The feast roared on, torches, smoke, battered cups striking tables. The wolves lingered outside, presence felt but not seen. People laughed, cried, and treated the wounded like heroes.
I smiled when needed, but my eyes kept moving. I sat by a pillar, back to the wall, a habit. From here, I saw doors, passages, the corridor to the Outer Gate… and Dara.
The memory hit me like a serrated blade to the chest, cold and jagged.
A year ago, Dara arrived in Haven and asked to be taken in. She was too quiet, always watching. While others begged for a day off, she volunteered to scout.
She caught the eyes of every man in the tribe. I was no different. To get close, I invented "orientation missions."
I didn't just show her the patrol routes like they were city parks; I showed her the secrets. I took her through the narrow bypasses known only to the Inner Circle, the "shadow-paths" that bypassed the main guards.
I practically handed her the keys to our home just to see her smile. Now, those memories feel like a knife in my heart.
I was a fool.
My heart was hammering a rhythm of suspicion after my gaze flickered to the bench where my father and the Elders sat.
"Father," I hissed, my hand dropping to the hilt of my knife. "The blueprint! It's gone."
Father's eyes went cold. He didn't need an explanation. We both looked toward the kitchen archway just in time to see Dara vanish through the service door.
Dara slipped through the side corridor, past the storage alcoves, toward the passage that led to the Outer Gate's upper walkways.
So, it's really you… after all this time… you're spying on us!
Father didn't look surprised by her sudden move. In fact, his hand clamped onto my shoulder with a grip of iron. "Stay close, Son… and quiet."
We slipped through the kitchen door, the scent of roasting meat replaced instantly by the damp, metallic tang of the unlit, crumbling outer tunnels of the station.
She slipped into a secondary alcove, far from the guard posts. She moved through rusted rebar and jagged debris without a light. She wasn't just walking; she was blending.
How does she know these paths? I wondered. She moved better than our best scouts.
We trailed behind, keeping distance. Dara glanced back; I pressed against the wall. My heart pounded like crazy.
The world outside was too dark. There was no moon. Only the cold, sharp light of distant stars offered any vision.
I reached out, feeling for the path. Couldn't even see my hands in front of me. We couldn't light a torch.
"Father… Elder?" I whispered. "Where are you?"
No answer. Only the wind.
"Rocks," I muttered, losing my direction. (1)
I slowed my breathing and listened. A low shushing sound came from the shadows to my left.
"Quiet," a voice hissed. It was Elder Faren.
I moved toward him. We were at a junction where the trench split toward the treeline.
"We lost her," I whispered, my teeth chattering from the cold.
"She moves too fast," Father murmured. He peered into the dark, his hand on his blade. "She didn't just run blindly. She knew exactly where the blind spots were."
Movement ahead. A darker shape slipped between shadows.
"There!" I said, pointing uselessly into the dark.
Dara moved without a torch, navigating by instinct alone. My pulse quickened as she approached the far side of the outer gate. Beside me, Father nudged Elder Faren.
My hand tightened on the hilt of my knife. My mind was spinning. Dara was stronger than she looked, and she moved with a grace that chilled me. Could the three of us even overpower her if she resisted?
I sighed inwardly. We planned this trap too quickly. We couldn't risk bringing men without leaking the secret.
Then, a low whistle echoed from the treeline.
A man stepped into the pale light.
"This is it," I hissed, my blade sliding from its sheath. "She's handing it over."
My heart felt like a lead weight. All the strolls through the "park," the secrets I'd whispered; it was all for this! The back of my eyes burned with the threat of tears.
"Wait…" Father whispered, his hand resting on my shoulder to steady my shaking frame.
A wet, heavy thud echoed through the silence.
Then came the frantic scraping of boots against stone. A scuffle broke out near a collapsed thatch house.
"Now!" Father shouted.
We surged forward. I struck a torch-spark. The flare of light revealed a violent tableau.
