Chapter 74: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the strongest of them all?

The General shot Caro Silva a panicked glance as he realized that they were not in a safe nor advantageous position as they had initially hoped to be. The Vanhuesans had proved to be much more sly and cunning than they had expected them to be. But the General wasn’t too fond of their trickster as he believed that they were not honorable as they had misused the good intentions of the Valyrians and even after agreeing to a deal wherein the final victor of the King’s duel would take the throne of Valyria, they had went back on their words within only several weeks, which was more or less similar to seconds in vampire years as they lived forever.

“Selena can hold her own against a fleet without breaking a sweat”, The General declared proudly, confident of his daughter’s abilities while Caro shook his head resignedly at him, already having drawn conclusions on his own and at last figure it out.
“Not if the fleet of army contains Dominic Vanhuesan in it”, he replied in a low tone, disappointed in himself that he hadn’t seen through their trick and they themselves had delivered their Queen right into their enemies arms.

The General eyed him warily and furrowed his eyebrow at him and Caro classified his stance, explaining his fears to the General, “I believe that Dominic’s and Selena’s powers are rather evenly matched and to predict a winner among them is a tedious task as it may go either way depending on the situation but this time, Dominic certainly has the edge since he is sneaking a surprise attack on her and attacking her when all her defenses are down. Moreover, she would be surrounded by both Dominic, his men as well as her own men who had betrayed her. Even if she was indeed the most powerful vampire in this planet, she wouldn’t able to get herself out of that situation.”

The General’s shoulders slumped in disappointment as he realized the truth behind Caro’s words. Selena would be way too overpowered and taken aback to beat them all. A lion can be overpowered by a pack of hyenas no matter how majestic the lion is.

“Sire, Mr Vanhuesan is signaling a white flag and walking down alone to the entrance of the fort”, a guard shouted, noticing the movement and promptly informing his General without even wasting a second in the process.

He rushed at the peek to get a clear view and saw that Mr Vanhuesan was indeed walking down towards them all alone and confident and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him, his gut instincts on an all time alert as they sensed a trap.

“Are they surrendering?”, a guard beside him asked him hopefully and the General snorted at him deliriously and spat back at him in a pissed off tone, “He has no reason to surrender when the ball is now on their hands. He is merely hear to cut a deal with us.”

The guard trembled down at the glare from his General and asked him timidly, “So, should we let him in or shoot him down with arrows?”
“Let him in”, he said simply as his daughter’s life was now in their hands so he couldn’t afford to anger them by slaying down their eldest master so recklessly and evoking their fury needlessly .

He tightened his fist as he went down to welcome his enemy from the entrance, with Caro Silva following right behind him. He raised his arm, when he saw that his men too were intending to follow him down there, stopping them in their tracks. When Mr Vanhuesan had come to the middle ground all by alone, it was only fair when he doesn’t take his soldiers with him too and go alone. No matter their enemies shrewdness, he was a noble Valyrian by birth and Valyrians weren’t cowards or dishonorable men and simply because of his principles and the customs of Valyria he refused to stoop down to their level even the odds were against them.

Caro too stepped back despite his instincts urging him not to, and nodded at the General, understanding his intentions. Caro was waging a war inside himself as currently he was going against his own army and he desperately hoped that Dominic would soon regain his senses and put an end to all this madness.

The General with a heavy heart set out to the middle of their grounds, contemplating various strategies on his way as now their Queen was with them but even, he couldn’t come up with a solution or a back up plan and felt at a loss.

Mr Vanhuesan smiled smugly at him as he approached while the General eyed his warily, on the defensive and alert.

“You broke your word. Both the kingdoms had agreed to respect the final victor of the King’s duel, yet you were shameless enough to betray your own words and attack to a kingdom you no more had any right to.”, The General spat at the Vanhuesan elder as soon as he was within his earshot and the ancient vampire sneered at him and replied smugly, “We are Vanhuesans, the original vampires. Everything in this whole world belongs rightfully to us.”

The wise General sensing that it was rather useless to argue with a conniving old fool eyed him warily and asked stiffly, “Why the white flag? What do you want to talk about?”

Deep down, the General was deeply rattled that the Vanhuesans had played dirty since they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance against Valyria had they battled it out fairly and he deeply disrespected and loathed his enemy because of their dishonorable and conniving nature.

The old man tilted up his head towards the sky haughtily as he crossed his arms over his chest proudly and declared arrogantly, “We are here to take pity on your clan. We will give back your Queen if you voluntarily surrender to our rule and give up the claim to the throne of Valyria.”

He felt cornered from all sides as they had taken away their key component. It was a typical no win situation. If they were to accept his condition and take back Selena, they would have renounced their claim to the throne and would be subjects under the Vanhuesan’s rule. On the other hand, if they rejected his deal and walked out into a full fledge battle, they will lose Selena even if they somehow managed to beat the odds and win the war but that wouldn’t be in their favor either as even if they win the battle, without Selena, no one else of royal blood has a claim to the throne of Valyria and no one would be able to stop a pure blood vampire, Dominic Vanhuesan from ascending the throne.

They had no chance at a win as both the options eventually will result in their loss. The General slumped his shoulders in disappointment, feeling hopeless and pessimistic all of a sudden. He regretted his earlier actions deeply and reckoned that he should never have made Selena enter the field in the first place even if she was their ace. Had she been safely hidden, this would never have taken place but he had only his own over smartness and his daughter’s stubbornness to blame for now because of their past action, they were now put in quite a tricky situation, from which they had no hope to emerge out victorious as this time, the odds definitely weren’t in their favor.