Chương 17: Chapter 18: Decisions

The small muscles along Yara's jaw tightened. She looked down at the map, at the little crude symbol she'd sketched earlier for "possible harbor," and added a firm mark. Her fingers stayed over the mark before she pulled them back. Orders from a distant Primordial weighed on one side of an invisible scale. A processing compound full of chained people tipped the other. Ivan watched that conflict cross her face. This was going to be interesting.

They didn't decide anything that night. Yara sent the scout to sleep, spent another ten minutes staring at the map like she could bully it into offering a third option, then called the watch and lay down with her cloak pulled over her shoulders. Her mana didn't settle. It stayed tight and sharp in Ivan's [Mana Sense], like a drawn bow that never loosed. He'd known people like that. Different worlds, same habit. Close your eyes, keep carrying everything anyway.

He lay back on his bedroll, let Ren's soft snoring and Rys' slow breathing bracket him, and let the lattice along his bones hum itself into a dull ache. Sleep came in broken pieces, wrapped around the image of a black‑hulled Void‑Ship sliding toward a cliff full of cages. They gathered at first light. The sky was a pale smear through the branches, the air cold enough that breath steamed. The Order of Dawn moved without much talking as coals stirred back to life, ward‑stones checked, and their straps tightened.

None of it was hurried. This was work they could do half‑asleep. Ivan had seen adventurer parties try to imitate that kind of discipline. They always had too much shouting and not enough knowing where their own boots were. This here wasn't imitation but muscle memory. Yara stood by the folding table again. Her hair was scraped back into a rough knot, still damp at the edges where she'd splashed water on her face.

She waited until everyone drifted close, Rys and Ivan and Ren included, then put a hand flat on the map.

"Our warrant," she said, "doesn't cover starting a war with the Consortium on this continent." Her voice was flat, but not bored. Just tired of saying the same thing.

"If we take the Citadel's words," she went on, "we're here to track routes. Names, ports, patterns, and then take it home. We let the Great Aurora and the Council decide when to move. We are already stretching that by standing this close to a Chain compound with swords drawn." Rys' ears angled forward.

"Stretching it with who?" she asked.

"Your Goddess, or your bosses?"

"Both," Yara said.

"The Dawnbound Aurora wants light where it does the most good, not everywhere at once. The Council doesn't want a diplomatic incident. If we kill an Iron Chain General with no permission, on Victor Hargraves' doorstep, we risk our Primordial picking a fight with his, given his reckless nature. Especially now that you, Rys, have confirmed that his city was indeed part of the slave market." She didn't say the name, but the taste of it was already in Ivan's mouth.

"The Serpent of Blackglass," he said.

"Right. You don't want your nice dawn‑deer god wrestling a snake because you knifed its favorite traffickers. Understandable." Gareth shot him a look.

"Our Goddess is not scared, if that's what you're suggesting, you blasphemous imbecile. It's just not that simple."

"It's simple enough that you just nodded," Ivan said. Rys folded her arms. Her tail flicked once behind her, slow.

"Every day that nasty harbor runs," she said, "they drag more people in. Chain them, brand them, and push them onto ships. I don't care which giant monster god sulks about it. That's not some cosmic balance, no, that's just murder in its oldest sense." Ren had been hovering near Leo, half-hiding behind the ranger's cloak. He stepped forward now, throat working.

"I want to help," he said.

"People like Aunty Rys. Like… me, back then." Rys' hand went to his hair, ruffling it.

"Aww. Like Uncle Ivan helped us?" she said lightly.

"Yes! Like Uncle Ivan."

"Who's an uncle?" Yara's mouth twitched before she strangled the smile. Gareth stepped up, shoulders straight.

"Nobody here is saying this is fine," he said.

"It's my Oath to stand between the weak and the blade. But we can't pretend there's no cost. You hit a General here without backing, they shift routes to ports we can't reach and all these slavers are suddenly aware of our plans. We need a bigger move, to put a stop to this once and for all, not a heroic mess."

"Bigger moves don't mean much if they never happen," Ivan said.

"It's been ten years since Integration. How has the Great Aurora not ended slavery yet? Maybe your bigger move comes a century from now. Nice Oath, if it lets you ignore a century of collars." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Watch that mouth." Ivan didn't. Instead, he looked around the table.

"You've been out here how long? How many times across this new world have you seen a camp like this and walked away?" Yara's jaw clenched briefly.

"The warrant is clear," Gareth said doggedly.

"We observe and we bring back proof. By doing that, we get a coordinated strike later, with other Champions, other Primordials. That's how you avoid turning one night into a war."

"As I just said, what if the later never comes?" Ivan asked.

"We're poor mortals. Primordials have watched universes die and be born. Time isn't a constraint to them." This wasn't super common knowledge, but Julianne sometimes wrote him information she uncovered.

"Up there, who knows how many skies above us, what if the Aurora and the Serpent and whoever else just agree to leave each other's toys alone and drink tea over it for the next few billion years? So before you get angry at me, actually think about the point." That earned him another frown from Yara, sharper this time. Not offended, exactly. Just gauging how far his bitterness ran. And perhaps how a Level 15 nobody knew all this. Ivan himself was a cautious man, that much he'd already shown to Rys.

