Rewrite That Witch
CH847 · Rewrite
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Chapter 847: Now Is the Time

Both factions had agreed on two things from the outset: recover the Eastern Region, and destroy the church. These had been settled in earlier meetings and were not in dispute.

The single remaining disagreement was when to strike the Kingdom of Dawn.

Roland had made his diplomatic position clear enough that no one tried to suggest softening it or deferring the problem indefinitely. But the City Hall faction still hoped for a delay — wait until after the enthronement, negotiate from a more legitimate throne, keep the option of force available without exercising it yet. They wanted to see Roland crowned King of Graycastle in full ceremony before committing forces against a neighbor. They had begun to want this badly: you could see it in how their arguments bent around it, how the prospect of rising from local officials to ministers of a real kingdom colored their reasoning. No king of any dignity sent his elite troops to war and held his coronation at the same time. It was graceless to the king and an insult to his people.

On this the City Hall faction was probably correct.

The final decision, of course, rested with Roland.

He had said very little across the three days, which was unlike him — his usual manner in such meetings ran to pointed questions and frank preferences. This time he had simply watched the arguments develop, without showing his hand. The silence had allowed the debate to breathe, allowed every participant to say what they actually believed rather than what they thought he wanted to hear.

He had not changed his underlying intention. He was waiting for the moment that would let him act at the lowest possible cost.

That moment arrived by nightfall.

A knock at the door.

He let out a quiet breath of relief when he saw it was Andrea.

Good. He had been prepared to seek her out himself if she did not come — but that would have been clumsy, and might not have worked.

“Here — dried fish.” Nightingale materialized from somewhere and pressed a piece of honey-glazed fish into Andrea’s hand, the casual ease of it suggesting that Andrea was one of very few people who could receive gifts from Nightingale without ceremony. A bond of shared nobility, perhaps.

“Thank you.” Andrea took the fish without looking at it, pocketed it, and placed one hand on her chest in salute. “Your Majesty, I—”

She stopped. The words were giving her difficulty.

“You want me to save Otto Luoxi,” Roland said, before she could find a way to retreat from the request. “Your childhood friend.”

He had worked out the shape of her hesitation beforehand. He was fairly certain that Otto’s feelings for Andrea had always run considerably warmer than hers for him — she had kept him at a careful friend’s distance, which was why she did not know how to ask for this without it seeming like more than it was. To request a rescue simply because a childhood companion had been imprisoned? After so many years, after what her father had done — using a staged accident to give her a false death rather than protect a witch daughter — her feelings about the Kingdom of Dawn were complicated at best. When Otto had visited Neverwinter the previous winter, she had made her distance clear.

She was here now out of decency. That was all. And it had apparently taken her a great deal of effort to arrive.

“Yes.” She drew a slow breath and nodded.

“As you heard in the meeting — at minimum three thousand men would be needed to make Appen yield. Combined with the assault on the Holy City, the total rises to five thousand. That’s roughly eighty percent of the First Army.”

The joint plan, despite all the disagreements, had produced a consistent set of numbers. There was no river connecting Graycastle to either the Hermes Plateau or the Kingdom of Dawn, which meant supply chains would depend entirely on carts and men — vastly more expensive in both cost and manpower than river logistics. Twenty percent of the First Army had to remain at home to garrison the kingdom. If they committed to two simultaneous offensives and then had to hold what they took, they would be stretched everywhere at once and enriched by nothing.

“If I factor in the supply costs — horses, carts, food, everything—” He watched Andrea’s discomfort deepen and felt a small pressure on his spine. Nightingale, pinching him. Hard.

“Stop pushing her,” Nightingale murmured at a pitch meant only for him. “Just say what you mean.”

He coughed. “That’s the current situation. But there’s a way to change it — and it depends on how far the three families are willing to cooperate.”

“The three families?”

“The new king no longer trusts them — that much is obvious.” Roland touched his chin and thought aloud. “Even if we rescue Otto by force, our direct intervention will destroy the relationship between the Moya royalty and the Luoxi Family. Even if Appen is overthrown, whatever king follows him won’t forget an armed foreign incursion. And I can’t commit too many men or too much attention to a neighboring country. I have demons to fight.” He paused. “The future of the Kingdom of Dawn has to rest with the three families themselves.”

Andrea looked at him steadily. “Go on.”

“We need someone to replace the Moya line.”

A silence.

“I see,” she said finally. “Do you have a plan?”

She was, Roland reflected, genuinely well-born. Even hearing a proposal to displace a reigning king, she stayed composed, and that made the next part considerably easier. He went straight to it.

“Are you interested in becoming Queen of the Kingdom of Dawn?”

Her composure broke — just briefly, at the edges. “Your Majesty?” She blinked. “No. I don’t want to leave—”

“Why not?”

She bit her lip. “No particular reason. I’m simply not interested.”

That surprised him. Not the refusal itself — but the way her expression had moved in the moment before the refusal arrived. Something had weighed against something else behind her eyes. It was rare to see that from Andrea; her manner was usually as smooth as still water. Whatever had tipped the balance against being queen was something she valued more than that.

He filed the observation away and sipped his tea without comment.

“What about your father? Would Earl Quinn be interested — would he stand for it?”

The Quinn Family was the better answer anyway. Among the three families it was the strongest, and Andrea held influence over the other two — Otto’s attachment to her, and whatever Oro’s relationship with her was, gave her a kind of standing that went beyond blood alone. She could, to a degree, speak for all three. And Roland had no surplus of trained personnel to govern the Kingdom of Dawn directly. A friendly government, installed with Neverwinter’s assistance and answerable to its interests, would deliver its neighbor’s resources at a fraction of the cost of occupation.

“The other two families benefit as well,” he added. “The coup gains every participant something. And more than that — it removes entirely the threat hanging over all of you. Neverwinter’s cost is minimal: some assistance, no army occupation. I support the Quinn Family’s ascent, and the neighbor I need is friendly and stable.”

Andrea did not hesitate long this time. A moment of thought, then: “I believe my father will agree.”

She paused and corrected herself.

“No. He will definitely agree.”

The certainty in that correction told Roland she had understood everything — the full scope of what he was offering and what he was asking for in return.

Now was the time.

“Neverwinter will move soon.” He met her eyes. “Don’t worry. Otto Luoxi will not remain imprisoned for long.”

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