Chapter 176: Into the Den
The Hollow held its breath.
Word of King Thalren's request had rippled through the chambers of the council and across the streets like a wind carrying embers. Whispers spread: that Kael was being asked to risk himself, that the king sought to use him as bait to draw the traitor into the open. It divided opinions, some muttering that no ruler would ever set himself up so vulnerably, others declaring that only Kael was bold — or reckless — enough to make such a choice.
Kael sat at the council table, the king's parchment unfurled before him. He'd read the words a dozen times, each one heavier with repetition.
"This is no small risk," Thalos muttered, his arms folded tightly. His voice carried the iron weight of a soldier's caution. "You'll be the firebrand in the middle of their tinderbox."
Fenrik leaned forward in his chair, gaze sharp. "And if the flames catch, then better it be us who walk through them. We'll see the traitor's face before the kingdom burns."
Rogan nodded, his jaw set in that quiet, unflinching way of his. "I'll go. If Kael is willing to put himself forward like this, then I'll be at his side. It isn't loyalty alone — it's common sense. He'll need people who can strike fast if the trap snaps."
Across the table, Lyria's hands clenched into fists. "You can't be serious. All of you. Thalren is playing with fire, and you're letting him use you as kindling."
Kael lifted his gaze to her, steady and unwavering. "No. I'm letting him use my fire as bait. And that's a choice I make, not him." His voice was calm but carried iron beneath it. "This is bigger than me, Lyria. If the traitor festers, it will rot the alliance, and rot has a way of spreading. Better we carve it out now, however deep we must cut."
Silence followed. Then Rogan's voice broke it, low and certain. "Then it's decided. We ride."
The message Kael sent back to Thalren was short and sharp:
I accept. Prepare your trap. I will come.
No flourish, no formality. Only the blade of intent.
The council was dismissed soon after, though not without lingering glares and muttered protests. Lyria lingered the longest, catching Kael's arm before he left.
"You always bear the sharpest edge yourself," she said, voice trembling with restrained emotion. "Just… don't make me find you broken again."
Kael turned, his hand cupping her cheek gently, his gaze softening in that rare way only she could draw from him. "I won't break. Not while you're waiting for me."
It was the only promise he could give — and the only one she needed.
The morning they left, the Hollow gathered at the gates. Farmers, miners, smiths, children clutching their mothers' skirts — all lined the path to see their leader depart. Not as an exile, not as a fugitive, but as their chosen defender.
Fenrik swung up onto the back of a direwolf, the beast's dark fur bristling under its saddle. Rogan mounted another, his posture rigid, his hand resting calmly on the hilt of his blade. And Kael stood apart, the black sheen of Umbra's scales catching the early light as the great beast bent low for him to climb onto his back.
"Stay vigilant," Kael commanded, his voice carrying across the gathered crowd. "Keep the Hollow strong while I'm gone. Work, train, watch each other's backs. If a storm comes, stand together, as we always have."
Umbra's wings flexed, the gust of wind sending cloaks snapping and dust spiraling. Kael turned once to meet Lyria's gaze at the front of the crowd. She gave no smile, no tearful farewell, only a firm nod — the kind shared between warriors, not lovers. He returned it, then pulled Umbra's reins.
The gates opened. The Hollow watched as their leader and his chosen companions rode out, direwolves bounding at Umbra's sides, vanishing into the forested horizon.
The journey was long and deliberate. They traveled swiftly but not recklessly, wary of ambushes.
At night, they made camp by rivers and outcroppings, the air growing sharper as autumn deepened. Rogan kept the watch in silence, his presence like stone in the dark. Fenrik filled the silence with sardonic remarks, though his tone carried little of its usual humor.
"You realize," Fenrik said one evening as they huddled around a low fire, "if this goes wrong, Thalren will have his traitor's face — and we'll be dead before we know it."
Kael stared into the flames, expression unmoving. "Then we'll make sure it doesn't go wrong."
Rogan's voice rumbled quietly. "Simple as that."
The words were not bravado. Not bluster. They were a soldier's creed, spoken plainly.
Kael allowed himself a rare moment of quiet reflection as he lay back, Umbra's great bulk curled protectively nearby. He thought of the Hollow — the mines, the fields, the laughter of children echoing in the square. He thought of Lyria's hand on his cheek, her words burning like embers in his chest. And he thought of Azhara, her strange pale eyes watching him with something between devotion and wonder.
They were why he rode into danger. They were why he could not falter.
By the fourth day, the Ocean Kingdom's spires broke the horizon, rising against the blue-gray sweep of sea and sky. The wind carried the salt of the ocean, mingling with the cries of gulls.
The gates loomed, wide and reinforced, the banners of Thalren's house snapping in the breeze — deep sapphire with the crest of a silver kraken. Soldiers lined the walls, their armor glinting, their faces unreadable as they watched the trio approach.
Umbra's claws struck the stone road with a steady rhythm, the direwolves padding at his flanks. The sight alone drew whispers among the guards, some stepping back instinctively at the shadow Kael cast across the gate.
Kael reined Umbra to a halt before the towering doors, his gaze rising to meet the soldiers above. His voice carried like a hammer striking steel.
"Tell your king. Kael of the Hollow has come."
The gates shuddered as they began to open, the path into the Ocean Kingdom revealed.
Kael's eyes narrowed, his claws flexing at his side. He knew — with absolute certainty — that beyond those gates waited both ally and enemy. That within those walls, the traitor's game would finally be forced into the open.
And he intended to be ready.