Chapter 14: Endurance and Shamelessness

Kren didn’t think he needed a bond just yet. Not only because of the power it would offer him, but because those slots were a valuable political tool in their own right. He wasn’t foolish enough to miss it — the ability to share power, or to pass on the nature and traits of an inner beast, was coveted. Anyone Kren bonded with would gain the ability to bond others in turn, creating a sort of feedback loop of power that flowed all the way back up to the king at the top of it.

But the number of people one could bond to varied from person to person. Rumor held that it had something to do with the purity and strength of one’s bloodline. Given that Kren’s own bloodline still sat at Low Grade, he doubted his limit would be generous. That wasn’t a problem, though — he had the system to fix it, so long as he could find a steady way of earning Sovereign Points.

Which was exactly why he stood here now, under the glare of the sun, looking over the rabble of people arrayed in front of him. Kren turned to Aki, whispering furiously at the shorter cat-kin beside him.

"Is this all of them? They look like they’d struggle to kill the rats in their own basements, let alone fight and kill on a battlefield."

Aki shrugged. "They need training and proper equipment. Give them both, and it won’t be hard to turn this rabble into an efficient fighting force. And now that they all have access to cultivation again — same as you did — their training is going to be brutal, and sped up, to make up for lost time."

Kren couldn’t help himself. He shuddered, his eyes going momentarily blank with horror as he remembered the caliber of training Bernice and Aki had once put him through as a boy. If these recruits were about to undergo even half of that, it wasn’t too far-fetched to think they might actually be ready for their "diplomatic" visit to the Storm Eagles within a week.

Kren shifted his gaze back to the thirty-eight men and women who’d shown up for army recruitment. As it stood, Lasthold had a standing population of about four hundred, counting the elderly and children. The rest of their people were scattered across villages, towns, and cities throughout their lost territory and the territories of the other vassal kings. Saving them would become Kren’s priority — once their home ground was secured.

Someone grunted nearby, and a rueful smile crossed Kren’s face at the sound. All thirty-eight of them — half from the Black Panther clan, the other half from the shorter White Cat clan Aki belonged to. They shared the same diminutive height, but Kren wouldn’t let that fool him for a second. He, more than anyone, had had a front-row seat to Aki’s martial prowess. Underestimating the White Cats would be a mistake.

At the moment, all thirty-eight of his soon-to-be army lay face down on the ground, holding a plank position. They’d been at it for the better part of an hour, and Aki had been absolutely merciless throughout.

"You have neither the time nor the resources to become formidable individual fighters." Aki’s voice carried easily across all thirty-eight of them.

"But you are not too weak for tactics. For strategy. For unity. As soldiers of the N’kora bloodline, you will learn to fight — to hunt — as one, as a pride of lions rather than a scattering of wild kittens. You will learn form. You will learn discipline! Strength will come in time, but until then, we stand against people who’ve had far longer to grow strong, people with far greater resources. All you have is each other."

Aki stepped forward, marching between the ranks of still-grunting felines as they held their positions. "I have no time to teach you fancy bladework or spear techniques. You’ll be facing opponents better trained and far more experienced than you. What I need from all of you is to learn how to outlast and outhunt your enemies!" Aki clapped his hands, releasing a shockwave of Aura that drove more than half the recruits flat onto their faces, breath heaving, muscles burning.

"Repeat after me! Endurance and shamelessness!" Kren rolled his eyes at the familiar words, though he couldn’t stop the smile tugging at his mouth. Aki had drilled those exact words into an eleven-year-old Kren once. Kren still had nightmares about that period of his life.

"Endurance and shamelessness!" the recruits echoed.

Kren wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. It was made worse by the smug pride written across Aki’s face as the older man folded his arms and lifted his chin.

"Our enemies are stronger than us. Faster than us. So we build a foundation of endurance. You will learn to withstand and outlast far more than your enemies believe you capable of. And a foundation of shamelessness — a philosophy with a few rules you will all etch onto your hearts. Our illustrious king will tell you what they are."

Kren’s eyelid twitched. Anything but this. But with Aki already putting him on the spot in front of everyone, there was no escaping it now. The memories came flooding back, unwelcome and vivid. Still, he couldn’t deny the wisdom in Aki’s philosophy — not when they were, and would remain, the weaker side in nearly every fight ahead. At least for now.

"Be shameless. If your opponent is winning, run. There is no shame in staying alive — you only lose when you’re dead. Be shameless. When you run, and your enemy turns their back on you, strike hard and strike fast. There is no honor owed to the dead." Kren had to grit his teeth to force the next words past his lips. "Be shameless. Never fight fair. Gang up on your enemies. Take their wives. Kill their children. Burn their homes and steal their food. History is written by the victors. Anything goes, so long as you win."

