There was more he could do to help the war effort. Much more. There were steps he could take that he would have believed utterly unthinkable a year before. His mind had always been a steady fountain of ideas, and now was no exception. He hated himself for giving birth to such monstrous concepts, but the Realm was fighting for its life. In the dead of night, when he could not sleep, when he was most afraid of the future, the steps would come to him.

Those steps could only be taken upon the broken bodies of the dead.

Principles were shining, noble things, he thought. Those who worked hard enough to keep them polished them lovingly—but the simple fact was that if he wanted any Alerans at all to survive, he might have to sacrifice others. He might have to choose who lived and who died. And if he was to truly be the First Lord of the Realm, the leader of its people, he would be the one to make that choice.

It would, in fact, be his duty.

A flood of emotions he rarely permitted himself to feel flowed over him. Grief for those already lost. Rage for those who might still die. Hatred for the enemy who had forced the Realm to its knees. And pain. He had never asked for this, never wanted it. He did not want to be the First Lord—but neither could he walk away.

Necessity. Duty. The words sounded vile in the lonely vaults of his mind.

He closed his eyes, and said, “I will do what is necessary.” Then he looked up at the great fury, and his words sounded hard and cold to his own ears. “But there is more than one kind of strength.”

Alera stared at him for a long moment, then slowly inclined her head. “And so there is, young Gaius,” she murmured. “And so there is.” With that, she was gone.

Tavi sat on his camp stool, feeling exhausted, limp and tired as a wrung-out dishrag. He struggled to see the path before them all, to imagine its twists, turns, and forks. There were times when an odd kind of certainty suddenly blossomed in his thoughts, a sense of crystalline understanding of the future. His grandfather, like the First Lords before him, was rumored to have the gift of foreknowledge. Tavi didn’t know if it was true.

The vord had to be stopped. If Alera could not throw them down, their path would end, abruptly and in total silence. No one would know that they had ever been.