Two figures were tangled in the shadows. One slammed the other against a jagged pillar. A cylinder of vellum skidded across the dirt.
Dara had a man pinned against the masonry; her forearm jammed into his throat. In her free hand, she gripped the missing blueprint.
The second figure was Sunno, the kitchen helper, his breath misting in the freezing air.
I stood, blade wavering between them. Ally, enemy; everything blurred.
Dara didn't loosen her grip on Sunno's throat.
Then, Elder Faren stepped out of the shadows. "Thank you, Dara," he said, his voice level and calm. "We'll take over from here."
"What?" My mind was spinning. I looked from the Elder to the woman I doubted moments ago. "You knew... You both knew?"
"In a war of shadows, Barik," Faren said, stepping toward me, "the best shield is a lie that everyone believes, even our own."
Dara shoved Sunno toward Father and Elder Faren. He collapsed into the mud, gasping for breath.
"He's been passing intel through the waste-chutes for months," Dara spat. "The blueprint could have been his best intel. He was going to leave us all to die."
The traitor collapsed to his knees, clutching at his chest. The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of his betrayal.
Dara's chest heaved as she slid her blade home.
***
Not far from them, a low, guttural growl vibrated in the dark.
From the freshly dug trench, a pair of golden eyes ignited. Then another. Jag's pack emerged from the gloom like smoke made flesh, their fangs bared.
Walking calmly beside the wolves was Elder Ruvio. His iron staff tapped the stone with a rhythmic, final clack. Behind him, Eris and Kaylah stood as shadows in the torchlight, their expressions grim.
The pack circled two men dressed in the grey, reinforced leathers of the Iron Order. They were scouts, caught waiting for Sunno's hand-off.
The scouts' gazes flicked from snarling wolves to Ruvio's glowing staff, then landed on Eris and Kaylah. Bit marks scored their arms; knives lay discarded on the ground. Fear crept into their cold eyes.
Ruvio approached us, his gaze tired but knowing. He looked at me, seeing the shame I couldn't hide.
"We got them all," Ruvio said, looking at Sunno.
"The trap is closed," his voice echoed in the trench.
***
"Dara's not a spy?" I asked Elder Faren.
"No. She's working for us," the elder replied.
Hearing the reply, I realized with a mixture of embarrassment and overwhelming gratitude that I had been completely wrong.
"I… I thought you were the spy, Dara," I admitted. The words felt like lead in my mouth. My face burned with shame.
"I know what you're thinking, Cap," she said, her chest heaving with restrained breaths. "I don't steal from people I'm trying to save."
Her eyes blazed with exhaustion, no hint of guilt.
She locked gazes with me, her stare piercing. "Wait, were you...?" she asked, her voice softer.
Still gripping my knife, I let out a rough laugh. "Just something in my eye." I turned away, wiping my face with my sleeve.
"Oh," she said, a small smile creeping in. Her gaze lingered on me, not angry, but curious, like she was piecing together a puzzle.
"Hmm," Father echoed, a quiet smile on his lips too.
***
"Dara was Iron Order's plant," Faren explained, voice low. "Gathering intel on patrols, security… she fed them truth and lies, a mix to confuse them."
My eyes narrowed. Dara wasn't the enemy I had built up in my head. She was a survivor who had been trying to save us from the tribe that sent her.
"Sunno, the kitchen guy, was working in the shadows too. Knew bits, rumors mostly. Passed what he could to Iron Order, scared we'd catch him."
"Didn't know about Dara?" I asked.
Faren shook her head. "Neither knew of the other's existence. The Iron Order planned to verify the information, separate truth from lies, and strike when the time was right."
"Each intel was used to verify the others," he said. "Every time Dara tried to protect us with a lie, Sunno's gossip accidentally exposed her."
"You gave them our patrol routes?" I whispered.
