Kaelith, the second son of the Darkwind family, sat on a chair in his room, his gaze fixed intently on the recent reports that had been sent to him. His fingers tightened around the letter in his hand, his anger flaring with each word he read.

The news was grim—one after another, cities and territories were falling to the Windwalker family, and his own family made no effort to defend them. The lands that had been fiercely guarded for generations were slipping away without even a token resistance. Kaelith’s heart raced, his mind spiraling with frustration.

"What is that bastard brother of mine doing?" Kaelith seethed inwardly, his teeth grinding together in pure fury. "Why aren’t they defending? Why is the Windwalker family walking all over us?" He stood up and began pacing back and forth in his room, trying desperately to make sense of the situation. His mind raced through countless possibilities? Was there some internal conspiracy at play? The thought that their lands were being handed over without a single attempt at defense was unthinkable.

It all felt like a deliberate attempt to undermine him—an excuse to call for unity within the family, as if losing territory could somehow bring them closer together. "Ridiculous," Kaelith thought bitterly. The idea of using this disgrace as a reason for some sort of family reconciliation only fueled his anger further.

"This could not be allowed to stand." he thought. If his brother Valdrin were unwilling to fight, he would take matters into his own hands.

The Windwalker family might have taken his family’s lands, but Kaelith wouldn’t let them get away with it. He would do whatever it took to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.

Kaelith paced restlessly, his thoughts seething with frustration and resentment. The situation had grown far worse than he could have ever imagined. The attack by the Windwalker family wasn’t just a military defeat for the Darkwind family—it was a profound humiliation. It had shaken his support from the other noble families.

"How could Valdrin let this happen?" Kaelith raged inwardly. "How could he just stand by and watch as our lands are stripped away without lifting a finger to stop it?" Even though he knew it was all Valdrin's strategy to defeat him, it was going too far; it was extremely shortsighted to leave these cities defenceless.

Kaelith could not comprehend this very shortsightedness. His brother, Valdrin, had allowed the Windwalkers to encroach upon their borders without so much as a hint of resistance, giving them the perfect opportunity to seize what should have been fiercely defended territory.

Some nobles supporting him have started calling for national unity to push back against the growing Windwalker threat. They wanted to see the Darkwind family come together, to unite in the face of this external enemy. The very thought of it sickened Kaelith.

"Unity?" he thought bitterly. "Unity with that weakling Valdrin?" He could see the nobles slowly turning toward a position that favoured the family’s survival, but at the same time, they were undermining him and his rightful claim to leadership.

But Kaelith wasn’t the type to cower or retreat. If anything, he saw an opportunity in the chaos. If the nobles were finally beginning to see the Windwalkers as the threat they truly were, then it was time to act. Kaelith knew that he could still manipulate the situation to his advantage—especially if Valdrin’s incompetence and shortsightedness remained the central talking point.

"This is my chance," Kaelith thought, his mind racing. "I can be the one to unite the family, not him. And once they see that, I’ll have the power I need."

He took a deep breath, standing tall, his resolve hardening. He would turn the growing doubts about his brother’s leadership into his own opportunity. "I need to move fast," he decided.

Kaelith immediately set to work, drafting his own letters to the nobles who supported him, even to those who were now wavering. He knew precisely how to play to their fear, their ambition, and their sense of self-preservation. He would promise them protection and greater power under his leadership. He would cast Valdrin as an ineffective, weak ruler who had failed to defend the family’s honor and appeal to the nobles’ baser instincts. This was a time of great instability, and Kaelith knew that many would prefer a strong, decisive hand to guide them through it.

At the same time, he kept a watchful eye on the actions of the Windwalkers, ready to exploit any success or failure on their part to turn the tide in his favor.

...

From Valdrin’s perspective, the solution seemed simple: the rebel faction had been dissolved, and their actions against him had effectively stripped them of their legitimacy. They had no standing in his eyes. If they wished to contribute to the defense of the family, they had to submit to his leadership. There was no middle ground. Valdrin’s stance was firm, even though it alienated those who might have become valuable allies in the future. He was willing to risk their resistance, believing that without their submission, he could never secure the unity he sought—and any cooperation with them would only be seen as a sign of weakness.

Valdrin offered total amnesty to all those who joined him in resisting the Windwalker family; however, he stopped short of promising to restore their titles. After all, the rebel nobles had been officially dissolved, and their positions stripped and disbanded. He rejected all offers of cooperation from the rebels. In Valdrin's view, any collaboration between himself, the legitimate heir, and the rebels would only serve to grant them the legitimacy they craved, but did not deserve.

In a letter to the rebels, Valdrin made it clear that he would decide on a case-by-case basis whether to reinstate their titles—if the Windwalkers were defeated and the war ended in victory. Any restoration of titles, he stated, would depend entirely on their achievements in the war.

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Kaelith and the other rebel leaders were furious at Valdrin's offer. Their frustration only deepened when they realized that Valdrin was more concerned with his own authority than the family's survival.

The rebel faction had their own arguments to make. They argued that, in the face of the Windwalker invasion, there was no time for petty squabbles over titles and power. The priority should be defense, not who led the army. They were willing to send reinforcements, but only if their position was respected. They wanted equality in leadership—at the very least, a shared command structure that would allow them to contribute effectively to the defense of their lands.

