The second Starless attack forced Firelonia to reshape itself faster than any council order could dictate. The old battalions—small units scattered across the kingdom—were no longer enough. The enemy was growing bolder, and Firelonia needed armies that could answer it.
So three new forces were born.
The Gold Army came first. Forged from Firelonia's strongest frontline fighters and the most disciplined weaponmasters of the capital, they were meant to stand like a wall in front of the kingdom. Their training emphasized endurance, formation defense, and mastery of sunsteel.
The Silver Army followed. Not foreign scouts—Firelonian scouts. High-speed messengers, long-range mages, wind-trained fighters from the storm cliffs, and precision tacticians from the inner academies. They became Firelonia's eyes and its rapid response.
Then the Bronze Army. A decision both Bao Bao and Veylara pushed for. Firelonians who didn't fit the rigid expectation of Gold or Silver—lone witches, desert duelists, wildfire mages, former street fighters, mountain rebels, young talents who failed the elite tests but were born with danger in their blood. Chaotic, unpredictable, powerful.
Three armies. One kingdom. All Firelonian.
And all born because Bao Bao had stood his ground in the last battle.
---
The training plaza pulsed with the sound of drills. Rows of Gold trainees clashed sun-forged shields. Silver scouts practiced high-speed maneuvers on the elevated rings. Bronze fighters brawled in open circles, fighting like they meant it.
Bao Bao watched them from the balcony above. His wound from the Starless strike still burned faintly, but he ignored it. The armies were ready. Firelonia, maybe less so.
Naelith stepped beside him. Her presence settled the air—sharp, certain, commanding. "The Council wants a speech today. A formal declaration of unity."
Veylara approached from the opposite stairway, cloak slung over one shoulder. "They want to measure you again, Sun King. They're afraid."
Bao Bao exhaled once. "When are they not?"
He started down the steps toward the soldiers. Naelith and Veylara exchanged a look behind him. Not a glare. Not hostility.
Something quieter. Something they could no longer lie about—to each other or themselves.
Naelith was the first to accept it. Not out loud, but internally, where she kept her strictest truths.
She loved him.
It wasn't political. It wasn't convenient. It had become something she could no longer deny. And watching Veylara walk beside him, she finally admitted the second truth:
She wasn't the only one.
Veylara was slower to accept things, but the battlefield had torn down the walls she used to hide behind. The moment she saw him fall in the ruins of the southern ridge, she realized the truth she had buried since the first mission:
She loved him too.
She wasn't proud of it. She didn't ask for it. But the truth lived there, burning.
Even between them, neither woman looked away.
They understood each other more honestly in that small moment than they had in months of Council meetings.
Not as rivals.
As two people who had stepped into something dangerous and real.
---
The armies gathered on the fire-forged plaza. Gold in the front, Silver in the middle ring, Bronze filling the broad steps and railing edges like a storm waiting for release.
Bao Bao stepped forward.
The noise dropped away.
"You all know why these armies exist," he said. "Because Firelonia can't survive with scattered strength. We stand together or we fall apart."
His voice carried across the plaza.
"Gold for strength.
Silver for speed.
Bronze for chaos and adaptability."
He raised his hand, letting sunlight catch the scar left by the Starless wound.
"You are Firelonia's fire. And the Starless Legion will learn what that means."
The roar that answered him shook the walls.
From the balcony above, councilors watched with pale faces—they hadn't expected the armies to respond like this. Not to him.
Naelith watched him with a quiet, steady certainty.
Veylara watched him with a burning, restrained longing.
Both of them knew the truth they had accepted today would not make the future easier.
It would make it explosive.
But for now, the armies rose. The kingdom stood ready.
And the Sun King walked forward into a future neither woman intended to leave him to face alone.