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I relaxed in my seat and looked around.

The restaurant was around half full, and the barmaid was going around taking orders.

Freya was looking around the room too, while Zeph’s attention was on me. He sat straight and proper like always.

I wonder if he ever relaxes, I thought.

We’ve been traveling together for a few months but even then, out in the wild, he always acted like that.

Maybe it’s just habit at this point.

“Let’s hear this news then,” I said since he gave the impression he wanted to share.

I wasn't too interested, but it was as good a topic as anything else to pass the time — it would also be nice to know that the bitch died in the attack.

"There are only rumors, for now," he said, "But many of them agree that the capital has taken a lot of damage, and the death toll among civilians is quite high."

“Did they fail to conquer it?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“I don’t think they planned to,” he answered. “I don’t know enough to completely dismiss the possibility, but it’s not so easy to take a city, especially if it’s a capital.”

“And what do you think they were doing?” I was curious about his thoughts on the matter, since I suspected he had a good reason to say that.

He took a moment before answering.

“Given what you saw, I would guess that one of their objectives was to kill the ruler and as many nobles as possible. Another objective could have been to destroy the buildings related to the military’s or government’s affairs. The attack could have also been a distraction. Probably all three,” explained Zeph.

“I must say, though, that I’m confused about one thing,” he continued while making a perplexed expression. “The rumors talk about widespread damage and killing among civilians, and I’m inclined to believe it since it was told by several people but, to me, that doesn’t make sense.

“Some of that should have been inevitable, but not in the scale I heard about. I’d think it was one of their objectives, but I can’t guess why; it’s a complete waste of good soldiers. It would have been much better to concentrate their forces and time on the objectives and ignore the civilians, then retreat as fast as possible.”

He looked really troubled about that, so I tried to think back on what I saw that day.

I remembered how they kept fighting in the arena even though they were clearly at a disadvantage.

“Maybe they didn’t have any intention of retreating,” I said, looking at the barmaid coming towards us. “The ones I saw in the arena gave me the impression they wanted to fight to the death. Maybe they just wanted to destroy everything after they finished what they had to do.”

The girl then reached us, so we had to pause the discussion while we ordered our food.

“Those soldiers were clearly aiming to kill the nobles. They probably thought that it was a worthy sacrifice. But why would they waste good men to kill innocent civilians? The gain does not make up for the losses,” he said, frowning. “And killing civilians is reprehensible. It shouldn’t be done.”

I shrugged.

“Hatred maybe. The ones outside could have been people of the Duchy too, and I bet they just couldn’t resist. Emotions run high during a fight, and it’s hard to maintain rationality. Being surrounded by people of a kingdom you hate surely doesn’t help,” I told him.

Morals and mercy aren’t something one can easily keep in mind in the heat of battle, and they probably didn’t have much of those for the people they killed anyway.

Zeph was tapping a finger on the table with a pensive expression.

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“I don’t think you should care too much about the motivation for the attack anyway,” I said after the conversation stalled for a few minutes.

I could see Zeph focusing back on me with a serious gaze.

“You should always care about the motivations,” he said as if reprimanding me. “If you know what they’re aiming for, you know which places are safe or which are more likely to be dangerous. It’s all the more important if you’re traveling, so keep it in mind. Just because a city is safe now and has never been attacked doesn’t mean that it will always be safe or that there won’t be any other dangers. Guessing what the ones ruling the land want to do is extremely important.”

I was a bit surprised by the unexpected reprimand, but I nodded, signaling I had understood. I never heard people talking about this, but I also didn’t meet many people who traveled a lot, so I didn’t know if they just forgot to mention it, or it was just common sense.

“Still, you’re not completely wrong,” he continued, sighing. “Anything I could come up with now would just be a wild guess, which would be as good as not having one. I wish I had enough time to gather more information before coming to this kingdom.”

And he lost himself in his thoughts again.

