Northern was stunned into silence. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again—finding nothing. For several long seconds, he simply sat there, the noise of the feast washing over him like distant waves.

Then he reeled himself back into control.

'All can't be lost. This is about his wife. I should be able to heal her. But there's something else first.'

Northern fixed the King with an intent look.

"So... you don't want to fight the Empire and wish to abandon your people... because your wife is dying?" There was something in his voice as he addressed the King. Something tinged with scorn he didn't bother to hide.

King Ruger seemed to sense it. A somber smile lingered on his lips, his gaze drifting to the large flat fish on his table—a thing the size of three palms pressed together, its glazed skin reflecting the candlelight.

"Lord Northern, have you ever led?"

Northern's gaze stayed straight. Serious.

"That's not what I'm talking to you about, Your Majesty. We are not the same, and this is certainly not about me." His expression darkened. "You were raised to lead. You are a king. To betray your people for such a thing as love... don't tell me you thought it was justifiable?"

King Ruger's face twisted—the look of a man who had swallowed something bitter and couldn't wash away the taste.

Around them, the other guests dove into the feast with the same enthusiasm they dove into conversation. Laughter rippled across nearby tables. Cups clinked. The atmosphere swallowed their exchange whole, drowning it in revelry.

No one would have guessed that a boy not yet seventeen—a boy who had never worn a crown—was about to lecture a fifty-seven-year-old king on the weight of his own throne.

But Northern paused before doing so.

He had to consider that this man had been a king his entire adult life. Had been shaped for this role, molded into it—this was his purpose, and everything else came secondary. He also had to consider the experience behind that crown. King Ruger had ruled for at least twenty years. Before that, he would have watched his own father rule for decades more.

'If after all of that—all those years, all that experience—he still thinks surrendering the kingdom is a worthy option... then either there's something I'm missing, or everything I'm about to say is something he's already heard and dismissed.'

Northern's fingers drummed once against the table.

Twice.

Then stopped.

'Standard arguments won't work here. He's already heard them. Already dismissed them. The man isn't stupid—he's desperate. There's a difference.'

He studied the King's profile in the flickering light. The slump of shoulders that had probably once been proud. The way his eyes kept drifting toward nothing, seeing something that wasn't in this room. Someone who wasn't at this table.

'He's already grieving. Not just for his wife—for his kingdom too. He's mourned it in advance so the actual loss won't hurt as much.'

Northern understood that particular psychological defense mechanism intimately.

'But understanding it doesn't make it less foolish.'

"Your Majesty," Northern said finally, his voice low enough to stay between them but firm enough to command attention. "I'm going to say something, and I need you to actually hear it. Not as a king hearing a foreigner. As a man hearing another man."

King Ruger's gaze lifted. Something flickered behind the exhaustion—a spark of attention, perhaps. Or just surprise.

"You've constructed a narrative in your head," Northern continued. "A story where surrendering Ryugan is the merciful choice. Where giving up prevents death. Where your love for your wife somehow justifies handing millions of people to an empire that views them as resources to be extracted."

He leaned forward slightly.

"But here's what I don't understand, Your Majesty. And I genuinely don't—I'm not being rhetorical." He let the words settle. "How does surrender save anyone?"

The King's jaw tightened. "The Empire—"

"Will what? Treat your people gently?" Northern's voice was soft, almost curious. "Integrate them peacefully into a system that views them as wayward provinces to be reclaimed? The Reimgard Empire isn't offering you partnership, Your Majesty. They're offering you terms of absorption. Your nobles become their vassals. Your resources become their resources. Your people become their taxpayers, their soldiers, their property."

He picked up his cup and examined the wine inside without drinking. Dark liquid. Dark thoughts.

"And your wife? What happens to her when you're no longer a king? When you're a defeated lord with no leverage, no territory, no value?" He tilted the cup slightly, watching the wine catch the light. "Do you think the Empire will fund the search for her cure? Do you think they'll care?"

King Ruger's face had gone pale.

"I..."

"You haven't thought that far," Northern said. It wasn't an accusation—just observation. "Because you're not thinking strategically. You're thinking emotionally. You've decided that fighting means death, so surrendering must mean life. But that's not how empires work. That's not how conquest works."

He set the cup down with a soft click.

"The people who die in a war of resistance—yes, they die. But they die with the possibility of victory. The people who are absorbed into an empire without resistance?" He shook his head slowly. "They die too. Just slower. In mines. In fields. In conscript armies fighting someone else's wars. Their children grow up speaking someone else's language, worshiping someone else's stars, forgetting they were ever anything else."

Northern's voice hardened.

"You're not choosing between death and survival, Your Majesty. You're choosing between a quick death with meaning and a slow death without any."

Silence stretched between them—heavy and charged.

King Ruger's hands had curled into fists on the table. His breathing was uneven, shallow and ragged, the rhythm of a man fighting to hold himself together.

"You speak as though you understand—"

"I understand that you love your wife," Northern interrupted, his voice gentler now. "I understand that watching someone you love suffer is its own kind of torture. I understand that you'd burn the world to make it stop."

His eyes met the King's directly and held it there.

"But I also understand that burning the world won't save her. And surrendering Ryugan won't either."

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