The storm burst over the monastery like an animal shaking its head. Thunder pounded the vaulted ceiling, and rain clawed at the shattered stained glass above, striping the stone floor of the cellar with tendrils of blood and gold. Lamplight leaped across the room, shadows bounding like trapped spirits. No longer holy, this place of prayer had been war-room, sanctuary, and now arena.
Maps were scattered over the oak table, their edges weighted down by daggers. Crates of provisions stood against the damp walls: hard bread, waterskins, lamp oil, ammunition. Grappling hooks and coils of rope lay amidst rolls of bandages and bloodied knives. The air was heavy with the smell of rust and damp earth, cutting with the bitter tang of burning oil.
Damian towered over the head of the table, broad shoulders hunched, fists planted on the map as if he could crush Lucian's empire through sheer force of will. His jaw clenched, teeth bared. His coffee had grown cold beside his knife.
Elara sat on a low bench, spine straight though her hands were balled into fists in her lap. She was pale with exhaustion, dark circles carved under her eyes, but the mutiny in her eyes burned like a coal.
Adriana leaned against the stone doorway, arms folded, one boot cocked against the frame. She could feel the storm within the room mirroring the one outside the kind that screamed in silence, waiting to strike.
It did.
"You knew."
Damian's voice was a whip, raw and cutting, cracking through the cellar.
Elara flinched, just for a heartbeat. Then her chin lifted. "I didn't know everything." Her voice trembled at the edges but held. "But I knew enough to survive. Lucian doesn't let anyone in unless he owns them. I did what I had to."
Damian's glare cut deeper than steel. "You did what he told you."
"I did what survived me," Elara shot back, voice pitched higher, louder. "And what kept me where, maybe, I could help others too. Do you think I wanted any of it?"
The storm replied with a growl of thunder, shaking dust from the vaulted ceiling.
Adriana pushed off the wall, stepping forward, her tone level. "Enough. We've all done things we'd rather not remember. What matters is whether she's with us now."
Damian whirled, fury simmering. "And what if she betrays us the moment we enter Lucian's maw? What if she's bringing us into a trap?"
"She's not," Adriana said.
"You don't know that."
"I know enough."
Their eyes locked, steel on steel. Adriana's heart was pounding in her throat. Damian's fists were clenched so tightly the knuckles went white. For a terrible moment she thought he would lunge, draw his sword, finish what he'd started with words. He spun away instead, pacing the length of the cellar like a caged wolf. His anger radiated with every step, clattering in the lamplight.
Victor's voice slipped into the silence from the corner.
"Such passion," he said, smooth and entertained. He was lounging against the wall as though he owned it, arms crossed, lips curled. "But passion without discipline burns itself out. Perhaps remind your general, Adriana, that mistrust is exactly what Lucian wants."
"Don't lecture me," Damian spat.
Victor simply shrugged, his grin broadening. "I offer counsel, not comfort. If you want neither, be my guests and slash each other's throats here in the cellar. Save Lucian the inconvenience."
His words lingered in the air like smoke.
Elara swallowed once. Her voice was softer when she spoke again, more dangerous for the breaks in it. "I cannot undo what I've done. But I can make other choices now. Give me the chance to prove it or kill me. Just don't waste time pretending you can do this without every hand you've got."
Adriana's chest ached. She heard truth in Elara's words, truth that was bitter and raw and costly.
"She's right," Adriana said, firm.
Damian stopped pacing. His eyes locked on hers, and beneath the anger she saw it the fear.
"I don't want to lose you."
The words dropped like a drawn blade, ringing in the quiet of the storm.
Adriana's breath caught, her body tense. The storm outside fell silent for a heartbeat, as though the whole world leaned in to listen. She longed to answer, to fling her truth against his, to watch it burn. But the moment was volatile, a razor's edge.
So she stepped closer instead, laid a hand on his arm, warm and firm. "Then don't leave me to fight this alone."
His eyes softened, but the storm in him did not abate. He nodded, a silent vow.
The silence that followed was tense, a quasi-sacrament.
It was Corvane who broke it, the old veteran who had stood at the cellar's edge all night. His voice was the whisper of dry leaves. "Secrets make bad bricks for walls. Take care yours don't fall when the storm has passed.".
His warning dropped like a curse. Thunder was subdued by comparison.
Adriana spun around, but Corvane had already moved deeper into darkness, his scarred face half-devoured by shadows.
Victor laughed low, lips curling more wickedly. "Poetic. Secrets, storms, falling walls. Perhaps we'll see soon enough which one of you is left when they do."
He bowed mockingly and slithered from the cellar, footsteps dissolved in the patter of rain.
No one followed.
The room was colder without him. The storm rattled the monastery walls.
Elara exhaled and lowered her eyes, shame briefly destroying her defiance. In her mind, a dagger of memory: Lucian's voice, smooth as silk, reciting orders in her ear. The pressure of his hand on her shoulder, the constant reminder that she was his to command or discard. She remembered the night he made her name a weapon against her own people, remembered the tremble in her hands as she obeyed.
She blinked hard, banishing it.
"I'll prove myself," she whispered, more to herself than to them.
Damian watched her with a face conflicted between contempt and grudging respect. He knew betrayal as well his first commander, a man he'd trusted like kin, who'd sold half his company to Lucian for gold and a promise. Damian still heard the screams in his sleep, still woke with clenched fists on nothing. Betrayal was a wound that never healed. That was why Elara's presence burned like salt.
Still, Adriana's hand stayed on his arm. And he could not make himself brush it off.
The men around them quieted slowly, grumbling under their breath, a few whispering prayers to saints carved into the monastery walls. One kissed the blade of his dagger, whispering the name of his daughter. Another tucked a piece of cloth into his shirt a ribbon, faded pink, from someone waiting far back. Their witness was the storm, their prayers ascending like smoke through the cracks.
Julian sat at his console in the corner, screens softly aglow, decrypting Lucian radio chatter. His voice was weary but even as he called out patrol rotations, each word a thread in the tapestry of their survival.
Corvane was a presence in the shadows, unmoving, watching. When the others had grown quieter, Victor moved back not to the others, but to the hall's end, where Corvane stood like a sentry.
They talked in low voices, almost lost under the thunder.
"You talk like a prophet," Victor said quietly.
"And you listen like a viper," Corvane roughly retorted.
Victor laughed. "We'll see who strikes first."
They shared a glance like crossing swords. Then Victor disappeared again into the storm, leaving behind the feel of unease in the air.
Adriana moved closer to the table once more, hands stretching out over the map. The lines and marks stared back at her like veins, the heart of Lucian's stronghold pulsating in the center. Every path was a risk. Every decision could bleed them dry.
Her eyes closed, and in the shadows behind them she whispered to herself:
We will not break. Not now. Not until Lucian falls.
The tempest howled, battering the bones of the monastery.
And within it, the fragile accord had splintered, strained, but not shattered. Yet.