the war room. They soon reached the courtyard, where several cadets had already gathered in a dense crowd, their panicked chatter filling the air.
"Move! Clear the way for the Prime!"
Horus took the lead, forcing his way through the crowd and shoving aside any cadets too slow to move. Several threw greetings Zephyrion’s way, but he barely registered them, his mind feeling strangely numb.
He wasn’t exactly certain what to expect.
Horus had said it was bad, but how bad?
Severed limbs, gouged-out eyes, missing tongues. Several torture methods he’d employed during his time with the Order surged into his mind, and for once, he found himself hating every single one of them. Severing limbs and gouging out eyes sounded perfectly pleasant when they were happening to his enemies. One of his own, though?
Not so much.
Eventually, Zephyrion decided that dwelling on it was doing more harm than good and stopped. Another reason, though, was that he had finally reached the front of the crowd.
Several figures lay almost motionless on the ground, but his eyes found Tobias almost immediately.
The ward was in a terrible state. He looked like a charred mass of flesh, his clothes burned to almost nothing, with patches of melted fabric clinging to his skin. His hair was completely gone, and Zephyrion could see almost no trace of the clear, pale skin he remembered.
Zephyrion silently clenched his fist. The other cadet heads, however, especially Kaiden, weren’t nearly as subtle.
"God fucking damn it!" Kaiden growled, his fists tightening. "When I get my hands on those northern bastards, I swear I’ll—"
Nedra clicked her tongue, folding her arms.
"And this is exactly why I said we should attack first. If you all cock—" She abruptly stopped, clearing her throat. "If you all had listened to me, none of this would’ve happened."
Kaelith sneered, making it abundantly clear that her sudden correction hadn’t escaped him. Then he shook his head. "It hasn’t even been a full day, genius. What exactly was your plan? Attack them yesterday afternoon?
Nedra’s expression twitched, but she held herself back from firing at him, realizing now wasn’t the time. Kaelith seemed to arrive at the same conclusion, clearing his throat before falling silent.
Somewhere along the way, the chatter among the surrounding cadets had died down, every eye now fixed on Zephyrion.
The aura rolling off him had become so oppressive that several cadets found it difficult to even breathe. An eerie silence settled over the courtyard.
"What happened?"
Zephyrion’s voice was low and frighteningly calm, yet it sent a tremor through the hearts of the cadets.
Tobias and the other cadets were unconscious, understandably considering their state, so Horus quickly summarized everything he knew.
"Jaluo told me what happened before he passed out."
Jaluo was a Calderalth cadet and had been one of those guarding the guardian pillars.
"Early this morning, the northerners came out of nowhere and attacked them. They tried to alert the fortress, but nothing went through. Somehow, all their communications had been cut off."
He paused slightly, a grim look settling over his face.
"They... they didn’t just beat them, Prime. They tortured them. For hours. Then they sent them back like this."
"We found them while patrolling the perimeter. Tobias was the one who got them here. He made some kind of raft and dragged everyone back by himself, even looking like... that. The moment he reached the fortress, he collapsed."
Murmurs of praise for Tobias rippled through the surrounding cadets, quickly followed by anger, with several muttering curses at the northern house.
Zephyrion, though, had already retreated into his thoughts.
’They found the guardian pillars...’
How?
They were supposed to remain hidden from all enemy forces. Unless someone with extremely high sensitivity was involved, none of them should have been able to find them. It was true Rhydan might have fed them the information, but according to Ingrid, he wasn’t supposed to know the locations of the guardian pillars. Unless...
’Was she wrong?’
Zephyrion immediately dismissed the thought. He knew Ingrid. She wouldn’t make a mistake like that. Besides, there was the possibility that Rhydan had used the blank areas in his knowledge to narrow down where each guardian pillar might be, but even that felt far-fetched. This attack had happened far too swiftly and precisely for there to have been any uncertainty.
’What am I missing?’
There was still a piece he hadn’t figured out yet, something just beyond his grasp, and it nagged at him.
"Zephyrion." Kaiden stepped forward, fury burning in his eyes. "Nedra’s right. Fuck waiting. We make those bastards answer for this."
"Agreed."
Draven didn’t pound a fist against his chest, nor did he raise his voice. But there was a quiet coldness to his demeanor, one none of them had ever seen from him before.
Kaelion, too, nodded, his expression cold. Even Fiona, who had already begun tending to Tobias, turned toward Zephyrion with a firm look. Lucien and Kaelith remained silent, but the coldness on their faces made their stance clear enough. The rest of the cadets were no different, vengeance burning in their eyes.
An eye for an eye. If the northerners had come after their own, then they would go after theirs. No matter the cost.
Zephyrion exhaled, about to respond. However, before he could, a voice suddenly cut through the silence.
"Southerners."
It sounded calm, almost peaceful, so much so that were it not for the sheer reach of the voice and the words that followed, they might have assumed it belonged to an ally.
"Malach Sanct Sarakhel, Prime of the northern fortress. Beautiful morning, isn’t it? I do hope you received my little gift in one piece. Well... relatively speaking?"