They returned to camp under cover of darkness, smoke from the ruined message tower still clinging to their cloaks. Whispers followed them like moths to flame.
"Elites, now…"
"Corin's shadow…"
"Kael's new favorite…"
Elira ignored the murmurs. She was getting used to being watched. But this time, the eyes felt different. Heavier.
Kael waited in the war tent. He didn't rise when they entered—just motioned for them to sit and slid a report across the table.
A map. Three red X's. One black.
"The traitor's been passing along our camp positions," he said. "Three raids in the last week, all precisely timed. We lost twenty-three fighters."
Elira stared at the black X. It was directly over their fallback base near the Arros woods.
"No one outside the inner circle knew that location," Corin said, his voice low.
Kael nodded. "That's why Ren was sent. He's not just hunting the leak. He's setting bait."
Corin frowned. "Does he think it's one of us?"
Kael looked at Elira. His expression gave nothing away. But his silence did.
Elira straightened. "You think I—?"
"I think someone in this camp is very good at hiding. And you, Elias, are very good at being unseen."
Corin's fists clenched. "Kael, that's a reach—"
"It's not an accusation," Kael said calmly. "It's a warning. I'm watching everyone."
He dismissed them without another word.
Outside, the cold hit like a slap. Corin paced beside her, agitated.
"He's wrong," he muttered. "You wouldn't—"
"You don't know what I would or wouldn't do," Elira said, sharper than she meant to.
Corin turned to her, frustration flaring. "Then tell me. Gods, Elias—Elira—whoever you are—just tell me the truth."
She froze. The world narrowed.
"What did you say?"
His face paled. "I— I didn't mean—"
"You knew?"
"I suspected," he said quietly. "Little things. The way you move. How you avoid changing around the others. The way you look at me when you think I'm not watching."
Silence hung like frost between them.
"I didn't say anything," he added, softer now. "Because I didn't care. Still don't."
She turned away, throat tight. "You should."
"I care more about who you are than what you are."
His hand brushed hers, hesitant.
"Elira," he said, her name like a promise.
She wanted to lean into him. To fall into his arms and let the war vanish, just for a moment. But the danger was too near. Her secret too heavy.
"I can't," she whispered. "Not now."
"Then later," he said.
And she didn't have the heart to tell him that "later" might never come.
—
The next night, Ren called a covert meeting in the woods beyond the outer watch. Just her, Kael, and a woman named Rinya—an intelligence officer with eyes like obsidian.
"The traitor's signal flares came from inside the central camp," Ren said. "Whoever it is, they're passing info by dead drop behind the latrine tent. We found the remains of three messages burned, but not destroyed enough."
He handed Kael a scrap of parchment. Faint ink, smudged in ash. Just a name:
"Elias."
Elira's stomach dropped.
Rinya tilted her head. "That your alias, isn't it?"
Kael looked at her, unreadable. "Someone's setting you up."
"Or someone's found out the truth," Ren added, voice quiet. "And they're going to use it."
Elira's voice was steady. "What do you need me to do?"
Kael didn't answer right away. Then he handed her a sealed vial.
"Drink this before the next council meeting. It'll slow your pulse. Calm your nerves. So if they interrogate you, you won't slip."
"Interrogate me?"
"We need to control the narrative," he said. "You're not a liability. You're bait."
—
That night, Elira stood before her reflection in a cracked piece of steel. She wiped the dirt from her cheeks, pulled off her wrappings, and looked at herself fully—for the first time in weeks.
She saw both.
Elira and Elias.
And something in between.
Not a lie. Not a disguise.
A warrior.
When she emerged from the tent, Corin was waiting.
"I heard," he said. "About the note."
"Then you know what they'll think."
"I don't care what they think." His voice was steel. "If you fall, I fall with you."
She wanted to stop him. Wanted to protect him from what was coming.
But instead, she stepped forward and kissed him.
It was sudden, fierce, and filled with everything they hadn't said.
When they broke apart, breathless, he rested his forehead against hers.
"We survive this," he whispered.
"We survive," she echoed.
Even if the price was everything else.
