The air still reeked of ash.
They had managed to escape Lucian's fortress alive, but it had not seemed like victory. It had seemed like fleeing through a cemetery, pursued by ghosts, with every heartbeat ringing in their ears of how nearly they had been consumed whole. The destroyed campfire spat and coughed spastically, casting long, jagged shadows on the walls of the cavern they had fled into.
Elara slumped back against stacked cloaks, her face waxy, her lips blue-tinged with fatigue. Adriana had tended her wounds until her fingers shook, but even her own magic was not enough to sew together the ravages Lucian's cursed chains had brought. Every hand of Elara's breathing pulled a thread of guilt deeper into the fold.
Nobody said anything at first. They just stood there, heavy as stone, punctuated only by the hacking of smoke from the fire. They were revolutionaries, fighters, survivors but this night they were broken children in the darkness.
Damian stood apart from the others, arms crossed, his broad shoulders squared with pent anger. His jaw was clenched, eyes burning as if reliving every instant of their defeat. He glared at Adriana by the fire, at the weariness in her bearing, and something inside him gave way.
Finally, he lost his temper.
We can't go on like this." His words slice the quiet, a knife edge. "We strike, and we strike now. Lucian bleeds the world dry while we sit around licking our wounds in caves. The more time we waste, the stronger he becomes.".
Adriana's head lifted, dark hair tumbling in wild waves about her face. Her eyes blazed with the same fire. "And if we walk right into his keep again, what then? Another trap? Another massacre? Elara won't survive another such battle. Neither will a good half of us."
"That's the voice of fear," Damian growled, moving toward the fire. "You want to wait until he's unstoppable? Until there is nothing left worth fighting for?
Adriana sprang to her feet, the sudden movement sending sparks flying. "Don't you ever dare twist this into cowardice. I've bled for this cause just as much as you have. I've watched men die in torment because of him. But I'm not going to waste lives for the sake of satisfying your ego."
The firelight stretched their shadows up against the walls of the cavern two figures engaged in battle that was as much a struggle within themselves as it was for Lucian.
Julian glared between them, his jaw clenched in anger, but he did not speak. Mira was struggling to tighten her bowstring, though her hands trembled. Even the younger warriors took a step back, eyes darting nervously.
Damian's hands clenched. His voice dropped lower, thick with something verging on desperation. "This has nothing to do with pride. It's you. You don't think I know? Every time you stall, every time you step back from the edge it's not tactics. It's fear of losing you. Fear of what if one of us doesn't come back.".
Adriana remained motionless. The air held its breath, all radiating glows in the fire frozen in a silence.
Her lips parted, but the words were absent. She loathed him in that moment for speaking what she had pushed so deep inside, loathed him for comprehending through her armor. But underneath anger was reality. She did vacillate. Not because she doubted the mission, but because to witness Damian dead his body falling lifeless upon some battlefield was unacceptable.
"Damn you," she breathed, her voice shattering slightly more than she wished.
Something drew back in Damian's eyes, but the fire still lingered, tempering it. He edged around the flames until he stood before her, near enough that the heat of his body nudged hers. For one heartbeat, the world narrowed so there was only the two of them.
"I'd dismantle his entire empire if it would keep you safe," he breathed. "Don't let me sit back and wait while he tightens his noose around your throat."
Her breath quivered. For a maddening, abandon-filled instant, she was tempted to lean against him, to let his words dissolve the walls she'd constructed. The cavern, the war, the blood all receded until there was only the beat between them, near confession, near surrender.
She wrenched her eyes away, jamming steel back into her spine. "We can't win this by throwing ourselves into the fire. Not even together."
The air between them hummed with everything left unspoken, a deadly closeness forged out of hate and desire both.
Julian's voice finally broke through, harsh but firm. "Enough. We're beating ourselves up and that is precisely what Lucian wants. We need clarity, not bickering.
The tension broke, though it didn't subside. Damian stepped back, raking a hand through his hair, panting as if he'd fought a war single-handedly. Adriana's fists curled at her sides before she forced herself to sit again, her face turned away from him.
Julian fell to his knee next to the fire, unrolling a coarse map upon the earth floor. "We can't overtake his stronghold again. Not yet. But we don't have to. Lucian's strength isn't in his defenses but in those he has under his control. If we can shatter that, we defeat him."
Mira crept closer, her brow wrinkled. "You're suggesting. treason?"
Not ours," Julian amended. "His. Lucian is surrounded by lieutenants sorcerers, generals, courtiers most of them kept in line by fear or ambition, not loyalty. Fear can break. Ambition can be shifted. If we can get one of them to turn on him, it opens the door from the inside."
The others exchanged uneasy glances. It was risky, dubious. But it was something more than despair.
And what if we can't?" Damian insisted, his voice still hard but gentler now.
Julian regarded him. "Then we improvise. But if we just keep pounding at his gates, we'll be dead before we reach him."
It was Elara, her voice weak but clear, that answered out of the silence. "Use me."
They all turned. She pushed herself onto one elbow despite the pain, her gaze set. "Lucian wants to keep me alive more than you ever will. He will hunt me, tempt me, enslave me but that is a weakness. We can use it."
Adriana would not nod. "No. Never. You barely have enough strength to hold yourself up.".
Elara's lips curved in a faint, bitter smile. "Which makes me perfect bait. He won't resist the chance to finish what he started. If I'm captured, you'll have your opening."
"Captured?" Damian's voice was thunder. "That's not a strategy, it's suicide."
Elara's eyes flashed to Adriana, then to Damian. "Sometimes the only way of fighting a predator is to bleed and let him close. You don't have to like it but you know I'm right."
The cave fell silent once more. The fire spat and crackled like shooting stars.
Finally, Adriana relaxed, her shoulders falling. "If we go in on this. we do it slow. Controlled. Elara doesn't put one foot in his crossfire unless we're ready to tear him limb from limb when he makes his move."
Damian swore under his breath but kept quiet. His jaw was clenched, his fists curled at his sides but the thread that bound them all together, frayed as it had become, held.
Julian nodded slowly, his eyes glinting with determination. "Then it's settled. We spring the trap. We shatter his inner guard. And when he takes the bait we finish this."
The flames leapt higher, casting hot light into their faces. For the first time since the raid, the group felt not fugitives, but warriors again. Broken, scarred, but unbroken.
Adriana stared at Damian across the fire. His eyes caught hers, and though there was no noise, the storm between them was fierce, undeniable. Words remained poised on the end of her tongue, unspoken, but smoldering.
Somewhere, she said to herself. But tonight.
Tonight, they had a war to win.