While Vierna had expected that Fenric might report her, she still found it hard to believe he actually would. If he did, her entire mission would be in jeopardy—perhaps even fail outright.

  Her composure cracked. Her fingers trembled as she reached toward him, then stopped halfway, curling into fists at her chest. There was no mask left to wear, no angle left to play. Her training, her wit, her practiced calm—none of it mattered now. She stood there like a cornered girl stripped of every defense, her voice caught between pleading and disbelief. In that moment, she looked nothing like a spy, only someone whose fragile thread of salvation was about to be cut by the cruel knife of truth.

  “Fenric… I understand why you said that, I really do. After all, I lied to you more than once. But please—if you tell him about my mission…” Her voice trembled, the plea breaking through her composure. “You don’t understand. If Loran’del learns what I’m doing here, if the Reich finds out I failed to keep it contained, they won’t just punish me—they’ll come for Lina too. Please, I’m begging you.”

  “No, Vierna… you’re wrong.”

  Vierna studied his face. The hard, suspicious expression that had dominated his features slowly softened. His eyes, once sharp and judging, grew distant, almost regretful. The black veins still pulsed faintly beneath his skin, thin stygian threads that twitched with each heartbeat. Yet even through that quiet agony, the gentleness she remembered surfaced again, like light struggling to break through soot.

  “I’m not doing this because I want you to fail. On the contrary, I want your mission to succeed.”

  For a moment she was not sure she had heard him correctly. His face did not shift all at once; it changed in fragments, the tightness in his jaw easing, the suspicion in his eyes giving way to something heavier, more conflicted. He looked away briefly, as if weighing his own words.

  “What?”

  “Like I said, what I want is to live peacefully in Rolbart,” Fenric said as he stared at Vierna. “And Yvlaine’s group threatens that. If the village’s chief cooperates with you, maybe the Reich will not brand us as traitors.”

  Vierna’s brows drew together. “You know how suspicious he has been of me from the start. If I confess now, he will just throw me out of the village.”

  “If he knows that you are an agent of the Reich, he will not kick you out. Look at how cooperative he was with Korrn, and Korrn was an asshole. If he can cooperate with that kind of man, he will cooperate with you too.”

  Vierna thought about it. Fenric’s idea was not half bad, and having someone like Loran’del helping her would make the mission much easier.

  Maybe the idea that no one could know about her mission had been a mistaken assumption on her part. Leopold had never said that directly; he had only told her to locate the revolutionaries, find out how they survived the forest, and report back. He had never said how, only that she needed to earn the villagers’ trust.

  And maybe Loran’del could do that. It was clear he was familiar with Yvlaine, that he held some kind of grudge against her, and that he knew far more about her than Vierna ever could by infiltrating the group herself. Maybe he was the key to her mission after all.

  But then she thought what Loran’del did so far.

  From Leopold’s briefing, she knew both the count and the baron had dismissed the possibility of a revolutionary group. But if Loran’del had reported it, they would not have brushed it aside so easily. Even if they hated Rolbart, ignoring an official report especially about traitorous activity would be reckless. If the revolutionaries resurfaced later, they themselves could be branded as traitors, and the Reich was merciless toward traitors and collaborators.

  Which meant only one thing: for whatever reason, Loran’del had never reported Yvlaine’s group at all.

  “Fenric… telling Loran’del would be the opposite of me succeeding in my mission.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Think about it. There is no way Loran’del does not already know about the revolutionaries. But he has not reported them. Why?”

  Fenric’s mouth opened, then closed again. His brow furrowed as he looked down at the ground, thoughts flickering behind his eyes. He leaned back slightly, crossing his arms, the silence stretching between them. The firelight caught the black veins along his neck as they pulsed once, twice, like a heartbeat syncing with his hesitation. He did not answer right away. He was thinking, really thinking, tracing the logic she had just laid out and realizing how right she might be.

  Vierna gathered everything she knew so far. Right now everything in her head was an assumption she believed to be true, but she did not have definitive proof, only what she had seen and deduced. But it did not matter. What she needed was to convince Fenric not to report her, and she did not need to lie to do it, only frame it as a question.

  Yet it still carried a risk. If she was wrong about how the Hairon Root tea worked, that speculative question might count as a lie, and Fenric would notice her pain. Then all her chances to salvage her mission would be gone. But if she played her cards right, she might salvage this situation and even gain an inside ally in the process.

  So she decided to go all in.

  “Fenric,” she said quietly, “don’t you think Loran’del might have some kind of connection with the revolutionaries?”

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  “Wha…”

  “Let us discuss what we know so far. First, is Loran’del the type of person who would lose control the way he did during my interrogation?”

  “No. I never saw him as angry as that.”

  Vierna then started to be more convinced herself. Right now she was fully convinced that Loran’del held something deeper.

  She looked at him. His gaze was stern, as if he spoke with full conviction. “What if it was deliberate?”

  “How can it be deliberate? That outrage damaged his image.”

  “I am not entirely sure, but is it not suspicious that someone as calm as him, even when dealing with Korrn, would lash out like that in front of everyone?”

  Analyzing how the dialogue went on, Lina could understood vaguely what Vierna tried to do here. And she did have an information that could supported her.

  “People keep talking about it,” Lina added. “This morning, when I took a bath with some of the teenagers, they said they are afraid of Loran’del and are thinking about joining Yvlaine. But since that outlash, they are considering to join her.”

