The Last Warlord
"You honour me with your loyalty. And those who fell."
The Warlock's loyalty had been to The Bryn'adul. No, The Drael'Vasir, not Tathra, not The Bryn'adul. Everything he had done since the beginning of the end had been to preserve his people. They had conquered countless systems, slaughtered trillions upon trillions and terraformed worlds to suit the needs of their kind. They had taken so much that in the end they did not have the forces to defend it all. But what had it been for? They had shed blood, sweat, tears, both their own and that of their foes, and in the end it was The Bryn'adul that defeated themselves. That was the lesson Sethrak had learned.
Tathra's rage had been visible moments before, when he mentioned his empire being torn apart from inside. Perhaps Tathra did not share Sethrak's opinion on The Bryn'adul. After all, he had created them. But it was early to make that assumption. Tathra was reacting as any leader would to betrayal, even Sethrak had brought the hammer down on disloyal, self-serving warlords.
So at least part of the statement was true: Sethrak honored the fallen with his loyalty to them. And perhaps he honored Tathra, in a way, but his loyalty was not truly to him. But that was not to be addressed. It was irrelevant. Both The Titan and The First Warlock would have the same immediate goals, even if their final objective differed. In other words, Tathra could be useful to Sethrak.
Thus his decision to "step aside" stood. He would allow Tathra to take the reigns, he would decide the next steps of The Bryn'adul, and if things took a turn for the worse again, or if Tathra returned to the old ways, leading endless wars of conquest, sending Sethrak's brothers into a slaughterhouse, he would snatch the reigns back and end Tathra for good in one fell swoop.
Sethrak gave a nod of acknowledgement to Tathra's comments, then looked to him again.
"Our forces are ready. What is your plan, Titan?"