Kael's POV
I burst into Commander Lyria's tent, the orcish note clutched in my hand.
"We have a traitor!" I gasp.
Lyria is awake instantly, knife in hand. "What?"
I show her the note. She reads it, her face going pale. "Where did you find this?"
"Orc scouts dropped it. They were warning Draeka about a spy in our camp." My words tumble over each other. "Someone's going to signal the Sanctum when we leave for the capital. They're planning an ambush!"
Lyria curses. "How many people know about our Summit plan?"
"Everyone in this camp. Fifty people." I swallow hard. "Any one of them could be the traitor."
"Then we move now. Before they can signal." Lyria starts grabbing supplies. "Wake everyone. We leave in twenty minutes."
"But it's the middle of the night—"
"Which means the traitor won't expect it." She meets my eyes. "If we wait until dawn like planned, we're dead. Move!"
I run through camp, waking people. Jonas and Pip stumble out of their tent confused. Draeka emerges looking suspicious. Within minutes, chaos erupts—rebels packing horses, checking weapons, arguing about the sudden change.
"This is a mistake," Thrain mutters. "Moving in darkness through hostile territory—"
"Better than getting ambushed at dawn," Lyria snaps. "Mount up!"
Sylvara appears beside me, her hands glowing with silvery light. "Your disguise. We need to do it now."
The magic feels like ice water poured over my skin. My face tingles. My bones ache. When Sylvara hands me a mirror, a stranger looks back—older face, different nose, brown eyes instead of gray.
"It'll last three days," she says. "After that, we'll need to recast. Don't touch your face too much or it might flicker."
I look like a stranger wearing my clothes.
We ride out in a column—fifty rebels, three prisoners-turned-heroes, and one orc princess pretending to trust humans. The forest is pitch black. Every shadow could hide Sanctum soldiers.
Or the traitor could be riding right beside me.
I watch everyone with paranoid eyes. Is it the red-haired scout to my left? The dwarf checking his crossbow? That elf who keeps whispering to his companion?
"Stop staring at people," Jonas mutters beside me. "You look guilty."
"Someone here wants us dead," I whisper back.
"Yeah, but freaking out won't help." He adjusts his disguise—Sylvara made him look like a servant boy. "Just stay alert."
We ride for two hours without incident. Maybe we escaped before the traitor could act. Maybe—
The first arrow comes from our own ranks.
It punches through the throat of the rebel riding in front of me. He falls without a sound.
Everything explodes.
Sanctum soldiers pour from the trees on all sides—hundreds of them. But worse, rebels in our own column turn on us. The traitors reveal themselves, attacking their former allies.
"AMBUSH!" Lyria screams. "SCATTER!"
Chaos. Pure chaos.
I see Thrain tackle a traitor-rebel trying to stab Sylvara. See Commander Lyria dueling three soldiers at once. See Draeka on her injured leg, swinging her axe like a demon, protecting Pip.
"KAEL!" Jonas grabs my arm. "We have to run!"
But run where? Enemies everywhere. Friends becoming enemies. Blood and screaming and—
An explosion rocks the ground. My horse rears, throwing me. I hit dirt hard, roll, come up dizzy.
A Sanctum soldier charges me, sword raised.
Jonas appears from nowhere, driving a knife into the soldier's back. "MOVE!"
We run into the forest. Pip struggles to keep up. Behind us, the battle rages—steel on steel, screams, dying.
"Where's Draeka?" I gasp.
"Last I saw, she was—DUCK!"
I drop as an arrow whistles overhead. More soldiers ahead. We're surrounded.
"This way!" Pip points to a steep ravine. "Down there!"
We slide down the muddy slope. Branches tear at us. I lose my footing and tumble, crashing through bushes until I hit bottom.
Jonas lands beside me. "Everyone alive?"
"Barely," I cough.
"Where's Pip?" Jonas looks around.
My blood goes cold. Pip's not here.
"PIP!" I scream up the ravine.
No answer.
"We have to go back—" I start climbing.
"We'll die!" Jonas pulls me down. "Kael, listen to me. We're separated. Outnumbered. Our disguises are blown—look at your face!"
I touch my cheek. The magic is fading, probably from the fall. My real features are showing through.
"We need to hide," Jonas says urgently. "Regroup. Find the others later."
"I'm not leaving Pip—"
"He'd want you to survive!" Jonas's voice cracks. "Someone has to reach the Summit. Someone has to expose the conspiracy. That someone is you!"
Above us, voices shout. Soldiers searching.
Jonas drags me deeper into the ravine. We crawl through a narrow gap between rocks, squeezing into a tiny cave. Barely big enough for both of us.
We press against the back wall, hardly breathing.
Soldiers appear at the ravine edge. Torches. Voices.
"...tracks go down here..."
"...search every cave..."
"...the Thornhaven boy can't hide forever..."
They start climbing down.
Jonas and I exchange looks. This is it. We're trapped. No weapons except his knife. No magic. No hope.
The soldiers get closer. Twenty feet. Ten feet.
Then someone screams above—a woman's war cry.
"FOR THE BLOODFORGE CLAN!"
Draeka.
The soldiers spin around. I hear fighting—Draeka's roar, soldiers cursing, someone falling.
"It's the orc!" a soldier shouts. "Forget the boys—kill her!"
They scramble back up the ravine.
Jonas and I don't wait. We burst from the cave and run the opposite direction, following the ravine deeper into darkness.
Behind us, Draeka's roars fade to silence.
She just sacrificed herself to save us.
We run until we can't run anymore. Until my lungs burn and my legs give out. We collapse beside a stream, gasping.