Her eyes flashed. "I gave them what I had to. But I lied, Barik. I gave them dead ends and outdated schedules, buying us time." Her words cut through my anger.
"Time for what?" I asked.
Dara's gaze hardened. "Time to prepare. To stop them, but the elders were slow to act."
She glared at Faren.
Faren's voice was heavy with regret. "We verified... and acted too late."
"I played my part," she spat, wiping dirt from her brow. "Now play yours. The Order isn't coming to talk. They're coming to burn."
***
Ruvio and Faren led the captives deeper into a chamber where the stone still bore tool marks from the first days after Haven was founded.
There was no ventilation shaft; the room was suffocating. Roots had broken through the ceiling in places, thick and pale like buried bones. Oil lamps burned low, their smoke clinging to the walls.
The iron door slammed shut, leaving the two elders and the prisoners in flickering torchlight. Their captors in the room were only two old men, and yet, the captives were strangely docile.
Sunno sat slumped, wrists bound behind him, face streaked with sweat and ash. He wouldn't stop shaking.
The Iron Order scouts sat frozen, ropes cutting into their skin. Wolf bites marked their arms and legs, crimson staining their torn clothes.
There was no time for a slow interrogation. Ruvio had already worked his magic.
The violet light flared once, brilliant and blinding, before fading into the dull torchlight of the cell. Both prisoners slumped forward, their chins hitting their chests.
Sunno whimpered, but the scouts' eyes went blank as the Elder's mind pierced their own.
The kitchen man broke first. Not much had been sent.
Routes. Headcounts. Security details, all of which were hearsay. No mention of what truly slept beneath Haven.
Enough to worry, but not enough to doom them.
Ruvio extracted every detail from the captured scouts. They were low-ranking, knew only of outposts and headcounts.
Then, he planted the intel Dara had sent before. It'd match Sunno's report this time to get back her credibility. Dara and Sunno would keep feeding info, as usual.
The violet light flared for the last time, brilliant and blinding, before fading into the dull torchlight of the cell. The three awoke, but with a blank look.
The memory of the interrogation had replaced by a new "truth" burned into their minds, along with a blueprint and blades they lost when the wolves attacked them.
A different story. A different Haven.
They would remember nothing important.
Haven slept on, never knowing how close its gates had come to opening for the fire.
***
The Iron Order Scouts were released before dawn, dragged to the Outer Gate, and shoved into the darkness.
They would wake up convinced they had escaped Haven. Happy with vital intel despite the bite marks from two wolves they "accidentally" met on their way back.
"You're letting them go?" Thalen whispered, his hand tight on his axe.
Ruvio nodded, his face a mask of weary compassion in the flickering torchlight.
"They're not a threat anymore, Thalen. He is a message," Ruvio said softly, his voice carrying the weight of a heavy truth.
"The intel will reach the Iron Order camp in two days," Thalen noted, watching the figure vanish into the trees.
"And he will bring what we need him to carry." Ruvio added.
"Are we safe now" Faren asked, his voice low.
"For a time," Ruvio sighed, leaning heavily on his staff. The effort had aged him visibly.
"The scout will relay an 'interesting' story. It would buy us the time we need to prepare."
Faren nodded, "We've turned their own spy into a shield. But if their Seers are half as good as the scout claimed, they'll sense the lie eventually."
"Then we must make sure that by the time they see through the veil," Ruvio said, looking toward the door, "we are ready to meet them head on."
Barik frowned, confusion etched on his face. "They look... shattered," he whispered. "What happened to them?"
Ruvio patted Barik's shoulder. The latter did not notice the slight pinch at his nape. "We showed them the inevitable end of their Order."
His fingers left Barik's just as the young captain's eyes cleared, the brief haze of the Elder's "touch" vanishing.
Barik blinked. He shook his head as if waking from a deep sleep. "Oh?!"
He looked at Ruvio, his focus suddenly snapping back. " Elder, I forgot to tell you about the lightning-struck tree…"
***