Splash!
At 3:20 in the afternoon, John paused over the latest intelligence report from the garrison in Faoken as a sudden downpour lashed the windows of the Imperial Grand Hotel.
As though something had occurred to him, he sighed, set down the thick file, and took a sip of coffee that had long since gone cold as he walked to the window.
His gaze swept over the rain-soaked street and the rows of tall buildings beyond it, finally settling on the palace at the edge of his vision. Even through the downpour, its magical radiance was impossible to ignore. His eyes grew thoughtful.
He knew a fierce war of words over the peace talks had to be raging inside the palace.
But he belonged to the military, not the diplomatic service, and he was no imperial legislator. He could not go and watch the Allied Forces delegation clash with the Imperial Foreign Ministry in person.
A bit of a shame.
"Still, barring any surprises, these long-winded talks will probably drag on for a while yet."
After all, the Old Guard Party might have secretly sold intelligence on the Empire to the Allied Forces more than once, but those powerful nobles cared deeply about appearances. They would never yield easily at the negotiating table.
The Steel Warband had shattered the Empire's position on the Northern Frontier and forced it to give up the Molton mines. More recently, Brown Kingdom had seized Gordon Territory while the Winter Wolf Legion was short on troops. In the east, the First Imperial Air Force Army could not get past Axe of Thunder, Slock Kingdom's strongest Crown Tier defender, leaving the Empire unable to expand its territory there.
Given the state of the war, the Allied Forces were unlikely to hand back cities they had fought