Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Chapter 299: The Cusp of War

The frozen field stretched out before them like a white sheet pulled taut over the bones of the earth. Snow had fallen in the night, fresh and deep, erasing the tracks of wolves and foxes and the smaller, softer things that moved beneath the crust.

The sky was pale, almost white, the sun a suggestion behind layers of cloud, and the wind that moved across the open ground was the special cold of the north.

In the middle of the field, a line moved.

White on white, fur on snow, the arctic foxes of the Meroron tribe were almost invisible. They wore their winter coats, thick and pale, and over them, white fur pelts that had been passed down for generations, each one carrying the warmth of the foxes who had worn it before.

They moved in a single file, heads low, tails tucked, their small paws sinking into the snow and lifting, sinking and lifting, a rhythm as old as the north itself.

At the front, Emra Mero led.

Her white fur was almost indistinguishable from the snow, her ears pricked forward, her eyes scanning the horizon, the treeline, and the sky.

She was watching for wolves. White wolves. Hoping they would never spot them.

Behind her, at the very end of the line, Arkai Dawnoro walked.

He was not invisible. He was the opposite of invisible. His dark fur stood out against the snow, his form massive against the pale sky, his presence a weight that the foxes could feel even without looking.

They had been nervous, at first, when the Black Wolf King himself had appeared at the edge of their settlement, offering escort.

They knew his reputation. The stories. They also knew that the wolves of the north did not offer protection without expecting something in return.

But he had come alone and himself, had spoken to Emra with the respect that small tribes were not used to receiving, and had said, simply, "I made a promise."

Now he walked behind them, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his ears pricked, his whole body alert.

The foxes felt safe. They had never felt this safe, not in all their years of moving, in all the territories they had passed through. Never in all the times they had packed their belongings and fled before something caught them... did they feel the cold of the ground and thought, everything will be better. Not just surviving.

But with the Black Wolf King behind them, they felt something they had almost forgotten. The peace of knowing that someone stronger than you was on your side.

Emra glanced back, just once, just to check. Her eyes found Arkai’s face, stern and stoic. The line of his monstrous jaw, the set of his mouth, the way his eyes moved across the snow, missing nothing.

He was so handsome, she knew everyone’s thoughts. Well, not her type, though. Her type was someone like Cecilia. But man. Would that exist?

Wait. Arkai Dawnoro also felt like Cecilia, but man.

Was her type Arkai Dawnoro?

Not really.

Well, why not just Cecilia Araceli? Girls weren’t bad either. She nodded to herself.

After all, this man was very focused. Very warm and very fatherly. He was very professional, very stern, very—

Let’s stop diving into Emra Mero’s head and start diving into the head of the stoic, seemingly no-nonsense guy behind all of them.

Because inside his head, Arkai was having a very different conversation.

[Cecilia: You said you regretted how we didn’t get to use the dildo? Then try to find them for me in this world!]

His stride did not falter. His expression did not change. His ears did not so much as twitch. But somewhere, deep inside, he was sighing.

[Arkai: Cecilia... you know I was kidding last night...]

[Oathran: Why do we need a dildo? William is back.]

[Eastiel: Peter is here too. Why need a dildo?]

Arkai’s jaw tightened. His eyes, still fixed on the horizon, narrowed. He was the Black Wolf King. He was escorting a tribe of foxes to safety. He was the picture of authority, of power, of the dignity that came from being what he was.

And his wife was texting him about dildos.

[Arkai: We are not having this conversation right now.]

[Cecilia: You started it.]

[Arkai: I was emotional.]

[Eastiel: That was emotional? I was emotional! You joked!]

[Oathran: I was not kidding about the smoothies and meat pies, though.]

[Cecilia: I miss the dildo.]

[Arkai: CECILIA.]

He did not say her name out loud, of course. He did not change his pace either.

He just could not, for the sake of his dead father and the name of Dawnoro, let any of the foxes see the flush that was creeping up his neck, the heat that spread across his cheeks whenever she said things like that.

He was the Black Wolf King. He was stoic. He was stern. He was thinking about his wife and her dildo and the way she had pouted when they had to leave to the villa without it—OH COME ON, BRAIN? AGAIN?!