  Fenric looked at Lina for a while. It was clear from his gaze that he didn’t completely trust Lina due to the fact she didn’t drink any of the tea. Then he turned towards Vierna.

  “I don’t know. I can’t even guess his aim if it was deliberate. Maybe there was a bigger picture at play, but as you said, you never see him angry. That loss of control… I don’t believe it was purely that, but I can’t pinpoint exactly why.”

  “Besides, Fenric,” Lina started.

  Fenric looked at her sharply. His eyes locked onto her like an arrow ready to be loosed. He gripped his knuckles, the uncertainty he had shown during Vierna’s story gone along with any softness the moment he looked at Lina.

  The picture was clear to Lina. While he did want them to succeed, he still believed his way was the correct one. Vierna would never jump to a conclusion she did not consider solid, which was why she hovered behind questions. But Lina was different.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Lina muttered. She dragged herself toward the hearth, grabbed the wooden ladle, and poured herself some tea.

  “Lina! Don’t—”

  Vierna’s objection went unheard. Lina drank the tea in one gulp. Its heat bit at her broken face, yet she felt nothing. She opened her mouth and turned the cup upside down to show she had truly swallowed it.

  “There. Now listen. I honestly think Loran’del did it on purpose so even the villagers who resisted at first would end up coming to Yvlaine. If he had openly agreed with her, the ones against it would have run or reported them. So he played it smart. He created a charade so people would think Loran’del was peaceful, when in reality he wasn’t and wanted to join Yvlaine too.”

  Vierna could only guess at Lina’s thoughts, but she had a feeling Lina did not need concrete evidence to be suspicious of Loran’del. What he had done to her before, combined with the fact that he had never reported Yvlaine’s activity to the Reich, seemed more than enough for Lina to grow both distrust and hatred for the elf chief. Vierna knew Lina had a habit of leaping to conclusions, following her emotions first, but whatever she was saying now, she clearly believed it. And as far as Vierna could tell, every word she gave Fenric came from that belief.

  “Didn’t Loran’del also let Yvlaine recruit villagers here?” Lina continued.

  “That’s because if he didn’t allow her, she would stop the food delivery, which we really need,” Fenric said.

  “That’s what she told you. He could have simply gone to the Duke if things were that bad here.”

  “That’s not how it works!” Fenric snapped, starting to lose his composure. “There is a Count and a Baron before a Duke. He can’t just skip the hierarchy.”

  “So depending on food from rebels was better than breaching Reich hierarchy?

  Are you even sure Loran’del ever tried going to the Duke? Because if he’s truly loyal to the Reich, that option sounds a lot better than relying on rebels.

  You’re afraid of Rolbart being complicit? Look at it, Fenric. Whether you want it or not, if the Reich digs deeper and finds out Loran’del let Yvlaine recruit villagers in exchange for food, you’re all going to hang — no matter what his intentions were.”

  Fenric was stunned. There was barely an angle he could use to defend Loran’del now. And Lina’s face didn’t change at all; she wasn’t sweating, and even her injured leg didn’t seem to bother her anymore.

  Even if it was unclear whether her theory was true, Vierna was still surprised. At the very least, Lina completely believed what she said, and if she was being honest, the theory sounded solid on the surface. To come up with something like this—this wasn’t how Lina used to be. Vierna couldn’t help but feel proud of how much she had improved.

  Fenric didn’t answer. He studied Lina carefully. His gaze fixed on her like a blade held to a throat. He watched the way she breathed, the rise and fall of her shoulders, the twitch of her fingers, the pulse beating in her neck. Lina met his stare without flinching, her expression steady, her jaw locked against the throb in her injured foot.

  Seconds dragged. Then more.

  The crackle of firewood punctured the silence like snapping bones.

  Thunder rolled outside, distant and heavy.

  The wind carved through the cave, cold enough to sting skin, yet Fenric’s scrutiny felt colder.

  Vierna kept still, barely breathing. Every heartbeat felt like a countdown. Her own words from earlier echoed in her skull, twisting, tightening. She believed what she’d said — enough that the tea wouldn’t hurt her — but Lina… Lina was a different story. Lina was impulsive, angry, reckless. She jumped to conclusions because she felt them, not because she understood them.

  And what if this time she had jumped too far?

  What if she had spoken out of rage instead of conviction?

  What if she thought she believed it, but didn’t believe it enough?

  The thought hit Vierna like ice water in her lungs. If Lina’s certainty cracked even a little — even a hairline fracture — the Hairon Root would rip her open from the inside. And Fenric would see it. And then everything would come apart.

  Her chest tightened. Her palms went cold. Her thoughts spiraled faster, each one sharper than the last.

  Did Lina really believe what she said? Did she understand the risk? Did she even think before she spoke? Please… please let her believe it.

  But Lina didn’t move. Not a flinch. Not a twitch. She held her ground, letting him search her face for as long as he needed, letting the truth settle through silence rather than words.

  It felt endless.

  The crackle of firewood snapped like breaking nerves.

  Thunder rolled outside, heavy and mocking.

  Fenric’s stare cut through the air like a blade, and Vierna swore she could feel it scraping against Lina’s skin.

  Only after what felt like minutes did Fenric finally inhale. A slow, controlled breath. Something in his eyes loosened. Not trust, not fully — but enough to shake his certainty. Enough to let the moment live. Enough to keep everything from collapsing.

  “Fenric.” Vierna’s voice cut through the silence. “Reporting us to Loran’del would be a mistake.”