"The Feysac Empire's fleet is about to attack this place."
Before Angel could withdraw her gaze from the late-night sea she was watching through Magic Mirror Divination, Alicia Tamara spoke.
She sensed it too? Through the coming challenge of "chaos" against "order," or by detecting a demigod Beyonder nearby? It seems my reasons for assuming she wasn't a demigod don't hold up. The Tamara Family really did send a demigod to negotiate with me...
Angel looked at the oddly dressed Yalixiya in surprise and couldn't help asking:
"There is indeed an entire fleet. What are you—or rather, your people—planning to do?"
"Leave immediately, of course." Yalixiya looked back at her curiously, as though she had heard a question whose answer required no thought at all. "Constant will soon become the front line. If Feysac's fleet made it across the Intervening Sea to get here, they certainly aren't here for a single surprise attack. They intend to use this place as a landing site, a key staging point for an advance into Loen's heartland."
Her reasoning matched Angel's earlier analysis, but the sheer confidence with which she proposed running away still caught Angel somewhat off guard.
From another perspective, however, the Tamara Family, which had preserved its lineage in secret much like those clandestine sects, probably had very little loyalty or attachment to any nation. Moreover, this war was between the Einhorn and Augustus royal houses, both of which had once hunted and persecuted the Tamara Family, while the Orthodox Churches supporting them had helped bring down the Tudor Empire in the Fourth Epoch. The Tamaras would probably be delighted to watch the two nations tear each other apart, preferably leaving both so badly wounded that they had no time to concern themselves with anything else.
*But if that happens, this