The dragon arrived and threw some clothes at me, more than just pants. How thoughtful of him.
“Get dressed, both of you, Myel has returned from spying in the capital and has some important news.Actually… maybe take a dip in the ocean first, then get dressed. You two smell like… you don’t want to know.”
Izzy laughed at that. I turned in time to see her rip off her shirt and race naked into the water.
“Is she always this… carefree?” I asked Koar.
“When she feels safe,” was his stoic reply.
“I don’t know how anyone can feel safe in this world,” I muttered.
Koar laughed. “That’s Izzy for you, defying convention and expectation.”
I grunted. That was true enough.
But could she spurn years of hatred and convince the titans to join her?
Maybe… just maybe… she could.
IZZY
Rook and Vynshad also returned, and the campus was now swarming with seraphim and demons. Thankfully, we’d planned for this and had them staying in different areas so they wouldn’t clash… too much.
We all met up for a debriefing in the room where I’d found Lhorine earlier, along with other leaders from the campus. Several other spies had returned, in addition to Myel, and they reported on what they’d seen of the forces marshalling against us.
The sheer number of the enemy was staggering, though given the masses of people I’d seen on campus, we had a lot as well, I didn’t know the exact numbers yet.
Then Myel spoke confirming those numbers from what he’d overheard in the palace, but more importantly…
“We have eight days before they march and they’ll be on campus that same day.” He outlined their plan to teleport the forces in, then he spoke of the queen. “She truly is insane. Her plan is… wild, and yet it just might work, given the animosities between the races and their tendency to follow elven orders no matter what.”
Still, the scale of her betrayal, how she planned to keep turning forces against each other boggled my mind. Every ally turned into an enemy, fighting for her, then being destroyed while they recovered.
“Could we use this to win over the titans?” I whispered to Bayn.
The massive man shrugged those huge shoulders. “Itmightwork.” He didn’t sound hopeful. Yeah, we didn’t have any proof, just my word that Valnea was insane and would turn against them. Fuck.
The room was quiet after Myel finished.
It was Lhorine who took control. “Thank you, Myel.” She turned to the rest of us. “How can we use this?”
“I’ll return to the dwarves, try to convince them of the truth,” Svokol said. “And I’ll send word to the undines as well, but since Valnea doesn’t intend to betray them, they may not do much.”
“What are the exact numbers of our forces, now that the angels and demons have joined us?” someone asked.
Yeah, I was curious about that too.
“With the fifteen thousand demons and around forty thousand seraphim, that brings our total fighting force to over a hundred-and-twenty thousand,” Zora replied. I loved how the hobgoblin was being given such a place of honor in this council and how so many listened to her and regarded her with respect. Maybe, just maybe, I could pull off this equality thing.
Also… a hundred and twenty thousand? Way to go us!
But it sounded like Valnea had as many men, and mostly elves and dragons, two of the fiercest and strongest forces in all the three realms.
“Which means the titans are truly the deciding factor,” Bayn whispered, seemingly to himself. “Fuck.”
Yeah, I had to agree.
“How large is the titan army?” I asked Bayn.
