Chapter 18 Verr
VERR
The doors to my father’s chamber open the way they always do—slow enough to remind you that you’re entering on his terms, not yours.
Stone grinds against stone somewhere deep in the walls, the sound low and deliberate, and the air that slips through the widening gap carries that familiar metallic edge of contained magic.
It settles at the back of my throat as I step forward before the opening is complete, forcing the mechanism to accommodate me instead of the other way around.
My father doesn’t acknowledge it.
He’s seated behind the long obsidian table, one hand resting flat against the surface, fingers moving idly as if tracing lines only he can see.
The room is too still, too controlled, everything placed with intention and nothing wasted on comfort.
Even the light feels restrained—cold, clean, revealing nothing it doesn’t have to.
“Verginyon,” he says at last, without looking up. “You’re early.”
“I need to speak with you.”
“You always do.”
His gaze lifts slowly, and when it settles on me it isn’t curiosity or even irritation—it’s assessment. He’s already measuring the value of this conversation before I’ve begun, deciding how much of his time I’m worth.
“Make it brief.”
I don’t sit. I don’t move further into the room than necessary. “There are coordinated attacks along the outer supply routes,” I say, letting the words land clean without dressing them. “They’re not random. They’re pushing inward.”
“I’ve seen the reports.”
His tone doesn’t shift, and something in my chest tightens at the lack of reaction. “Then you know what it means.”
“I know what it looks like.”
I step closer, just enough to shift the angle between us. “Krago is positioning. He’s cutting outer villages, forcing supply routes to bend, thinning support before he escalates.”
My father leans back slightly, the movement unhurried, like he’s adjusting to something mildly inconvenient rather than significant. His fingers still against the stone, and the room feels tighter for it.
“And?”
The word lands flat, stripped of urgency.
“And we should respond before he reaches the central plains,” I say. “Deploy a targeted force, disrupt the advance before it consolidates.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze drifts past me for a moment, as if considering something more interesting, then returns with the same indifference.
“No.”
The refusal is clean. Final.
I hold his gaze, waiting for more, but none comes. “That’s not a sufficient response.”
“It is,” he replies. “Because it’s final.”
The irritation hits faster this time, sharper, but I keep it contained. “You’re underestimating the scale of this.”
“No,” my father says calmly, folding his hands now, stilling them completely. “You’re overestimating the value of what’s being lost.”
There’s no pause, no hesitation in it. Just fact, delivered the way he delivers everything—without weight, because to him there isn’t any.
“Outer villages are expendable,” he continues. “They exist to be consumed. That is their function.”
“They’re part of the supply chain,” I counter, keeping my voice even.
“They’re a replaceable part of it.”
“They’re still part of it.”
“And they will be replaced,” he says. “As they always are.”
I close the remaining distance between us, stopping at the edge of the table. The stone is cold under my fingertips when I rest my hand against it, grounding the tension before it has a chance to show.
“This isn’t isolated,” I say. “If he keeps pushing inward—”
“If,” my father cuts in, the single word slicing cleanly through the rest.
I go still.
He watches me now, fully engaged, though not in the way I want. This isn’t attention—it’s correction.
“You’re reacting to a possibility as if it has already occurred,” he says. “That’s not strategy.”
“It’s projection based on observable pattern.”
“It’s fear dressed as foresight.”
The words land with precision, and I feel the reaction before I suppress it, something tightening low and sharp that I refuse to let surface.
“This isn’t fear,” I say.
“No?” he replies, tilting his head slightly. “Then what is it?”
The answer sits there, immediate and unusable.
I choose another.
“Efficiency,” I say. “Stopping escalation before it requires greater resources.”
My father studies me longer this time, his gaze lingering in a way that suggests he’s looking past the words instead of at them.
“Convincing,” he says. “If it were true.”
“It is true.”
“No,” he replies. “It’s convenient.”
That word lands harder than the rest because it’s closer to something I haven’t fully named yet.
“You’re not wrong about the pattern,” he continues, almost casually now. “But you’re wrong about the response.”
“And what response would you suggest?”
“None.”
The simplicity of it settles like a weight rather than a solution.
“Let it play out,” he says. “If it escalates, we adjust. If it doesn’t, we conserve.”
“That’s reactive.”
“That’s controlled.”
“It’s passive.”
“It’s efficient.”
The words move between us like pieces already placed, neither of us shifting position, neither giving ground.
“You’re asking for military deployment based on projection,” he says. “Against an enemy that hasn’t reached anything that matters.”
“It will.”
“Then we act when it does.”
“That’s too late.”
“It’s optimal.”
I study him, really study him, and the realization comes quieter this time, less like impact and more like something settling into place. He isn’t ignoring the pattern. He sees it, understands it, and still chooses this response because it aligns with everything that has worked before.
That’s the problem.
“You’re relying on precedent,” I say.
“I am.”
“Precedent doesn’t apply to Krago.”
“It applies to everything,” he replies. “You’re choosing not to see that.”
I exhale slowly, pulling my hand back from the table before the tension in it becomes visible.
“You’re making a mistake,” I say.
My father smiles slightly, the expression faint and entirely unbothered.
“Then learn from it.”
That’s the end of it. Not because the conversation is resolved, but because he’s finished with it. There’s no escalation, no argument, just a quiet closing of the space where this could have gone differently.
I incline my head just enough to acknowledge the dismissal without conceding anything.
“As you wish.”
He doesn’t respond. His attention has already shifted elsewhere.
I turn and leave.
The doors close behind me with that same slow, grinding certainty, sealing the room off like nothing inside it ever needed to matter beyond its walls. The corridor feels sharper when I step into it, the air cooler against my skin, the silence carrying more weight than it did before.
“Expected.”
Skot’s voice meets me before I see him.
I don’t stop immediately, letting a few more steps carry me forward before I slow enough for him to fall into place beside me.
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t.”
“It should have been.”
“That doesn’t make it correct.”
“No,” he agrees. “It makes it predictable.”
I stop then, turning slightly to face him. He stands the same way he always does—hands behind his back, posture unobtrusive, presence controlled to the point of invisibility unless you’re looking for it.
“What now?” I ask.
He watches me for a moment, measuring in his own way.
“You’ve been denied direct action,” he says. “That limits your approach.”
“It limits my authority.”
“Yes.”
That lands clean. No argument, no softening.
I hold his gaze. “Then I find another way.”
Something shifts in his expression, subtle but there.
“Good.”