Count Jimbar, regaining his composure, asked again, his voice tinged with disbelief.

“All of it? I must have misheard you. Surely, you didn’t mean all?”

“You heard me correctly. From this point on, every military force in the North will be under my command.”

Ghislain’s words had crossed a line, and not just a thin one. What did it mean to be a lord? A lord was someone who held autonomous power in exchange for loyalty to the crown. In their own domain, they were akin to kings themselves.

Yet here was someone demanding they relinquish their private armies—the very …