Mirei, frustrated by the interminable disagreements, had left to take care of Urishin, though she promised to return later. Satomi dearly wished the young witch could take a force of people straight to Kalistyi; it would be the most effective solution. It just wasn’t possible, though. Any attacking force would have to come by another route. The debate was mostly over what size that force should be: a small one, slipping in quickly to take out the leaders, or a large one, sent to subdue the entire area. That, and how they were going to get there.“We could go in either through Liak or Abern,” Kekkai said dubiously, tracing the various passes on the map. “But that requires getting cooperation from those domains.”“Plus everyone else we’d have to march through on the way there,” Churicho pointed out.Rin was shaking her head even before they were done. “Too slow. You’d be lucky to get there by spring. Arranging diplomatic permissions, then an overland march in winter, through the mountains—they’d be gone long before you ever got there.”“But we’d know where they went to,”
