𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.
It's the beginning of a new age when Jaylah Imperatrix seemingly returns from the dead to reclaim her throne. And in perfect timing.
In her absence, evil has be...
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Act 4 Chapter 149 JAYLAH
It was growing darker by the minute despite the nearly full moon ahead. It was all that lit their path ahead—no firesticks, no lanterns. They could not allow the enemy any scrap of an advantage, especially now that Adelié had declared that they were very close. It gave the snow-coated world an eerie glow.
Jaylah looked up, squinting against the nearly invisible flecks of snow silently drifting. Tonight bore a relatively clear sky, so she would not have to worry about a storm that would quash her fiery assault. She had been worried about the weather. Earlier that day, a heavy snowfall had dumped on the mountain, ceasing their march. Which meant her father's men had stopped as well.
"Wait," Adelié murmured out of the blue. Jaylah halted her men. Adelié was onto something. She parted from the group to stand beneath a particular group of pine trees, then looked up. When she bent the pine needles above her head back and released them, something heavier than snow fell around her. "Ash," she said, her nose and cheeks shining pink in the cold, "from makeshift firesticks. They must be running low on supplies." As she walked back, she added, "It was new. They're just up ahead."
So the frequent storms had worked to Jaylah's advantage, as she had fewer mouths to feed. "If they are running low on supplies, there is a possibility they are counting on a new shipment. We must crush them while they are weakest." She began trudging through the ankle-deep snow—only thinner there because the trees had shielded the ground. "We cannot stop tonight. Not until they are all dead."
"Yes, Your Majesty," said her lieutenant, the highest-ranking person under her command for this covert operation. She had chosen only the most elite soldiers, the ones she knew she could count on to make the single window she would get as destructive as possible.
They marched on, silent and inevitable like creatures of the night. The ambush's potential was becoming more endless the closer they were brought to their foe. If they did not bring enough firepower, they might be subject to capture. If they were being followed this entire time by her father's spies, they could so easily be led into a siege akin to the one that destroyed her friends. This was all Jaylah had—twenty-something men against hundreds and thousands of revolutionaries who gorged themselves sick on hatred. One chance to dictate the future of the war on her own terms.
"Smoke," a soldier said, pointing. She was correct; it took a moment for Jaylah to catch sight of the place it emitted from behind a tall plateau ahead, but it was undeniably from fires somewhere below.
The sight of real tangible evidence that the revolutionaries were real and not vague caricatures from reports was enough to spur Jaylah on with newfound energy. Her exhaustion was forgotten. The utter numbness of her toes fell to dead last in her list of concerns.
It was rough work scaling up to the plateau, but she went on as though her legs had become machines. This was the bit of hope she needed. Upon reaching the top, she found it was better than she imagined: an entire slope covered by sleeping men. They were not united under their military's crimson, nor under any of her father's inferiors, it seemed; they were just hundreds of men who sought the same revenge. There were some awake—she could see their movements thanks to their meager fires—but they could not see her back. Her men were freezing, but at least they were invisible.
