The fire burned low, casting jagged shadows across the ragged circle of survivors. Sparks hissed and died in the damp air, curling upward like prayers that would never be answered. The forest pressed in close around them, its silence heavy, almost listening.
Kael stood at the center, his cloak draped like a stormcloud over his broad shoulders. His gaze swept over the group, sharp and accusing. When he finally spoke, his voice was steel.
"One of you is feeding them."
The words cracked like a whip.
No one moved. Breath fogged in the chill night, but the air itself seemed to hold still, suspended on the edge of violence.
Jamie felt his pulse quicken. He had known this was coming. Kael's suspicion had been building since the ambush, festering like an untreated wound. Now it was breaking open.
Elian was the first to crack. His voice wavered, pitched too high. "I swear it wasn't me! I've done nothing but help. I warned you about the patrol—if I were a spy, why would I do that?"
His words tumbled out too quickly, too desperately. The others didn't meet his eyes.
Kael stepped closer, his boots grinding into the damp soil. "And yet the convoy was ready for us. Our traps, our timing—every move we made, they knew. You think coincidence explains that?"
"I—" Elian faltered, his hands lifting uselessly. His thin frame trembled, a rabbit cornered by wolves. "I don't know how they knew. But it wasn't me. You have to believe that."
Kael's hand drifted toward the hilt of his blade. His eyes, hard and glinting, slid past Elian. They landed on Derah.
The silence thickened.
Derah didn't flinch. He leaned against a tree at the edge of the circle, arms crossed loosely over his chest. His face was calm, unreadable, his gaze steady as Kael's narrowed in on him.
"You," Kael said, his voice low, dangerous. "Always standing apart. Always watching. You appeared in the woods like some phantom, offered help we didn't ask for. Who are you really, Derah? An infiltrator? A leash the regime tied around our necks?"
The accusation rippled through the group. A murmur of unease. Several hands twitched toward weapons.
Jamie's gut clenched. He knew where this was going. Kael's anger wasn't directionless anymore—it had found its target.
Derah finally spoke, his tone maddeningly even. "If I were a leash, you'd already be dead. I saved your lives. That should be enough."
"It isn't!" Kael roared, his voice echoing off the trees. He drew his blade in one swift motion, the steel catching the firelight. "You think I'll wait until you slit our throats in the dark? No. I end this now."
The blade lifted.
Jamie moved.
Pain jolted up his leg as he lunged, but he didn't care. He caught Kael's arm before the strike could fall, his grip iron despite the tremor in his muscles. The firelight cast their shadows long and violent against the trees, two wills colliding in the space between breaths.
"Stop," Jamie said, his voice low but firm. His heart hammered, but he held Kael's furious gaze without flinching. "Killing him proves nothing. It won't bring back the ones we lost. It won't fix the ambush. It'll only leave us weaker."
Kael snarled, the blade trembling in his grip as Jamie's strength held it back. "You defend him? A stranger? What does that make you?"
Jamie tightened his jaw. He could feel the eyes of the group on him, their silence sharp as knives. He thought of the nights he and Derah had shared watch, of the quiet understanding that had grown between them since the first time Derah had covered his back.
"It makes me someone who won't let you destroy what little we have left," Jamie said. "Derah's saved me more times than I can count. If you cut him down, you'll have to cut me too."
The words hung there, raw and unyielding.
For a heartbeat, Kael's fury blazed hotter, his blade pressing harder against Jamie's block. But something in Jamie's eyes—something unbroken, unafraid—forced him to hesitate.
Slowly, Kael ripped his arm free. The blade lowered, but his glare remained molten.
"You're blind," Kael spat. "Blind and reckless. And if your loyalty costs us again, it'll be on your head."
He turned away, the firelight painting harsh lines across his face. The tension in the circle bled out only slightly, leaving behind a raw, ragged silence.
Derah met Jamie's gaze from across the fire. No words passed between them, but the look was enough. A nod, almost imperceptible. Gratitude without debt.
The camp fell into uneasy stillness as the others drifted into restless sleep. Jamie lay awake, staring at the canopy above, thoughts a storm he couldn't still. Kael's fury, Elian's desperation, Derah's calm—all of it churned in his mind.
Finally, he pushed himself up, limping into the forest's dark embrace. The night air was damp, the ground soft beneath his boots. He walked until the campfire's glow vanished behind him, until he was alone with the trees.
That was when he saw it.
Another mark carved into bark.
At first, his chest eased—it was the familiar symbol of the resistance, the one he'd learned to trust, the one that had guided him through so many shadows. But as he stepped closer, his breath caught.
This one was slashed through. Not clumsily, not randomly. Systematically. The cut was clean, deliberate, the message undeniable.
He pressed his palm against the scarred wood, his fingers tracing the ruined symbol. His eyes flicked from tree to tree, mind racing. He had seen others defaced like this—on the routes they had traveled, near the ambush site.
And now, the pattern sharpened in his head.
It wasn't chance. It wasn't scattered.
The defaced marks aligned with convoy routes.
His pulse quickened as the realization struck him: the regime wasn't just hunting the resistance. They were mapping them, destroying their language, cutting the veins that carried life through the forest. Every mark erased was another piece of the network severed.
They weren't fighting an enemy that was blind.
They were fighting one that was dissecting them piece by piece.
Jamie leaned his forehead against the bark, his breath harsh in the stillness. His father's words came back to him, as if whispered through the leaves: The first knife always comes from someone close.
But this—this was more than betrayal. This was erasure.
"They're not just hunting us…" Jamie whispered to the dark. His voice trembled, but his resolve did not. "They're erasing us."
And somewhere in the silence, he felt the trees listening.