Chapter 735: The Line in the Snow

Now that everything that needed solving had been said, Sophia had to admit that they had been making it bigger in their heads than it actually was.

Yes, the questions were important. The binding curse. The writings. The device. The corpse plant. All of it mattered. But none of it should have stopped them from preparing for what was coming.

She looked around the table at the tired faces, the furrowed brows, the weight pressing down on every pair of shoulders.

Caspian spoke up then, his voice cutting through the quiet.

"Perhaps I am being paranoid," he said, leaning back in his chair. "But I have a question."

Madam Tyler tilted her head. "What is it?"

Caspian’s eyes swept across the room.

"Do we really think we have three weeks and some days to prepare for this war?"

The silence that followed was immediate.

Madam Tyler’s brow furrowed. "Why are you asking that?"

Caspian leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table.

"No one is talking about what will happen if we destroy the connection between Sophia and her mother. Or Josiah and Victoria." He paused, letting the words settle. "Would that not affect her? Would Victoria not know the moment we start tampering with whatever spell she used?"

Sophia’s blood ran cold.

Caspian continued, his voice low.

"Sophia may have given us a deadline based on her vision. But what if, in reality, the deadline is shorter than that? What if what she saw was something that had already happened? Or something that is happening right now?"

The room went still. Sophia was this close to hitting her head on the wall. She should have taken all that into account, but she failed to do so.

Garrett’s pen hovered over the parchment, frozen mid-word.

Everyone exchanged glances. But no one spoke.

Then Orion leaned forward, his voice steady.

"I must admit I failed to take that into consideration," he said. "But either way, we are not backing down from this."

Caspian’s lips curved into a slow smile. "That’s the spirit I was going for."

He turned to Garrett, who sat with his ink pot and stack of parchment, his pen still hovering.

"Everything we’ve written down today," Caspian said, "should be resolved within two weeks. Make sure it’s known and written down there. You’ll be doing the countdown."

Garrett’s pen moved, scratching the words onto the page.

"Two weeks," Caspian repeated. "By then, we should be done with every preparation. We need to wake up everyone too. We can’t be too relaxed, and it should start from us, the leaders."

He looked around the table.

"The beasts of Nirvana aren’t the only thing we’ll be fighting after all."

Orion nodded slowly. "He’s right."

Before anyone else could speak, a knock sounded at the door.

Eldric stood up immediately, his chair scraping against the floor. "That will be the map."

He crossed the room and opened the door. A guard stood outside, a large rolled parchment in his hands. Eldric took it with a nod of thanks and closed the door.

He carried the map to the table and unrolled it across the oak surface, weighing down the corners with a book, a dagger, a candle, and his own hand.

The parchment was huge, its edges frayed from years of handling. Lines crisscrossed the surface, marking rivers, mountains, forests, and the jagged borders of Nirvana itself.

Eldric pointed to a section near the bottom.

"This is the expanded portion," he said. "The heart of Nirvana. Where Ronan and the others went."

Ronan leaned forward, his eyes scanning the marks. "It’s accurate," he said. "As far as I can tell."

Daniel stood up, his one hand braced against the table. He studied the map for a while, then he reached out and drew a straight line across the parchment with his finger.

The line cut between the entrance of Nirvana and the pack.

"This," Daniel said, "is where we fend them off."

He tapped the line with his finger.

"It’s the only choke point between the heart of Nirvana and our walls. If we hold this, they don’t get through."

Lysander leaned forward, his brow furrowed. He turned to Brynhild and began explaining where Daniel had drawn the line, describing the terrain in low, careful words.

Brynhild listened, her silver eyes unfocused but attentive. When Lysander finished, she frowned.

"How far is the line from the pack?" she asked.

Daniel studied the map, tracing the distance with his finger. "About eight kilometers," he said. "Maybe a bit more."

"How about we reduce it? How about we push it further back instead? Maybe about four or five kilometers?" she asked.

"Really?" Lysander asked her.

"Yes," she said.

Daniel drew the line on the map following her instruction, and his eyes widened.

He chuckled lightly. "This is why you’re captain," he said.

"The healers would be placed roughly around two kilometers away from the pack compound and roughly one or two away from where the fighting takes place," Daniel said.

"And if we follow that," Ronan added, "then they can be shielded with the expanse of trees just around that spot."

"We can set archers in those trees too," Orion added. "Most healers are unable to fight like the warriors do, so placing warriors around them, archers, and some hunters would help fend off whatever strange enemy may venture into that spot."

Brynhild nodded in agreement. "That’s actually a good idea. But the camp we’ll need to set there must be one that wouldn’t be easily noticed."

"We’ll mask our scents too," Lysander added. "It may not do much, especially when blood is involved, but at least it’ll buy us some time." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Orion nodded.

"Also, I was thinking about using a group of people like Sam."

Tobias’s ears twitched immediately when he heard her name.

"Sam?" he asked. "What do you need her for?"

"You really don’t expect she wouldn’t be involved in this, right?" Orion asked him.

"Well, given who she is... not really. But what do you need her for?" Tobias asked again.

"Since you need me to spell it out, Sam is one of the fastest in the pack, and she can also fend off enemies on her own. Another is Helios and Miles and obviously other people. As much as I wouldn’t want it to happen, people will get injured during this war and the best people who can immediately take them to the healers during the war...."

"Are them," Tobias concluded.