Chapter 78

  "Isen and Drav will teleport us and the entire garrison to the edge of the Veil," Axos explained calmly as he slowly sat down.

  His cloak made barely a sound as he took his place on the wooden chair, folding his hands on the table like he was about to lay out a chessboard. I followed his movement almost automatically, settling into the seat across from him, even though my bones still protested and my thoughts struggled to keep up.

  "They are no ordinary mages," he continued. "They belong to the last Veilweavers of Elun Tir. The only school still practicing intercontinental mass displacement. A teleportation of this magnitude... it only works once. Then the channels are exhausted for days, maybe weeks. More than a hundred people, including equipment, provisions, weapons… that's rare. That only happens in wartime."

  I nodded slowly. Not because I was impressed, but because I understood the mechanism. Anyone who had ever stood on a real battlefield knew what that meant.

  "And we are at war," I said quietly. No emphasis, no drama. Just a statement.

  But to my surprise, Axos shook his head. Just slightly, but clearly enough.

  "No," he replied. "We are in the pre-conflict. That moment just before the storm, when no one knows how many lines are already being crossed. When decisions are made in chambers, but no one sees which fuse is already burning. The Lord of Shadow and Storm calls this Phase 1."

  I frowned, wanting to argue—but he continued already.

  "War doesn't start when the first sword is drawn. It starts when the first motive takes shape. Like in the Dragon Wars."

  I felt my jaw tighten.

  "...which ended twenty years ago," I muttered.

  Axos nodded.

  "It escalated when House Varnedor began raising more and more dragons. They spoke of protection. Of a safe world. But in truth, they wanted power. They increased pressure on Araven, on all borderlands. They wanted food for their dragons. Tensions rose until they could no longer be ignored."

  "And then they attacked House Araven. To feed their dragons," I finished the sentence, voice tight. My gaze dropped to the table, but my heart pounded in my temples. Images flickered. Smoke. Screams. Wings in the sky. Ash on lips that would speak no more. Zarkhural.

  The sea of flame. The loss. The night when everything vanished.

  I felt my fingernails dig into the table's edge. Maira said nothing. She was just a silent shadow beside me, yet her attention was palpable. Not curious, not judging—simply present.

  Above us, Arik and Vin had not yet returned. They probably already knew the plan. Perhaps they'd even helped shape it.

  Axos looked at me. That calm, all-knowing smile. No mockery, no arrogance—just that quiet, loathsome certainty in his gaze.

  "I see you, too, lost something to Varnedor?"

  I inhaled. Deeply. My shoulders sank a little as I exhaled slowly. Then I closed my eyes, drew one leg up onto the chair and crossed them. Half meditation, half shield.

  "Everyone on this world has," I said quietly. Almost coldly. As if I’d said it a thousand times, as if it had become a proverb.

  "But I would prefer to end this topic."

  "I see. Let's return to the plan. Could you please open your eyes?"

  The voice was gentle, yet firm. Axos spoke like someone used to his words having weight—not through force, but through purpose. I opened my eyes, obeying almost automatically, as if some inner mechanism had been waiting for the command.

  My gaze dropped.

  And there it was.

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  A tear.

  Slowly, almost hesitantly, it crept down my left cheek. Cold, narrow, unpleasantly honest. I felt it too late and wiped it away hastily with the back of my hand. Nothing was supposed to remind me. Not now. Not here. The topic was closed. Buried beneath a thousand other decisions.

  I took a deep breath, forced myself to focus. My eyes met Axos’s as he unrolled a scroll on the table—carefully, with both hands. The parchment was old but well-kept, marked with clear lines and precisely written place names.

  "This is a map of the North," he said calmly, "from the southern edge of the Ice Wastes to the outer cliffs of Thulegard."

  I let my gaze drift across the paper. Mountains, passes, old trade routes, abandoned villages, collapsed mine shafts. Then I saw it—the red cross.

  Barely larger than a pinhead, just a few hundred meters west of Thulegard, near a jagged mountain slope.

  "A cave?" I guessed aloud.

  Axos nodded.

  "Yes. I can feel it. Something is there—or rather: something of significance. Something connected to Reyn himself. The energy there… it’s old. And warped."

  He spoke slowly, not mystically, but like someone translating clear observations into words. No revelation. Just facts.

