They called them ghosts.
Whispers carried through the camp faster than horses could gallop—about the quiet deaths, the names scrubbed from tent posts, the sudden silences that followed entire lines of noble-born officers. They didn't scream. They didn't get trials. They simply vanished.
That was the beauty of it.
Because it wasn't fear that held the Red Demon Army together now—it was belief.
And the belief was in me.
I didn't ask for that.
But that didn't mean that I would reject it either.
The morning air was bitter, still heavy with ash and the memory of burned meat. We had passed judgment on those around us. Phase two was now complete. There were fewer enemies within our walls than ever before, but my pulse didn't slow. I wasn't relieved. I didn't think that life was fine now and that everything was over.
Just because the enemies in the light had been dealt with, it didn't mean that there weren't still enemies in the dark.