Aki wore a proud smile. Kren felt anything but proud. Even the recruits on the ground looked visibly confused by the words — a complete reversal of the dauntless, honor-bound creed the N’korans had lived by for generations. And here was their king, telling them to behave like a pack of wild hyenas instead.

"What are you all staring at the king for? He’s just handed you wisdom. Learn it. Carry it close to your heart. Now — everyone runs three laps around both banks of the town. Last one back does an extra lap. Move!" Kren watched his new recruits scramble to their feet, exhaustion already written plainly across their faces. He knew it was only going to get worse from here.

With a tired sigh, he pulled off his shirt. The least he could do, as their king, was suffer alongside them. After all, he was the one who’d decided Aki should train them first — and to be fair, this was what Aki excelled at. Training fighters, training cultivators. But soldiers? That was Bernice’s domain. Once conditioning was finished, Kren would be handing these recruits over to her — and that experience, he suspected, would make this look gentle by comparison.

<<<<<>>>>>

BACK AT THE N’ZAR DRACONIC CAPITAL.

PRINCESS ELYVARA N’ZAR.

Elyvara watched the city below with a bored expression, though the steady tap of her nail against the table in front of her betrayed anything but calm.

Rubion’s Eye was the jewel of the western Draconic Empire — how could it not be? The Black Dragons had always been rather taken with their own draconic nature, and it was the Blacks among them who were the most brutal, living for nothing beyond excessive indulgence. They valued comfort to a degree most would call insanity — to the point that an N’Zar noble would sooner go to war over a single village artisan than live a day without whatever comfort that artisan provided.

She scoffed. It was in a dragon’s nature to hoard, but treasure left to sit and glint, doing nothing, was hardly treasure at all. Still, Elyvara wasn’t so disillusioned that she couldn’t appreciate what that nature had built here.

Rubion’s Eye was where the first Zar emperor had chosen to settle, naming it after the ancient dragoness who had laid his egg. Over two thousand years of progress had carried the city from a medieval settlement to a marvel of Aura-driven technology — autolocomotives, modern plumbing, Aura-infused architecture and infrastructure spread across every district. There was even an airship project, abandoned since her father’s death, and another aiming to build a locomotive capable of sailing beneath the ocean itself. All of it would give the N’Zar the perfect tools to continue their expansion and consolidation.

"My princess. The reports say most of the villagers who aided the N’koran prince have either been executed or severely punished by the Ale. Word will reach Lasthold soon, if it hasn’t already. Selvin intends to use Oro Village as a staging ground for an invasion meant to wipe out Lasthold and the N’korans for good."

The tapping on the table stopped. Elyvara turned her attention to the dragon-kin kneeling before her. "General Seuta," she said, her voice slow and languid, yet carrying enough weight to hold his full attention.

"Yes, Princess." he answered.

"What are the odds the N’korans survive a full invasion by the Ale?"

"Less than five percent, my princess. But Selvin isn’t launching a full campaign. He only commands a standing army of a thousand Snake-kin. The remaining three thousand are feline clansmen — enslaved, or forced into his ranks. He isn’t foolish enough to send felines against their own king. Even collared, they’d rather rebel and die than fight for him. So he intends to use them purely as a psychological weapon while his own people take the field and do the actual killing."

Elyvara nodded at the general’s report. None of this was truly new to her, but she appreciated the detail all the same.

"Is there a reason Selvin isn’t committing his full army?" she asked. The general stiffened, but had no choice but to answer.

"The N’Ale are split into two factions, Princess. Selvin has a sister who’s been openly advocating for independence — secession from the empire entirely. Apparently they’ve grown tired of playing lapdog to the N’Zar. She believes the age of the prophecy has arrived, that the beast tribesmen across the continent should be uniting to depose the dragons altogether."

Elyvara raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. "You don’t say. I imagine that’s split their people right down the middle. But this snake princess — why now, of all times? She has to know the Ale hold little favor among the other tribes and clans. You wouldn’t bring this to me without understanding your target fully. What does she actually want, my dear General Seuta?"

Elyvara reached out and drew a single claw slowly along the side of the dragon general’s face. He shivered beneath her touch, a faint dusting of pink rising to his cheeks. Elyvara smirked. She relished this — the absolute power she held over the men who served her. Seuta was, without question, the most devoted of them all. And yet even years of iron discipline couldn’t quite hold steady under the weight of her attention.

"Power, Your Highness. She wants power."