  "I’ve observed the location for weeks through divination. Reyn himself almost never enters from the front. I assume he teleports directly inside. The outer access is meaningless to him."

  Then he smiled. Not with joy. More like someone who’d spotted a hidden detail in a painting.

  "But for us, it’s essential."

  I raised an eyebrow.

  "So… we’re not attacking Thulegard? No siege, no street fighting? We're going straight for what you think is his headquarters?"

  "Exactly," Axos confirmed.

  I leaned back, eyes drifting once more over the map. The idea was fascinating. Risky. And elegant.

  "Any traps?" I asked eventually, trying to keep my voice steady.

  Axos didn’t look up, still tracing the map’s lines.

  "Possibly? Thousands," he answered. Without any judgment. No sarcasm, no regret, no optimism. Just a fact—as if it were a math equation.

  "But…" he added, now lifting his gaze, "Arik already spoke of the caves. As you know, he scouted for you as an ash cloud when you crossed the pass. He will do the same here. No light, no sound, no mass."

  I nodded.

  "And if Reyn hasn’t placed physical traps, but… spells?"

  Axos paused, as if letting me finish the thought.

  So I did.

  "I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if the self-proclaimed Lord of Shadow and Storm placed spells or illusions that even Tirros’ best seers couldn't penetrate."

  Axos’s smile faded. For the briefest moment, the calm left his face—only to return just as quickly.

  "You think like someone who has already lost, Luken," he said quietly, without mockery. "And that’s good. Caution is survival. But…"

  He tapped the cross on the map.

  "I know there’s something there that isn’t fully shielded. It flickers. Over and over. A flaw. A gap. Maybe it’s deliberate. Maybe just arrogance. But it’s there. And it’s enough."

  Maira had stepped closer, eyes locked on the map with focused intent.

  "We have to move quickly," she said. "If this is an entrance he hardly uses himself, he might not expect anyone else to know about it."

  I nodded slowly.

  "Or it’s a trap for us. An invitation."

  Axos looked at me. His answer came softly, almost kindly.

  "Then it’s time to find out who’s deceiving whom."

  -

  Perhaps it was overconfidence. Maybe even arrogance. But I was certain—absolutely certain—that I would sense every physical and magical trap in Reyn’s cave before it could tear us apart. Axos had already revealed the entire plan to me, long before Luken had entered the camp. Back then, barely six hours ago, I had been more or less a prisoner. I suspected even then that Axos knew far more than he let on. Maybe because he understood me.

  I was like smoke—hard to grasp, but deadly if you let it get too close.

  I had been trained, like many of my kind. Not officially, not in grand halls, but in the shadows. I once worked for a noble. Briefly. The man had too many seals and too little sense. I gathered information, found paths, eavesdropped on conversations. But then he got greedy—and stupid. He stole the documents himself after I told him where they were. No disguise, no strategy. Three days later, his head was gone. Not for high treason—but for stupidity. Since then I swore: If I do something, I do it right.

  Now I faced perhaps the most dangerous task yet. The cave entrance lay only a few hundred meters from Thulegard, well hidden. Reyn didn’t use it, teleporting directly inside instead. That meant one of two things: either he thought himself untouchable—or there was something there no one was supposed to find. And my job was simple: go in, sense, find traps, report. No mistakes. Because missing even a single spell meant death. For everyone.

  I stood by an old water barrel, rinsing the rag for the fourth time. In front of me: Luken’s armor. The last stain was gone, the metal dull and clean. The stench of vomit had been defeated. It had taken me two hours. Two hours to make a man combat-ready again—a man who would soon spill more blood.

  Vin slept in the next room, her head resting on the shoulder of Vex—the deputy leader of the rebels. I hadn’t liked him at first. Too quiet, too controlled. But now I understood: he believed in what he was doing. Vin had grown close to him, maybe more. Maybe not. I didn’t care. She was asleep. And that was good.

  What mattered more was what she had told me. While we—Maira, Luken, and I—had been crawling through snow and stone, the camp had changed. The numbers had grown. Many more people. Refugees. The disillusioned. The seekers. And they hadn’t arrived by chance. Rebel spies had gathered them. From everywhere. And then? They were brought through the Veil.

  They were received. By Isen. Drav. And sometimes even Axos himself. The influx was... almost unnatural. As if someone were deliberately building an army. Someone other then Axos. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was this: Reyn may have made a mistake. And I was ready to exploit it.