Kael's POV
We run until dawn breaks through the trees.
My legs are screaming. My side wound has reopened—blood soaking through my shirt. Jonas looks worse, limping from a twisted ankle. Pip can barely breathe, his shoulder wound aggravated from being tied up.
"We have to stop," Jonas gasps. "Just for a minute."
We collapse beside a stream. I splash water on my face, trying to wash away the blood and exhaustion and grief.
Draeka's final scream echoes in my mind. She died for us. The orc princess who learned to trust humans died protecting human boys she barely knew.
"She might have survived," Pip says quietly, reading my face.
"Twenty soldiers, Pip. She was already injured." My voice breaks. "She's gone."
Jonas grips my shoulder. "Then we make her sacrifice matter. We reach the Summit. Expose everything."
I want to believe him. Want to think three broken boys can change the world.
Then we hear it: voices. Shouting. The clash of weapons.
"More fighting," Pip whispers. "Should we hide?"
But something about the voices feels wrong. They're speaking Orcish. Angry. Accusing.
"This way." I creep through the undergrowth toward the sound.
We emerge at the edge of a clearing. My heart stops.
A dozen orc warriors surround someone on the ground. Someone massive and green-skinned, barely moving.
Draeka.
She's alive—but just barely. Covered in blood, her leg twisted at a horrible angle, half-buried under fallen logs from the battle. She must have fought off the Sanctum soldiers then collapsed here.
But these aren't Sanctum soldiers threatening her now.
They're her own people.
"TRAITOR!" one orc warrior roars, his axe raised. "You helped humans! Protected their children while our villages burned!"
"I was trying... to stop the war..." Draeka's voice is weak. "The evidence... could save us all..."
"By trusting THEM?" Another orc spits on her. "Chief Urgoth's daughter has gone soft. Forgotten what humans did to her brothers. To her father."
The warrior with the axe steps forward. "The elders have decided. You betrayed your people. The sentence is death."
"No," I breathe.
Jonas grabs my arm. "Kael, don't—"
But I'm already moving, stumbling into the clearing on exhausted legs.
"STOP!" I shout.
Twelve orc warriors turn to stare at me. Twelve sets of amber eyes fill with murderous rage.
"A human," one growls. "Perfect. We can kill both traitors."
"She's not a traitor!" I position myself between Draeka and the warriors, though I'm unarmed and half-dead. "She was trying to save your people!"
The lead warrior laughs—harsh and bitter. "Save us? By helping the son of a human lord? By fighting her own kind?" He points his axe at Draeka. "She killed three of our warriors during that ambush. Killed them to protect YOU."
My blood runs cold. "She... what?"
"Didn't she tell you?" The warrior's smile is cruel. "When your Sanctum soldiers attacked, some of our scouts were hunting nearby. They saw the chaos and attacked both sides—humans and humans' allies. Draeka chose to protect you instead of her own people. That's treason."
I look at Draeka. She won't meet my eyes.
She killed her own kind. For me.
"I didn't ask her to—" I start.
"Doesn't matter what you asked." The warrior raises his axe. "Step aside, human boy. This is orc justice."
"Then kill me too," I say.
Everyone freezes.
"What?" the warrior asks.
"If she dies for protecting me, then I should die too." I kneel beside Draeka, my hand finding hers. "We're in this together. Her people, my people—we're all victims of the same conspiracy. Kill us both, or let us finish what we started."
The warriors exchange uncertain looks.
Draeka squeezes my hand weakly. "You're an idiot, Thornhaven," she whispers. "They'll actually kill you."
"I know." I squeeze back. "But I won't let you die alone. Not after everything."
The lead warrior studies us. "You would die for an orc? After what we've done to your people?"
"After what the SANCTUM did to both our peoples," I correct. "The orcs didn't start this war. My father proved that. Draeka knows it. And if you kill us now, the truth dies too. The genocide continues. Your children, your clans—all dead within a generation."
Silence falls over the clearing.
Another orc warrior steps forward—older, with gray in his hair and scars covering his arms. "The boy speaks truth. I fought beside Chief Urgoth in the border wars thirty years ago. He always said humans could be reasoned with. That peace was possible."
"Peace?" The lead warrior spits. "They burned our villages!"
"The SANCTUM burned our villages," the older orc corrects. "Not all humans. Just like not all orcs are warriors. Some are farmers. Children. Healers." He looks at me. "What do you carry in that pack, human boy?"
I realize he's seen the small satchel I grabbed during our escape. Inside is one thing—Father's original testimony, the one with coded locations. Not evidence itself, but a map to it.
"My father's final words," I say. "Instructions to find proof that the Sanctum orchestrated this war. Proof that could stop the killing."
"Words." The lead warrior scoffs. "We've heard human words before. They mean nothing."
"Then let me prove it!" I stand, swaying from exhaustion. "The Summit of Races meets in two days. Every leader on the continent will be there. Let me present the evidence. If I'm lying, you can kill me after. But if I'm telling the truth..."
