Silence hit the table like a hammer.
Duban sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes going wide, staring at Malik like he’d grown horns.
Safira rubbed her temples, perplexed by such a revelation.
She knew that he was at least a third sub-rank, an Al-Saif, but this?
This was something else.
There was no way he was the man she knew.
He couldn’t have become… this, in the time they hadn’t seen each other.
The rest reacted much the same, all but one showing surprise.
Graybeard being that ‘one.’
Malik clicked his tongue.
He felt their stares but wasn’t about to acknowledge them.
Flicking his gaze back to Nasir, he ignored Duban, who began to softly tap his side, wanting his attention for at least a moment.
“Move on.”
Nasir chuckled but didn’t push.
Instead, he leaned forward, both hands on the table.
“I had my suspicions, but after you so kindly did what I asked, I grew sure of it. With your addition, the number of Jinn on the battlefield ironically increases to twelve.”
Malik blinked.
“Twelve?”
Nasir nodded.
“Before, we had five for their six. It might sound rough, but fortunately for us, I’m as dangerous as two Jinns.”
He flashed his teeth.
“Kept the equilibrium.”
Malik let out a dry laugh.
“Oh, naturally.”
“But now…”
Nasir continued.
“That balance is broken. The scales tip in our favor.”
A pause.
Bang!
He slammed his palm on the table, voice ringing through the tent.
“That means we’re going to ALL OUT WAR!”
The reaction was immediate.
“Ha! It’s over for them now!”
Duban, joining his dad, had slammed his fist onto the table as well.
“Those bastards won’t stand a chance!”
“By God, I can’t believe it.”
Graybeard laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.
“The end might actually come in my lifetime.”
“It’s not legend anymore.”
A warrior with braided hair let out a breathless chuckle, gripping his sword hilt.
“This changes everything. No more playing careful. We might even end this in months.”
Safira showed a relieved smile.
“My, my… calm down, people. We should still be cautious. Strength alone won’t win the war if we’re reckless.”
“Oh, come on~.”
Duban scoffed, waving her off.
“This isn’t about caution. This is about striking hard while we have the upper hand!”
Nasir’s chin pointed at Duban, nodding.
“Exactly, Wolf. We move fast. We hit hard. We don’t give them a chance to breathe.”
He turned towards Malik, raising his voice.
“First, we bring them to their knees.”
A deafening roar of approval shook the tent.
“To war!”
“To war!”
“To war!”
It exploded with noise.
Cheers, laughter, and fists repeatedly slamming onto the poor table.
They clapped each other on the back, some already making boasts about how many “bastards” they’d cut down.
Only one man remained still.
Malik.
He simply stood there, staring at nothing.
He wasn’t cheering. He wasn’t grinning. He wasn’t raising his fist in victory like Duban, laughing like Nasir, or nodding in quiet approval like Graybeard.
He just… stood.
The noise around him turned distant, muffled, like he was sinking underwater.
Twelve.
Twelve Jinn.
He swallowed, rubbing his thumb against his knuckles.
His mouth tasted like ash.
War had always been brutal.
He’d seen the bodies left in its wake.
Pits filled with corpses, villages burned to nothing, widows standing in silence over graves with no names. It was ugly. Cruel. A slow, grinding meat grinder of a conflict, where men, women, and their children were thrown into the fire, their blood just another number on a tally sheet.
But those involved villages… just villages.
Small-scale conflicts.
This?
This was more.
A battle of cities, factions, and kingdoms.
What would its carnage be like?
Before, it had been a war that could still be pulled back from the brink, still be settled with negotiation, still have some hope of ending without extreme levels of bloodshed.
Now?
Now, that tiny sliver of restraint had been shattered.
It was going to be a slaughter.
Not one-sided by any means, but a slaughter nevertheless.
He exhaled slowly, pressing his fingers against his forehead.
His participation had just tipped the scales.
Not slightly. Not subtly. No, he had just slammed his foot down on the lever and sent the whole damn thing into freefall.
This war wasn’t going to drag on.
It wasn’t going to be a slow bleed.
It was going to be an execution.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
Dead.
And all because he said yes.
Malik had thought about this in depth earlier.
He knew that it was going to happen and had accepted it.
But there was a difference between knowing something and watching it unfold in front of you.
That was what finally made it real.
And whether he liked it or not, Malik was the deciding factor.
Not that anyone else seemed to care.
Nasir kept grinning like he’d just won the whole damn world. Duban looked practically high off the excitement. Safira kept trying to calm them down but to no avail, not that she was seriously trying to; the mood had swept her up as well. The others were already making plans, shouting, arguing, and hammering out strategies for tomorrow’s bloodbath.
Tomorrow.
Right, tomorrow.
It wasn’t some distant thing anymore.
It was here.
A countdown had started, and the moment the Shams rose, the killing would begin in earnest.
Malik closed his eyes, dragging in a slow breath through his nose, trying—really trying—to shove the weight of it down. Bury it under something—anything.
But it didn’t move.
It sat there, heavy in his chest, pressing against his ribs, suffocating.
He had done this. He had chosen this lesser evil.
Him.
He didn’t care about enemy soldiers. They had made their choice. He didn’t care about the soldiers on his side, either. If they lived, they lived. If they died, they died.
But the innocents?
The ones caught in the crossfire, the ones too small to fight, too weak to run, too helpless to do anything but die?
All of them.
Their blood was on his hands.
And no matter how this ended, no matter who stood victorious when the dust settled—
That was a truth that would never leave him.