"Everyone's gone," Jonas whispers. "Lyria, Thrain, Sylvara, Pip, Draeka... all gone."
I can't speak. Can't process. My father's evidence is in Lyria's pack—probably captured now. The rebellion is shattered. The traitor won.
We failed.
"What do we do?" Jonas asks.
I think of Father's last words. Mother's sacrifice. Draeka trusting me despite every reason not to.
"We reach the Summit," I say quietly. "Somehow."
"We don't even know where the capital is from here!"
"Then we figure it out." I force myself to stand. "The Summit is in three days. If we can get there, testify about what we've seen—"
"They'll arrest us the moment we show our faces!" Jonas stands too. "We're deserters. Traitors. We have no evidence, no allies, no plan. It's over, Kael!"
"It's not over until we stop trying."
Jonas stares at me. Then laughs—bitter and broken. "You sound like your father. Bet that got him killed too."
Before I can respond, we hear voices.
Not soldiers. Something else.
We creep toward the sound and peer through bushes.
A small camp. Four people around a fire. But these aren't rebels or Sanctum soldiers.
They're prisoners. Still wearing Fort Bloodstone chains.
Expendables who escaped during the chaos.
And among them, I recognize two faces.
Gareth Ashford sits by the fire, head in his hands, crying.
And beside him, bound and gagged, is Pip—alive but captured.
My former best friend has my current best friend prisoner.
"We can't let them take him to the Sanctum," Gareth is saying to the other escapees. "They'll torture him for information about the rebels."
"So what do you suggest?" an older prisoner asks.
Gareth pulls out a knife. His hand shakes. "I suggest we make it quick. Merciful. Before the Sanctum finds us and makes us all suffer."
He's going to kill Pip.
Jonas grabs my arm, his grip desperate. "There's four of them. Two of us. No weapons. We can't—"
"I'm not letting Pip die." I stand up.
"Kael, wait—"
But I'm already walking into their camp, hands raised.
"Gareth," I say.
Four heads whip around. Gareth's face goes white.
"Kael?" He scrambles backward. "You're supposed to be dead. The ambush—"
"Surprised me too." I keep my hands visible. "Put down the knife, Gareth. Let Pip go."
"I can't." Gareth's voice breaks. "If the Sanctum finds us with a rebel prisoner, they'll execute all of us. If I kill him, I can say I was hunting rebels. It's the only way to save my sisters."
"Your sisters are probably already dead," I say, and the cruelty in my voice surprises me. "Aldric doesn't keep promises. He used them to control you, but once you're no longer useful..."
Gareth flinches like I've struck him.
"You're lying," he whispers.
"Am I? When's the last time you saw proof they're alive?" I step closer. "How many people have you betrayed for them, Gareth? My father. Your own honor. Now Pip. When does it end?"
The knife shakes in his hand. Pip whimpers through the gag, terrified.
"I had no choice," Gareth says, but he sounds uncertain now.
"There's always a choice." I meet his eyes—my former brother, now just a broken boy with bloody hands. "Choose right. Just once. Let him go."
The other three prisoners watch, uncertain whose side to take.
For one heartbeat, I think Gareth will lower the knife.
Then horses thunder into the clearing.
Sanctum soldiers. Dozens of them.
Leading them is someone I've never seen before—a woman in white and gold, beautiful and cold, with calculating blue eyes.
"Well," she purrs. "What do we have here? The traitor's son, the coward knight, and a collection of escaped prisoners." She dismounts gracefully. "I'm Vivienne Ashford. Gareth's cousin. And I've been looking everywhere for you, Kael Thornhaven."
Everything clicks into place.
"You're the traitor," I breathe. "Not in our camp. You turned Gareth. Used him to track us."
Vivienne smiles. "Gareth's always been easy to manipulate. Promise to protect his sisters, and he'll betray anyone." She glances at her cousin. "Speaking of which—your sisters are fine. In a Sanctum orphanage. You could visit them... if you kill the halfling right now and prove your loyalty."
Gareth looks between Vivienne and Pip. The knife trembles.
"Do it," Vivienne orders. "Or I'll order your sisters transferred to the labor camps."
I see the exact moment Gareth breaks.
He raises the knife over Pip's heart.
"Gareth, NO!"
I lunge forward.
Three things happen at once:
Jonas tackles Gareth from behind.
Vivienne's soldiers surge forward.
And from the forest, someone roars: "GET AWAY FROM THEM!"
Draeka crashes into the clearing on a stolen horse, covered in blood—both hers and others'—swinging her axe like an avenging goddess.
Chaos erupts again.
I grab Pip, ripping off his gag. "Can you run?"
"Try and stop me," he gasps.
Jonas appears beside us. "GO!"
We run as Draeka holds off twenty soldiers single-handedly, buying us seconds.
Behind us, Vivienne's voice cuts through chaos: "Forget them! Follow the Thornhaven boy! He knows where the evidence is hidden!"
And I realize—she's right.
I'm the only one left who knows the third location.
If I die, the conspiracy stays hidden forever.
We crash through the forest, pursued by soldiers and destiny and the weight of everyone counting on me.
Somewhere ahead is the capital.
Somewhere in that city is Summit Hall.
And somewhere in that hall is my father's last hidden truth.
If I can just survive long enough to find it.
Behind me, Draeka screams one final war cry.
Then silence.
And I know—with terrible certainty—that she just died buying us time.
The orc princess who learned to trust a human.
Gone.
Because of me.
I run faster, tears streaming down my face, carrying the weight of all the dead.
And praying I'm worth their sacrifice.