"If you're telling the truth, we might have a chance to save our people." The older orc looks at Draeka. "What say you, daughter of Urgoth? Do you trust this human boy?"
Draeka struggles to sit up, her face twisted with pain. "I trust that he's too stubborn to lie. Too stupid to give up. Too much like his father to let innocent people die." She meets my eyes. "Yes. I trust him."
The warriors argue among themselves in rapid Orcish. I catch maybe one word in five, but the tone is clear: some want us dead, others want to take the chance.
Finally, the lead warrior speaks. "We make a deal, human. We will escort you to the capital—"
"What?" I gasp.
"—but under guard. You and your friends, plus Draeka. If you present evidence at the Summit and it proves true, we let you all live. If you fail or betray us..." He draws a finger across his throat. "We kill you in front of your human leaders. Show them what happens to liars."
It's a death sentence either way. But at least this way, we have a chance.
"Deal," I say.
The older orc shakes his head. "You're either very brave or very foolish, boy."
"Can't it be both?" Jonas mutters from the bushes where he and Pip still hide.
The lead warrior gestures. "Bring them all. We march at noon."
The orcs move to help Draeka—roughly, but they help. Jonas and Pip emerge, looking terrified but alive.
As the orcs set Draeka's broken leg and bind her wounds, she catches my arm.
"You didn't have to do that," she says quietly. "Offer to die with me."
"Yes, I did." I meet her amber eyes. "You've saved me three times now. Someone had to return the favor."
"Humans don't usually return favors to orcs."
"Then I guess I'm not a usual human."
Something shifts in her expression—the hatred fading just slightly, replaced by something I can't quite read.
"Your father would be proud," she says finally.
"So would yours," I reply.
By noon, we're marching—three human boys surrounded by twelve orc warriors, heading toward a city that wants us dead. Our only hope is a piece of paper with coded directions to evidence that might not exist anymore.
The lead warrior—his name is Krusk—explains the plan as we walk. "We'll enter the capital during the Summit chaos. Too many delegations arriving for guards to check everyone. We'll get you inside the Summit Hall. You'll testify, show evidence, expose conspiracy."
"And if we can't find the evidence in time?" Pip asks nervously.
Krusk's smile shows too many teeth. "Then we paint the Summit Hall floor with your blood and start a real war. Either way, your leaders will finally understand what they've done."
"Comforting," Jonas mutters.
We walk for hours. My wound throbs. Draeka is carried on a makeshift stretcher, unconscious more often than awake. The orcs don't talk to us except to give orders.
As sun sets, we make camp in a ravine. The orcs post guards. We're prisoners more than allies.
Jonas sits beside me, voice low. "Do you actually know where the evidence is hidden in Summit Hall?"
"No," I admit. "Father's note just said 'where truth speaks to power.' The Summit Hall is massive—hundreds of rooms, dozens of levels. It could be anywhere."
"So we're going to die."
"Probably." I look at Draeka's sleeping form. "But at least we'll die trying."
"You sound like her now." Jonas follows my gaze. "The way you look at her... that's dangerous, Kael."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." He keeps his voice barely audible. "She's an orc. You're human. Even if we somehow survive this and stop the war, there's no future where—"
"I don't care about futures," I interrupt. "I care about stopping genocide. The rest..." I shrug. "We'll probably be dead in two days anyway."
Jonas is quiet for a moment. "You really would have died for her back there. In the clearing."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I think about Father's lessons. About honor and sacrifice and what it means to be worth saving.
"Because she deserves someone who won't betray her," I say finally. "Everyone else has. Her own people just tried to kill her. The least I can do is prove that not all humans are monsters."
"By becoming her monster?"
"By becoming her ally." I meet his eyes. "Isn't that what Father died for? Proving different peoples can work together?"
Before Jonas can respond, Krusk appears above us.
"The capital is two days' march," he says. "We move fast. No stops. No mistakes." He looks at me. "And boy—if you're lying about this evidence, I'll make your death slow enough that you beg for mercy. Understand?"
"Understood."
Krusk walks away.
I lie back, staring at stars through the ravine opening. Somewhere ahead is the capital. The Summit. Father's hidden truth.
And between here and there: two days of marching with orcs who might kill us at any moment, through a country hunting us as traitors, toward a building where showing our faces means instant arrest.
Simple.
I close my eyes, trying to sleep.
That's when I hear the whisper—so quiet I almost miss it.
Someone speaking Common tongue. Someone in our group. Speaking to someone outside the camp.
"...yes, I have them... the Thornhaven boy and the orc princess... Summit Hall in two days... prepare the ambush..."
A traitor.
Again.
Someone in this very camp—orc or human—is betraying us to the Sanctum.
And I have no idea who.
My eyes snap open in the darkness, and I realize: we're not going to make it to the Summit.
We're walking straight into another trap.