They burned the second body at dawn.
This time, they didn't hang him.
They tied him to a post and lit the kindling slowly. Said it was a Dareth spy. Said he poisoned the bread stores.
No trial. No confession.
No name.
Just fire and a crowd of frostbitten soldiers, staring like they weren't sure whether to watch or turn away.
Auren Varik stood in the back, arms folded, jaw clenched.
Tessan was beside him, hunched beneath his coat. His voice came as a whisper.
"That wasn't a spy."
"No."
"They want us scared."
"They want us obedient."
A pause.
"Is there a difference?"
Later that morning, Auren met Lieutenant Drea Vael at the forge.
She was sharpening a spearhead, not for herself, but to pass time — or perhaps to stop from speaking. Her eyes flicked up when she saw him.
"You're restless," she said.
"I'm tired."
"That's not what I said."
Auren leaned against the anvil. "I think we're starting to lose something."
"We've lost a lot."
"No. I mean… ourselves. Whatever we were before this."
She didn't look up.
"People forget fast, Auren. That's what keeps kingdoms running."
"I haven't forgotten."
Drea's hand stilled on the whetstone.
"I know," she said. "That's what scares me."
In the lower camp, the whisper network had grown louder. Soldiers no longer told stories around fires. They passed questions like coins.
"Who decides who the enemy is?""Why was the bread moldy again?""Did you hear the governor let a scout go?""They say someone inside our own camp is writing to Elthemar."
Auren heard the last one spoken near the mess line.
He didn't flinch.
But someone else did.
A courier boy named Larik—no older than sixteen, skin wind-burnt and raw—jerked his head, startled, and hurried away. Auren watched him vanish between tents.
Later that night, Auren found a note folded into the lacing of his boot.
It's not working.They burn every message now.They've got a list.Your name is near the top.
No signature. No seal. Just ash smudged into the edge of the parchment.
That evening, snow came again—thicker, heavier.
It coated the trenches like a burial shroud.
Captain Rhoen called a meeting of senior officers. Auren sat quietly near the back, listening as Commander Halvek drew lines into the frost-covered map table.
"The breach will come here," Halvek said. "The eastern wall. We use fire this time—dragged to the gate with sleds. Smoke will mask our movement."
Someone objected.
Halvek cut them off.
"The city refuses to yield, so we remove the need for a door."
Rhoen looked around the room. "This is the final assault."
And just like that, it was decided.
Auren stood outside the meeting tent after the others left, fingers numb, blood thudding like iron in his ears.
"You can still walk away," he muttered aloud.
"From what?"
He turned.
Ilenna stood behind him, arms folded, face like cracked leather.
"From what?" she asked again.
"From turning into what they are."
She tilted her head. "You think walking away will save you?"
"No."
"Then do something that matters before the fire starts."
Auren moved that night.
He slipped through the trench in full armor, but with his tabard hidden. Passed the latrines. Past the mess tent. Past the medics' cots where Tessan still slept, fitfully now, in a fevered dream.
He carried nothing but a knife and a letter.
And a decision.
He reached the western tunnel mouth—one that hadn't yet been collapsed.
It had been sealed with frost and dirt, but he'd seen how it reopened. Scouts used it to check the orchard walls. Technically forbidden.
But rules were quiet now.
He dropped into the tunnel.
And walked.
Inside Elthemar, Mira stood in the watchtower when the bells rang.
Movement in the orchard.
She ran down to meet the guards at the outer edge.
What she found was a man—not cloaked, not armed with sword, but with a satchel and no shield—hands raised, face chapped, eyes raw.
Auren Varik.
He did not kneel.
He simply said: "You need to see this."
They dragged him inside.
They didn't kill him.
He sat in chains before Governor Larian, Mira standing watch nearby.
"This is surrender?" Larian asked.
"No," Auren said. "This is warning."
"Another one?"
"The last one I'll get."
He handed over the letter.
Inside: exact locations of Volgrin's oil carts. The position of the fire sleds. The routes the soldiers would use. The timing of the breach.
Larian stared at it in silence.
"You betray your own," Mira said coldly.
"I'm trying to keep someone alive," Auren replied. "Even if it's not me."
Mira turned to Larian.
He folded the letter. Then stood.
"Put him in the chapel vault. Under guard. Don't speak of this."
"But—"
"No debates. If he's right, then tomorrow isn't a siege. It's a slaughter."
And then the sun rose.
And everything began.