"No doubt you are looking for proof. For certainty." Her voice softened only slightly, a blade sheathed but no less deadly. "The first certainty is this: the attacks have ceased."
A pause, to let the truth sink in.
"The second is this: these orcs stand before you without raising a weapon. You know what they are capable of—yet now, they show restraint."
She let her gaze sweep over the walls, over the tense silhouettes of her soldiers, the faint glow of magefire shimmering in their hands. They had fought the orcs viciously on the battlefield. They had seen firsthand what orc strength and savagery could do—and they feared it still.
And Rakhal's group? They were no common warriors. Two dozen of the most dangerous-looking orcs she had ever seen. Each one armed, disciplined, silent as carved stone. Each onecould scale the walls and tear through the gates with nothing but brute strength and raw will. They wouldn't make it far against the full might of Istrial—but they would leave ruin in their wake.
No. She wouldn't let that happen.
Neither would he.
No more.
"But they won't attack," she continued, her voice firm, cutting through the tense silence. "Like us, they want peace. And Prince Rakhal and I have found a solution—one that will end the war for good."
Her words hung in the cold night air, heavy, defiant, impossible to ignore.
The soldiers were quiet, hanging on her words. Their faces, lit by the firelight along the walls, shifted between disbelief and suspicion, their eyes narrowing as they tried to decide whether she spoke truth—or whether she was under duress.
Now she had a chance. A narrow crack in the wall of their doubt.
"Rakhal and I want peace," she declared, her voice carrying into the still night. "And to demonstrate to you just how serious he is…" She drew a breath, her heart hammering, "…he will come forth with me. Alone."
The silence that followed was like a blade's edge, drawn taut and gleaming.
Rakhal looked up sharply. For an instant she braced for his fury, for his denial—but his expression betrayed nothing. No surprise. No anger. He simply tipped his head in assent. A single, measured gesture. And perhaps—just perhaps—there was the faintest glimmer of respect in it.
The ease of his acceptance startled her—she had expected at least some resistance to placing himself at her people's mercy.
Because he knew as well as she did: she never would have convinced him to walk into Istrial's gates alone. Not bycommand, not by plea. But here, with her soldiers' arrows trained on him, magefire ready to rain down, she had leverage.
She could test him.
If he went forward—alone—then either he was sincere in his intentions…
Or he was so assured of his own power that it made no difference…
Or both.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
The humans on the wall bristled with hostility, their bows straining, magefire flickering in their hands. Behind him, his own warriors shifted, tense and ready to strike at the first sign of aggression. They did not understand this game he played. They only knew the old language of war—blood for blood.
Rakhal's gaze flicked to Commander Shazi, his most trusted officer, standing a little apart, her broad shoulders squared, her face hard and unreadable. Her hand never strayed far from the axe at her hip, the weapon gleaming faintly in the firelight. Ready to spring. Ready to kill.
That was why he had chosen her. Shazi followed orders. She was loyal, fierce, and unrelenting. Strait-laced, not deceptive, not vainglorious. He had explained the plan to her before they set out. She had cursed him, called him mad a dozen times over. But she had listened. She had understood. And though skepticism sharpened her eyes, she had seen the logic. From her, he tolerated the oaths. Because he knew she would have his back when it mattered.
They had fought side by side before, on the open plains—Shazi's unit carving swathes through the humans while hemoved unseen in the shadows, the invisible death that gutted their enemy before they even knew where he stood. She was steel and storm. He was silence and shadow. Together, they had broken armies.
And now here he stood, with her watching, the humans above trembling with both fear and rage, and Eliza beside him—her bearing unbroken, her voice ringing out like a queen despite the impossible ground she stood on.
His gaze lingered on her. Composure like tempered steel, authority sharp enough to command men who should have turned on her. She carried herself as though this had always been her place—barefoot, draped in orc velvet, braids marking his claim.
He raised his arms slowly, palms open, letting the firelight lick across him.
