The throne room remained silent, but it wasn't a silence born because the Chiefs and the King were contemplating his words.
It was a silence of horror.
White looked around and realized there was no admiration left on their faces anymore. Only disbelief.
Finally, one of them seemed to recover first.
He was an elderly chief, sitting on the left hand of the King, and he spoke a single word.
"No."
"No?"
White repeated.
"No."
The chief repeated more firmly, before another, the one closest to the King's right, spoke.
"You wish to burn the Outer Circles' harvest? The one that makes up half of the Kingdom's entire yearly harvest!?"
White nodded.
"That's correct."
The old man looked at him as if he had been struck by lightning, his next words unable to form, requiring another chief to continue for him.
"Those crops represent six months of labor! Entire families depend upon them."
"People will starve if they're lost, and you ask for them to be burned!?"