“So, anything else?” I asked after the silence persisted for a while.

He blinked.

“Yes, but not much,” he said a moment later. “No one knows the status of the First Oligarch or how many nobles have perished in the attack; there isn’t any official news yet. There’s also been a sudden increase in bandits’ attacks around the same time as the assault in the capital, which has stalled commerce and slowed the exchange of information between the cities. Everyone thinks that House Luth orchestrated everything, and it’s indeed quite possible.”

“They’re the rebels of the east, right?” I asked.

He nodded.

“They’re the ones leading the rebellion in the east,” he confirmed. “After they lost the city of Ening they tried to reclaim it a few times without success. The last thing I heard was that their forces were retreating, as if they had given up on taking it back for the moment. That was just before I entered the dungeon of the arena. The games that were organized were to celebrate the successful campaign.”

He paused while the barmaid brought us drinks.

“So?” I prompted after she went away.

“It’s highly likely that House Luth coordinated the attack on the capital,” he said.

“I don’t know what kind of deal they have struck with the bandits and the Duchy of Calos, but I doubt that they had to work hard to convince them. Maintaining the current status quo is in the interest of both, and the Oligarchs were gaining momentum. It could have also been the Duchy that reached out first.

“Also, while I haven’t heard anything of this, I suspect that Ening is back in the hands of the rebels of the east by now.”

He paused for a moment to drink while I thought about what he just said.

“Is there something you don’t comprehend?” he asked as he put down his glass.

“Well…” I said, pausing for a moment, “There are a few things, but the one I’m most curious about is why you’re so convinced that they didn’t try to take the capital. Isn’t that the most important city?”

It was the capital for a reason, after all.

“No, that’s not feasible. It’s a miracle that so many enemy soldiers reached the capital undetected and even infiltrated it, but I don’t think that there were enough of them to hold Seneza. Even if they somehow managed, the surrounding territory is all controlled by the Oligarchs, who don’t all reside in the capital, and they would have found themselves surrounded and without any way to get reinforcements,” he explained.

He then paused for a second.

“I’ll show you later on the map so you’ll understand better,” he said. “But anyway, that’s why I don’t think that they aimed to conquer the capital in this case.

“Ening on the other hand is both the major commercial city of the kingdom and the city that controls the mouth of the river that leads to Seneza. If they take it, they cut off the capital from the sea, and they can also receive fast reinforcements and provisions from the other port city they control. It’s also why the Oligarchs have put so much effort in wresting its control from the rebels.

“That’s why I think that the best move would be to take back that city. Do you understand now?” he asked.

I took a few moments to think about it.

“Yes, I think I get it,” I answered. “Key point: Stay away from Ening!”

He blinked. “Um, yes. That’s not wrong. It was indeed the city that was hit the hardest by this civil war.”

Thought so. I could understand what he said, but I didn’t have the knowledge to reason it out by myself or spot errors. I hated it, but the only thing I could do right now was to believe what he said.

“Good, anything else?” I asked.

“Mm, no, nothing new other than this. I suppose the rebels of the West will act too now, trying to take advantage of the situation, but I can’t guess what they’ll do. Whatever their move will be, though, I doubt that anything will impact the territory controlled by the lord of Caldris. I have no idea how the information of the Heavenshard leaked, but we now have it and I doubt that there’s anything else that could move him other than that, so until we stay in his area of influence we’ll be relatively isolated from the conflict,” he said.

I snorted.

“He’s going to be mighty mad when he learns that he lost that coin, right?” I said amused.

“I’d be too if I was in his place,” he said. “Fortunately, I’m sure that few knew the Heavenshard was on that noble; probably only the First Oligarch. There’s no way they would have sent bandits to take it otherwise.”

After that, we just chatted about various things while we ate our meal.

“By the way,” I said when we finished eating, “What do you think about this city now that you’ve seen it?”

It was about time that I heard Freya’s answer, and I wanted a last input from him.

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