The transmission died and the palace went silent.
Ginimbi broke it first. He turned to his lightning platoon with the full weight of his voice and ordered them to move - reinforcements, now, to the border. King Douglas stepped into their path.
"My soldiers take orders from me," Ginimbi said.
"We won't catch them that way." Douglas kept his voice level. "Listen to me."
Ginimbi's face said clearly that he had no intention of listening. He made a gesture that, from any other man in the country, would have ended his career.
Douglas raised his hand.
The five rings caught the light. Five guards materialised at the door in the same instant, a wall of bodies that Ginimbi's platoon ran up against without being able to move through it. Douglas walked forward until he was standing directly in front of the old man.
"I've taken enough disrespect for a lifetime today alone," he said, quietly. "This might be your board, Ginimbi. But it's my game. So I need you to be quiet and let me play. The enemy has the upper hand right now, but I am smarter and more experienced than they've accounted for. What you want us to do is exactly what she expects."
The room held its breath.
Ginimbi's face went through several colours. "How dare you speak to me like that."
"Your family has supported the kingship for generations," Douglas said. "You are respected. You are consulted. But I am King. Not you."
The silence between them was the kind that takes years to build.
Ginimbi stepped back. His voice came out low and without warmth. "If my grandson doesn't return unharmed, this will be the last game you ever play." He turned, and his men followed him out, his footsteps hitting the stone floor like a closing argument.
Douglas watched them go. Then he lowered himself into the chair beside the half-played chess game on the table nearby and looked at the board for a long moment.
"The parameters have changed," he said, to no one and both of them. "I had hoped to think ahead. But now we need to end this quickly."
In the cave, the smoke was still settling.
Sifiso rolled his sleeves and moved toward Moto.
Alicia laughed - bright, clear, cutting through the haze - and he stopped.
She was looking at Moto with something new in her expression. Not amusement exactly. More like interest. "So," she said. "You've made your decision?"
"I'll admit I don't know everything yet." Moto met her gaze without flinching. "But I have siblings. People I care about. So no. I can't accept your path."
"Cute." Alicia waved a hand. "I've lost track of mine. Too many to count."
Moto went quiet for a moment. Not strategically - genuinely. "Don't you miss them at all?"
"Hard to miss people you've never met."
She said it flatly, the way you say things that stopped hurting a long time ago. But something crossed her face in the half-second after - small, quickly managed, gone before it fully arrived. Nobody in the room would have caught it. Moto, who was looking directly at her, did.
Alicia noticed that he noticed. She found it strange - not threatening, just strange. People didn't feel pity for Chandler's daughters. Nobody in the world looked at her the way this tied-up teenager was looking at her, like she was something to feel sorry for.
She covered it with the easiest tool available - condescension.
"I see my younger self in you, kid. You probably came up easy. But once you've actually traveled this world, you'll find out it's not all sunsets." Something genuine entered her voice then, patient and almost gentle, the way a person speaks when they mean it. "I want to see it. I want to watch that fire go out of your eyes slowly, over years. So I won't kill you. Sit down, let us get our rock, and we'll be gone. But I'll be watching you."
"The King told you he needs more time," Moto said.
Alicia exhaled. From the look of things, the Earth Ore wasn't coming. It had probably never been coming. Which meant Sukai's situation was worse than anyone in this room was saying out loud.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Moto."
She stood and turned to Kangetsu. "Knock him out for me. Before he complicates anything else."
Sifiso glanced at her sideways - the leniency registered as unusual, but he kept it off his face.
Kangetsu cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.
The cave shook.
Thunder first - a single deafening crack that came from everywhere at once - and then the entrance exploded inward with a wall of water that hit the room like a decision. Three figures came through it, moving fast, and the cave stopped being quiet.