Red spent a handful of days recovering from the vigorous trials Mordecai put him through. His body healed up quickly due to Merin's intervention.

They were still in the little building outside of town that turned out to be owned by Reu. In true Merin fashion, although the outside looked moderately bad, the inside shone with cleanliness and quality decorations.

Red only missed a little on what happened in the past few months. The Emperor declared him missing and held him in contempt for running away from the battle. There was nothing Habrin men hated more than dereliction of duty. Merin was declared a person of interest, but she'd remained hidden as a dark-haired, rotund older woman.

"It's a good disguise," Red said as he watched her hide her growing belly with extra fat pads and a baggy dress.

"I can't be a grandma with a huge belly otherwise," Merin said as she added embellishments to her face. She wiggled her eyebrows at him. They were darkened into two thick caterpillars with streaks of silver like her head of hair.

Red's lips cracked a smile at her antics. Aczuio protested for a brief moment when he pulled up his robes to cover his head. The dragon preferred him to Merin these days and liked to hang out in his hair. The eyepatch on his red eye felt stiff and abrasive, but it would be a temporary fix.

They were on their way to the Northern Provinces. The only way to combat the title of coward was to show up and turn the tide of battle. Habrin wasn't losing, but they should have been able to stamp out the rebellion sooner than this.

The whole world was watching and waiting to see who would be victorious. If Habrin didn't shape up, then that one annoying brush fire would turn into a forest fire that would sweep the land clean.

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Bellare, Letha, and Zoltan were accompanying them. They were ready, but the only person who wasn't was Merin. She was in the middle of attempting to pack everything and anything for the trip. Everyone was watching and waiting for her to finish up.

"It will only take a week of traveling before we can use the Sebon River to shorten our journey," Red said. He had to be the one to speak up because she wouldn't listen to anyone else.

Merin looked up from her packing with a confused expression.

"We don't need all of that." He said.

Merin's mouth dropped as she looked at everything she told him she would most certainly need.

To her dismay, Red's logic won, and she had to put back things that she wanted to take. It mainly was brightly colored silks and extra finery to make life easier rather than necessary.

So, with that little delay put behind them, they set off.

True to Red's plan, they got to the Sebon River and used a boat to cut their journey in half.

The ramifications of war were rampant, and everywhere they went, death, destruction, and loss were evident.

They narrowly managed to avoid danger by sticking to the backroads and staying on the tail end of Habrin soldiers.

Everything was peaceful until the group made it to Cem's army.

"So you're not chickenshit." When he saw Red, an unknown soldier with battle scars all over their face said. He then attempted to spit on the ground, but the wad was swatted back at him through invisible air to land over his mouth. The man gagged and started making odd noises at the random assault.

Red turned to look at Merin, who hadn't retrieved her hand yet.

"I believe you do know the proper way to address a prince of Habrin." She said the perfect image of innocence.

Merin had undone her disguise, and her silvery hair marked her as the hot-tempered, violent Russus. So it was no surprise that no one was fooled, judging by the looks on their faces.

Red pushed her hand back into her robes. When he was done, he turned to the soldier, "Tell my brother I'm here to support him, and I have information to end this quickly."

Without another word of complaint or rudeness, they were ushered in.