The rebellion's high council met only in the gravest of circumstances. That night, the war tent was quiet as a crypt. The air was heavy with smoke and anticipation. The five commanders sat in a ring, faces lit by torchfire, their expressions sharpened by weeks of sleepless nights.
Elira stood before them, shoulders squared, heart thundering.
She had swallowed Kael's draught before entering. Her limbs tingled. Her chest was strangely still, like her heartbeat had been pushed underwater.
Kael sat to the right of General Marek, the grizzled veteran who'd led the resistance before Kael rose in the ranks. Corin stood by the tent's entrance, arms folded, his eyes never leaving Elira.
Ren leaned against the central post, silent. Watching.
"Elira of Norwyn," Marek began, voice gravel-thick. "You're accused of leaking military positions to the Duras command. What do you say?"
"I say the accusation is false," Elira said. "And I say the leak comes from someone who wants to silence me."
"Convenient," growled Commander Dalin, his left eye gone to scar. "They named you."
"Because they know what it'll cost me if the name sticks."
Rinya stepped forward, placing the charred message scrap on the war table. "We found this at the transmission site. The ink is from our own stores. The paper from our armory. Someone inside camp planted it."
She looked at Elira, then at Ren.
"Your man believes the traitor is still active."
"I don't believe," Ren said coolly. "I know."
He moved to the center of the tent. "I've been tracking footprints around the drop site. Studying camp schedules. Watching behavior." He paused, gaze sliding to Elias.
"And I know Elias is hiding something."
Corin stiffened.
Kael cut in. "We all are."
A ripple of discomfort passed through the room.
Ren kept his eyes on Elira. "Tell me, Elira… is that even your real name?"
A pause.
Then Elira stepped forward and did something no one expected.
She removed her glove. Then the binding from her chest. She pulled back her coat and dropped the low collar.
Gasps filled the tent.
"My name is Elira of Norwyn," she said, voice clear. "I lost my family in the massacre. I swore to never be helpless again. So I became Elias. I trained. I fought. I bled for this rebellion."
Dalin surged up. "This is a joke! A lie! You let a woman—"
"She's saved more lives than you," Corin growled. "She burned the Falden tower. Held the gorge line. Won three duels without ever revealing her face."
Kael raised a hand. "Enough. Sit."
Slowly, the commanders obeyed.
Marek looked at Elira, a slow nod forming.
"You hid yourself to survive," he said. "To fight. I can respect that."
"But what about the leak?" Rinya asked. "If the message was planted to expose her—then the real traitor's still at large."
Ren smiled faintly. "Which is why we laid a second trap."
He pulled a parchment from his coat. It was fresh, marked with false coordinates. "We left this in a new drop point. Watched it all night."
He turned—and tossed something to the ground.
A silver ring. Etched with the Duras sun.
"Guess who picked it up?"
He pointed.
To Commander Dalin.
Dalin's face went pale. "This is absurd—"
"Your boots match the trail," Ren said. "Your schedule put you near the latrines twice—conveniently late. You always protested the use of small cells. And you were the one who ordered the scouts away from the Arros fallback post."
Corin stepped forward, sword half-drawn.
Kael rose. "Dalin of Thorne. You are hereby stripped of rank and charged with treason against the free peoples of Veylan."
Dalin lunged—but Elira was faster.
She slammed him to the ground, blade at his throat. His own dagger clattered aside.
Blood pooled slowly from where her edge kissed skin.
"You tried to hang me with your secret," she said quietly. "But I've learned how to cut back."
Kael gave a grim nod. "Take him."
Rinya and Corin hauled the disgraced commander away.
Elira remained kneeling, her hand still on the hilt, until the tent was quiet again.
Then she stood.
Marek looked at her with something like pride. "You exposed a traitor. Held your ground. Won the trust of men twice your size and ten times as proud."
He turned to Kael.
"I move that she be promoted. Full commander."
Murmurs followed—but none dared object.
Kael gave a small, approving nod.
"Then let the council witness this. Elira of Norwyn. For valor, cunning, and unmatched courage… you are named Commander of the Second Division."
A new name.
A new role.
A new fire.