The cold silence that followed the messenger's words was heavier than any grief. In the command tent, the scent of fear and fresh sorrow hung in the air. Damon, Arion, Lysa, and Ren stood as if frozen, each of them lost in the vast, empty space left by Kael.
It was Ren, the youngest of them, who broke the silence. His face was no longer a boy's; it was a furious, tear-streaked mask of rage. "Give me a horse," he demanded, his voice cracking. "Give me my brother's men. I will ride and I will kill him myself."
Lysa, her grief a cold and terrible thing, stepped forward. "Ren is right," she said, her voice shaking but full of a powerful resolve. "You sent my brother to his death, Damon. We trusted your plan, and it was a mistake. Now we must make it right. The King's general must pay."
Damon looked from Lysa's tearful fury to Ren's hot-headed defiance. He felt the weight of their words like a physical blow. The guilt of giving the order, of sending Kael to his end, was a fire in his gut. But he was a commander, not a man of simple vengeance. He had to be the cold, unyielding force that held them all together.
"Vengeance is what he wants," Damon said, his voice low and strained. "The general knew Kael's fire. He knew that an army full of men like him would seek a decisive victory. He laid a trap, and we walked into it. To march on him now, filled with anger, is to give him exactly what he wants. He will destroy us."
"So we do nothing?" Ren cried, his voice breaking. "We let my brother's death go unanswered?"
Arion, ever the stoic, finally spoke. "Damon is right. We must not let our grief blind us. Kael fought to the end to save those men. He would not want us to throw away their lives, and ours, on a blind charge."
Lysa's eyes, full of a raw, grieving fury, turned on Damon. "You gave the order that killed him," she said, her voice trembling with emotion. "You can't ask us to be patient. We will have our vengeance, Damon. Or House Galen will have to seek it alone."
The silence returned, but this time it was thick with a new, dangerous tension. The grief had passed, and now, the war had entered a new, more dangerous phase. The alliance was no longer a single, united front, but a family torn apart by loss and the desire for revenge.