But this wasn't the Order being cautious. They just couldn't risk action before their God would permit. Something that may never come. Ivan didn't want to wait on that. Rys flicked an ear.

"He already said the complicated version, so here's the simple one. A treaty doesn't mean much to a girl in a collar. They don't get to live long enough to see it signed."

"Treaties and law are how you make it stop for good," Gareth snapped.

"You do this wrong, you hand the Chain a story.

'Foreign fanatics assault honest merchants on our shores.' They'll buy themselves three new Generals with the fear you just handed them." The argument was picking up speed again. Ivan could almost see it looping back to the same lines. He stepped closer to the table and rapped the edge of it lightly with his knuckles.

"Enough," he said.

"Let's keep this simple." Yara looked at him. So did everyone else.

"You," he said to her, "don't want to break your orders so badly the Aurora goes quiet on you. He," a nod at Gareth, "doesn't want to die on a hill that wasn't in the plan. We," a gesture between himself and Rys, "don't intend to sit on our hands while that ship finishes loading."

"That about sums it," Rys said.

"So," Ivan went on, "you don't have to sign off on a grand holy war. You don't have to throw your whole squad at the problem. You just have to look very obvious at the front door for a little while." Leo snorted.

"That's one way to phrase it." Ivan pointed at the map with two fingers.

"You do what you're already allowed to do," he said.

"Respond to active atrocities you can see. March up to their gate in full colors, ask very loud questions about permits and human cargo. Make it impossible for them to pretend they're not slavers in front of witnesses."

"And while they're screaming at us," Rys said, catching on, "we go around the back and start loosening cages."

"More or less," Ivan said.

"You don't need to tell anyone in New Denver that you gave us permission. You can write that we were civilians acting on our own, and that you did your best to minimize damage while we ruined someone's day." Gareth stared at him.

"You want us to be your distraction. That's what this is."

"I want you to act like the big, noticeable knights you already are," Ivan said.

"Instead of standing up here arguing theology while the Chain cleans up the compound and moves on." Yara's fingers tensed on the map edge.

"And if we do nothing?" she asked.

"Then Rys and I go anyway," Ivan said.

"We hit what we can and die. You, our dearest scared Disney Princess, get to write 'tragic but unavoidable' in your report and live with the knowledge that you watched two fools run at a wall without even throwing a rock to help." For once, nobody had a quick answer. Yara looked really annoyed at the Disney Princess part, but she didn't have the face to argue. She looked down at the sketch of the ridge, the little boxes he'd marked as pens, the line of the path to the hidden harbor.

She didn't close her eyes, but he could see the math behind them. Gareth broke first.

"Captain," he said.

"This isn't what we were sent for."

"No," she agreed quietly.

"It isn't." Her hand flattened on the map.

"But we're here," she said.

"They're here. The ship is coming. If we walk away, the Aurora won't strike us down. The Council won't know. But the people in those cages will." She took a breath, letting it out slowly.

"All right," she said.

"We'll give you your 'little bit of support.'" Gareth's head snapped toward her.

"Yara–" She held up a hand.

"We are not storming the place to plant a banner," she said.

"We are responding to crimes in progress within our sight. We stay in armor and we stay on message. Simultaneously, we keep witnesses to a minimum and names where we can." [You've convinced people much higher ranked than you into something they'd never do without you! How Charismatic.] [Your Charisma has grown significantly.] [Charisma F‑ has risen to Charisma D+!] Ivan almost forgot to keep his face neutral. He knew Stats could grow without leveling up; his Dexterity was proof of that.

But Charisma jumping this fast? That was new. He schooled his expression as Yara's gaze settled on him again.

"You get one chance," she said.

"While we draw their eye, you go in the back with who you need, you get as many out as you can without getting everyone killed. If the General himself steps onto the dirt and the whole ridge starts glowing, we pull back. I will not get my squad wiped out because you feel dramatic." How strong was an Iron Chain General, anyway, for her to be this worried?

"Reasonable," Ivan said despite the curiosity chewing at him.

"And for the record, I'm a practical man. I don't feel dramatic."

"That remains to be seen," Gareth muttered. Yara ignored him.

"Leo," she called.

"You know the terrain best. You go with them." Leo sighed.

"Knew that was coming."

"Marcus, you stay flexible. And Elizabeth," Yara went on, turning to the yawning mage who blinked and looked around.

"... Please stay on guard." The girl just nodded and continued rubbing her eyes. She hadn't gotten much sleep, it seemed. Ivan's [Mana Sense] had been humming since they met, but standing this close he understood the depth of the reason. Even half‑asleep, the mage's mana pool sat in his senses like a deep lake with a thin layer of ice on top. She moved like she might fall over at any moment, but the power under that yawn belonged in a war college, not a five‑person field squad. Maybe that was why Yara only sighed.

"Gate team or backline, depending on how bad it gets. Gareth, with me. If anyone's going to argue with a General about jurisdiction, it'll be us." She straightened, shoulders squaring as if the decision had slotted into place like armor.

"Now it's decided," she said.

"We move at dusk."

"I'm glad you listened." She scoffed, smirking, "What's your name?"

"Hm? You already forgot? It's Ivan," Ivan said, making her shake her head.

"Oh, you're asking my full name? Why?"

"I need to make a prayer." He scowled. That wasn't good.