[Arkai: Cecilia_pouting_holding_dildo.jpg]

[Arkai: I didn’t mean to think that.]

[Cecilia: WHEN DID I MAKE THAT EXPRESSION?]

Arkai wanted to bury his head in the snow.

***

The tent walls shivered.

Dorian Delanivis stood at the center of his war council, his hands flat on the table before him, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

The map spread across the table was marked with pins, red for their forces, black for the enemy’s, blue for the supply lines that had, until yesterday, snaked across the frozen landscape like veins carrying life to a dying body.

The blue pins were gone now. All of them. Pulled out by trembling hands, laid in a neat row at the edge of the table, a graveyard of what they had lost.

"The logistics route," the general said again, his voice barely a whisper. "All of it. The grain, the fodder, the winter coats—" He stopped. Swallowed. His hands were shaking. "Burned. Every last scrap."

Dorian’s chest heaved. His face was the color of the snow outside, his eyes the white-hot of a man who had spent his life building something and was watching it crumble in front of him.

The table before him was covered in reports. Losses, defections, the careful, methodical destruction of everything he had spent years assembling.

The Edengolds had not just cut off his supply lines. They had burned them. Erased them.

No. Eastiel Edengold made sure that there was nothing left to salvage or rebuild, nothing left that could be carried through the winter that was already settling into the bones of the north.

"The Edengold boy," he said, "The golden lion." His hand shot out, swept across the table. Maps flew, pins scattered, the neat row of blue markers scattered across the frozen ground of the tent floor. "THAT BASTARD!"

The generals flinched. No one moved to pick up the maps. No one spoke.

Nikolas entered the tent. He stopped at the edge of the chaos and bowed. His face was carefully blank, his voice carefully steady.

"Father." He paused. "The Eastern Werebear Tribes have decided not to take part in the war." His eyes did not meet his father’s. "They will not send an allied force to help us."

Dorian’s hands slammed onto the table. The wood cracked. The remaining pins jumped and scattered. His face was purple now.

Ah, so this was the feeling of being betrayed by his expectations.

"Don’t they realize this is our home we must protect?!" His voice cracked and rose. "Do they forget how much our family has given them?! All the advantages! All the opportunities!"

Advantages.

Nikolas stood very still. His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere above his father’s head, on the tent pole, on the place where the canvas was starting to sag from the weight of the snow.

He was thinking about Ruby.

About the mines she had shown them, the ones that had made them richer. About the wool business she had started, the trends she had predicted, the fortunes she had built with nothing but her visions and his father’s ambition.

And perhaps, about the marriage that had seemed, at the time, like the best decision any Delanivis had ever made.

"Our home, Father." His voice was empty, the words hollow. "You are right. They should have realized."

Nikolas did not see their home. He saw a patch of frozen land, a few scattered villages, a territory that was nothing compared to the vast stretches of the Dawnoro north, nothing compared to the sun-baked lands of the Edengold south.

He saw a house that had been maintained on borrowed prophecies, on a woman’s visions, on the particular desperation of a family that had never been quite powerful enough, quite rich enough, quite enough.

The war should never have started. But he didn’t know how to avoid it either. This enemy they made, the enemy that was born thanks to their alliance to the Saintess and their crime to the former one...

This war that his father had dragged them into unprepared because he could not bear to be anything less than what he thought he deserved to be.

Not to mention Ruby.

Ruby was still refusing to come north.

She was at the Iondora Capital, she said. The temple needed her, she said. She was the Saintess, she said, and her place was with the faithful, with the prayers, with the endless, meaningless rituals that kept her far from the war, far from him, far from the cold that was settling into his bones.

But what was the truth?

He was sure she just wanted to stay by Arzhen’s side. She would not leave him, even now, even after everything.

That when Nikolas had found her in that temple room, her hands wrapped around that bastard’s, her face wet with tears, she had looked at him like he was the one who had stolen something from her, like he was the one who had taken her future and burned it.

"We still have the Saintess," Dorian suddenly said. "We still have her visions. Nikolas, go to the capital. Make her announce a prophecy."

"Anything."