Kaelith and the rebel nobles were fundamentally different from Valdrin in one crucial aspect: Valdrin was extreme, willing to burn down the entire ship rather than let anyone else steer it; Kaelith, on the other hand, wanted to preserve the Darkwind family—all of it. This disparity in perspective placed the rebel forces at a severe disadvantage, as Valdrin could exploit their desire for unity and survival to force concessions.

...

Valdrin did not budge. To him, offering any concession to the rebels would be seen as a threat to his legitimacy and a compromise of his claim to leadership.

As a result, the situation became a deadlock. The Windwalkers, ever unconcerned with the disarray within the Darkwind family, pressed forward relentlessly. The longer the family bickered among themselves, the more territory the Windwalkers were able to take without any resistance. The internal strife within the Darkwinds seemed to play directly into the hands of their rivals. As the family quarreled, the Windwalkers gained ground, pushing further into their lands.

Kaelith’s patience was wearing thin. He could see the risk in waiting too long, especially if Valdrin's stubbornness continued to undermine any chance of effective defence. He knew time was running out. If something wasn’t done soon, the Windwalkers might not only seize more territory—they might end up capturing the capital. In Kaelith’s mind, there was only one way forward: to force the issue one way or another.

Kaelith began preparing his own plans, aware that the rift between him and Valdrin would likely never heal. Whether he had to personally confront the Windwalkers on the battlefield or manipulate the situation in other ways, Kaelith was ready to act. The family’s survival, in his eyes, would depend on the immediate removal of Valdrin from leadership. If that meant taking drastic measures—so be it.

As the Windwalker family advanced deeper into Darkwind territory, their relentless march seemed unstoppable. The continued failure of the Darkwind family to present a united front had left a gaping hole in their nearly non-existent defenses, and with each city lost, the morale of the family’s remaining loyalists crumbled further. The Windwalkers, emboldened by the lack of resistance, pressed forward without hesitation. The once-proud territories of the Darkwind family now seemed to slip further from their grasp.

Internally, the rift between Valdrin and the rebel faction deepened, and the situation of the Darkwind family was deteriorating further. Some nobles, seeing the tide of war turning in favour of the Windwalkers, began to reconsider their allegiances. They hoped that by aligning themselves with Windwalkers now, they might secure a more favourable position when the conflict was over. But for others, the idea of reconciling with Windwalkers was anathema to everything they had fought for.

The conflict dragged on, with neither side willing to compromise. The Darkwind family's inability to unite against the Windwalkers left it dangerously vulnerable. Each city lost was a blow to their collective pride and strength, and it became clear that the longer the infighting continued, the more their position weakened.

As the Windwalkers took more territory, some of the nobles who had supported Kaelith began voicing their concerns more openly. They had joined the rebellion because they believed Valdrin’s rule was tyrannical, stripping them of their rights as nobles. They had hoped for a swift victory, but now it seemed the very existence of the Darkwind family was in jeopardy.

Many of them began to realize that the Darkwind family might never recover from this conflict unless they swallowed their pride and united under one leader—the very leader they had once fought against.

Some of these nobles began seriously considering surrendering, seeing an opportunity to align with the Windwalkers in hopes of winning Valdrin’s favor. They hoped that by proving their loyalty to the reigning authority, they might be reinstated as nobles after the war. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but many felt there was no other choice. As the Windwalkers advanced and the rebellion faltered, the once-proud opposition to Valdrin’s rule now seemed like a losing cause.

Kaelith could sense the shift coming. While he still had the support of more than half the nobles, he knew it wouldn't last. The situation was growing increasingly precarious. Many of the nobles who still despised Valdrin would soon begin to reconsider their loyalty as the Windwalkers pressed forward. Kaelith guessed that in a few weeks, some might try to arrest him and hand him over to Valdrin, hoping to win favor.

His thoughts became more focused on the inevitable: either he would take control of the situation in his own hands, or he would die or be captured.

Therefore, Kaelith made a decisive decision. As the leader of the rebel faction, he ordered all the nobles to recall their troops from all fronts. He decided to completely disregard the conflict with Valdrin’s forces for the time being and shift their focus entirely to fighting the Windwalkers’ ongoing conquest. It was a bold and risky move, one that would significantly weaken him in the short term, but he saw no other choice.

Kaelith believed and hoped that once the people saw his dedication to the family’s survival, they would recognize him as the rightful Marquis and would join him in defeating Valdrin, who did nothing to defend against Windwalkers. His fight against the Windwalkers would present him as a hero, one who was more concerned with the family’s well-being than with his own ambitions. It was a dangerous gambit, but in Kaelith’s eyes, it was the only way to ultimately win the support he needed—not just from the rebels but from the ordinary people of the Darkwind family.

It must be said that the Windwalkers were extremely unpopular and despised within Darkwind territory. Over the course of their conquest, numerous reports had emerged detailing the atrocities committed by the soldiers of the Windwalker family. Cities that fell to them were left in ruin, with thousands of innocent civilians slaughtered in the streets. Ordinary people—men, women, children—were butchered without mercy, their homes burned, and their lives taken as if they were nothing more than collateral in a war of conquest. Fighting against the Windwalkers, then, was not just a matter of strategic importance—it was a way to win the undying loyalty of the people.

This move would also force Valdrin into a corner, forcing him to either risk everything by continuing his hardline stance or consider a truce. If Kaelith could hold out long enough, his sacrifices would speak louder than any letter or political maneuver. He would be the one who truly fought to preserve the family’s honor, while Valdrin’s selfishness and refusal to compromise would expose him for what he truly was—an heir more interested in power than in the family’s survival.