Chapter Two - A War with No End

CHAPTER TWO

A War with No End

FRANCE IS NOT a country.
It’s an open wound.

For nearly a century, blood has been leaking across its soil.
The Hundred Years’ War isn’t just a headline — it’s the backdrop of Joan’s entire world.
A brutal, stupid, cursed inheritance.

It started over a crown.
The English wanted it. The French said no.
But kings don’t settle arguments — they breed generations who’ll die for them.

By the early 1400s, the war is a disaster.

France is split in two.
The English control huge swaths of territory.
The French king is dead, his heir disinherited by treaty.
The real power? The Burgundians — supposed French allies who’ve sold their loyalty to the enemy.

The Dauphin, Charles, is king of nothing.
He sits in exile, uncrowned, unloved, and untested.

Paris is gone.
The people are exhausted.
And God?
God seems to be on the English side.

The English have better weapons.
Better commanders.
And a propaganda machine that calls the French “rebels” in their own land.

They’ve laid siege to Orléans — the last choke point before swallowing southern France whole.
If Orléans falls, so does the dream of a free France.

That’s the board.

That’s the game.

And into this hellscape walks Joan — barefoot, unarmed, unknown.
With one impossible conviction:

This is not how the story ends.

She doesn’t see war.
She sees purpose.

She sees a divine test — not of France, but of faith.
If God told her to save France, then France can still be saved.

It’s not patriotism.
It’s obedience.

And the only thing crazier than her belief…
is how soon she’ll make everyone else believe it too.